The Plague: A Detailed Study
J. M. Pescado:
HOW THE PLAGUE WORKS:
Every disease has a "Severity" value, a "Death Severity", a "Contagiousness" value, and a type. There are 5 predefined types of plague, with predefined attributes (don't recall them right now) and symptom,, as well as "mysterious" plagues that a mathematically determined (generally random) set of exactly 2 symptoms per plague, and customizable values of initial severity, contagiousness, and deadliness.
A sim with the plague has a chance of leaving behind a "plague spread" tile that has a lifespan depending on the contagiousness of the plague approximately every half hour. Every hour, the sim has a chance of exhibiting a plague symptom, and his recovery total is checked. Every 6 hours, the recovery total is subtracted from the disease severity unless lethality of disease is -1 (special). Curepoints are then reset. A lethality -1 (nonlethal) disease will only be cured when curepoints > severity, but curepoints never reset for a "nonlethal" disease. Death will occur at this 6-hour interval if severity has exceeded lethal dosage.
Recovery works as follows:
+8 if a sim is sleeping. Ignore all subsequent values below.
+6 if a sim is sitting
+4 if the sim's comfort/energy (each) is >= 50 (75%)
-4 if a sim's comfort/energy (each) is < 0 (50%)
Sims do not recover or worsen if they are "off lot". Sims do not recover or worsen unless they are visitor type 0 (resident).
The recovery value earned per interval reduces the "Severity" value by that amount (or increases it!). If the severity of the plague reaches 0, the sim recovers. If the severity of the plague exceeds the "deadliness" value for a potentially fatal plague, he dies. Recovery is not checked on community lots. In fact, nothing is checked on community lots as of sometime after TS2Original, and as of this writing (TS2OFBp2), sims cannot suffer any plague symptoms, nor spread the plague, on a community lot.
The exact effect of the medicine from the medical station is somewhat odd. Thorough examination of the curative mechanism suggests that, based on our present knowledge of the Manage Inventory code, the code is broken and does not function at in most cases, reading the token value of the index of the token inventory index of of the disease token, which in most cases is a large number and therefore is invalid (false return), causing the medicine to have no effect. In rare cases the plague token may be of sufficiently low value that the index IS valid and therefore a garbage value will be written into the severity value of the disease, with unpredictable consequences ranging from instant cure, slight improvement/worsening, no change, or change to a deadly value. This appears to confirm empirical evidence that the biotech station medicine is apparently broken and has no useful effect. On the off-chance you somehow manage to induce an effect, it will likely be bad for you as a random garbage value will be written, causing unpredictable consequences.
The available types of standard plague will be summarized shortly. "Mysterious" plagues can be acquired through the Biotech station (gives a randomly generated plague), or through a nefarious deeds (by installing hacks and objects that produce plagues!).
STANDARD PLAGUES
Morning Sickness
LD: -1
SS: 1d20 + 29
CT: -1
Food Poisoning
LD: 120
SS: 1d60 + 59
CT: -1
Cold
LD: 40 (special)
SS: 1d20+9
CT: 80
Special Note: Becomes pneumonia if severity hits lethal dosage. If this is not possible for some mysterious reason, death results (normally cannot happen).
Pneumonia
LD: 120
SS: 1d20 + 69
CT: 20
Flu
LD: 120
SS: 1d10 + 29
CT: 70
Mysterious
SH: 1d100 + 99 (symptom hash determines resulting two random symptoms)
LD: 120
SS: Variable
CT: 1d90 + 9
Diseases with CT: -1 are non-contagious. Diseases with LD: -1 are never lethal, and never decrease in severity, and can be cured if curepoints > severity.
kutto:
I really thought it would be more complicated than that. It's also a real shame that the plague can't spread on community lots.
Might we have a list of every disease and their respective contagiousness values and severities?
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: kutto on 2006 August 09, 15:31:00
I really thought it would be more complicated than that. It's also a real shame that the plague can't spread on community lots.
That is a trivial change. One that I am already field-testing. Or at least, allowing people to suffer and be miserable, anyway. I'm not sure allowing full-scale spread is a good idea given that it will leave a ton of junk objects with possibly corrupt attributes around.
Quote from: kutto on 2006 August 09, 15:31:00
Might we have a list of every disease and their respective contagiousness values and severities?
In the works already.
dizzy:
I figured out a while ago that when you get a sick sim with lots of energy, just stick them in a closet with a chair and a bookshelf. Then make them study till they're too tired to study or they get well.
Kyna:
But some of us want the opposite to happen Dizzy.
I have NEVER had a sim die from disease. I'd like to see it happen in my game - it would make a nice variation to death from old age. I've tried making them work out on exercise machines or making them work on the workstations from OFB (flowers, robots, toys) or making them smustle. These should help to deplete their motives, increasing their chance of dying. But they always recover.
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