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Getting wet and catching a cold need to be reworked


Snaiper

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Yes, Project Zomboid is not some uber-life-simulator, of course, however, making some things more realistic means that they also make more sense for the player and player feels more comfortable with their presence and how they operate, and most of what I have to suggest is not extreme either, so here comes this: getting wet & getting the cold.


Facts:

  1. Getting damp, wet, soaking or drenched does not significantly increase chances of catching a cold (the increase in chance is minimal and due to other factors primarily).
  2. Human rhinoviruses require other humans to spread, so without human interaction there is no infection (if you want to add zombies here or not is up to you).

 

What to do?

  1. Getting wet should not directly affect chances of catching a cold in any way shape or form; only indirectly (explained below).
  2. Getting wet should affect player's speed, mood, agility, happiness, stress level, endurance and in extreme situations possibility to develop hypothermia.
  3. Levels of wetness should primarily affect mood, bad moods can make people's immune systems drop and they can get the symptoms due to that (implying they already have the virus).
  4. The Outdoorsman trait should minimize these effects, primarily on mood/happiness due to harsh weather conditions.
  5. The Resilient trait here should minimize the chances of developing symptoms.

 

What about the cold itself?

  1. Having a Cold and having a Nasty Cold should also affect mood/happiness of character, as it tends to in real life. The Resilient trait could help here.
  2. Affecting PrecisionEnduranceAgility  should also be considered.
  3. Stress level could also be affected.

In the end, the emphasis should not be on catching the cold, it should instead be on dealing with the cold. Common cold can turn into a serious fever and it can even help others diseases developer from weakened immune system.  Since it is a virus, antibiotics are of no help and primary way of healing is making your immune system be able to do it. Antiviral medicines can help, but only marginally and they're not very common and only against certain strains, if you ever decide to have them in-game.

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I think theres been talk about redoing some aspects of the moodles, so most of this is on pause since its moodle time. However, i love the idea of the nasty cold vs regular cold. As I age, my illnesses get worse. I had the flu or something this year, and that took me out of comission for a week and I needed to consume 3 bottles of nyquil type medicine to get through it. 

 

Now we add such an illness to the char that makes a real effect on fighting/speed/sound (sick ppl r useless almost unless super stressed) and suddenly the need to get to pharmacies really makes a lot of sense. Other illnesses could also hit, requiring the need for diversification of medicine type (eg antibiotic, cold, flu) and of course the medicines would only work per type, and it would take first aid skill to diagnose which type you needed. 


For antibiotics you need to take the whole course or the infection can come back and surprise kill you five days later. 

 

Lastly, medicine overdose. No -2 fatigue vitamin popping, here.

 

Once the moodles are reimplemented or we're fairly confident the system is "doneish", and we have control over all the various values and tickers, all of this could be done as a mod.

Edited by thiosk
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a small correction:

Flu and cold viruses are two different viruses, dying from cold is nearly impossible (it would really take extreme lack of luck and extreme amount of talent to die from common cold), but from flu with a weakened immune system, then it starts to become likely.

 

-----------------


However, that is not all, I would like to also add a few points to the original post: the more I play the more annoying I find the "wet = you get a cold", because I have no idea why it would be implemented in the first place. Lower body temperature is better for rhinoviruses to spread and attack, sure, and lack of vitamin D due to lack of sunlight (in winter times mostly) only benefits the development of symptoms, of course. But none of that can be without very close and direct human contact. Sure, you can say "Maybe zombies can spread it?". Fine, but then it should be implemented that way, but currently it isn't, far from it. All factors should be accounted for in the probabilistic equation, and level of wetness is just not one of them.

So, uh, to finally put the factors in:

  • Body temperature (lower = more likely to develop symptoms)
  • Environment temperature (lower = more likely to develop symptoms, as the person will generally have lower body temperature)
  • Influenza season (For the flu virus only; if it's the season, likelihood increases)
  • Level of sunlight/Vitamin D (lower = more likely to develop symptoms)
  • Close interaction with other humans/zombies (higher = more likely to develop symptoms)

So, uh, if you don't feel like doing this, then you're better off having common cold or the flu as a random chance that, perhaps, increases with time alive (since last infection)... or not having it at all.

Edited by Snaiper
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