Virology rework (need feedback)

[farie82]

Hey all.

Virology at it's current state is not that interesting or complex anymore. The viruses created will do minor things at best and it can done in the time a new engineer takes to set up the engine. The interaction between the crew and the virologist is also minimal. As in the virologist will break into chemistry to get sugar and mutagen and then he'll PDA or scream at the crew that the virus is done.

I've put a few ideas down below and I need some feedback on them. They come in sort of a package and will rely on one another in some way or form.

Revision version

0.5: 19-5-2019 (idea 12 changed and idea 1 added to PR 1, PR 1 made on github)

0.4: 3-4-2019 (idea 12 changed and idea 1 added to PR 1, PR 1 made on github)

0.3: 26-3-2019

0.2: 24-3-2019

0.1: 23-3-2019

Short summary

The ideas discussed here are there to make virology more interesting and complex. They will also buff virology due to the useless effect it has currently on the station.

A humanoid can only have one virus max in his body. This virus can have more symptoms than currently possible (6), it is still limited by a stat called stability. The virus will be harder to cure and harder to make. The virologist will have to do actual tests to see what symptom is created and will need to have a test subject to create more virus samples. The working and creation of the virus is made less random in nature by removing annoying randomness elements. The symptoms in the virus will be more reliant on the stats of the virus and symptoms can be suppressed so they can be used for their stat boost.

For the virologist this means that his job is a lot more complicated and interesting if he wants it to be. Simple viruses can still be made for the new virologists. The virologist will also have to find a test subject or be extremely well prepared to make more complex viruses.

For the crew this means that virology can provide a boon to the station once more but that they have to be wary of just taking a pill due to the more dangerous and mysterious nature of virology.

Current problems

• Virology lacks a lot of depth currently (after nerf).
• Adding side effects has little to no mechanical effect except for drasks etc.
• The beneficial viruses don’t need stats other than a bit of speed for the toxic filtering.
• Lethal viruses are usually not allowed normally due to the hijack rules.
• Virology is overal based on randomness. The creation and the symptoms themselves
• Virology is very secluded from the rest of the station. Once you have some extra mutagen and sugar you’re good to go for 8 minutes and then you’re done. (currently)

Ideas Globally

1. Advanced viruses will kill other advanced viruses in your body. In practice this will lead to only one active advanced virus. Which one survives depends on the resistance stat of the existing one and the speed stat of the new one.
2. Advanced viruses can have more symptoms contained in them. The amount of symptoms will be limited by a stat called stability. If the stability is below 0 upon creation it’ll start mutating once it infected somebody. Symptoms will generally lower this stat but some will increase it. Maybe include stable mutagen to increase the cap once adding a new symptom.
3. Give symptoms more reliance on stats. Give them milestones when they activate extra symptoms. TG style.
4. Add the ability to suppress a symptom but it’ll still influence the stats of the virus.
5. Add more chemicals and link less symptoms to each symptom level. This reduces the randomness.
6. Add the ability to make the pandemic remember singleton viruses. And have it add them to a virus at a cost, 5 times the specialised chemical needed. The PANDEMIC is limited in the amount it can add to a virus. This limit is 4 at round start and will increase 1 per science upgrade.
7. Once you add a chemical to a virus it does not tell you which symptom is in there. The pandemic will give a set of possible symptoms (real one and 1 or 2 random symptoms). You have to put it in a monkey and have it get to a stage before the pandemic will show it. Adds a bit of uncertainty and more interaction with the world. (Also make those monkeys suffer). Removing symptoms does show on the pandemic.
8. Reduce the amount of RNG in symptom activation. Make them act on a set timer instead. Maybe randomise the timer a bit. But this will ensure that it atleast procs once. The timer speed are dependent on the speed stat. This will make the speed stat more important thus making the choices in the creation more important.
9. Viruses can’t be duplicated by the pandemic without them being evolved first. The virus sample needs to be put into a monkey first and evolve to stage 3. After that the monkeys blood can be used to create new virus samples using the pandemic. More advanced viruses, over 5 symptoms will require a humanoid (with a soul) test subject. So either the virologist can make a sacrifice for science and be the test subject or he can find a greytider who is willing to “cooperate”. Maybe add a bonus for the first infected, increased speeds stat or such. Will make being a volunteer more rewarding.
10. Analysers give information depending on the stage of the virus and the stats. Meaning the cure won’t be available instantly. The pandemic will give the information if the virus is fully evolved prior to infection. (Idea 7)
11. Make viruses harder to cure if they are well made. Viruses currently are piss easy to cure and to make a vaccine for. Have more cures in the list of cures. Make it depend on more stats. (Unlocked amount of chems needed?)
12. Make vaccines harder to make. Make the pandemic accept spaceacillin which it can store internally. This is used to create vaccines. Every 15u of vaccine (1 bottle) now requires 15u of spaceacillin. This will make it harder to pump out vaccines once the virus is cured.

Ideas detailed

1. One virus to rule them all

Advanced viruses will kill other advanced viruses in your body. In practice this will lead to only one active advanced virus. Which one survives depends on the resistance stat of the existing one and the speed stat of the new one.

This is more a balance than anything. It’ll prevent multiple viruses and will keep the code easier to balance. It will also make creating a counter virus to cure the other virus viable.

Anti bodies will ensure that a virus can't be countered by another virus.

2. Symptom limit

This is here to increase the time required to make a good virus. It’ll also make virology that much more interesting since you will have to balance out the symptoms which you want to use. Certain symptoms should increase the stability but do something bad in return (notifying the host something is wrong or other stuff).

If a virus is created that has negative stability it’ll mutate while in the process of growing to its final stage. Leaning towards more stable symptoms and removing unstable ones. If a virus is injected with to low of a stability (-3) it’ll just die in the host. This prevents really unstable viruses from occurring and this making balancing the stabilisation mutation process easier.

To achieve more symptoms you’ll have to include stable mutagen in the virus sample. Every 1u will increase the limit by 1. The mutation will remove the stable mutagen from the mix.

3. Stats

Using the ideas of TG: Every symptom will unlock a new effect once it hits a certain amount of a stat. For example. If it hits X stealth it’ll suppress the symptom notifiers to the host. Or when X speed is hit it’ll have a more aggressive effect.

4. Suppressing

Using a chemical you can suppress a random symptom it’s effects. Making a side effect a booster. The suppressed symptom will be less effective than the regular version but it won’t have effects. (Unless the virus becomes unstable. Then it can mutate out of the suppresses state.?)

The suppressing can be done using the PANDEMIC. This way it’s not/less random but costs more. And viruses will keep the suppressed symptoms while getting new symptoms.

5. More chemicals

Idea is simple. Add more chemicals that generate more levels of symptoms. Instead of 6 levels you’d have 10 or more. Each level containing about 3-4 symptoms max. This reduces RNG which everybody hates.

6. PANDEMIC recreate symptoms

Using this it actually feels like you’re designing a virus. Adding symptoms together using a machine. This will remove the current mixing of viruses. You can still make a virus with the chemicals but this is more RNG based. Adding a symptom using the machine will have a higher cost, 5 of the specialised chemicals required for that level at the start and upgrades will decrease the cost 0.5 per upgrade.

To include a symptom to the machine you have to isolate it and load it into the pandemic using a button press. This won’t destroy the sample.

At the round start the PANDEMIC can only add up to 4 symptoms to the virus. The pandemic will contain a manipulator which upgraded will Decrease the cost to add a symptom, a scanning module which will increase the ability to add more symptoms and a matter bin which will increase the amount of chemicals it can hold.

At the start the PANDEMIC will have 2 symptoms available to create a virus with. Sneeze and Cough. And the PANDEMIC will be able to generate 1st and 2nd level symptoms for free. Since virus food is freely available.

7. Symptom chance

The idea is that if you add a chemical to a virus it’ll still randomly create a symptom. But this symptom is not yet clear upon generation. It has to be put into a monkey first and it has to reach stage 3 before it becomes clear to the PANDEMIC. This will increase the experimental feeling of virology. It is important that the amount of symptoms per chemical is low enough since this process takes way longer than the current process.

The PANDEMIC will show a set of possible symptoms, the real one and one or two fake ones. Once the virus hits stage 3 it’ll discover the symptom.

The removal of symptoms still is known to the pandemic. The suppression (discussed in the Suppressing topic) of the symptom will also be known if the symptom is known.

8. Symptom RNG proc reduction

Have it activate after a random time instead of having it activate on a random chance. This time will be influenced by the speed stat of the virus. This will reduce some of the randomness of the virus procs. This will also make the speed stat more important when designing a virus. Meaning the virologist will have to make choices.

9. No virus creation before hatching

This will mostly nerf virology a bit but make it feel more like an actual job where you experiment with viruses. This also means that the more complex viruses won’t have their cure known till it’s fully evolved. Meaning the injected subject will be in danger unless the virologist is prepared to cure the victim.

It will also mean that viruses will need to be evolved before being able to make a new sample of said virus.

10. Less info on health analyzers

The health analyzers give info depending on the stage of the virus. A 1st level stage will only show that the virus is there (if the stealth stat is low enough). 2nd level will show the spread type of the virus. The 3th will show the name. The 4th will show the cure.

11. Harder to cure viruses

Make viruses harder to cure since now you can easily brute force your way through the list and cure all viruses. Stealthy ones means that they have the top 4 cures and non stealthy ones just have the cure wide open. The new system will use more stats to generate a cure.

A high enough resistance level will increase the amount of chemicals needed to cure the virus. Then it’ll use the combined stats to choose a second chemical that will be required. And it’ll reduce the “level” of the first symptom respectively. This means it won’t be “gold” and “salt” for instance. But more like “teporone” and “spaceacillin”.

12. Make vaccines harder to make

Make vaccines harder to make. Make the pandemic accept spaceacillin which it can store internally. This is used to create vaccines. Every 15u of vaccine (1 bottle) now requires 15u of spaceacillin. This will make it harder to pump out vaccines once the virus is cured.

The amount of spaceacillin is shown when you examine the machine at first (later might change to a menu thing).

13 Less info on the pandemic prior to hatching

Addition on 10. The pandemic will now also not show the traits unless the virus is hatched. In other words you can't cheese idea 7 by pre calculating the stats it'll get when you get a certain symptom.

Implementation strategy

The new ideas will use most of the currently existing mechanics of virology. Meaning they are mostly additions to the code. If I were to split this up into multiple PR’s I’d do it like this:

PR 1. Less RNG and more experimentation feel

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/11220

Implement idea 8 (Symptom RNG proc reduction), 9 (No virus creation before hatching), 10 (Less info on health analyzers), 1 (One virus to rule them all) and 12 (Make vaccines harder to make). I’m leaving 7 (Symptom chance) out of this due to the time it’ll take for a virus to be created with the large amount of symptoms currently heaped up in the levels. Looking at you level 4 symptoms.

8 will be implemented to make viruses feel more stable in working. Currently they are purely random and can heal you to full or not heal you at all. 9 will be implemented to make virology feel more interesting and 10 will be needed for this due to the fact that a cure can be used to find out what symptoms are in the virus. 1 is added to make counter viruses viable solutions to a virologist spreading a virus. And it will also make infecting one self to hatch a virus more viable if you have prepared a suitable virus.

12 is added to make virology more needing to go out into the world and get samples of cured crew members and to make viruses that much more dangerous.

PR 2. More spread out symptoms and even more experimentation

This will implement idea 5 (More chemicals), 7 (Symptom chance) and partially 6 (PANDEMIC recreate symptoms). 5 will be needed for 7 to work without causing too much frustration. And will make the virologist interact more with the crew due to the need for chemicals.

This PR will also implement 13 (Less info on the pandemic prior to hatching).

6 will be implemented partially. It won’t include the upgrades just yet.

PR 3. The antag virology update

This will implement idea 3 (Stats), 4 (Suppressing) and 11 (Harder to cure viruses). 3 will be implemented to make the existing symptoms more interesting. 4 will be coupled with this to achieve the needed stats. 11 will be added to compliment to the idea of 4.

The antag virology update? Yes since in this stage beneficial viruses still will have all 6 beneficial symptoms in them. Only real changes to viruses will be in the non beneficial ones.

PR 4. The end

Implement 2 (Symptom limit) and the remainder of 6 (PANDEMIC recreate symptoms). This PR will be there to finalise the virology rework. Making viruses truly interesting again.

In this update both beneficial and non beneficial viruses will be buffed due to the limit of symptoms changing.

Extra ideas

Chemical fuel for virus symptoms (suggested by BeanOS)

Certain symptoms have chemicals that activate an extra feature in the virus. This may range from more efficient working to another effect. These effects might also be negative so you can counter virus users by injecting chemicals.

Viruses generate "fuel" when reaching certain stats (suggested by TDS)

Expansion upon idea 3. Certain viruses will create fuel used by the idea above.

Edited May 19, 2019 by farie82
Added idea 13 and changed idea 7 a bit

[Eler00]

Quote

 More advanced viruses, over 5 symptoms will require a humanoid test subject. So either the virologist can make a sacrifice for science and be the test subject or he can find a greytider who is willing to “cooperate”. Maybe add a bonus for the first infected, increased speeds stat or such. Will make being a volunteer more rewarding.

Couldn't they just grab a humanized monkey instead?

[McRamon]

1 hour ago, TDS said:

Couldn't they just grab a humanized monkey instead?

Make it so soul inside is necessary

[farie82]

Aye the idea is that there is a soul attached to the body.

[Landerlow]

What I would like to see, is that  the normal cures for viruses (lvl 7 biohazards) disappear, and that a virologist HAS to manually make a cure. Make level 7 biohazards no longer globally announced, but get crew infected gradually, perhaps so that a patient zero can be located, or something. Just .. make a disease an actual inconvenience rather than just "oh here have some sugar kthxbai".

[farie82]

8 minutes ago, Landerlow said:

What I would like to see, is that  the normal cures for viruses (lvl 7 biohazards) disappear, and that a virologist HAS to manually make a cure. Make level 7 biohazards no longer globally announced, but get crew infected gradually, perhaps so that a patient zero can be located, or something. Just .. make a disease an actual inconvenience rather than just "oh here have some sugar kthxbai".

I'm for making the events more interesting. Although I'll keep these PR's to the scope of advanced viruses first.

[Eler00]

One idea for making those events more interesting could be to give the virus they can spawn unique symptoms that you can't just get with reagents, so that the virologist is encouraged to go out and secure some samples.

[farie82]

15 hours ago, TDS said:

One idea for making those events more interesting could be to give the virus they can spawn unique symptoms that you can't just get with reagents, so that the virologist is encouraged to go out and secure some samples.

Aye that is a cool way of doing it. I'll implement that once this virus rework is fully done (in this form or another). Since our current virology doesn't really go well with that.

[BeanOS]

I like a lot of this.

A couple things I would like to see:
Instead of having 3 cured blood samples to make a vaccine, vaccines should work on a race basis, antibodies that are safe in a human body wouldn't/shouldn't be necessarily safe in that of a slime, vox, plasmaman, etc. Take it even further by requiring a cure per blood type, would mean that curing a virus would be more complex.

I would also like to see some kind of activator implemented, so when creating a virus culture you can augment the symptoms to stay inactive without a "fuel", but by doing this would allow the effect to be more powerful than their passive, continuously active counterparts.
Say for example you have toxic filter and toxic compensation as symptoms on your virus, toxic filter just ticking over in a passive state, healing a low amount of tox persistently and compensation inactive. You can eat some sugar to activate toxic compensation, which would be active for an amount of time based on if sugar is still present or you are within x amount of time after the sugar has run out.

This could allow you to construct extremely complex viruses, that have the potential to be powerful, but at additional cost, that isn't fatal to the user.

Edited March 25, 2019 by BeanOS

[farie82]

8 minutes ago, BeanOS said:

I like a lot of this.

A couple things I would like to see:
Instead of having 3 cured blood samples to make a vaccine, vaccines should work on a race basis, antibodies that are safe in a human body wouldn't/shouldn't be necessarily safe in that of a slime, vox, plasmaman, etc. Take it even further by requiring a cure per blood type, would mean that curing a virus would be more complex.

I would also like to see some kind of activator implemented, so when creating a virus culture you can augment the symptoms to stay inactive without a "fuel", but by doing this would allow the effect to be more powerful than their passive, continuously active counterparts.
Say for example you have toxic filter and toxic compensation as symptoms on your virus, toxic filter just ticking over in a passive state, healing a low amount of tox persistently and compensation inactive. You can eat some sugar to activate toxic compensation, which would be active for an amount of time based on if sugar is still present or you are within x amount of time after the sugar has run out.

This could allow you to construct extremely complex viruses, that have the potential to be powerful, but at additional cost, that isn't fatal to the user.

I see where you're coming at with the first suggestion. The cure per blood type would be a bit to much I think personally. Would clog up the chemists and will mostly be just tedious work. I'll keep it into consideration though.

The vaccine per species is also an interesting one. I'll keep this one in mind for a possible later PR. I might make a second rework for the event viruses and then I might include that idea into it.

The fuel idea is pretty neat. It would make viruses more complicated for the average crewmember though. Maybe make it passively do something and when it contacts a chemical it will do something else extra or work better? Or it will do something negative so you can counter virus users by forcefully injecting chemicals into them. I'm gonna think a bit more about this one.

Thanks for the feedback!

Edited March 25, 2019 by farie82

[Eler00]

Maybe you could even let a skilled virologist make a 'self-fueling' virus by including a 'produce sugar' symptom coupled with a symptom that gets fueled by sugar? 

[farie82]

11 hours ago, TDS said:

Maybe you could even let a skilled virologist make a 'self-fueling' virus by including a 'produce sugar' symptom coupled with a symptom that gets fueled by sugar? 

Might include this one in Idea 3. So that some unlocks will do this. Does sound like a real neat idea.

This one will also be for after the 4 PR's are done so we have the basis there for expension

Edited March 26, 2019 by farie82

[MINIMAN10000]

Quote

The PANDEMIC will require 3 sets of blood which all have the cured virus before it can make the vaccine. This will make curing the virus harder and it’ll require more work from the virologist (or CMO).

The sort of "lets just make it redundant" is the type of tedium "difficulty" that I don't like. I'm all for it being more complex in some way, just not redundant. Just spit balling so I don't shoot down an idea without anything. Maybe require a set of chemicals to be loaded into the machine so that it requires cross job coordination.

Quote

Aye the idea is that there is a soul attached to the body.

I don't know of anything gameplay mechanics that depend on the body, I don't like the idea.

Everything else seems good to me

Related to forum discussion

Quote

Instead of having 3 cured blood samples to make a vaccine, vaccines should work on a race basis, antibodies that are safe in a human body wouldn't/shouldn't be necessarily safe in that of a slime, vox, plasmaman, etc. Take it even further by requiring a cure per blood type, would mean that curing a virus would be more complex.

I'm pretty sure vaccines are isolated dead versions which your body then builds its own immunity against not to mention the tedium involved in multiples races and multiple blood types simply is a bad way of adding "challenge."

Quote

 so when creating a virus culture you can augment the symptoms to stay inactive without a "fuel"

I like the idea of symptom augments. Fuel as you say can multiply effectiveness during use. The idea I have is Inactive in which both the symptom and the stat modifications are inactive until a trigger flips them, for example what if nutrition caused a virus changing the required vaccine. That's the sort of challenge that interests me. It fits well with the idea of making bio hazard more complex.

[farie82]

4 hours ago, MINIMAN10000 said:

The sort of "lets just make it redundant" is the type of tedium "difficulty" that I don't like. I'm all for it being more complex in some way, just not redundant. Just spit balling so I don't shoot down an idea without anything. Maybe require a set of chemicals to be loaded into the machine so that it requires cross job coordination.

Sounds more fitting aye. I've changed the idea so it needs spaceacillin now. 15u of vaccine (1 bottle) now require 15u of spaceacillin.

4 hours ago, MINIMAN10000 said:

I don't know of anything gameplay mechanics that depend on the body, I don't like the idea.

This is mostly due to the missing interaction between the crew and the virologist at the moment. This will force them to seek out a "willing" test subject or they can't release more complex viruses.

It's also a debuff for antag virologists due to the fact they will have to experiment on themselves first and have the cure prepared. 

But all in all I'd say it'll make a few nice stories out of this. Local virologist experimented on himself. Forgot to bring a cure. Infects local crew with the greytide virus

[MrMagolor]

Just implement goon patho, but add more helpful symptoms.

Yeah this isn't very productive, but the system works and takes time.