DEV: PLEASE BALANCE SLEEPING SICKNESS

[Flingy]

What is going on with the balance around sleeping sickness! They seem to get sick literally for months in the game, it takes forever to heal an issue which seems minor compared to others! Plus my people seem to get it more regularly than what it takes to heal. 5 out of my 6 colonists have it and now I cannot survive... they caught it in 3 events, first 2 events 2 got it, 3rd event 1 got it... now they are all dieing of starvation after tending to them for months! A very slow and painful way to loose the game... and finally when my first 2 healed from the sickness, another guy got sick again!!

Seriously!! Please balance this!

[Astasia]

Sleeping sickness only happens on tropical maps, it seems like it's supposed to be a "hardmode" type thing where you absolutely need penoxycycline. If you don't like it, turn it off in the scenario or play on like arid shrublands where diseases happen a lot less often and the only dangerous one is the plague which only lasts a couple days.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Flingy:

What is going on with the balance around sleeping sickness! They seem to get sick literally for months in the game, it takes forever to heal an issue which seems minor compared to others! Plus my people seem to get it more regularly than what it takes to heal. 5 out of my 6 colonists have it and now I cannot survive... they caught it in 3 events, first 2 events 2 got it, 3rd event 1 got it... now they are all dieing of starvation after tending to them for months! A very slow and painful way to loose the game... and finally when my first 2 healed from the sickness, another guy got sick again!!

Seriously!! Please balance this!

Uhm so a colonist caught sleeping sickness... did you quarantine them?
And when the rest of your colony started to contract the disease, did you not expect everyone to catch it?
You are right though. It is without a doubt one of the worst diseases you can get. However, it is survivable. You should always have plenty of food and medicine available before an event like this occurs. Preparation saves lives!
Just count yourself lucky you didn't get sleeping sickness plus malaria at the same time. Now that is a killer combo lol.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Uhm so a colonist caught sleeping sickness... did you quarantine them?
And when the rest of your colony started to contract the disease, did you not expect everyone to catch it?

That's not how it works. There's no spreading or contraction simulation, they are just pure RNG events based on the map biome, storyteller, and difficulty.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Uhm so a colonist caught sleeping sickness... did you quarantine them?
And when the rest of your colony started to contract the disease, did you not expect everyone to catch it?

That's not how it works. There's no spreading or contraction simulation, they are just pure RNG events based on the map biome, storyteller, and difficulty.

Oh I'm not saying that there is a contagion mechanic, but there is definitely a high probability factor of a particular diease outbreak affecting some and then more, if not possibly the whole of the colony within the same short timespan. In other words, if one colonist contracts a disease, then it is extremely likely more will follow. It isn't an actual contagion, but the probability algorithm simulates it for sure.
In fact, my current colony for exampe has just survived a malaria outbreak which started with 4, followed by 2 more the next day and then 2 more after that, the day after. Fortunately for me, my medic was the only one left who was left unscathed. She had to work her weary butt off to keep all 8 treated, fed and cheered on time without suffering a mental break due to exhaustion. I'm planning on commemorating her heroic achievement with a classy memorial sarcophagus when she passes, eventually.

[Astasia]

What it does is silently infect X number of pawns depending on the size of your colony and the game difficulty, and then once those pawns reach a certain severity threshold you get the announcement and can see the disease on them to begin treatment. What you are seeing is the effects of age, blood filtration, and/or general pawn health/wellbeing, causing the disease to reach that threshold at different days for different pawns. All of them were infected at the same time by the event, the game doesn't have any algorithm for this, it's a very basic event that is easy to edit.

[Swirler]

The nightmare, all colonists having sleeping sickness.

RIP colony.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Astasia:

What it does is silently infect X number of pawns depending on the size of your colony and the game difficulty, and then once those pawns reach a certain severity threshold you get the announcement and can see the disease on them to begin treatment. What you are seeing is the effects of age, blood filtration, and/or general pawn health/wellbeing, causing the disease to reach that threshold at different days for different pawns. All of them were infected at the same time by the event, the game doesn't have any algorithm for this, it's a very basic event that is easy to edit.

Many thanks for the explanation of the mechanic.
My assertion is still valid then...

In other words, if one colonist contracts a disease, then it is extremely likely more will follow

[Stormsong]

OP - the balance is that sleeping sickness is bound to the jungle. It can be treated even with herbal meds with constant vigilance from a colonist with ~8+ doctoring and no stat losses from injuries.

As mentioned there is also penoxcycline.

Disease rates in the jungle are about doubled, and even the story description calls such places "the green hell."

Without being intrusive and putting like a big X on the map over jungles, that's about the best Tynan can do to say "don't land here if you don't like suffering, reroll." You went and did it anyway.

[d_fauss]

The disagreement is likely over your use of the word quarantine. This may give folks the false impression that they might be able to stop or slow the outbreak by separate Chambers or other actions. They will be frustrated and disappointed that their extra efforts have no effect when they thought you told them it would.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by d_fauss:

The disagreement is likely over your use of the word quarantine. This may give folks the false impression that they might be able to stop or slow the outbreak by separate Chambers or other actions. They will be frustrated and disappointed that their extra efforts have no effect when they thought you told them it would.

Aye that's true. What I meant by that was to ensure that the sick pawns are ordered to sickbay to rest until healed immediately rather than have them continue working.

[Flingy]

Thanks for your advice everyone, very useful.
So I love my current colony, they have an epic mountain base, do you know how I can change an existing game to not infect people as often with illness or remove sleeping sickness??

[Astasia]

Yes. Make a new scenario, disable the disease you want in it, start a game with that scenario and save it, then quit the game. Load that save with a text editor, near the top you will see the scenario rules, copy the parts about disease and then open your real save and paste that part into the same area. Make backups before attempting in case you paste it to the wrong place or something.

[Flingy]

Ah worked out how to fix my guys, I used the handy developers mode (setting in options) to remove the disese and then provide some of those tablets to prevent them from catching it again. Hopefully that will last my group long enough to either make them or buy them in the future.
(I found I could also remove the random sickness events but I dont want to make it too easy).