# Virology 2.0
I’ve separated the different phases of implementation, since removal of advanced diseases is blocked, but the virologist is no longer a job and so doesn’t have to be a full job anymore for the intermittent phases.
# Phase 1. Extreme nerfs
**Advanced disease is removed.**
Advanced diseases is already “kill everyone with no resistance” or get cured and pester some guy that doesn’t know what a vaccine is.
**Symptoms are capped at 3.**
Symptom stacking is what lets people make speed machine murder viruses. You either go killer virus, or reduce its lethality and add a coughing or sneezing symptom.
**Sneezing and coughing take up two symptom spaces.**
With the above changes, this makes it so you can’t have lethal spreaders that easily anymore.
**Neutering is removed completely.**
Incredibly broken, and let you take all the upsides with none of the downsides. Not that it matters much anymore with the above changes.
**Miasma and blood disease generation are removed**
This extreme disease clutter completely numbs people to diseases untill its too late
# Phase 2. Visible transmission
**Sneezing and coughing are telegraphed**
With like a little icon, probably the do_after thing but with a unique sprite

**Sneezing and coughing shoot projectiles**
Instead of being an invisible dice-roll in an unknown range, they generate projectile to where your mouse is (limited to about 180o of where you’re facing). Sneeze shoots a long range projectile, while sneezing shoots a short-range cone, similar to fire extinguishers. Getting infected is now effectively a quick-time event, and you can sneeze away from people, or be an asshole and sneeze in someone’s face.
**Touch transmission can be averted by showering**
Instead of immediate infection, you get a status effect giving you 30-60s to shower or wash your hands before infection starts rolling. That or I’ll remove it outright.
**Blood transmission requires wounds or bleeding**
Blood only transmits if you ingest/inject it, or you get it on your clothes and get some form of bleeding or high brute damage to have it infect you.
# Phase 3. Cure removal
**Humans get an immunity counter, which is visible on health scan**
(we already have this, but it’s hidden from the player).
**Cures are gone**
Good nutrition and overall health will speed up immunity gain. Vaccines still work.
**Antivirals are added, and accelerate immunity gain**
**On being cured, chance of infection is temporarily reduced**
You are permanently immune to the specific virus. You also gain a resistance (not immunity) to gaining any infection for a few minutes, depending on how similar the new virus is to the old.
**Positive viruses don’t passively accumulate immunity**
Already the case with the current immunity system, but uhhhh just wanted to point it out.
# Phase 4. Adding symptoms is reworked
**Adding virus foods/mutagens to a culture don’t add symptoms anymore**
**Injecting virus foods into humanoids with viruses generates the symptoms**
Viruses within the same virus food pool will switch between each other, so you just monitor and wait for the right one. Synaptizine instantly wipes all virus foods from the bloodstream. I may add some mechanism to allow multiple viruses from the same pool to generate, maybe you stabilize the symptoms first or something to get more.
**Starter viruses start with a kill-switch**
Virologist gets a hand-held EM-radiation emitter that wipes the virus instantly from a host. Can be removed with the pandemic.
# Phase 5. New pathogens
The following is just insane rambling, but more or less generally reflects what I’d imagine.

1. Bacteria
Available roundstart, like viruses
Very low airborne transmission, and don’t mutate in people. Instead, they’re grown in cultures which you expose to reagents/hazards to immunize and thus cultivate symptoms. Symptoms would be added with mutagens until you get the right one, much like old viruses.
Variants: Expose a bacteria culture to colder environments, then infect someone with them to give that person cold adaptation, or to make the bacteria freeze them to death. Test and find out!
Different symptom pools, though some may overlap. Positive symptoms remain with viruses, except radioactive resonance and plasma fixation, which would be obtained as bacteria variants.
Where possible, symptoms would be themed with the bacteria species. So now you sneeze icicles.
Antibiotics speed up immunity gain

2. Fungals
Ordered from cargo or gotten from botany
Uses the cultures system, but like with dirt pots or something.
Upon infection, grows mushrooms out of the person. Very cool and visual!
Variants are randomized every shift, and it’s random which one you get. Variant determines the visuals of the growth on the player, and changes the weighting of the symptoms you can obtain, and changes the effects of the symptoms. Also they can get shadow adaptation as a possible symptom because mushrooms like the dark and something
No typical symptoms, like sneeze and cough. Fungals spread by inducing vomiting, creating fungal patches on the station. They could be removed like space vines, and don’t grow very large, but would serve as the vector for disease spread.
No passive immunity gain, but can be removed through surgery or by taking antifungals.
Some variants can be found in space ruins, maint, random events (cordyceps variant????)
3. Plant
Obtainable by events and ruins
Plants aren’t really pathogens but whatever it’s cool
Players grow flowers and spikes out of their body.
Symptoms can only be randomized with mutagen.
Symptoms would include a mini plant spreader, or vomiting a vegetable that infects those who eat it or something. Also gets starlight resp and maybe even a little pod healing cause why not
Weed killer and surgery can remove it.

6. Secondary pathogens
A lot less symptoms, meant for events or exposures. Symptoms are static and generated once.
4. Blood worms
Ooh spooky!
5. Mini-spiders
Ooh even spookier! Cough spiders or ev- OH GOD WHY DID YOU REMOVE YOUR HELMET NO NO NO TY DON’T WATCH
6. Slime ooze
Gained from getting slime sucked and not getting it removed for a while.
7. Prions
I think prions are lame and even deader than viruses, just putting it here because I felt like people would expect it.