Guide for detection of IS survivors and getting rid of them.

[Wish Granter]

Hey there, ive noticed a few IS discussions recentely and there are alot of myth and wrong toughts on how to find them or what they actually do, so I repost a answer I did in another post as a guide here.

It contains everything you need to know about IS infection, how you detect it and how to isolate them correctly/ get rid of them/ prevent major spreading of it.
Hope it helps

Alright so here is how it works


0% is never infected, no matter what
Everything from 1-100% can be infected.
Someone at even 99% does not have to be infected but the risk is higher, obv.


To detect them, you need to obtain 4 skill check speeches.
Those are about cannibalism, crime, tor*ure, and r**e.
You can obtain those stories by talking to random people asknig them "whats up":
Please note that it takes different personalities or high respect to obtain all stories.
When you are met with answers like "I think I said enough" you will need more respect so they tell you anyway.
With enough respect or goodwill you may obtain all stories as long as your are "smart" as trait.


After having obtained one or multiple stories it opens up a new dialog option when starting to chat with someone.


"I need to talk to you". Now you may choose the different stories. If you unlocked all 4 options you have about I think 6 options to say.


Now talk to them, do not skip. During the different speeches there is a chance for them to make a grim, or smile, or even do a zombie moan. Watch closely sometimes its even just a short smile, Do ONLY talk to them while they are standing or stood up so you actually see their face.
Its irrelevant what they say.
What they say is NEVER a indication if they infected.
When asked about human meat, some will say "Oh well we all did it, nothing to be ashamed of". That is NOT sign of infection, they are just immoral, the same way people will enjoy thoughts of crime, that just means they are j**ks.
Just watch their face, ignore what they say.
Beware that immorale people will have a "normal" smile while talking about cannibalism. It is NOT a infection. The smile of a triggered IS survivor is very easy to spot as its kinda creepy. Normal face gestures may sitll occur obv.


Note that every infected only has ! 1 ! trigger line so you need all stories to be sure.
Do tests more then once before recruiting, Maiby you overlooked somthing, maiby it didnt trigger.


When having found a infected individual in a NPC camp, note it down so you know the name. Do NOT send people alone there if you arent watching.
Do NEVER recruit a infected.
Infected is in your base? Go somewhere further away and have a gun equipped.
Talk to them. When sure they are, (aka they "triggered" during checks), you tell them they are infected and choose to ban them (VERY HIGH RISK they spread it outside or come in again and spread it to your woocutters f.e) or to executre them.

There is a chance that he/she turns during execution. if she turns there is minimal debuff and buffs for choosing right. If she doesnt turn, there are normal debuffs against you. Nothing toooooo major, it dep. on characters.

You believe someone is infected?
ISOLATE him IMMIDANTELY. Do NOT wait 1 second. Build a small room with a well and a gate that locked forever, Keep him in there and wait until you hear moans, pause the game and zoom on his face. You will see.
Beware that isolated people still need food and esp. water so build a well to be sure and drop some bottles in a chest.
You may throw food over the fence in form of rabbits and have a campfire in the isolation cell with wood in the chest + matches.
That way you never need to enter but he wont die.

Think someone is infected?
Talk to everyone, as soon as a infected has entered the camp everyone will start saying stuff like "I think I heard a growling", "Something is wrong" or "Dont believe everything your hear these days"
(This means the infected is spreading lies around).

Give EVERYONE hunting knifes. When infected individiums have knifes, they will KILL instead of bite. Yes, your colonist is dead, but he cannot spread the infection, therefore it will awlays be contained at only 1 member. Since if they are infected they have to be dealt with anyway so its no loss either way. (Basically).
Also the murderer will run out of the camp somewhere in the forest and hide for a minute so its very easy to find out who did it since he sprint full speed away from the corpse.

[Wish Granter]

A short info on how IS even works:


IS infected survivors will attempt to bite and spread. This will only occur if the infected person and the non infected target is OUTSIDE of direct player watch or the watch of third people that ARE NOT infected.
Even looking away can trigger that event.

IS infected that have knifes kill instead of bite. Now while you might think thats worse, he is dead, its actualyl the best that can happen.

If someone else gets infected he is a target for a clean headshot anyway. And furthermore,he wont turn to IS and cannot infected anyone else. So them killing is your best option.
And you can easily spot them as they are the only one that will full speed sprint away and out of the camp the second it happen. Since the game auto pauses on death of a member you know 100% who it was.

[sir Evans]

Questions give no definite results. I've literally question a person that growled in my face from combat excitement and they have responded to all of them in humane way. I had 6 or 7 unlocked. She was moral, friendly and idealistic btw.

I think questioning is a red herring for players, a misdirection.

Engaging in melee combat works 100% of time with all IS strain variants, after reaching certain threshold all IS will start making sounds.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by sir Evans:

Questions give no definite results. I've literally question a person that growled in my face from combat excitement and they have responded to all of them in humane way. I had 6 or 7 unlocked. She was moral, friendly and idealistic btw.

I think questioning is a red herring for players, a misdirection.

Engaging in melee combat works 100% of time with all IS strain variants, after reaching certain threshold all IS will start making sounds.

Everyone will answer like they care, but don't look at the answer ... look at their face during the answer. If they smile and their eye brows get that mad tilt then they are lying ....

Example :
Smile with evil eyes, while saying "I'm ashamed of course" :

0\ /0
\----/

Worried look while saying "i'm ashamed of course":

/0 0\
-----

EDIT : .... Test someone with 0% and look at their face. Then test someone you know has the IS (or close enough with high %), and compare their looks. Testing someone who doesn't have the IS is your baseline "look", from that you can figure out who has the IS.

[sir Evans]

Not really. Highly amoral characters may even go aggro IS on you during questioning, but for those with good characters traits they will just answer as you would expect. Not to mention that you need to bring their opinion about you up first.

Really folks, try the way of combat, get them excited.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by sir Evans:

Really folks, try the way of combat, get them excited.

Oh sure yeah, even fist cuffs can bring out the IS.

A long time ago (version-wise), I had a community member who had the IS. I used that character to fight raiders and zeds and she first began barking a few times, but as the fighting continued she was barking every few seconds ... wicked exited.

So yeah, really no need to ask any questions, but the problem with excitement is that they can pop in your face, while mostly questioning someone the first time can give you the answer BEFORE they start barking (like when recruiting).

[sir Evans]

Originally posted by CellNav:

EDIT : .... Test someone with 0% and look at their face. Then test someone you know has the IS (or close enough with high %), and compare their looks.

This is the key, answers depend on personality. I have a person in the group which ranks 87% on brain scanner and has plenty of socipathic traits, but in debug it shows they have no IS.

Hence why I think this is a misdirection in the game - something to provide the tool for a player to sometimes detect IS, make them think like they can defend themselves against it, but in reality, you may miss IS symptoms on your friendly, loyal, caring team mommy that spends all their time in the camp cooking that meaty stew for the gang.

[CellNav]

By the way .... We have multi-questions because the IS will most likely reveal themselves in ONE of the questions, not all. Pay attention to their face, the questions are designed to cover all the bases.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by sir Evans:

This is the key, answers depend on personality. I have a person in the group which ranks 87% on brain scanner and has plenty of socipathic traits, but in debug it shows they have no IS.

Hence why I think this is a misdirection in the game - something to provide the tool for a player to sometimes detect IS, make them think like they can defend themselves against it, but in reality, you may miss IS symptoms on your friendly, loyal, caring team mommy that spends all their time in the camp cooking that meaty stew for the gang.

Yes, it's been a know misdirection for years now, simply because of personality. The % can be wrong too if they are wicked cold or hungry, you can even see a day-to-day change in some of your community members.

EDIT : Hunger, Thirst, Cold, etc .... makes the heart race, gets us excited and aggravated.

[CellNav]

Yeah, don't forget, there are TWO forms of the IS ... one is hidden, probably can't detect it, that's intentional to screw with us.

NONE .... EXCITABLE .... SUBTLE

[sir Evans]

Originally posted by CellNav:

Yeah, don't forget, there are TWO forms of the IS ... one is hidden, probably can't detect it, that's intentional to screw with us.

NONE .... EXCITABLE .... SUBTLE

Exactly. Excitable is easy to detect, as folks start growling qucikly. Subtle needs a trip to zombie town, but even they, eventually, will start growling with enough excitement.

[Wish Granter]

Originally posted by sir Evans:

Questions give no definite results. I've literally question a person that growled in my face from combat excitement and they have responded to all of them in humane way. I had 6 or 7 unlocked. She was moral, friendly and idealistic btw.

I think questioning is a red herring for players, a misdirection.

Engaging in melee combat works 100% of time with all IS strain variants, after reaching certain threshold all IS will start making sounds.

As I stated the question doesnt matter at all. It doesnt matter what they answer or say, immoral characters will just do a happy response to cannibalism which is fine.
As stated it all depends on the reaction.

"Do NOT pay attention to what they say, but to their face".

Its important how they react. They will smile or growl or just flinch weirdly for a second when asked the right thing. This works 97/100 times to get a response. The responses are more frequent when exited.

it is not necessary at all to go anywhere with them.
Anyone suspacted of being infected has to be isolated IMMIDANTELY into a cage.
Then you just wait a day for a random growl from him while you question him.

[sir Evans]

Originally posted by Wish Granter:

Its important how they react. They will smile or growl or just flinch weirdly for a second when asked the right thing. This works 97/100 times to get a response. The responses are more frequent when exited.

it is not necessary at all to go anywhere with them.
Anyone suspacted of being infected has to be isolated IMMIDANTELY into a cage.
Then you just wait a day for a random growl from him while you question him.

They will refuse questions if their opinion about you is too low.
Also Joker personality type may crack jokes at you while making smilling face. Questions are not the way, if you need to discover IS symptoms quickly and in multiple people. Combat works always and you can lure zeds toward the target as much as you please to get them excited.

[CellNav]

A long time ago we didn't have the ability to ask questions, there was a mod (I think) that was popular and Bob created his version of the question process. It's mainly used for recruitment, you know the drill so combat isn't going to work.

You see, combat is a reactive measure. Using the scanner (or not) with questions is being proactive. Frankly, using combat means you let someone in your group get infected because you didn't screen them first. These days, getting bitten from someone getting into your camp is almost nonexistent since the patch that fixed biting problems (they bite when not observed).

It's interesting to watch another community deal with the IS. I know one guy has it and his group is an ally. He's come into my base camp as well but didn't bite anyone, I've got too many people crowded around that a hidden bite isn't going to happen. His group is low on food so he might come down and grab a few corn (usually 3) from my stash.

Off topic, the trader of the starving ally hangs out in my camp,saves him the trouble of walking back since the food is right there. Saves me travel time too.

Anyway .... Question = proactive player. Combat = every player.

[sir Evans]

Originally posted by CellNav:

You see, combat is a reactive measure. Using the scanner (or not) with questions is being proactive. Frankly, using combat means you let someone in your group get infected because you didn't screen them first. These days, getting bitten from someone getting into your camp is almost nonexistent since the patch that fixed biting problems (they bite when not observed).

Wait, wait. I think we have totally different playstyles, so perhaps some explanation will be useful for future readers.

In my games:
- refugees are not answering questions due to low opinion. Do you shower them with gifts on encounter, or something?
- I can lure lots of zombies towards refugees groups with no problem, due to high fitness (I don't recruit anyone before certain camp/stats conditions are met for my main toon)

So from my perspective, asking questions is a waste of time, I can just trigger combat for refugees and let them go through it, only intervening if they are in danger, or patching them up between combat rounds. Not only I excite IS, I also get opinion boosts for helping them.

Also:
- they bite when not observed? 50%+ of my main toon time is spent outside of my camp, my camp is only the place for npcs to safely harvest resources and for my main toon to sleep. So I am technically not observing my camp most of my time, instead intercepting hordes and raiders, going on friend quests etc. Do you mean when IS is alone with another toon and no one else is in range?

It's interesting to watch another community deal with the IS. I know one guy has it and his group is an ally. He's come into my base camp as well but didn't bite anyone, I've got too many people crowded around that a hidden bite isn't going to happen. His group is low on food so he might come down and grab a few corn (usually 3) from my stash.

Off topic, the trader of the starving ally hangs out in my camp,saves him the trouble of walking back since the food is right there. Saves me travel time too.

Meh, they usually deal with it by constant infighting as IS often provokes fights, and eventually turns and gets killed.

Anyway .... Question = proactive player. Combat = every player.

I'd say question = roleplayer :D

[CellNav]

Originally posted by sir Evans:

Also:
- they bite when not observed? 50%+ of my main toon time is spent outside of my camp, my camp is only the place for npcs to safely harvest resources and for my main toon to sleep. So I am technically not observing my camp most of my time, instead intercepting hordes and raiders, going on friend quests etc. Do you mean when IS is alone with another toon and no one else is in range?

That's correct, they bite someone when others are not looking. Generally, people with the IS will bite their own community members and these days it can count as an attack. People kicked out of their community might be a jerk or have bitten someone, leading to fighting among themselves. Think of it like vampires. All those homeless squatters can be a danger.

So, while you are away from camp and your crew is outside the base, they might stumble across someone and then turn their back, then get bitten. I use rags not bandages, my bandages are locked away behind a gate inside the camp, old habit from the old days to detect someone bitten but saves the use of bandages.

Here's an old screenshot from v84 .... I let the IS fester in my camp, then one day I came home and they all turned against me at once, hence why I'm outside the gate :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2164421154