Pathology Rework Feature Specification

[SirSavary]

Hello everyone! Over the past month or so I've seen many people talk about pathology needing an overhaul. Seeing as I'd like to start coding for Goon, I decided that this would be a great project for me to take on. After about a week of drafting, I present the specifications for my pathology rework: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bvj5...sp=sharing (use the navigation on the left to quickly skip through it).

Please use this thread to let me know how you feel about pathology, the rework spec, and anything else related to it.

Some important stuff:
- Nothing in the doc is final and everything is subject to change, this isn't a "here's what's going to be added" but is instead a list of changes and ideas I've come up with
- If you find any sort of grammatical or spelling error, or something is hard to read and needs clarification, comment on the doc, not here
- This is something that I would both like to code and am willing to code, so don't worry about finding someone to do all this work

[Noah Buttes]

A late joiner should be an asymptomatic carrier so as to not randomly punish late joiners.

[SirSavary]

A late joiner should be an asymptomatic carrier so as to not randomly punish late joiners.

That's the term I was looking for but couldn't remember   Basically Typhoid Mary

[Noah Buttes]

Also, I really hope you realize just how much work a project of this scale will involve.

Considering how many systems you're interweaving (mobs, critters, atmos, chemistry, forensics for contact transmission, and genetics), you're looking at something nearly on the scale of rewriting atmos from scratch.

I guarantee you'll be driven half-mad by the time you're through.

[SirSavary]

Also, I really hope you realize just how much work a project of this scale will involve.

Considering how many systems you're interweaving (mobs, critters, atmos, chemistry, forensics for contact transmission, and genetics), you're looking at something nearly on the scale of rewriting atmos from scratch.

I guarantee you'll be driven half-mad by the time you're through.

I don't doubt it. Ideally I'll break it down into chunks and release them in little units.

[misto]

i tried leaving this feedback on the google doc but im not sure if it stays in there or is visible, im not familiar with how google docs works. anyway, you seem to have overlooked vaccines and the possibilities they present, which is unfortunate as vaccination is a critical building block of disease research. as long as you make it demand a vaccine specific enough, you should not worry about do-gooder pathologists pre-emptively stopping any pathology mischief

[Erev]

Hey there! I'm probably one of the the players that gets the most use out of the current pathology system and have instructed a fair number of other players in its use. It usually takes between one and a half to two rounds to learn the system with tutelage. There are serious problems with the current system and it would make me quite happy to see it get some love. That being said I can only support about half of what I saw in your outline. I'll go through the document on a point by point basis and add my reasoning to each and then append additional thoughts to the bottom.

-I totally agree that Pathologist should be a role. As with a Geneticist or a Roboticist it is a very different thing to be modifying pathogens vs running around doctoring. I do think that these specialized roles need some downsides of their own however to prevent them from just being Super Doctors. My personal suggestion would be to make it harder for them to access stored medicines.

-I disagree with the idea of turning Pathology into a static Genetics-style system. First off Pathology is far more deadly in a direct sense than Genetics and it would be far too easy to splice up the perfect kill-virus. In addition it would suffer from the issue that Genetics has of all the combinations being figured out and mapped so that it would be easy for anyone and everyone to start using it. I was getting rage messages when I was releasing one pathogen a day. Imagine what it would be like if it suddenly making a killbug was as simple as following a list of directions?

-Species codes are a GREAT idea but I dislike the idea of static species codes. I would love to be able to target diseases in this manner and I think it offers up a lot of potential to the game. The static creature codes are an issue for the same reason as the static symptoms - though to a much lesser extent. Also even if the codes were hashed the required item list for getting the perma-code would be released in short order.

-I would love to see transmission vectors get an update. Currently they sort of vaguely mimic what you've got and it is all done based upon what transmission symptom you have and what body exposure the person exposed to the disease has. That being said I very much dislike the idea that transmission is tied to pathogen type. I do think that having pathogens show more variance in how they act would be nice though.

-The only thing that I have against cyborg brain infections is that the head casing has to be sealed for them to work in space so it would be extremely hard to infect them short of damaging or opening the head. Still, in exchange for making a paranoid cyborg (or AI!!!) this is a minor thing and I'd err on the side of Fun™.

-I thought that Pathology supply crates were already in game. If they aren't they should be. You can also purchase vials currently from DOC.

-I'm ambivalent about the immune system stat. Tying it into genetics, traits, and people eating food (and thus putting themselves in the Chef's hands) makes me think it'd make a nice addition. I do beleive that there are some medicine interactions already (painkillers helping to suppress fever symptoms, ect) but more would be welcome. This might work nicely as a sixth stat.

-I quite like the antag-resist ideas! All of them. Full stop.

-I love the money-making ideas and most of the random event ideas (I'm not totally sold on fungal mutation).

Additional Thoughts:

I find that there are three large frustrations in Pathology.

The first one relates to the fiddly nature of culturing additional pathogen samples to analyze/slice. It is click intensive and fiddly and slow. The slowness is part of the balance but I do think that the first two bits could be fixed by the addition of a pathogen incubator or two that slowly grows a supply of your favored pathogen for you to use. If you want to make multiple different cultures... well, back to the old methods for you.

The second major issue is the lack of good things to come from Pathology. Your money and event ideas are a big step in the right direction there. That being said there should also be many more symptoms - especially beneficial or funny ones. The big problem here is to avoid stepping on Genetic's toes.

The third major issue is that the pathogens themselves often behave erratically. Sometimes certain symptoms won't show (not talking asymptomatic - just randomly not firing) or a disease will refuse to advance stages despite a high advance speed and this can be quite vexing. I've also done a few tests making what should have been a highly mutative pathogen and then, at the end of the round, seeing no changes. If the symptoms exist and the stats allow for it it should be doing stuff.

In summary I think that a great number of your ideas would best be used to help to make our current Pathology system better rather than reinventing Genetics in a form that would cause frequent rounds of massive deaths and player outrage.

Edit: If you ever want to ping Pathology ideas off someone I'm always happy to listen and offer input. Just look for Erev/Cassandra Desmere.

Edit Edit: Added third reason for frustration.

[Noah Buttes]

Listen to Erev.

She may not know as much directly code wise, but she's the most experienced pathologist spacemen around.