So this was a first

[Talien]

I've played several times to "completion", meaning I play a game until I finish the arbitrary win condition, but this is the first time I've ever had anyone in my community turn due to IS. It happened right after a wandering trader walked up to my main character and said something about some new type of zombie that you can't tell apart from normal people, to which I replied "I'll keep an eye out."

Not 15 minutes after that conversation one of my people runs up to me and says something like "The hardest part was pretending I liked you" then everyone in my community all turned into white strain. Sucks to be them, and lucky for me I was on the outside of the fence after having walked out to collect a rabbit from the trap I had set, so all I had to deal with was one WS.

So what I'm wondering is, was it normal that 6 people all spontaneously turned into WS, or should it only have been the one who ran up and initiated dialogue?

[FuBar]

obviously he infected the other 5

[Talien]

Well, yes, but that game had only been going for a couple days. How long does it take for an IS to infect an entire community? Plus, one of them I had literally just recruited a few minutes prior and she had been sitting next to the fire while my main character was cooking stuff and had no interaction with anyone else. I guess it's possible she was already infected, but the whole thing was just odd.

[Mr Grimlock]

The IS infection in your community aspect was recently added... and it’s nasty! It can spread exponentially through your community, potentially in a matter of days, depending on the size of your group.

Some of the randoms you recruit are already infected. I’ve also had two traders attack me as they were infected. Watch your people closely!

[llder]

So no there is no telling who or what?

[Mr Grimlock]

You need to keep careful watch - those infected will try and attack your community members when they’re isolated. They bite them, they’ll become infected, and so on. Bob stated that those infected also spread lies around camp, so you can keep an eye out for those too. You might notice somebody bleeding, or injured. I didn’t notice until 5 of my community had been infected - and I only noticed that because one ran up to me asking for a bandage! Good luck!

[llder]

Lol, well thank god my community is 2 people hahahahaha.

[Talien]

Originally posted by Mr Grimlock:

The IS infection in your community aspect was recently added... and it’s nasty! It can spread exponentially through your community, potentially in a matter of days, depending on the size of your group.

Some of the randoms you recruit are already infected. I’ve also had two traders attack me as they were infected. Watch your people closely!

Well that explains why I never noticed it before. I mean I've run across people who were infected with IS because they'd instantly turn into a zombie when I kill them, but until now they had always been wandering traders or looters.

Seems like you'll be SOL if one of your early recruits is infected though, it's kinda hard to keep an eye on people when you need to be controlling someone out scavenging and recruiting to get your community going.

[Mr Grimlock]

Right - exactly the same for me - just the guys I killed turned at the point of death. However, now we’re 80+ days in (or the game has updated maybe?) random people will attack a solo character and try and give you a cheeky stealth bite. I had a trader (alive and well) speak to me and try to bite me. Also, more people are talking about it in friendly settlements... exciting.

[alibabba3000]

What is the best way to prevent this? Just had my whole community turn on me and I didnt even know it was possible...
How do I prevent this moving forward?

[Mr Grimlock]

It’s hard. The attacks only tend to happen when a White strain infected community member isolates a non-infected. There is no alert, they just bite them and that’s it. The first time I witnessed it, a guy was bleeding (out of nowhere) and came to ask me for a bandage. Five of my community were infected by that point, which rose to seven by the time I managed to identify the stragglers. You have to keep a really careful eye on your community - which is really difficult. It almost encourages lockdown/quarantine gameplay to prevent the spreading (i.e erect some walls and gates, change the gate settings and keep people in one area for observation.

The alternative is to cheat using the F8 menu. Each character has a gauge that shows if they are infected or not. I didn’t realise this until *after* the event though... which was heartbreaking, but made for a great storytelling event. Good luck to you and your community.

[Talien]

Originally posted by alibabba3000:

What is the best way to prevent this? Just had my whole community turn on me and I didnt even know it was possible...
How do I prevent this moving forward?

Disable save tokens and save often in a new slot, that way you have backups you can revert to. It's been my experience if you kick an infected person out of your community they turn right away so you can just boot people one by one and see who turns then reload when you identify the infected. If you want to be extra careful you can kill them yourself after booting them if they don't turn, if they still don't turn then they aren't infected and you can reload.

You can also do that with any new recruits, save before actually recruiting them then kick/kill them right away to see if they turn, then reload and either recruit if they didn't or let them be someone else's problem if they did.

[Mr Grimlock]

Originally posted by Talien:

Originally posted by alibabba3000:

What is the best way to prevent this? Just had my whole community turn on me and I didnt even know it was possible...
How do I prevent this moving forward?

Disable save tokens and save often in a new slot, that way you have backups you can revert to. It's been my experience if you kick an infected person out of your community they turn right away so you can just boot people one by one and see who turns then reload when you identify the infected. If you want to be extra careful you can kill them yourself after booting them if they don't turn, if they still don't turn then they aren't infected and you can reload.

You can also do that with any new recruits, save before actually recruiting them then kick/kill them right away to see if they turn, then reload and either recruit if they didn't or let them be someone else's problem if they did.

Guilty of doing this after losing a bunch of my community members to the invisible strain. Lockdown murder tactics.

[Talien]

Originally posted by Mr Grimlock:

Guilty of doing this after losing a bunch of my community members to the invisible strain. Lockdown murder tactics.

Yeah. I don't really like doing things like this but after having 2 full communities turn on me because it spread while I was out exploring I don't want to deal with it anymore. I mean, you can either go out and explore the map or sit at home and babysit, watching for signs. I don't like babysitting.

But even making sure new recruits aren't infected isn't enough because you never know when some infected wandering trader is going to waltz in and make themselves at home then chow down on one of your people and spread it that way.

[Mr Grimlock]

Originally posted by Talien:

Originally posted by Mr Grimlock:

Guilty of doing this after losing a bunch of my community members to the invisible strain. Lockdown murder tactics.

Yeah. I don't really like doing things like this but after having 2 full communities turn on me because it spread while I was out exploring I don't want to deal with it anymore. I mean, you can either go out and explore the map or sit at home and babysit, watching for signs. I don't like babysitting.

But even making sure new recruits aren't infected isn't enough because you never know when some infected wandering trader is going to waltz in and make themselves at home then chow down on one of your people and spread it that way.

Yep, now it’s a quick case of vetting via F8!

[alibabba3000]

Thanks everyone! Thats helpful. This new feature makes the game so much more tense. I love and hate it! I hope it gets balanced out a little bit. If Jimmy took a chunk out of my arm but doesnt look infected, I might bring that concern up with the rest of the group; I wouldnt act like it was no big deal...