Exactly how common is cancer?

[hardy_conrad]

Generally my colonists are on the young side and I know age is a big factor in getting cancer, but on the other hand cell instability says it considerably increases likelihood yet I don't think I've ever gotten a tumour. Even with things like toxic fallout turning everyone into a mass of poison they come down with dementia but never cancer. You would think it would be more frequent. I'm wondering if there's some kind of mechanic I'm overlooking. Playing unmodded and with the biotech dlc.

[di eshor ribly]

In just over 3000 hours of Rimworld I can count the number of new cancer events on one hand.

Mostly due to toxic fallout, and once from a particularly prolific smokeleaf enjoyer. However the vast majority are from pawns who walked on to the map already with cancer. So it's pretty rare, but your mileage may vary.

I am also discounting my forays into Genetic Rim, on the basis that most genetic failures were basically one large tumor, like Deadpool.

[Mismagius]

its quite rare and in fact, it might be the rarest hediff in the game without mods. for my case it was so rare that i only encountered like 2 or 3 of my pawns having cancer after like over 2800 hours into the game. but at the same time it can be inconsistent

[Tam]

I've never seen for 2k hours

[MadArtillery]

I've run into a few times on some older people. In particular I got super unlucky on got bloody heart cancer in the first week on one of my cell instability solders but somehow tribal medicine was enough to remission it out of existence. Dealt with it so infrequently I didn't even know that was a thing that could happen, was quite the relief that the old war hero beat it. I think I've seen it 3 times in total since ideology came out.

[Astasia]

It's ridiculously rare, fractions of a percent chance per birthday.

Starting at age 23 it's like a 0.01% chance, linearly increasing to a 0.12% chance at age 80, then to 0.16% at age 120. Those are per year chances, it's only rolled on their birthday, and considering the length of a game is only a few years usually, it means it basically doesn't happen.

So the cancer rate increase of the cell instability genes is basically a meaningless value. 500% sounds high, but it's multiplying such a small base value that it still doesn't really do anything.

Edit: Toxic buildup cancer is a different mechanic and a lot more likely, but still pretty rare. It's like MTB 39 days if you can maintain over 80% buildup without reaching 100% and dying. So basically on average if you kept your colonists on the verge of death for a year they might develop carcinoma from that. At lower toxic build up levels it's much less common, MTB of 111 days at 60-79%, MTB of 438 days at 40-59%, and no chance below that.

[hardy_conrad]

Wow. Not that I'm a fan of cancer but you'd think it would be a bit higher. Or, a lot higher... Game prides itself on realism and does a pretty good job I think in a lot of ways. Maybe it's supposed to have been bred out of people almost entirely in the future? Although if you employ that logic it would apply to loads of other illnesses as well.

[di eshor ribly]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945504469

Here, go nuts.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

Wow. Not that I'm a fan of cancer but you'd think it would be a bit higher. Or, a lot higher... Game prides itself on realism and does a pretty good job I think in a lot of ways. Maybe it's supposed to have been bred out of people almost entirely in the future? Although if you employ that logic it would apply to loads of other illnesses as well.

It's definitely lower than "normal" in the rimworld universe, but not by an extreme amount. I think it works out to like a 10% chance of getting cancer in a pawn's life span, while in reality here and now it's like a 40% chance. The rarity in game is more because we are only seeing such a brief snippet of anyone's lifespan. It's not that uncommon to find old pawns that have spawned with cancer, because the game has already simulated many dozens of those otherwise small checks happening over their lifetime. If a playthrough lasted 80 years instead of 3-5 years it would be a much more common event (without anti-aging mechanics being used).

That said, "priding itself on realism" is not something I think I've ever heard before in regards to RimWorld. Colonies are regularly assaulted by roaming packs of 20lb squirrels, large bands of pirates constantly suicide against your base defenses, wooden peglegs magically regenerate, eclipses last hours and happen several times a year somehow, while people eating on the floor in a dark messy room regularly go on murderous rampages. We can try to explain a lot of this away with scifi-logic and our own headcanon, but at the end of the day RimWorld has always been very gamey, and because it focuses on gameplay instead of realism is why it tends to be so fun to play.

[Robo]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

Wow. Not that I'm a fan of cancer but you'd think it would be a bit higher. Or, a lot higher... Game prides itself on realism and does a pretty good job I think in a lot of ways. Maybe it's supposed to have been bred out of people almost entirely in the future? Although if you employ that logic it would apply to loads of other illnesses as well.

It's definitely lower than "normal" in the rimworld universe, but not by an extreme amount. I think it works out to like a 10% chance of getting cancer in a pawn's life span, while in reality here and now it's like a 40% chance. The rarity in game is more because we are only seeing such a brief snippet of anyone's lifespan. It's not that uncommon to find old pawns that have spawned with cancer, because the game has already simulated many dozens of those otherwise small checks happening over their lifetime. If a playthrough lasted 80 years instead of 3-5 years it would be a much more common event (without anti-aging mechanics being used).

That said, "priding itself on realism" is not something I think I've ever heard before in regards to RimWorld. Colonies are regularly assaulted by roaming packs of 20lb squirrels, large bands of pirates constantly suicide against your base defenses, wooden peglegs magically regenerate, eclipses last hours and happen several times a year somehow, while people eating on the floor in a dark messy room regularly go on murderous rampages. We can try to explain a lot of this away with scifi-logic and our own headcanon, but at the end of the day RimWorld has always been very gamey, and because it focuses on gameplay instead of realism is why it tends to be so fun to play.

I think that the concept itself and to an extent, some of the crazy things that occur in the game are somewhat realistic. The world itself is lawless and is constantly bombarded with psychic drones, mental breaks can easily be explained by the majority of your pawns being Glitterworld residents or at least middle class folk who aren't used to the brutalities of life, while the rest can be explained as those driven mad by inconspicuous psychic drone which causes them to become more violent than usual from mental breaks. E.g. a low shooter/melee pawn who never killed in your colony has a mysterious sudden urge to murder their worst enemy.

Overall, most of it will have to be handwaved in order to make sense as I've just did, and I'm glad Ludeon left it as vague rather than explaining absolutely everything to the player.

[hardy_conrad]

Heh maybe realism wasn't the best word for me to have used. More like it tries to incorporate as many aspects of actual life as are feasible. The whole system of keeping your colonists happy is very well done I'd say. Likewise raising kids.

Hmm. I read somewhere cancer risk is fundamentally tied to how often cells divide, with a lot of the harm from stuff like smoking a result of the need for constant tissue replacement in the lungs. Assuming that is the case, perhaps regular plain old injuries ought to generate a small chance of cancer? Wound healing requires new cells to replace the destroyed ones after all.

[hardy_conrad]

From what I understand any time a cell divides the telomere gets shredded a bit. Umm, is that what they call the Hayflick limit? But it would only be a small chance of cancer from an injury, yeah. Properly speaking everyone has loads of cancers throughout their life, it's just that the overwhelming majority of them are suppressed and dealt with harmlessly. Aren't there different levels of malignancy with tumours in the game? They could increase the chances of the relatively harmless kind without impacting stuff.

There's a tradeoff between realism and playability which is tricky to get right. Things like drinking water are pretty universal in survival type games, I'm thinking of Project Zomboid for example. They automate the process so long as you have water in your inventory to ensure it doesn't turn into micromanaging. And Ark even has pooping. But those are games with just one person to manage. Games like Rimworld where you have to control a colony rather than an individual change the equation.

[Steelfleece]

You know, I don't think I've ever had a pawn develop cancer except one bad time with toxic stuff flying around. Usually only see it on randomly rolled starters, raiders, or wild animals. I tend to reroll pawns with major issues like that - especially since they tend to be older and have other conditions atop it - but with raiders, when I have the medicine, I like to have my second best doctor (or first if they're not already near capped in medical) try to remove it. Nor only is it good medical experience, but if it fails, I know I did more for the raider than they'd have done for my pawns. Plus it helps me feel morally superior despite stripping their dead friends naked and throwing them in a pile in the wilderness for the wild animals to eat.

Originally posted by 🌦SunsetRain🌦:

I like to check stats on wild animals and you can get a chuckle every now and then looking at a 102 y/o turtle with dementia. Not that I'm cruel, I just find it amusing that a tortoise would need to remember anything to begin with.

More sad with some animals than others. An elephant never forgets... Until it does.

[hardy_conrad]

It's kind of a nuisance when my medical stocks deplete because I wasn't paying attention and all the healroot is being used on an asthmatic alpaca... Time to recover the expenses with an alpaca burger.