Skip to content

Create Sickness System Proposal #543

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Closed
wants to merge 1 commit into from
Closed

Create Sickness System Proposal #543

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
297 changes: 297 additions & 0 deletions Sickness System Proposal
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,297 @@
# Sickness System

| Designers | Coders | Implemented | GitHub Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| JesterX | JesterX | No | TBD |

---

## Overview

The **Sickness System** introduces a variety of ailments that can affect the station’s crew.
Sicknesses may be **viral**, **bacterial**, or **psychological** in nature.

Psychological sicknesses may also exist as **traits**.

Each sickness consists of:
- A sickness **name**
- A **cause type** (viral, bacterial, or psychological) – determines how it can be cured
- A **collection of stages**
- A **minimum viral or bacterial charge** required for contagion (spread through coughing or sneezing without masks or helmets; invisible in the atmos system and disperses like a gas)

### Sickness Stages

Stages represent phases of a sickness, including when they occur and what symptoms they cause.

Each stage defines:
- **Start Time:** How long before the stage begins
- **Duration:** How long the stage lasts
- **Symptom:** The effect applied to the character

---

## Stage Types (Initial Release)

- **Cough**
- Player coughs, spreading germs to nearby crew (see *Contagion*).
- Appears as an emote.
- May be contagious.
- Contagion can be prevented with a surgical mask, helmet, etc.

- **Sneeze**
- Player sneezes, spreading germs to nearby crew (see *Contagion*).
- Appears as an emote.
- May be contagious.
- Prevented with masks or helmets.

- **Speak**
- Player says something randomly.
- Includes parameterized phrases (used for Tourette Syndrome and similar effects).

- **Perceive**
- Player perceives something unusual.
- Includes parameterized messages (used for paranoia or hallucinations).
- *Example:* “You think someone is watching you.”

- **Emote**
- Player performs an emote.
- Includes random emote messages.
- *Example:* “Player X shivers.”

- **Bleed**
- Applies bleeding over time.

- **Temperature Change**
- Adjusts body temperature (increase or decrease).
- Defines the amount of temperature change.

- **Fall Down**
- Player collapses to the ground.

- **Vomit**
- Player vomits.

- **Cured**
- Used for temporary sicknesses that resolve automatically.

- **Death** *(TBD)*
- Occurs if untreated.

> More symptoms will be added in future updates.

---

## Predefined Sicknesses

### Common Cold
**Cause:** Viral

**Stages:**
- **Sneeze**
- Contagious: Yes
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Until cured
- Frequency: 1 minute
- **Emote**
- Starts: 5 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Emote: *sniffles*
- **Perceive**
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Until cured
- Perceptions:
- “Your throat feels sore.”
- “You feel tired.”
- Alleviating Compound: *Acetaminophen*
- **Perceive**
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Until cured
- Perceptions:
- “Your nose is runny.”
- Alleviating Compound: None
- **Cured**
- Starts: 30 minutes
- Ends: Once
- Grants Immunity: Yes

---

### Flu
**Cause:** Viral

**Stages:**
- **Cough**
- Contagious: Yes
- Starts: 5 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Frequency: 1 minute
- **Emote**
- Starts: 5 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Emote: *sniffles*
- Frequency: 1 minute
- **Perceive**
- Starts: 10 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Frequency: 1 minute
- Perceptions:
- “You feel extremely tired.”
- “Your body aches.”
- “You are sweating.”
- “Your head aches.”
- Alleviating Compound: *Acetaminophen*
- **Perceive**
- Starts: 10 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Frequency: 1 minute
- Perceptions:
- “Your throat feels sore.”
- “Your nose is runny.”
- Alleviating Compound: None
- **Temperature**
- Starts: 10 minutes
- Ends: Until cured
- Degree: *TBD*
- Alleviating Compound: *Acetaminophen*
- **Cured**
- Starts: 45 minutes
- Ends: Once
- Grants Immunity: Yes

---

### Tourette Syndrome
**Cause:** Psychological

**Stages:**
- **Speak**
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Never
- Frequency: 1 minute
- Possible Phrases:
“Hey!”, “Okay!”, “No!”, “Yes!”, “Stop!”, “Uh!”, “Hmm!”, “What?”, “Go!”, “Ah!”, “Meow!”, “Woof!”, “Chirp!”, “Banana!”, “Car!”, “Blue!”

---

### Paranoia
**Cause:** Psychological

**Stages:**
- **Perceive**
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Never
- Frequency: 1 minute
- Perceptions:
- “You think someone is observing you.”
- “You think someone wants you dead.”
- “You’re sure you just saw movement in your peripheral vision.”
- “You feel like your comms have a slight delay… someone might be listening.”

---

### Space Hallucinatory Syndrome
**Cause:** Psychological

**Stages:**
- **Perceive**
- Starts: Immediately
- Ends: Never
- Frequency: 1 minute
- Perceptions:
- “You hear a faint laugh on the radio.”
- “Someone whispers, ‘I see you.’”
- “Footsteps echo.”
- “You hear typing sounds.”
- “The station alarm blips once.”
- “You hear children laughing.”

---

## Sickness Initialization

In the initial release:
- **Admins** can use a control panel to spawn predefined sicknesses.
- Admins choose the number of **Patient Zero** cases.

In future releases:
- Admins will be able to create, import, export, and modify **custom sicknesses**.

---

## Background

Sickness systems exist in several codebases.
This is a **reimplementation** of the version previously developed for **UnityStation**.

---

## Planned Features

- A **Sickness Component** attached to all living beings, listing:
- Active sicknesses
- Time active
- Current stage
- A **Sickness System** that periodically checks infected characters and triggers stage effects.
- An **Admin UI Panel** for managing sickness events.
- **New chemical compounds:**
- One for curing viral sicknesses
- One for curing bacterial sicknesses
- One for alleviating cold and flu symptoms
- Updates to the **Medical Scanner** to detect sickness type.
- **New traits** for psychological or allergic conditions.
- A new **Psychology mechanic** to temporarily alleviate psychological illnesses.

---

## Game Design Rationale

- Adds chaos and realism to station life.
- Introduces humorous or absurd sicknesses (e.g., paranoia, hallucinations, Tourette Syndrome).
- Expands the role of **medical** and **psychology** staff.
- Increases **chemist** utility for creating cures.
- Encourages more **interdepartmental interaction**.
- Enables future expansion (e.g., mysterious diseases, botany-based cures).

---

## Round Flow & Player Interaction

- Sicknesses can appear via:
- Admin events (Patient Zero)
- Character traits (e.g., Paranoia, Tourette)
- Player interactions include:
- Medical analyzer
- Psychological intervention
- Taking medicine or pills
- Mixing chemical compounds
- Gameplay effects (chat, emotes, bleeding, temperature, vomiting)

**Affected Departments:**
- All (can be infected)
- Chemistry
- Medicine
- Psychology
- *(Future)* Botany

---

## Administrative & Server Impact

- Admins control sickness events.
- Admins can create new sicknesses dynamically using import/export tools.
- Minimal workload; unlikely to cause griefing or disputes.
- No new rules required.

---

## Technical Considerations

- Adds a **Living Mob Component** that:
- Tracks active sicknesses
- Records time since infection and last symptom
- A new system triggers symptoms when timers elapse.
- Minimal performance impact.
- Viral/bacterial **“special gases”** exist invisibly in atmos.
- The initial **Admin Event UI** will include:
- Dropdown to select sickness type
- Field to choose the number of Patient Zero cases
Loading