Posts: 238
Threads: 56
Joined: Apr 2019
BYOND Username: Podrick Equus
Character Name: Sergio Burkett, B.U.C.K.E.T.
Title, just tested it on myself. The pathogen itself had 0 Mutativeness, 40 Advance speed, with a few other symptoms that did work properly, so I know that the pathogen was not inert. I also tested it on and off for a full 20 minutes after I infected myself with it.
What the symptom is supposed to do is convert OXY damage into BRUTE damage, therefore letting you "breathe" in a vacuum.
What actually happens is nothing, you take OXY damage as normal in a vacuum.
I suspect that the other Tier 5 beneficial symptom, Oxygen Production, also doesn't work.
Posts: 464
Threads: 11
Joined: Feb 2019
BYOND Username: zjdtmkhzt
Character Name: Trigger Len
Hello, just adding my own experiences. I've also made pathogens with both of those Symptoms, and they never seemed to work for me either.
I never got the message about "my body deteriorating" with conversion and I certainly still needed to breathe. Not sure if maybe they healed a small amount of OXY damage but not enough to outpace the suffocation, it's kind of hard to measure.
Posts: 464
Threads: 11
Joined: Feb 2019
BYOND Username: zjdtmkhzt
Character Name: Trigger Len
Ok, so, update on this.
Contrary to what the wiki says, Oxygen Production and Oxygen Conversion do not grant you the ability to not need to breathe, they just make it so you slowly heal OXY damage (and also remove your losebreath when they do so).
But pathogens don't trigger nearly often enough to make you not need to breathe through this. This makes the symptoms pretty much useless outside of remaining in crit for really long periods of time.
Whether or not this should be changed is debatable, as it is pretty underwhelming for a t5 symptom. But that is probably not a discussion for the bug reports subforum.