How to balance the rise in popularity of pathology

[Flaborized]

Cures:
Cures are actually super simple and require very few chemicals to be tested. This information is not only located deep in the files of the latest Goon release but now also on the wiki.

There is also already an 'instant cure' option. Talk to your local QM and be ready to send a sample.

As someone who has no idea how to create a pathogen nor a desire to learn, but does know both how to use the synth-o-matic and the CDC to make cures, I'll have to disagree that the methods to cure pathogens currently present are adequate. 

If you're using the synth-o-matic, it can be simple but it can also be a massive pain. Depending on the suppression threshold and the suppressant you could need large amounts of really hard-to-get-in-large-amounts chems, such as ketamine, porktonium, space-soybean oil, partially hydrogenated space-soybean oil, and my personal favorite, polonium. If the pathogen is a fungus or if the pathologist in question knows that you can remove the synth modules just by using a screwdriver, you're gonna have to head down to DOC to buy the module you need, and those aren't super cheap so you have to either have a lot of credits already or be able to amass enough to get what you need before the pathogen kills you/the shuttle inevitably gets called. Also, while this process is not particularly complex there is no simple way to find an answer for how to do it, instead relying on the player to also either know how to cure already or read through the long and boring wiki page on what to do. A book detailing exactly how a pathogen is cured written in layman's terms placed in pathology would go a long way, but even then sometimes you'll need huge amounts of polonium to make a significant number of cures.

The CDC isn't "instant cure". If the pathogen is actually really dangerous then the cures can cost three times the starting QM budget. It's not a very fast method, in my experience it can take upwards of fifteen minutes to actually get a cure sent back, and if you add on the time it takes to make the actually annoyingly large amount of credits it takes to make a cure and then potentially the time it takes to get someone who has access to QM and knows how to use the computer to actually help you you can see why it's rarely used. Everyone dies or the shuttle arrives before a cure gets a chance to be sent.

[Technature]

There is also already an 'instant cure' option. Talk to your local QM and be ready to send a sample.

I actually tried this before.  Sent a sample, sent the entire budget to get three cures, and never received them.

I figured I was doing something wrong.

[gandalfphysicist]

Hi there! Old Path nerd here. This comes and goes in waves and I know I've posted on this before but here we go.

Cures:
Cures are actually super simple and require very few chemicals to be tested. This information is not only located deep in the files of the latest Goon release but now also on the wiki.

There is also already an 'instant cure' option. Talk to your local QM and be ready to send a sample.

Transmission:
Late game it can be really hard to transmit diseases due, most often, to people gearing up amd turning on internals to deal with the gaping holes in the station. As a good murder disease takes time (and luck! more on that later) to make this often stalls a traitor pathologist's disease in its tracks - it has for me. If you see someone sick, cover up!

That being said there was an old bug which got fixed then reverted back to bugged again which meant that glass walls did nothing to stop the spread of pathogens. I don't know if the bug remains but I suspect it does and that could be another large part.

The last part is that there are chucklefucks out there - usually the captain for some reason - that just like spreading diseases. They should be dealt with.

Additional Considerations:
With the current system a good murder disease is entirely luck based. I've gotten two T5 symptoms as a traitor before just to have them both be beneficial 40 minutes into the round. The RNG is infuriating and when you get something special you want to suicide by it often (typically with monkies or friends alongside you). The glass bug or idiots wandering in can causw this to get out and... well... yeah.

Similarly it is really hard to make a good pathogen because you are stabbing blindly at it. I've managed it a couple times before but it is rare and the symptoms are rarely ever noticed apart from sunglasses. The effects being noisier and more powerful would help, as would the ability to steer towards good or bad symptoms.

The metagrudging is, sadly, a real thing. The RNG and the fact that certain people will act up if I was in or around Path made me give that life up for Mechanics (along with learning most there was to learn). The admins have had to step in on occasion.

Path has gotten several nerfs to date. These include symptom stacking, the CDC cures, and the slowing of the Pathogen Manipulator. The only real buffs it got were the ability to synthesize a new sample for budget cash and removing a 2.5% chance each splice or manipulation that the pathogen would simply poof and disappear - even if you did things 100% correctly.

The Immediate Future:
I would like to see more good symptoms in the futures. Ones that are stronger, ones that are different. I'd also like them to be more notable.

I would also like to see the ability to steer a pathogen towards good or bad symptoms while doing analysis. Got a promising start on a symptom line? Looks like its 40% good, 40% neutral, and 20% bad stuff. It'll help everyone reach their goals faster and without too many tears. It also means you can crack down easier on people making and releasing bad shit because they should know better.

I do not beleive the latest Pathology fad will last long. I suggest giving it a bit of time to run its course and talk to those that are going past the threshhold of being little shits with it. Hitting it again with the nerf hammer will only make a niche and most often unrewarding system worse to use.

The Far Future:
I want to see another Pathology rewrite. I have ideas for this that include station funds, different z-levels, and more. I want people to travel and find symptoms in computer databanks and in dead bodies and rank up those symptoms selectively. I want a cap on how many symptoms and of what severity are included - and a way to expand that cap with hard work, dedication, and/or being a traitor.

Conclusion:
Pathology as but is isn't in the best shape right bow but it is not in need of the nerf hammer. It needs tools to help make it a productive part of the station through guided symptom finding and/or a rewrite. Don't judge it too harshly too quickly.

This is true. More powerful beneficial symptoms would be amazing and migrate pathology from a BM tool to a powerful catchall and even integral part of the station's wellbeing.

[Sov]

Cure development is really simple. Especially compared to how much of a pain it can be to make a good pathogen if RNG is not on your side. Curing pathogens is often times made even easier by nature of no one putting points into suppression threshold causing it to default to the minimum of 5 units

Even simpler is just making a can bomb and ending the round that way

[Erev]

Depending on the suppression threshold and the suppressant you could need large amounts of really hard-to-get-in-large-amounts chems, such as ketamine, porktonium, space-soybean oil, partially hydrogenated space-soybean oil, and my personal favorite, polonium.

While I do not agree with most of what you posted, this is a super valid point and gives me another short term idea - replace those hard to get chemical requirements with easier ones. BUT! Allow traitors to use telecrystals to spawn in a random vial that combines one of the old, more difficult chemical suppressants and maybe some tier 3 or a single tier 4 'evil' symptom.