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# System prepended metadata

title: Virology/Infections rework

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# Virology/Infections rework
## The problem
Virology, as of right now, is a very broken and quite unfun system because it lacks depth and mechanical counterplay except for scanning and making cures.

## The solution
This rework of virology strives to allow the virologist to go outside of their lab more often and experiment with different combinations of symptoms. This rework also strives to incite organs more into infections and let the crew fight infections by maintaining their immune systems, washing hands, wearing masks, and such. This will reward crews who maintain the most basic of hygiene and allow for fighting infections through more unconventional means, such as amputation. Infections will also be receiving carriers to add to the options that virologists now have at hand. All of this will breathe a breath of fresh air into a quite stale game loop because it adds the following:
1. Provide more counterplay against infections.
2. Give virologists a bigger incentive to explore and experiment with symptoms.
3. Add more depth to the virology system.
4. Make randomly spawning infections each a different challenge.

What I don't want to happen
1. Discentivize experimentation as the virologist. There should not be a clear "meta" that people stick to, and both new and old virologist players should be able to experiment. To do this, some symptoms will be better than others in certain areas; for example, a symptom that does well in most fields might be really bad at fighting toxin damage when compared to another symptom.
2. Make virology too confusing for non-virologist players. There should never be a system that has the potential to kill the crew and is confusing, and this rework will make sure to keep it that way. This will be done by allowing simple medical scanners to now see the infected area, the name of the illness, as well as symptoms of the illness based on stealth and the carrier itself. As well, when a level 7 biohazard alert pops up, it will give tips on how to avoid infection.
3. Don't make virology confusing for virologists. There should never really be a situation where a virologist cannot understand their job because of too many hidden mechanics. This will be avoided by clearly showing the mechanics of the pandemic machine and making sure the mechanic is explained when hovered over.

## Features
Main features of the new infection system:

- Mutations. When an infection spreads to a new host, it has a chance to mutate, replacing a symptom with another random one generated from the same symptom tier or up to two symptom tiers above it. Mutations will be calculated depending on certain symptoms and resistance to transmission. This is in order to achieve goal #3 as well as give the virologist more things to experiment with as certain symptoms are unlocked only through mutation. *Note that when an infection mutates, its cure may change, but mutated infections will still be susceptible to any vaccines made for previous iterations of the infection.
- Carriers. Carriers alter the infection dramatically by introducing certain inherent traits. For example, Bacteria can carry more symptoms but are cured easier and are less stealthy, whereas viruses can carry fewer symptoms but have great starting stats. This is in order to achieve goal #3 while avoiding what I don't want to happen in goals #2 and #3 by making it clearly viable in the medium.
- Organs and vectors; Infections can enter through the nose, mouth, eyes, or other sources such as scratches. Infections will now, instead of infecting all of the body at once, move through the body, infecting individual organs; however, they will be most effective at infecting certain organs depending on the apparent focus of the infection. Example: "ARDS" targets the lungs and will mostly only attack the lungs, while "Yeast Synthesis" targets the liver. In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker will be the highest symptom level. This is necessary in order to achieve goal #3 and will avoid non-goals #2 and #3 by clearly communicating this in both the guide to infections as well as in the pandemic.
- Combo Thresholds; When certain symptoms are used in combination, it may drastically alter one or both symptoms. Example: "Yeast synthesis" and "Metabolic boost" give the combo threshold "Metabolical" to "Yeast synthesis," causing it to now produce ethanol from food at a much faster rate. Combo thresholds will be explained, but not all the combinations will be given in order to encourage virologists to explore new ideas. This will fulfill Goal #2 while avoiding Non-Goal #1 by mandating exploration of these different thresholds.

### New additions to the virology job:
The Centcom Research Antibody Bluespace Device (CRABD) In order to prevent virologists from being forced to just use chemicals to roll for new symptoms, the CRABD will give quests to create infections using a specific symptom or vector and then reach a certain stat threshold. You then place the resulting infection in the CRABD, and it is beamed off (Assuming it reaches the mandated levels), allowing you to pick a symptom from a certain symptom level and having it shipped to you in a supply pod.
- Swabbing. Certain areas of the station are filthy, and swabbing, say, a toilet seat with a virological swab will give an infection that may have a unique carrier or symptom.
The symptoms and carriers from swabbing can also be bought in a cargo crate.
- Synaptzine. Will instead prevent an infection from mutating when added to it.
removal option on symptoms when placed in the pandemic. Synaptzine is now used to prevent muatation. Next to a symptom, an UI option of a trashcan will be present, and when pressed, it will ask "Delete?" If the virologist presses Y, the symptom is removed.

### Crew fighting infections:
Management of an immune system through simple mechanics In order to avoid non-goal #2 and fulfill goal #1, a simple immune system mechanic will be added. The immune system has a chance to cure an infection based on the infection's resistance and stealth, so a virus that ranks too low in these areas may not be able to spread efficiently. Eating, resting, and occasionally showering or washing hands will increase the immune system's resilience, while being dirty, being near corpses, and being hungry decrease it. Resilience is simply the chance to eliminate an infection upon discovering it.
- Masks. They will be more easily available to the medbay and crew by being placed in the medbay lobby. Wearing a mask decreases the chances of infecting other players and removes the spread of coughing and sneezing whilst wearing it.
- Washing of hands. Washing your hands will remove any infection you may have on your hands from punching that coughing clown or touching that gross toilet seat. If your hands are not washed, you will be infected with the virus on your hands upon eating anything.
- Full Medival. If anyone gets scratched or infected through different vectors, hope is not yet lost. You can amputate limbs or remove organs in order to prevent the infection from spreading from said limb or organ.
- As mentioned before, small background management of Mood and hygine will boost your immune system rewarding players for that gameplay loop.
- Add additional chemicals which also boost your immune system and can be rapidly deployed upon the level 7 biohazard warning


## Carrier design
Carriers should fulfill these requirements:
The carrier should have clear flaws and strengths. Example: Viruses have less symptom space but higher starting stats.
The carrier should not be the exact same as another carrier, but better or worse. Example: A virus mk2 carrier has a high symptom space and higher starting stats than a virus mk1.
Carriers should strive to be different and change what symptoms you may consider placing inside of them.
## Symptom design
Symptoms should fulfill these requirements:
The symptom should not be just a stat change but should have some mechanical impact, however small.
The syndrome should not just have some way of automatically killing without warning. Example: organ damage that gives no clear indicator that the host is suffering from it.
The symptom must not heal or cause damage without some slight variation and must have some other mechanic tied to it. Example: Autophagocytosis Necrosis is okay due to the fact that it causes bleeding and hunger as well as damage. Example 2: Starlight Condensation requires the healing to be started by some outside factor, in this example, starlight.
## Why this solves the problem
So I have aligned the features, but how does this actually fix virology and the infection system? Well, for the exploration aspect and fun of being a virologist, combo symptoms as well as carriers offer a clear incentive for being explorative and allow for the use of the monkeys to test your new ideas, which is fun in and of itself in seeing what your virus does when practically applied. The CRABD allows for an option of escape when you are trapped in not getting a single symptom that you may have wanted, and it also incentivizes mixing and matching to attempt to reach the thresholds mandated. Virologists will also get an incentive to explore around the station to find rarer samples of uncommon symptoms, offering a bit more of an endgame to virologists, which increases the fun due to actually having a virology-related job to do once you are finished with your healing virus.

For the crew, the new infection and immunity system is relatively easy to manage and simply rewards keeping your body in shape, which is more fun since you now have a way to prevent infection more readily available to you. As well as the fact that the new organ system allows for amputation and/or removal of infected organs or limbs to offer a more extreme alternative to not dying of a virus, it's also fun because, come on, who does not like a good ol' field amputation? The crew having masks more readily available also means that the more careful crewmembers can dodge infection and that the less fortunate can prevent its further spread. This makes the infection system have more counterplay, which is more fun for the crew since you will not die as often from an invisable killer.

For the medical bay as a whole, knowing what virus is good and what virus may be bad is a quite helpful addition. Being able to look at the symptoms with a simple scanner unless the stealth is high allows for virologists to experiment with symptoms like cough and prevents the medical bay from having a panicked and unfun time dealing with making cures for a virus that turns out to have been quite good.
## Alternatives
1. Removing the immune system in case it fulfills non-goal #2 while also making infections considerably weaker.
1. Removing the CCBRC in favor of a more specific, targeted chemical system in case it fulfills non-goal #3
2. Replace symptoms with a more process-based system; this opinion has been voiced by some people and should be included on this list.
3. Potentially a full removal of virology as a whole. I do not believe this option is good for the future, but it is certainly an alternative that some favor.
4. As suggested by Jacqurel, remove advanced virus creation and make the virology job about finding and creating cures to infections.
## Potential Changes
If it is found that virology remains a boring job after these changes, a system for simulating plagues could be added in order to give virologists something more fun to do by attempting to beat their high score in depopulating a syndicate station.

If it is found that a meta around infections still arises quickly regardless of nerfs or buffs, then it may be necessary to add more symptoms into the mix in order to force experimentation, though combo thresholds will most likely make this a non-issue. If a meta arrives and refuses to budge, I can add that the number of carriers and which carriers will change from round to round, forcing experimentation.

Lastly, a large potential change would be to change the way that simple mobs and basic mobs interact with infections from not affecting them at all to making it a viable way to spread the virus.

Make a distinction between antibodies and vaccines, when someone is cured now antibodies are produced which can be used to stop a specific variant of an illness whilst vaccines have to be researched through a minigame using antibodies and cure/vaccinate against the entire family of an illness (including mutated variants)