So, basicaly, why cant alien life-forms contain viruses? I have 2 ideas how this could work: - Every planet (environment) has a chance to infect player, if his hp is less than 25%, and he is almost cold. - Some planets will have contagious creatures, which have a chance to infect you on attack. Chance is higher dependant on your hp and temperature. Note: the chance should be really low. After you've been infected, after some time you'll get a random virus debuff - Minus movement speed; - Minus jump hight; - Minus Max energy; - Minus Energy Regeneration speed; - Minus Max HP; - Lower amount of HP healed with meds; - Faster starvation\less hunger restored with food. (and so on) Number of debuffs from single virus will be determined randomly, and the higher the threat level of planet, the higher chance to get complex debuff. Debuff will be constant (even death\respawn wont break it), and you'll need to find a cure. There we will put to use some of apex's medical equipment + some new items. To cure yourself you will need to take 3 actions: - Find medical station - Get sample extractor and get samples; - Craft vaccine and vaccinate yourself; Medical station: As i said before - maybe some of Apex's medical items, or new one. It will work like the camp fire\smelting - you put items in, and it crafts vaccine item. Medical Database: (i will post about it in the end) Sample extractor: Like the brain extractor - kill monsters on the planet you've been infected on, to get samples, which you then process on medical station. Vaccine: consumable stimpack, which removes debuff. Usage of vaccine when you are ok will make you immune to virus on this planet. Anti-bionics: those will be craftable items, which prevent contagion or block debuff for a period of time. Now, the fun part - mathematics. The sample item and vaccine item should be bound to planet's seed, and be unique (or mostly unique) for every planet. Each sample and vaccine will have its own number\ID (or marked with planet name), and can be used only against virus on this planet. Now, medical database: when you've crafted vaccine, it is added to database, and you can craft this vaccine from there, in case someone else will need help. In case you caught virus, you might ask your friend to get you samples (if you get some extreme debuff). I dont know, if this should be that complex (mainly about unique virus on every planet), but getting some medical stuff like that, would a) put to use apex's medical equipment b) add some risks to exploring c) improve interraction with mobs on constant level
Could be done by mods, i guess. Anyway, depends of how much alien planets should feel. Such danger will totaly make it feel alien - got this idea from War of The Worlds movie, with Tom Cruise, where aliens, who attacked earth got killed by simple earth viruses and bacteria.
I like the spirit of this, though am unsure about how to balance it game wise. But it would be neat if you contracted a virus or disease and then had to MAKE YOUR OWN CURE. Or buy a cure from a nearby village (who are probably used to dealing with it). In most sci-fi space explorer genres they deal with disease, I think it should be here too! I like how they handle disease in the Elder Scrolls games. A disease infects one or more of your stats and until you fix it, that stat is weakened. Simultaneously there should be an easy way to keep it at bay, like medicine or rest and healthy eating, until you can cure it.
Great idea! Making and testing your own cure would be fun. Then duplicate it and sell the cure on other planets that are getting infected.
On a more serious note I've always found disease systems to be more of an annoyance than something that has enhanced my gameplay. I remember in Daggerfall they'd drop your stat by an ever increasing amount till either you cured it or it hit 0 and when it was a personality disease you died of being so ugly that you died of being ugly.
They revamped that for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Now it just shows a stat in red to indicate that the number is lower than usualy and you need a cure disease potion to remove it, which is easy enough to make. Darrgerfall was pretty punishing, lol.
