Viro has been completely rewritten! The implications are huge so I'll try to organize the changelog with information relevant to most players at the top.
All medbays now feature a bookcase full of medical manuals, including the brand new Virology guide, and an Encyclopedia of all disease symptoms. This Encyclopedia automatically updates itself as new symptoms are added in the code.
For the time being Virologists will spawn holding the new Virology guide manual, this manual may also be found in Virology itself. If you play Virologist, give it a read. If you just want to know how to cure diseases in the heat of the moment, the first chapter is a step by step crash course for you.
You may now use an Health Analyser on any living being to check whether they are carrying some pathogen.
New players have a 10% chance of spawning with a weak and mostly harmless disease. Those can be easily cured with 5u spaceacillin.
Mice that spawn in maint have a 20% chance of carrying a disease. Said disease is never airborne, but is notably more dangerous than those that humans can spawn with.
Minor and Major viral outbreaks have been reworked. Both will instantly infect 10% of the station's crew with the same pathogen, so if an individual is cure, it'll be relatively easy to cure the rest. Major outbreaks however are likely to carry dangerous pathogen.
Poisoned Syndi meat pizza has been "fixed". It previously spawned filled with infected AB+ blood, which means that only crewmembers of AB+ blood type could actually get infected.
When getting attacked by blob or blob spores, you may get infected with a new type of pathogen that's single stage and doesn't do anything on its own. If you die while infected, you'll spawn some blob tiles around you. The longer you've been infected, the more tiles you'll spawn, even spawning a node after 5 minutes. Blob spores that die also leave a pathogenic cloud behind them, so be sure to wear a hardsuit or some sterile equipment when fighting the blob up close, and get checked at medbay after the threat has been dealt with. This symptom may be exploited to created blob walls of specific shape.
Loose Catbeasts that arrive on the station are carriers of not one but TWO dangerous diseases! Be careful when hunting them down. As the catbeast yourself, you may try to acquire and drink some milk and some water to cause your diseases to progress faster.
Added a new midround ruleset that may proc if there are at least two Medical Doctors, or CMO, or Virologist. Plague Mice Invasion. A group of 1 to 5 mice infected with a dangerous Bacteria appear on the station and try to spread their disease to as many mobs as possible while the crew tries to stomp them and cure their disease. Enable Minor Roles to be allowed for candidacy.
Urn and Bowls found in Xenoarchaeology now have a chance of containing some blood infected with a disease. Such diseases tend to have generally helpful symptoms.
Large Xenoarchaeolgy artifacts have a new potential effect that causes them to release pathogenic clouds carrying a disease of random dangerosity.
Given admins some tools to easily create highly customized diseases, essentially letting them control every aspect of the disease and its effects. They may even give the disease up to 100 stages but then setting up each stage might becomes a chore. Said disease may be inoculated inside a mob, or spawned inside a growth dish.
Admins also now have a panel that displays every disease currently in the world and where they came from, who's infected by it, what items are infected by it, which growth dish contains them, and whether they're in the database or not (which admins can actually toggle).
Growth dishes now have their appearance depend on the disease in them. with a random color and a random pattern of a random color. Major mutations may cause a variation in color.
The Pathogen database now lists mutated pathogen as children of the original pathogen, making archiving sensibly easier. Pathogen may also now be given a nickname instead of a name. Said nickname will appear when the disease is analyzed in a mob or on the Medical HUD. You may also change the disease's dangerosity from Undetermined to Safe or Dangerous, which will change the appearance of the Status icon that appears on the Medical HUD.
If wearing a Medical PDA with its health scanner activated, the PDA will tell its owner if they suddenly got infected with a disease.
Wizarditis has been ported to virus2 at long last, and has been reworked to be more !!fun!!. After being infected for a while, you will start shouting random spells, but unlike the old version, each spell you randomly shout will actually be cast! Thankfully the proc chance is reasonably low.
All symptoms now have a Danger value that ranges like so. 0 for helpful. 1 for flavor text. 2 for annoying. 3 for hindrance. 4 for harmful. 5 for deadly.
Diseases may incubate inside irradiated mobs, and should they also have mutagen in their system, they may induce an effect mutation. However effects mutating this way will only switch to an effect of similar Danger.
Chemistry secure lockers now contain a box of vials, allowing them to preserve blood samples from infected patients and transmit them to Virology.
All bio suit lockers now also contain a pair of Science Goggles. These can now be turned on to let their wearer easily find airborne pathogenic clouds, items and mobs infected with contact pathogen, and floor splatters that contain pathogen as well.
Tech Storages on all maps have a new rack containing spare circuitboards for all virology machines.
Toxin Firstaid Kits have had one of their Anti-Toxin syringes replaced with a Spaceacillin syringe.
ERTs now have a box of vials and two pill boxes of nanofloxacin at their HQ, as well as a centrifuge on their shuttle, and two more science goggles in their back room, allowing them to efficiently deal with epidemics.
Rewritten the ways diseases can transmit both by contact and through the air. A disease may have one or several spread vectors, allowing it to spread both by contact or through the air. This also opens the door for new exotic spread vectors down the line.
Diseases with the contact spread vector may also temporarily contaminate items. Higher infectability means it lingers on the item for a longer time. Infected items can simply be washed at a sink, washing machine, or sprayed with Space Cleaner to remove the pathogen.
All items (and most importantly, clothing) have a sterility variable that indicates their chance to not get infected (or protect their wearer from infection).
The antibody scanner has been reworked and is now called the immunity scanner. It can be used on any item to get their sterility value, or any living mob to get an analysis of their immune system.
When touching or hitting someone, the checks for infection are done depending on which body part enters in contact. (for example, when shaking hands, both hands are checked, but when patting a head, your hands are checked along with the head being patted. Only one side has to succeed in a sterility check to prevent infection).
Similar checks are performed when a mob bumps into another mob. When bumping into someone, you hands are checked against the other's torso. However if bumping into a tiny mob, such as a mouse, your feet are the ones checked.
Due to how items can get infected if they aren't sterile, keep that in mind when hitting someone or performing surgery. Science goggles can easily reveal infected items.
Pathogen that can only spread through blood may still spread through contact if both parts checked are bleeding.
Also, blood that's been infected with pathogen that spreads through contact may also infect individuals by being splashed upon them.
Sterilizine can now be sprayed over items to increase their sterility permanently by 30 points.
Airborne pathogen no longer spread instantly to adjacent mobs. Instead whenever a mob infected with an airborne pathogen breathes with its mouth unobstructed and unfiltered, they release a pathogenic cloud that contains all their airborne diseases, and that moves accross the room, further the higher the pathogen's infectability variable is. Another mob may then get infected if they are close to such a cloud when they breath themselves. Mobs breath every 8 seconds on average, and clouds linger for about 10 seconds. Pathogenic clouds do NOT spread through vents, for now at least.
Monkeys now have Status and Health bars displayed on the Medical HUD. Mice have their Status icon displayed as well.
The monkey-sized doctor clothing fully protects its wearer from contracting or spreading diseases.
All mice may get infected just as easily as human and monkey, and most symptoms will work on them as well.
You may now use an empty syringe on a mice to draw 5u of blood, inflicting them 5 oxy damage.
Added small critter cages. Can be crafted with a bit of Plasteel, and placed on a table or on the floor. You can pick up mice by drag n dropping them on yourself with Grab intent, and then place them inside those cages. You can then pick up the cage by drag n dropping it onto yourself.
Mice in cages may not contract or spread diseases, unless they get pet through the cage.
You may add some reagents to the cage, which will cause the mice in them to start gulping them up. You may also add some food on top of the cage to feed the mice in it.
Mice now have a chewing animation which they play whenever they eat or they chew cables.
Player-controlled mice may click on mobs to nibble their toes, which may cause contact diseases to spread if contact can be made. If the mob is lying down, they may also try to nibble fingers or ear lobes.
Virology now features its own pet mice, of the Balb/c strain. Its name is randomized, but it'll keep company to people in Virology. Don't forget to feed them!
Oh right and Virology itself works a lot differently, like, just read the in-game Crash Course in Virology manual, Virologists spawn with it and it can be found in both Medbay's bookcase and Virology itself. All machines have been reworked and mutating and curing diseases is also a bit different so just go read that. It'd really be too long for a changelog.
If you play Medbay YOU SHOULD READ THAT. Or at least the first chapter.
Antigen now have rarity. Weak diseases tend to have more easily aquired antigen, while more dangerous diseases have antigen that are harder to obtain before an outbreak.
Medbots now detect diseases that are in the database in individuals, and try to inject them with spaceacillin. They may no longer detect old diseases but they didn't do much to help with those anyway.
The green old sadface status icon is still used to indicate individual infected with old diseases, such as appendicitis.
Added a Laboratory Mice supply pack to cargo, containing some small cages and also mousecubes. Yeah those are a thing now.
All mice now lose half less nutrition by moving and standing, and gain twice more by eating.