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[Meph]

All things related to the new disease system, please post it here. I want to know what you guys think, if its too hard, too easy, what can be done to make it better, worse, more fun, loss of a chore.

My ideas:
 - Vermin bites transmit diseases.
 - Add rabies to some wildlife.
 - Add some fever/infection to animal bites.
 - Add some kind of chicken pox, which can break out if you have too many birds in a tight space.
 - Make good biomes cure diseases automatically.
 - Make a creature that works like the Ward of Armok, just against diseases. A magical, immobile pet that treats everything nearby, using interactions.
 - Make the apothecary's study transform the worker into a "Pharmacist" that does the same as the creature I mentioned above. He will stand on the apothecary's study and heal/treat nearby dwarves.

I do like the system as is, but I dont know if its too taxing on the player, and I'm always for easier micromanagemt, so these automatic, interaction-based cures are planned. What do you think?

I am really curious about reports from big forts. 100 dwarves, 200 dwarves, how is it going?

[Durgress]

How about some form of botulism/food poisoning, creating a building % chance of infection the longer a (cooked) food item is stored? I find I end up with far too much food in my forts, so having some risk of spoilage even with proper storage would be a plus. And if it can be identified, the spoiled food could be used as a torture tool delicacy for parasites nobility.

[Meph]

How about some form of botulism/food poisoning, creating a building % chance of infection the longer a (cooked) food item is stored?

Not possible, not by time/rotting. But I can give food a 0,1% chance or so to cause it anyway. Or 0,03% or whatever. Same with alcohol, some drinks could get the "very drunk" status effect, which is benefitial to dwarves, but bad for orcs/kobolds...

[thistleknot]

i for one find it too contagious. does disease resistance have s factor in any of it? it would be nice to see things like seasonal sicknesses and sicknesses that heal quickly but r a bit more contsgious (like a cold) so only a small percent of the fort would have it at any time but its hard to fully eradicate. it would be interesting toblet diseases have a chance to mutate as it infects another dorf

[SabbyKat]

From my experience, I'm not liking the implementation at all currently. I've embarked seven times. All seven times, I've had 1-4 of my 7 starters with some kind of disorder/disease instantly. I got a skitzo in my current one, along with a disease (seems to be flu like from the description).

The main issue I have at current isn't the diseases per say, but the ability for them to spawn on your starter 7, and first two migrant waves - it forces you to shift focus from building and survival, to rushing for a hospital to try and stop that skitzo from causing a rampage, or that disease causing deaths in the first year that causes unhappiness, and inevitably, a disaster that's out of control. For a more mature fort (1 year or more) - it SEEMS to fit well, but I need to play test a bit.

My skitzo just went nuts and tried to club a drake to death, who promptly murdered him and causing a massive negative mood... not even summer year 1, I'm down a dwarf and in a sharp negative happiness spiral due to the skitzo...



Positive note wise:

~ I do like the genetic 'differences', midgets, giants, blind dwarves, and similar - but at 0.1% that's too rare imo. should be more along 0.8-1% (1-2 of these possible in a 200 man fortress on average).

~ I do like the addition of having a hospital and its purpose.

~ I do like the added challenge/risk of migrants, traders, and similar.

~ I especially like rabies. If it works as I read it, I intend to infect a dozen+ dogs or similar, stick them in a cage, load said cage into a catapult, and fling it over my walls onto siegers to spring a swarm of rabid, crazy berserk dogs on them partially to kill a few, other partially, to watch as rabies spreads to them, and they tear themselves apart inside out Sorry, but picture a cage with 30 mastiffs inside frothing at the mouth, flying out of the sky over a wall at you...

~ further the concept of biological warfare on enemies, if some were deadlier/faster acting (need to test if some are), is quite exciting. Can't break that siege of orcs? Throw a smallpox infected victim outside! At the worst, it weakens them for your defenses. At best, it kills enough they run away.

Negative Notes:


~ I don't feel medicine specifically for 'cancer' is needed, when it's a single 'issue'. Seems redundant unless you plan to expand that, and I'd argue the list is already a bit large. More wouldn't do any good.

~ Early diseases/issues in starting dwarves, and first 2 migrant waves makes the game (for me) shift from growth and building, to rushing to get a hospital up to try and control the damage of diseases and lunatics are causing.

~ The act of creating a 'migrant fort' then a 'main fort' AND possibly a 'nutcase fort' just to try and stop the insane damage of the possible diseases leads to a lot of micromanaging, which I feel is not a good thing. Though, I do understand the intent. I actually find it in a sense, amusing to setup a 'ward' for the nutcases and watching the drama of it play out... I'll reflect properly on this after a good 10 years of playing.


Suggestions:

~ Shift some of the diseases over to events, like when harvesting plants, killing specific enemies, hell, even weather, clouds, contaminated water, various things naturally dwarves do/interact with, that a have a small chance to start diseases and problems. This keeps the 'threat' of diseases constant but marginal, as once migrants are done arriving, and you contain it all, the threat basically vanishes beyond traders (or siegers, but cant' say how common sick siegers/traders are). I would argue the 'subtle' diseases would be far rarer to avoid annoying constant infections, but still, keep that threat around. You can argue traders/siegers can't be avoided - but Siegers can be dealt with in a multitude of ways avoiding contact, same with traders with a very simple airlock design I've utilized for a vampire fort - takes maybe 50 blocks, 2 mechanisms, and a door.



Possible Bugs:

~ Insomnia seems to be incredibly common. of my 7 embarks, I've had 6 dwarves with it now. That's a small scale to come off of due to rng, but that's WELL over the % it should be.


I'll update this as I get experience with it properly.


P.S.

~ I like the concepts for rabies/diseases from wild animals/bites (if rare), vermin bites having a chance to cause a disease, and most of your suggested changes.

~ I don't agree on a 'ward' that cures everything, as it's simply too overpowered unless it has some serious draw back or limitation. i.E. it lives for 1 season, it causes dwarves to be dizzy for a year, or something sharp as a trade off for 'all around' immunity/cure. I feel this way about armok's ward - it's like 27 points at embark, and totally nullifies any form of 'secret fun' with no effort/cost.


Edit:

Yeah... this is really buggy... I unpaused the screen, and this happened before I could even see wtf was going on. Just embarked.

http://i.imgur.com/6cHcHZq.png

Also my entire starter team is now infected with a disease... and unhappy due their buddy being torn limb from limb.


Edit 2:

And I see this in combat log... don't think this is right...

http://i.imgur.com/m7u4af3.png

I don't think he's supposed to go unconcious almost 1000x, or similar matters.

The spam from diseases and such is driving me crazy too, as I can't tell when a legit threat is appearing (watching the icon on the top left) as this spams it non-stop by combat log.

[razorback]

concerning the "ward", a little idea came up:

Dwarves are a (in my opinion - i don't like magic with dorfs) tech based race.
so how about a stationary pet creature that is in fact some kind machinery (like a golem or turret) wich could cure some/many/all diseases

with the little downside that dwarves getting unhappy thoughts from beeing stung by the nozzle
(...or with a very little percentage could die from operation 'misstakes')

Second thing, medicine:.
i wouldnt like the micormanagement to cure diseases with food.
how about a certain reaction in the apothecary wich is done by the sick dwarf and uses up a stack of medicine

and in advance: therefore it would make more sense to create different kinds of medicine for each disease (those wich can be cured) aaaaand of course also use them as a material for the above mentioned 'robodoc' 

[thistleknot]

btw, managing my diseases now with the apothecary...

it's a new requirement I guess.. but it's a little more manageable

[Carsius]

Perhaps make them much, much rarer? Akin to the secret fun? As of right now, with every embark, my fortresses seem to be permanently dyed in a shade of green, and all of my dwarves constantly flash. It seems like something that would be great Fun in small amounts, but right now I can't seem to get rid of them, no matter how much medicine I make.

[cephelo]

I concur; maybe a little less communicable, too. My last embark had three Schizophrenia, within 2 months all three were permanently unconscious and soon died. My walls are drenched in blood from the other four who are hacking and coughing, moving at a snail's pace.

[thistleknot]

even with medicine.

people are throwing up all over the place.  And I don't have any reliable tool to try to find who they are.  I was hoping DT and "diagnose required" would be a good enough flag.  If there were a way to relate the sickness to a diagnosis and a empty wound that would relay some basic info to us about them being sick, I could manage them through dT, but generally, they don't show up in DT unless they are beyond just being sick, and need diagnosis.  Because I have a lot of dwarfs vomiting right now, but no one with diagnosis requests.

[thistleknot]

damn...

ran out of plants to give my dwarfs for medicine.

yes, this is way too powerful... I mean it requires completely changing gameplay.  I MEAN COMPLETELY.  You have to manage a (massively?) larger farm project to keep up with the sickness demand.

AND EVEN THEN.  Dwarfs with sickness still are vomitting all over the place

I think this concept of quarantining is a little aloof.  It's not so easy to quarantine.  A locked door?  Really?  I want to know how to actually implement it gameplay wise, like what tool, or what key commands?  As is, I think I could limit them my migration wave in DT, and mark them by nickname, and then use burrows to prevent them from coming inside.

But, as I mentioned earlier, I can't actually see who has a disease in DT.

So... I'm just going to disable it.

Because as is, I can't even tell who has a sickness until they START VOMITTING.

[Urist McTeellox]

So, a few thoughts:

My understanding is that sick dwarves need to eat/drink medicine. That means custom stockpiles, burrows, or all sorts of other micromanagement. Ugh.

Instead, I'd propose that one can create medicine, and then have a reaction on a building (apothecary, temple, witcher's hut, totem pole, pharmacy, etc) to "take medicine". This allows the use of workshop profiles to target a particular dwarf to take their meds, and reduces micromanagement a lot for individual cases. Medicine should be effective for at least a season, to avoid too much micromanagement. Ideally, it would be curative.

I would implement different tiers of medicine, some of which are harder to make than others. Cheap nasty medicines may have their own side-effects, which may last for a long time. Expensive, rare medicines are side-effect free.

Immunisation are a possibility; a large, well-managed fort shouldn't be having disease headaches. However rather than it being a reaction that needs to be run (which requires every migrant be queued up with custom profiles), I'd have a 'disease charm' or similar *wearable* item. This makes it easy to see if a dwarf is immunized (by looking at their inventory), and if it's an item that dwarves will normally find and wear by themselves, then some dwarves will be conscientious citizens and get their own immunisation charms. These would protect against common diseases.

I'd get rid of diseases like high blood pressure, insomnia, cancer, and the like. They increase management workload, but at least for me they don't increase enjoyment. I'd prefer if diseases mostly came from events; eating a bad sausage (they're made from vermin!), inhaling miasma, being bitten by an animal, cursed by a warlock, slimed by a forgotten beast, and the like.

As much as I hate to say it, I don't like the idea of diseases being communicable, except for the very basic things like the common cold. Where they are communicable, they should grant immunity or otherwise die out given time; again to avoid micromanagement pains.

I'm happy with appropriate druids/witchdoctors/healers being able to cure or treat minor ailments. A healing spell makes perfect sense as an orc mojo, and one could even have them be effective against things like snake and spider bites. Serious diseases require serious medicine; it would be nice if this could be administered by doctors (since patients may not always be conscious), but I'm not sure of the details here. One *could* have the pharmacy building create a cloud effect (at increased medicine cost), treating all patients within a certain radius. This would open the way for an interesting health-care system, as there could be medicines to fight infection and increase restorative powers, as well as fighting disease.

Actually, I like druids/witchdoctors/healers/priests being able to cure common ailments and diseases more than I like the idea of craftable immunisation charms. You can burrow your healers in the hospital, and send the sick there, or you can let them wander the fortress and cure those in need of help. If the refractory period on the curing spell is of an appropriate length, then it would make sense to ensure that as one's fort grows, so does the number of healers. Heck, a medic caste may even have value on the battlefield if some enemies have fast-acting but curable poisons/diseases. Suddenly it makes sense for each squad to have their own medic (and opens up the possibility for a medic skill/tech-tree, if you so desire).

~ T

[titus1]

I think a disease, once cured, should not be able to affect the cured character again. I keep healing them and they get sick after a few minutes of RT...

[Vabalokis]

Embark , tuskox caught rabies , kills everyone ... Planing again for half hour for next embark...

[somebears]

My suggestions:

• remove cancer + blood pressure.
                    first of all, because I think they feel like modern stuff (I know they were there a few hundred years ago, but I think they feel wrong in dwarf fortress)
                    second, because this removes two kinds of medicine, which removes a lot of micromanagement
  that leaves you with 2 kinds of medicine. one, which is needed only when a disease ist starting to spread and one which is needed over and over again.
  
• I don't like the Idea of a ward much, but it could be used to solve some of our problems (I think it is not possible to prevent the starting 7 to be infected). Make it live only for a while and give one for free at the start of the game. This cures all the diseases of the starting 7 and possibly also from the first migrant waves. It could also be given as a reward for praying. But being able to produce it feels kinda cheap.
  
• The Idea with diseases from events sounds really good. Black plague on a migrant makes no sense, he would have infected the others on the journey.
  
• Make them spread faster, but check for the disease resistance of the target. That would be awesome.
  
• Create expensive medicine to make single dwarves immune to certain diseases. this helps mature forts.
  

• Make the apothecary's study transform the worker into a "Pharmacist" that does the same as the creature I mentioned above. He will stand on the apothecary's study and heal/treat nearby dwarves.

  Make this cost medicine. Make him go to the common area and treat them. Give the treat-interaction some sort of cooldown or limited uses. If he used all the charges or, (if not possible with modding) cured one dwarf, he will transform back into a normal dwarf and a new job will be created in the "apothecary's study" If he didn't treat anyone in a given time he will be transformed back and no new job will be created.
  
This system has a few effects on gameplay that i find desirable.

• This removes the need for , imho, unpleasant micromanagement because you have a more general way of treating dwarves. No need to specifically make stockpiles for them, but you can still choose to put a lot of effort into this, which is one of the things people love in df
• In a young fort you can, thanks to the ward safely ignore diseases. once the ward vanishes you need to be able to treat diseases. You can do that in two ways:
  
  • create permanent pharmacists (recurring job). this costs labor and, if there is nothing to treat and they are transformed back, it also costs medicine
  • only create pharmacists when you need them. this saves labor and medicine, but also requires micromanagement.
   
• In a mature fort you can minimize the danger of diseases, by having a "apothecary's study"(or another building, not sure what happens with jobs issued by a manager, if they are quened behind the recurring job) usable only by select dwarves and having a recurring job to make them a pharmacist. They will take care of recurring stuff and also fight diseases before they can possibly spread. If there is a disease, which has already begun to spread you can create a second workshop to create more pharmacists to battle that disease. You loose them as workers for the time of the outbreak, but you don't need to manually remove them from medical duty, as they remove themselves when there is no further need for them.(when they find noone to treat while they are transformed)
• Because there are not allways all dwarves in the meeting area, It is not likely that you cure all infected dwarfves. You can either ignore that and cure them when they come to the common area, having the rist of another outbreak or create a system to cure them all (this favors a system where you have more than one medical center for example one in the mines, one near the workshops and one in the sleeping area)

All in all it would be: either minimal effort costing labor and making medicine go to waste or more effort and saving medicine+labor. This way there are rewards for caring but no actual need to do that.

some other Ideas: (some may be crazy, most of them may not be possible)

• Quality medicine; cheap stuff has side-effects (not very dangerous, also temporary)
• "crafting system" different plants have different values for curing psychological or epidemic stuff, and also have side effects. The higher the skill(some doctor skill) of the dwarf the more side effects are removed and more of the healong part remains in the medicine. one kind of medicine only cures either psychological or epidemic stuff, not both
• most likely not possible: make sick dwarves use the hospital and get treated there
• store medicine in the hospital
• incubation period --- reward for having a very good health care system is that you treat diseases before they do any harm
• periodic health-checks in the hospital