Made the Plague Mice disease far more dangerous

[boy2mantwicethefam]

The plague mice are almost always more of a footnote in a round rather than a pandemic starter, and there was always a decent chance Virology already made a cure for the antigens they were carrying. The disease itself also wasn't particularly that lethal, the worst it tended to do was end up with the DNA Degradation stage as its third and final stage, which is particularly slow.

Changes:

• Now has 4 stages, allowing it to carry the vastly more dangerous stage 4 symptoms.
• Its progression speed has been massively increased, and it will take mere minutes for it to reach the max stage.
• Now can only have rare and alien (really rare) antigens, making it less likely for there to already be a cure for it.
• The chances for the symptom effects to trigger every tick have been doubled.
• Its average infection chance and robustness have been further increased.
• Now penetrates hardsuits. Biohazard suits are still immune.
• Now has a lot of possible origins which are just references, including April Fools versions. Has a 2% chance of its origin being from a Discount Dan's Gas Station Sushi.

This should help make the plague mice far more threatening (given that they are barely threatening as it is) and give Medbay a real challenge in the process. How many times have you seen a biohazard suit being used?

:cl:

• tweak: The plague carried by the Plague Mice has been made far more dangerous. Establish a quarantine and avoid the mice!

[angryturnip]

The plague mice are almost always more of a footnote

I thought that was the point? They aren't meant to be a major threat.

[boy2mantwicethefam]

Not in the sense of being a major threat but in the sense of leaving any sort of impact whatsoever. I've played plenty of rounds where nobody really took the plague mouse threat seriously other than the chef, out of the obligation of preserving the food he made. The diseases they carried were never of any particular urgency, just a short trip to Medbay and one more kind of antigen pill on the Medbay counter before the round resumes as if nothing ever happened. The same kind of relatively easy disease-curing process remains but now there should be a sense of urgency in visiting Medbay and avoiding contact, to shake things up.

[SECBATON-GRIFFON]

4 stages good speed good rare alien antigens i dunnoooo maybe not the last one chances doubled good infection robustness increase good hardsuit penetration bad possible origins is nice flavortext, nice deus ex reference

[boy2mantwicethefam]

I went for the antigens specifically so that they'd be harder to get, with alien antigens being a step up above rare antigens, since rare antigens are not actually all that rare. Many diseases are likely to carry a rare antigen (there are 3 rare antigens), which many doctors will also make vaccines for. There's still a 1/3 chance of the disease having a rare antigen though, about a 51% chance due to rolling 1/3 twice, after all there should be a chance to shut down a serious outbreak through prior preparation. I'm on the fence over the hardsuit bypassing too, it might be overkill but I went ahead with it because very few things threaten plasmamen and vox crewmembers and I believe giving them a scare too would be beneficial for the game.

[hacker-on-steroids]

the rigbabies deserve to suffer but i'm not sure how this makes sense biologically speaking

[west3436]

Looks good but this is something we're definitely going to have to test in-game to see if it's overtuned.