So, I’ve decided to learn to program for Cataclysm and also integrate next semester’s Medical Micro course.
More diseases. 
Unfortunately, I probably won’t input Tetanus because starting nation is medically advanced and thus vaccinated. However, there are plenty more fun ones.
So, please suggest ideas and explain how their symptoms could translate to CDDA.
Ebola, first it causes fever 2 days to 3 weeks from infection, general pain follows, then nausea, diarrhea, and liver/kidney failure (maybe just decrease the torso health a little every once and a while), then you just start to bleed for no reason, would require a special medical tool from a lab or hospital to treat (cure all in one thing maybe?), make the chances of getting it low and a good amount of time (2 months to 5 months) before bleeding starts. or would this be too op?
EDIT: oh yeah i forgot what causes it, bats
EDIT 2: oh this is my 100’th post, “yay”
Parasitic brain larvae.
Yes pls.
68% mortality rate, no current vaccine, spread by an in game mob, and holy freaking symptoms of Christ!
Nope, not too OP at all. In fact, I love it. Definitely gonna sell this as an optional Mod because not everyone will enjoy being terrified of bats.
So, yeah, great selection. Makes me think to look at what other viable mob diseases are out there.
Thank you.
Tough part about diseases is that they need to be a problem, but not something that’s constantly there. Cold & flu are ambient diseases which check for low immune function and/or lack of air-filtering (getting better vectors for them would be worthwhile but tough to do w/o NPCs) and parasites are a function of failure-to-cook food & water.
So new diseases should follow the same general model: either ambient and time out, or specific-cause and avoidable with proper precautions.
[quote=“Keyreper, post:2, topic:6038”]Ebola, first it causes fever 2 days to 3 weeks from infection, general pain follows, then nausea, diarrhea, and liver/kidney failure (maybe just decrease the torso health a little every once and a while), then you just start to bleed for no reason, would require a special medical tool from a lab or hospital to treat (cure all in one thing maybe?), make the chances of getting it low and a good amount of time (2 months to 5 months) before bleeding starts. or would this be too op?
EDIT: oh yeah i forgot what causes it, bats[/quote]
Yeah, that’s a bit harsh IMO and there’s no reason for Ebola to make it to North America. Would have to be a weird Lab thing or somesuch. Royal Jelly curing Ebola is pretty far-fetched too, and Mr. Stem Cell isn’t designed to handle it.
Bee/wasp allergy seems interesting but given the scale, probably instakill so that’s out.
Measles and whooping cough maybe? Antivaxers aren’t specifically covered in the lore and there’ve been localized outbreaks recently.
[quote=“KA101, post:5, topic:6038”]Yeah, that’s a bit harsh IMO and there’s no reason for Ebola to make it to North America. Would have to be a weird Lab thing or somesuch. Royal Jelly curing Ebola is pretty far-fetched too, and Mr. Stem Cell isn’t designed to handle it.
Bee/wasp allergy seems interesting but given the scale, probably instakill so that’s out.
Measles and whooping cough maybe? Antivaxers aren’t specifically covered in the lore and there’ve been localized outbreaks recently.[/quote]
im only thinking like 1% or .1% should be able to transmit it ,bats are already rare enough and they never do much, or any, damage.
im thinking of it more as something you got early game for being stupid and 5 months into the game you realize you have it and start searching for hospitals, labs, and other places hoping to find a cure, just there for the unlucky few really
How about mutant cordiceps?
Because last of us.
Temporary hemophilia, the lack of blood clotting, caused by snakebites and enlarged mosquito bites.
Kidney stones, painful solid matter in the kidneys, which is caused by poor diet and can be cured by ultrasound machines.
One more injury condition, splinters. Caused by interacting with splintered wood. Causes continuing pain until removed with an X-Acto knife, which is also painful.
Gagh! seems overpowered and annoying, especially once we get the problems worked out of the BEES!! result.
[quote=“gtaguy, post:3, topic:6038”]Parasitic brain larvae.
Yes pls.[/quote]
Already in-game.
there’s a LOT of diseases that could appear in cataclysm… but most of them are too OP:
1.rabies - low chance of getting it when fighting wildlife, maybe caused only by specially added new enemies like “rabid dog”, “rabid bat”, etc. could be cured with antibiotics (to make it tiny bit less OP) or some “miracle cure”.
2.cancer - sleeping in a toxic waste sarcophagus will become even more risky. “miracle cure” only.
3.paralysis - electrical attacks, poison or meeting eldritch horrors has a chance to cause this. your whole body becomes encumbered and you can’t move for X turns.
4.bad food combination - now THIS might be tricky to code and would probably require adding a variable to EVERY SINGLE EDIBLE ITEM but it’s pretty interesting in my opinion. Ever tried eating a yoghurt and then a fish? Young me tried, and vomited. Ever ate too much chocolate in a row? Here comes stomach ache! Too much mexican food? DIARRHEA .__.
This is not a disease. Your examples are actually an indication that your diet does not include these items on a regular enough basis for your digestive system to have adapted to deal with the intake, or that your digestive system will never handle them properly.
It might be a surprise to learn that people in Mexico actually eat mexican and tex-mex food regularly, and without that problem.
Likewise, the “yogurt and fish can’t be eaten together!” myth. There are many dishes made with both together, and they are not purgatives.
Eating too much of anything can cause a stomach ache - It is not limited to just chocolate, nor is chocolate somehow directly responsible for the effect.
This is not a disease. Your examples are actually an indication that your diet does not include these items on a regular enough basis for your digestive system to have adapted to deal with the intake, or that your digestive system will never handle them properly.
It might be a surprise to learn that people in Mexico actually eat mexican and tex-mex food regularly, and without that problem.
Likewise, the “yogurt and fish can’t be eaten together!” myth. There are many dishes made with both together, and they are not purgatives.
Eating too much of anything can cause a stomach ache - It is not limited to just chocolate, nor is chocolate somehow directly responsible for the effect.[/quote]
i am just saying that various problems related with diet and digestion could be added to the game. maybe disease was a wrong word - is bad status effect better?
let me change it a bit and add two more diseases/starting traits then:
4. bad diet - caused by lack of variety in your diet. harmless at first, but can be dangerous when ignored(various morale penalties, reduced immunity to other diseases, reduced strength stat, etc.). it’s effects can be reduced to some extent by taking vitamins, but you have to eat what you lack to cure it. It could be accompanied by messages like “you crave for some fresh meat”, “it’s been quite some time since you ate any veggies”, “you want to eat something sweet, FAST” so the player knows what his character lacks.
5. Hypoglycemia - your body burns sugar way too fast - you need to eat more sugar than other people(simplified, since it would be near-impossible to follow a diet during the cataclysm)
6. Hyperglicemia - you need to take insulin every 24 hours - unless you get rid of it through mutating or learn how to make it(i guess it might be possible with level 10 cooking and high quality lab equipment), you are pretty much dead.
This was my first thought. We need Roose!
This is not a disease. Your examples are actually an indication that your diet does not include these items on a regular enough basis for your digestive system to have adapted to deal with the intake, or that your digestive system will never handle them properly.
It might be a surprise to learn that people in Mexico actually eat mexican and tex-mex food regularly, and without that problem.
Likewise, the “yogurt and fish can’t be eaten together!” myth. There are many dishes made with both together, and they are not purgatives.
Eating too much of anything can cause a stomach ache - It is not limited to just chocolate, nor is chocolate somehow directly responsible for the effect.[/quote]
i am just saying that various problems related with diet and digestion could be added to the game. maybe disease was a wrong word - is bad status effect better?
let me change it a bit and add two more diseases/starting traits then:
4. bad diet - caused by lack of variety in your diet. harmless at first, but can be dangerous when ignored(various morale penalties, reduced immunity to other diseases, reduced strength stat, etc.). it’s effects can be reduced to some extent by taking vitamins, but you have to eat what you lack to cure it. It could be accompanied by messages like “you crave for some fresh meat”, “it’s been quite some time since you ate any veggies”, “you want to eat something sweet, FAST” so the player knows what his character lacks.
5. Hypoglycemia - your body burns sugar way too fast - you need to eat more sugar than other people(simplified, since it would be near-impossible to follow a diet during the cataclysm)
6. Hyperglicemia - you need to take insulin every 24 hours - unless you get rid of it through mutating or learn how to make it(i guess it might be possible with level 10 cooking and high quality lab equipment), you are pretty much dead.[/quote]
For hyperglycemia, it is possible to delay its effects for months or years by starving yourself until your blood sugar is lowered and then restricting yourself to eating fats and proteins. People have suggested diets and the stories are at Why were "starvation diets" promoted for diabetes in the pre-insulin period? - PMC. And this would be better as a trait rather than a surprise that you need to stockpile insulin for. Also see my post at http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=6294.msg113999#msg113999.
As for the bad diet, I can’t support it because most modern food are fortified with a certain amount of vitamins already. Because of this, scurvy is rare in modern society. Also, what happens if you eat too many salty foods? Should you be prompted because your broth has lots of extra salt that you can save for later when you’re thirsty and hungry?
I was hesitant to propose many of your suggestions because they are similar to fungal parasites that you have to find a specific cure for to avoid dying, leading to a lot of ragequits.
Dysentery?
Various muscle strains from performing too much strenuous activity in too small a duration?
All the various exciting effects that a concussion can provide?
Cataclysm is a collapsed “modern” society - after longer playthroughs you’ll have to live off of what you can hunt/forage/farm, because you ate most of the pre-cataclysm food. You can also have bad luck and simply be unable to find certain foods. As for the salt and such - i was thinking about a system like this:
1.Every time you eat something, the game checks the material it’s made from(wheat, flesh, junk food, fruit matter, etc.) and then increases a variable (e.g. wheat_eaten:=wheat_eaten + 1).
2.After a certain time (3 days for example), the game checks if all variables are above a certain value(if you have intolerance for a certain food material, it will be ignored to simplify things)
3.If those variables barely pass the test, you get messages like “you feel that you should eat some more meat”
4.If those variables don’t pass the test you get “bad diet” disease and more alarming messages (e.g. “You didn’t eat enough fruits lately. You feel slightly weakened.”). Another variable is increased (bad_diet:=bad_diet +1)
5.If you pass all checks successfully, instead of barely passing them, either nothing happens or you are informed that “Your diet is well balanced and you feel healthy.”(though it might cause some pretty funny situations like, you are bleeding to death after fighting a jabberwock and suddenly, get informed about good diet xD)
6.The X_eaten variables are set to zero after all checks are finished.
7.If you already have bad diet, and fail the check again, it worsens, if not, it resets to zero/decreases by one level.
So it won’t be about finding salt, sugar, fat, etc. but more about finding and eating things from materials that are already in-game.
Want.
Want.[/quote]
“You see stars flying around your head.” or “You feel vibrations in every bone of your body." “Why is the world spinning so much?” or "Giant, colorful pixels block your vision.”?
*those are best descriptions i can come up with of what happened last time i got a concussion IRL