when does medicine become relevant?

[snuggleform]

I just let the allergies/slimelung resolve themselves since they don't seem to be lethal...when does medicine become "necessary" or highly useful at least?

[GeminiEclipse]

I don't think it does.

[Bokonon]

I've had dupes use the triage cot, it help them heal faster if they get scalded. I've seen allergies kill a dupe. It may have been due to bad base design but it happened. The dupe would grab food from storage which was at the bottom of the base (to be in CO2 for the sterile environment), sneeze on the way to eat, drop the food due to the sneeze, grab more food, climb, sneeze, drop, etc until the dupe died, not from disease, from starvation. But in general, medical related research and buildings are the last ones I look to research/build as they really never seem "necessary".

[snuggleform]

Aite thanks guys just checking. I didn't know if there was some crazy advanced disease that's actually lethal. Scalding is preventable once you use exosuits/careful planning.

[Bokonon]

Sometimes (some maps or maybe it's RNG) you have to do things in hot environments before you get atmo suits. Yes, generally it's avoidable but not always.

At times pre-release slimelung was almost 100% fatal. They nerfed it to the way it is now towards the end of EA. With bad design or playing AFK too long it's still possible to die from it.

When they first introduced Zombie Spores I played around on a debug map, not fatal but damn close if not worse than fatal. There was something like a 20 point drop in stats, dupes were like watching slow motion. To try and get anything done with dupes sick from zombie spores would take forever to even dig one tile or build one.

[snuggleform]

where do you get zombie spores o.O

[Bokonon]

https://oni-db.com/details/zombiespores

[Just a dog]

You get zombie spores from the oil biome, look out for sporechids.

Medicine is useful when you don't really have to put in much effort to make it imo. It's not really mandatory, but it is useful. Having a bunch of dupes with reduced stats that drop their food all the time does kinda slow you down, even if it's usually manageable.

P.S. It can become more important if your food/water supply becomes infected and it spreads to your entire colony. :D Though I prefer to focus on avoiding that situation than to fight if after it happen... still accidents can occur.

[Raz]

Medicine is useful to keep them on thier feet for as long as you can, though the coal cost for vitamin tablets (or whatever tablet that is) doesn't seem very efficient
Feels nice to see all your dupes literally swimming around in polluted water and come out completley fine

I usually play on relaxed mode though, so thankfully I don't see much in the way of disease unless its really super rampant.