[UPDATED] CLARIFICATION: How Intestinal Parasites (Trichinosis) Works (as of v.326)

[Hinterland_Studio]

We've just updated how Intestinal Parasites work in Hotfix v.326. Original clarification below.

Intestinal Parasites

We've rebalanced Intestinal Parasites.

Parasite Risk: Raw Wolf and Raw Bear meat behaves the same as before. For Cooked Wolf and Cooked Bear, you will gain Parasites Risk per piece you eat, per day. The risk will stack, and is expressed as a % in your First Aid screen. Every 24 hours, we will check against this Risk. If you don't contract Parasites within that 24-hour period, we reset this Risk to 0%.

Parasites: Full-blown Parasites can now be treated with 5 Doses of Antibiotics or Reishi (Voyageur) or 10 Doses (Stalker). There is still no chance of contracting Parasites in Pilgrim.

Reishi Tea: You can now brew a cup of Reishi Tea using 2 Reishi Mushrooms (reduced from 3).


<<<OLD TUNING BELOW>>>

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ORIGINAL CLARIFICATION


As with the Cabin Fever discussion, there's quite a bit of FUD in the community right now (change is scary and uncomfortable!) and while we gather feedback and consider the next round of tuning changes, we thought it might be useful to explain how Intestinal Parasites currently works.

HOW YOU GET THEM

* There is a chance you will contract Intestinal Parasites from eating Wolf or Bear meat. Why? Because these are predators, and primarily carrion-eaters, which is why they carry a higher risk of carrying these parasites.
* The risk of contracting Intestinal Parasites from eating cooked meat is low: 2% per instance. This 2% is per instance, and is cumulative. So, if you eat 10 Wolf steaks, you have a 20% chance of contracting the parasites.
* The risk of contracting Parasites from eating raw meat is high.
* We "roll" against your current Parasites Risk once every 24 hours of game time.

HOW YOU TREAT THEM

* There is a course of treatment for Parasites; we wanted to experiment with an Affliction that needed to be treated multiple doses over a period of time. With current tuning, you require 7 doses of Antibiotics or Reishi Tea over 7 days (1/day) on Voyageur, and 14 doses over 14 days on Stalker. You can't get Parasites on Pilgrim.
* While you are treating Parasites, you will gradually weaken. This weakening lowers your max Condition and max Fatigue each day of the affliction. You may want to plan for this in the early stages of the affliction.
* Missing a day does not invalidate the treatments up to that point.

HOW TO AVOID THEM

* Do not use Wolf of Bear meat as your primary food source.

***

We hear the concerns/complaints and are considering how to modify the mechanic to address those. Our intention isn't to make the game unfair, but simply to provide more choices, and also to ensure that other sources of food (Deer, Fish, and Rabbits) are also a part of your long-term survival strategy.

By all means, continue eating Wolf and Bear meat, just recognize that it comes with a risk, and that you should diversify your food strategy to not be completely dependent on them.

In the mean time, we'll continue looking at feedback and will retune as needed.

Thank you!

[JakeTheSnake]

Thanks for the clarification!

EDIT:
I haven't experienced it yet, but it is nice to know how the feature works.
And i personally like you have to diversify the food you eat.
Useually when playing on longer runs you would just go for wolves and bears for meat, but now fishing, hunting/trapping rabbits, and hunting deer, is interesting again and adds a variety of different activities, insted of just hunting the same game.
Just personal opinions.

[EN16M471C]

I just got intestinal parasites on Stalker (day 7). I had 8% chance (ate 4 wolf steaks over 3 days period). Talking about RNG

Oh and might I add that just before affliction I ate a cooked 95% deer (ravaged carcass) steak. Could this be just coincidence?

[kbk]

Sounds like if the goal is to not use bear and wolf meat as a primary resource, just have +2% risk for each kilo of bear or wolf meat, then -1% risk for each kilo of deer/rabbit/fish (or something like that). Goal achieved and can get rid of any accumulated risk by diversifying.

[Excorpion]

Im going to ask soon.... im going to read about Trichinosis...
But one quick question...
Why just Wolves and Bears ? Why not all the meat in one go ? (in general terms)
I know that Trichinosis only applies on some kind of animals but i need to read more about it... and what about fishes ? they are worst if we talk about illness

[Hinterland_Studio]

Originally posted by ExCoRpIoN:

Im going to ask soon.... im going to read about Trichinosis...
But one quick question...
Why just Wolves and Bears ? Why not all the meat in one go ? (in general terms)
I know that Trichinosis only applies on some kind of animals but i need to read more about it... and what about fishes ? they are worst if we talk about illness

Due to the nature of the parasites, you get them from eating meat that has eaten other meat, primarily.

[Excorpion]

Originally posted by Hinterland_Studio:

Due to the nature of the parasites, you get them from eating meat that has eaten other meat, primarily.

Yeah but thats about the Trichinosis... im talking about other kind of parasites... cause every animal can be affected for their own type... im going to talk about the Trichinosis on other comment so they are not going to be mixed... ;)

Originally posted by cheeki breeki:

Diphyllobothrium latum is nice amirite? But not all types of fish are affected by it.

Yeah! something like that!

[Excorpion]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=670141518

SO! as i said... i read about the Trichinosis....
and let me talk about it...

Trichinosis is a parasitic disease caused by roundworms of the genus trichinella.
it is acquired by consuming meat with larvae of the parasite. It presents gastrointestinal symptoms, muscle and joint pain.

There are 8 species of trichinosis but we are focused on 3

• Spiralis (the most adapted to humans and canids)
  
• Nativa (resist cold and its adapted to bears)
  
• Pseudospiralis (infects birds and mammals)

This 3 can affect the animals that are ingame now (Wolves and Bears) and Humans (the player)

Why? cause like Hinterland said... This parasits are contracted by eating meat from other animals (carnivores and omnivores)
but its awesome when you read that Horses can contract this illness too !!!

So what is my point ?
First, you need to know that when you contract the parasite, that there is no good treatment if you dont have a lot of resources...
and even if you can get a good treatment, if the larvae is developed, you are going to keep the illnes for month or even years....

So how we can avoid the parasits ?
Thats what all the people want to know...

This parasits can be killed if you make a good food preparation...
"All meat can be safely prepared by cooking to an internal temperature of 165 °F (74 °C) or higher for 15 seconds or more."

But how we can know that ? we dont have a food thermometer to know it right ?
For now, im searching about this last point... time and cooking
If you spend more time cooking with less heat, you can keep killing the parasit and avoid the illness
There are a bunch of tables about this, but i cant find them :V

The point is... we can coock our meat in a safety way, and avoid every parasit (thats cause i talk about parasits in others animal, deers, rabbits, fishes, etc)

Maybe we can use the forge to cook our meat safely !!! jajaja

Thanks for read :3 it took me a while.

[frank2351]

Very good, i was living almost 100% on wolf before the update and thought that was very boring. Good move.

[Willkwi]

I need just a little bit more information - what happens when this is left untreated, exactly?

[Xstilllovesyou]

One question/comment, and I am sorry if it has been addressed already, but my only real complaint is that it seems like once you contract the chance for infection it never expires until you are actually infected. Maybe this isn't true and it will eventually expire after a number of in-game days without becoming infected. If not, I think this needs to change. I think eventually the chance to become infected should degrade over time as long as you aren't continuing to eat meat.

[EN16M471C]

One thing is for sure - 'shrooms are back on the list. Before I didn't even bother to collect them now I'm risking wolf attack to get some.

I have 10 more treatmants to go and have 4 pills and 4 reishi tea cups. Time to refresh my memory on mushroom spawn locations.

Originally posted by Will //:

I need just a little bit more information - what happens when this is left untreated, exactly?

Originally posted by Hinterland_Studio:

* While you are treating Parasites, you will gradually weaken. This weakening lowers your max Condition and max Fatigue each day of the affliction. You may want to plan for this in the early stages of the affliction.

[Topplenaut]

So when (if ever) does the risk go away? In other words, let's say I eat 2 pieces of bear meat at the same time- well, not literally at the same time, that would be quite a talent, but in the same meal. I get a 4% chance of getting the parasites. When does the 4% go away? Does it just stay there, so until I contract the disease I just have a higher risk every time I eat a piece of meat, no matter how long it's been since the last?

[EN16M471C]

Originally posted by plastictophat:

Does it just stay there, so until I contract the disease I just have a higher risk every time I eat a piece of meat, no matter how long it's been since the last?

Exactly. Risk won't go away until you contact disease and go thru treatment.

Originally posted by Hinterland_Studio:

The risk is zeroed out once you contract the parasites. Treat them and the risk goes away.

[Bomoo]

Thanks for the clarification!

On the off chance you hadn't seen it among the profusion of comments on the subject, please allow me to here paste an idea for tweaking the intenstinal parasites mechanic to be more thematic. Of course this is just spitballing and tuning might be desirable to bring it up to where you'd like the punishment vs. reward to be.

Cooking a bear/wolf steak for the usual 20m will produce a "Wolf/Bear Steak (Rare)." This replaces the current "Wolf/Bear Steak (cooked)" item and would be identical but for being further cookable. Running it through the cooking process again will produce a new item called, let's say, "Wolf/Bear Steak (Well Cooked) that carries no risk of intestinal parasites. So the trade-off becomes do you risk the parasites with partly cooked carnivore meat, or do you double down on your time/resource investment and kill those pesky critters.

[Whisper]

Really cool, thanks! I thought about 10x poisoned wolf meat(easest source of meat, of couse), but your idea are more complex and intrested.