Dealing with Life-Threatening Torso Infections

[Coq Enthusiast]

I was just curious and figured I'd ask the community - how do you or would you solve an infection in one's torso that's accelerated beyond the immunity threshold (as in the infection is at 90% and the immunity is <90% and can't keep up with the infection)? I understand that it's probably something that is more dependent on future-tech, but what future tech does that involve? Basic mods like Expanded Prosthetics are welcome to be included in answers as well.

Edit: For context, I've had a central colonist come down with a torso infection that I mismanaged and exceeded the infection threshold, so I put her in a cryptosleep casket in hopes of treating her one day with a bionic torso or something, but I don't have a true solution as of yet.

[Monoxide]

What is the spread? infection is 90, but how close is the immunity? If its TOO far away, then the only thing I can think of is res serum once they die. If its CLOSE but the infection is still higher, you can try and get a high end doctor (with appropriate bionics), vitals monitor, hospital bed, and glitterworld medicine to hope for a 100% tend quality (this doesnt mean infection doesnt progress, but is the best you can do to slow it), and hope its close enough to fix him. The other objects increase immunity gain speed. The bed alone has a rate of 1.11 (11% assuming its a standard process). See link for other ideas:
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Immunity_Gain_Speed

A torso transplant is not a thing... Yet.

[Coq Enthusiast]

Originally posted by Monoxide:

What is the spread? infection is 90, but how close is the immunity?

Infection is at 94%, Immunity is at 82%, and that was after treating her with regular medicine after the last tending had expired. I had forgotten to set her to "Rest Until Healed" so she was walking around for about a day and a half until I noticed, and it was before I had a proper medbay or Doctor with anything better than 11 Medicine.

Would allowing her to die and installing an artificial heart solve it? It's something I've considered, but I haven't had good luck with heart transplants in the past (and understandably so). I have one doc with 15 Medicine, and I'm assuming that's a safe number for a heart transplant, I'm just obviously hesitant to do so.

[Astasia]

Vanilla game healer mech serum probably. I don't actually know of many mod options that solve it besides that. There's no "bionic torso" I am aware of, there are enhancements to the torso part but nothing that replaces it, because in RimWorld biology that will always be fatal. You may notice that when a bionic arm is installed the hand disappears, that's because the arm is a "container" for the hand, and bionics are only a single part. All limbs and the neck are attached to the torso, plus all the organs, replacing the torso with a bionic would remove a colonist's head and all internals.

This mod has an easier to obtain healing item as well as several other ridiculously OP and bizarre mechanics.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1500244593

Originally posted by Coq Enthusiast:

Would allowing her to die and installing an artificial heart solve it?

No. You can't install a heart into a corpse. There is a resurrection serum, but that's a huge gamble and will likely just kill the colonists again.

[Monoxide]

Luciferum would surely help, but would cause a lot of other problems. Thats a pretty decent spread. Not impossible, but might be REALLY tough.

If you deck out your hospital, doctor, and medicine, I think you might be able to pull it off.

If you are doing vanilla, the advice stops there. If you have mods that add any way to increase blood filtration, that would help quite a bit as well. IE - the VGP cooking mods add stir fry meals that add to blood filtration, which is good for sickos. IE2 - the bionic mods add synthetic kidneys that do the same.

I wouldnt go out of my way to GET a mod, but if you have something already, this may open your mind to new ideas of how to deal with things.

EDIT - in case you are not familiar, luciferum is a super powerful drug that is basically what made Captain America. However, if you dont provide a steady stream of it, they will start getting violent and ultimately die (possibly taking others with them). On top of the perpetual need for Luciferum, its hard to come by [or at least can be].

[Astasia]

I think it's too late for any amount of blood filtration. At 94% and inside a casket they have about enough time to take them out and put them on a bed directly next to said casket and administer one thing to them, maybe. It might even be too late for the healer serum. The colonist has barely an hour left to live outside the casket.

[Monoxide]

Kind of depends on if they went into the casket with any amount of tending toward the infection. Im not saying its a 50-50, only that I think it MAY be possible. There are just still a lot of variables to consider.

Build a hospital around the casket with top of the line everything and roll them bones. A high tend quality 95% or high may make them last a day or so. Another BIG kicker is if they DO have tend on already, you cant just retend them. Something I think could be modified. If you want to spend the time and medicine to try again, sure why not. Even throw in some RNG that if it makes the tend worse, the wound gets worse as well. /shrug

[Astasia]

The severity of any disease or infection always increases at the same rate, there are no factors that influence it, the only thing that varies is the rate of immunity gain. Infections progress at 3.5% per hour, so the colonist has about an hour and a half before it hits 100% and they die. Or in other words they have about 11 seconds to live on speed 3. =P

[Sugar Show]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1927056154

[TwoTonGamer]

I don't think you can save this colonist at 94% infection, 84% immunity besides the healer mech serum immediately or the resurrection serum on death.

For next time, the best defense for infections:

Sterile tile in the entire hospital room, clean.
High quality hospital bed. High quality is important as it greatly increases immunity gain.
Vitals monitor. It also will increase the immunity gain.

Infected colonist must stay in bed, well fed and tended.
Use regular medicine or better (Herbal is fine if their immunity gain is clearly going to make it).
Good doctor with timely tending. Wake the doctor up to administer a treatment if needed.


In your situation I would keep them frozen until you have a serum that can help them.

[Coq Enthusiast]

Originally posted by Monoxide:

Luciferum would surely help, but would cause a lot of other problems.

I have created a strict no Luciferum policy in my playthroughs because of the things it has made colonists do lol. I would add those IEP mods but we'll have to see what I can't do with a little more tech and research.

Originally posted by Monoxide:

Kind of depends on if they went into the casket with any amount of tending toward the infection. Im not saying its a 50-50, only that I think it MAY be possible.

She went in having just been tended with regular medicine, which is why I threw her in there to begin with - it didn't help enough so I just essentially threw them in the recycle bin lol. I also had a prison cell-turned-into-a-hospital because the infection stemmed from an infestation that wrecked my colonists, so we only had one doctor tending to five people in their respective bedrooms. Everyone was set to rest except her and I failed to notice in time (obviously). I started with the primitive scenario, so I had literally no research for hospitals at the time.

Originally posted by TwoTonGamer:

I don't think you can save this colonist at 94% infection, 84% immunity besides the healer mech serum immediately or the resurrection serum on death.

In your situation I would keep them frozen until you have a serum that can help them.

Like I said, I know anything is pretty futile and I FUBAR'd this colonist's life. :P I had literally no working hospital and a mediocre doctor because I just didn't have the research or experience at the time. Now I have a hospital with medicine production and sterile tile, so we're about halfway to the promised land (serum).

Honestly, I'm just keeping her in Walt Disneyland until her husband dies so I don't have to deal with the debuff, then we'll see what happens :P

[Coq Enthusiast]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Vanilla game healer mech serum probably. I don't actually know of many mod options that solve it besides that. There's no "bionic torso" I am aware of, there are enhancements to the torso part but nothing that replaces it, because in RimWorld biology that will always be fatal. You may notice that when a bionic arm is installed the hand disappears, that's because the arm is a "container" for the hand, and bionics are only a single part. All limbs and the neck are attached to the torso, plus all the organs, replacing the torso with a bionic would remove a colonist's head and all internals.

This was a super cool way of explaining the modification system, I knew it worked like an artificial arm including the hand, I just didn't think of it the way you described. Ty for this!

[Jigain]

Amputate the torso.