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[Sharp]

Ooooh, ok. A wrong assumption then. Guess a zombie would have pretty bad teeth if they've been chowing down on grey matter. I'll need to equip a character with toothbrushes and Listerine to combat this new threat. Cursed apocalypse!

But improving zombie oral hygiene will just make their bites stronger!

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   I like having wounds in multiple places but the cauterize not always working will need time getting used to. Will it work eventually if you keep trying?

[i2amroy]

If you cauterize in the first thousand turns or so then you will get a second shot at cauterization before proceeding into infection territory where it can't do anything, which since cauterization is a 50/50 shot means you have a 75% chance of being healed (or at least put into recovery).

For comparison:
Chance of healing naturally while bitten: ~30% (This is further increased by 10% [vitamin shot is around +10% IIRC] and is reduced if you are currently recovering)
Chance of healing if cauterized twice fairly immediately: 75%
Chance of healing if cauterized once later: ~50%
Chance of spontaneously recovering from infection: ~20% (modified same as bite recovery)
Total chance of natural recovery: ~50%

It still helps, but it's a bit of a gamble because things can go much worse for you if you get unlucky and fail to remove the bite wound. Also since recovery is a much more arduous process now it's a bit of a gamble on that. Even a single cauterize failure can provide a fairly large increase in recovery time (all during which you are more susceptible to further bites/infections). Generally you will want to use disinfectant or first aid kits if you have them, since they don't cause an increase even if they fail (which should only be 5% and 1% respectively). For a single infected wound you might want to use a first aid kit (which now cure bleeding, biting, and infection as well as giving a slight painkiller effect on top of that) as it will work fairly well, but for multiple infections you should use antibiotics, since it treats them all simultaneously and grants decreased recovery times.

[scrdest]

A heads up, but bite wounds and infections are handled completely differently in the experimental than in .8. Bites are tracked on an individual limb basis, and while they are no longer guaranteed death sentences if left untreated (IIRC survival rate is somewhere in the 50% range, modified by your health stat) they are just as debilitating (more so because you can have multiple ones active at the same time) and the recovery process from infection is not a short one. Also cauterizing has been moved to a bit of a gamble, it might remove the bite wound, but it might also make it much worse (like it can in real life).

In my mind, a zombie virus would lay dormant in a person until they die, then they would reanimate not convert them from living into a zombie. Though, how it is in cataclysm might be referenced in research documents somewhere.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is pretty much how the ooze works. It's already infected pretty much everyone through the water supply (your characters included!) and it just doesn't become active until you die.

The infection you get from bite wounds isn't the zombie virus, it's just a plain old bacterial infection.

Waaait a second. Then why are scientists and soldiers and drug dealers and what-have-you not reanimating? I could believe scientists and the military would have ways of avoiding contamination, but drug dealers?

[Girlinhat]

Last I heard, it was hand-waved that they died before the infection triggered, or that their bodies were somehow non-functional, perhaps due to too much science, military loyalty implants, or cocaine.

[ThtblovesDF]

Run button was...?

... and drive?

[Iceblaster]

Hmm?

Wait running and walking are separate now?

[azmodean]

No not yet, the poorly-named "run mode" should be renamed "safe mode", it lets you relatively safely hold down a key and zip around, because it rejects move commands if there's an agressive monster in sight (or in your configured range).
To drive, get in the driver's seat of a functional vehicle and hit the '^' key.  It should prompt you to do that when you step into a tile with vehicle controls.
Driving uses the directional keys, "up" to increase your set speed, "down" to decrease it, "left" and "right" to steer.  For more detail check the wiki.

[Grendus]

If you cauterize in the first thousand turns or so then you will get a second shot at cauterization before proceeding into infection territory where it can't do anything, which since cauterization is a 50/50 shot means you have a 75% chance of being healed (or at least put into recovery).

For comparison:
Chance of healing naturally while bitten: ~30% (This is further increased by 10% [vitamin shot is around +10% IIRC] and is reduced if you are currently recovering)
Chance of healing if cauterized twice fairly immediately: 75%
Chance of healing if cauterized once later: ~50%
Chance of spontaneously recovering from infection: ~20% (modified same as bite recovery)
Total chance of natural recovery: ~50%

It still helps, but it's a bit of a gamble because things can go much worse for you if you get unlucky and fail to remove the bite wound. Also since recovery is a much more arduous process now it's a bit of a gamble on that. Even a single cauterize failure can provide a fairly large increase in recovery time (all during which you are more susceptible to further bites/infections). Generally you will want to use disinfectant or first aid kits if you have them, since they don't cause an increase even if they fail (which should only be 5% and 1% respectively). For a single infected wound you might want to use a first aid kit (which now cure bleeding, biting, and infection as well as giving a slight painkiller effect on top of that) as it will work fairly well, but for multiple infections you should use antibiotics, since it treats them all simultaneously and grants decreased recovery times.

Shouldn't the First Aid skill be in there somewhere? A doctor would be much more likely to successfully cauterize a wound than an amateur.  On the subject, should tools be involved in the chance? I imagine that a pocket knife and a open fire is far less accurate than whatever professional tool a doctor would use.

Was doing well aaaaaaaand... another hulk. This time I succeeded in killing it, but bled to death from wounds from the other zombies. On the bright side... the molotov worked really well. Too well, think if blood loss hadn't gotten me smoke inhalation would have. Oh well. Turned out to be all for the best, my next spawn was right next to a bunch of military corpses. Now I'm running around with two backpacks, some MRE's, some codeine, and a truly impressive amount of storage space.

Edit: BTW, I tried to debug-kill the hulk, it didn't work. I enabled cheats, selected it from the menu, and... nothing. Did I do something wrong?

Not sure if you know about it or not, but you can (a)ctivate your pocketknife to cauterize bleeding (also deep bites), it causes a pretty huge amount of pain but it's better then bleeding to death.

I'm actually kind of curious why they added deep bites when they made them so easy to cure.

By blood loss, I meant "bled to death three turns later". After killing a regular zombie and zombie dog in the two turns before that. And if that hadn't gotten me, smoke inhalation from engaging the tank in the fire (I knew I couldn't outrun it or get to a bush, but the fire might be enough to kill it before it kills me) would have. Besides, I prefer rags to stop bleeding, cauterizing causes extreme pain, I only do it when I don't have antiseptic, first aid kits, or if I have at least a bottle of codeine.

[Sheb]

I'm pretty sure doctors don't have professional tools for cauterizing nowadays.

[Sheb]

Cauterizing actually increase the chances of infections. It dies help with bleeding though.

[Iceblaster]

No not yet, the poorly-named "run mode" should be renamed "safe mode", it lets you relatively safely hold down a key and zip around, because it rejects move commands if there's an agressive monster in sight (or in your configured range).
To drive, get in the driver's seat of a functional vehicle and hit the '^' key.  It should prompt you to do that when you step into a tile with vehicle controls.
Driving uses the directional keys, "up" to increase your set speed, "down" to decrease it, "left" and "right" to steer.  For more detail check the wiki.

Right. Yeah I know how to do that, really I was thinking that this code mod that allows pseudo running and walking got merged.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Last I heard, it was hand-waved that they died before the infection triggered, or that their bodies were somehow non-functional, perhaps due to too much science, military loyalty implants, or cocaine.

COCAINE! THE CURE FOR REVIVICATION! GET YOURS NOW!

I'm pretty sure doctors don't have professional tools for cauterizing nowadays.

Pretty much- (outside of surgical cautery, which is a different ball-game) cauterizing is something you only want to do in a survival situation, where you cant get proper attention & are either bleeding, badly, or have a grievous infection & balls of steel.

No fancy tools, just a sterile, flat piece of metal and a clean fire.

[Iceblaster]

I'm pretty sure doctors don't have professional tools for cauterizing nowadays.

Pretty much- (outside of surgical cautery, which is a different ball-game) cauterizing is something you only want to do in a survival situation, where you cant get proper attention & are either bleeding, badly, or have a grievous infection & balls of steel.

No fancy tools, just a sterile, flat piece of metal and a clean fire.

So the metal doesn't have to be clean

[Grendus]

You're heating the metal to temperatures hot enough to burn tissue. Cleanliness is the least of your worries.

As far as medical cauterization, according to wikipedia electrocauterization is still common today for removing things like warts. It might be interesting to see electrocauterizers show up randomly in doctors offices, which use batteries instead of matches/lighters and cause less pain.