Virus

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Viruses are assorted types of disease, infection or malady which can be contracted and spread around the station, distinct from those studied in pathology. They often come into play via a number of different ways, from food to animal bites to even certain chemicals. Viruses can be detected by using a health analyzer on a person. The readout will indicate the name of the virus, whether it's asymptomatic, how it spreads, how far the infection has progressed, and what can be done to cure it.

Known viruses

While there are other obscure viruses (mostly limited to admin shenanigans), players are unlikely to encounter them during normal gameplay and they are therefore not included here.

In addition, some of these diseases can turn asymptomatic upon infection, meaning they will not manifest any symptoms, but can still spread if possible. Asymptomatic infectees will thus suffer none of the disease's ill effects so long as they continue to have it and can still be cured, although they may then catch a symptomatic strain of it and suffer its effects as usual.

Name Causes
(primary)
Spread Cure Danger Level Effects
Common cold Mucus Airborne Sleep, chicken soup, tumeric powder, Robustissin Harmless Coughing and sneezing. May develop into the flu.
Tissue necrosis Rotting Non-contagious Formaldehyde Harmless Skin rotting off, turning into a skeleton. Doesn't cause any normal damage, but it does prevent you from being cloned without a special cloning module. Note that you can still be turned into a Cyborg just fine.
The flu Unknown Airborne Sleep, chicken soup, tumeric powder, Robustissin, space Minor Coughing, sneezing, minor toxin damage.
Food poisoning Tainted food Non-contagious Sleep, chicken soup, tumeric powder, Robustissin, Spaceacillin Minor Vomiting, random stuns.
Clowning around Rainbow fluid Non-contagious None Minor Slowly turning into a clumsy clown, complete with weird honking noises and extra-clingy clown gear.
Draculaculiasis Vampire serum Non-contagious None Minor Messages about tasting blood, becoming a Vampire with the associated abilities and traits (but not the antagonist status).
Lycanthropy Werewolf serum Non-contagious Silver Nitrate Minor Sudden sensations of weakness, culminating in a burning feeling, transformation into a Werewolf without the associated abilities or antagonist status. Infected still gains the associated passives, such as the ability to pry open doors and may involuntarily transform back into a human some time later.
Space Madness Rabid mice, loose screws Non-contagious Haloperidol Dangerous Loss of sanity. Audio and visual hallucinations.
Cluwneing Around (exact spelling varies) Painbow fluid Non-contagious Bible beatings Dangerous A variant of clowning around that transforms people into cluwnes, complete with disturbing honking noises, cursed cluwne gear, and mildly ominous proclamations about ringmasters and circuses.
Avian flu Feather fluid Non-contagious Chicken soup Dangerous Involuntary arm flapping, feelings of body constricting and contorting, transformation into a space bird.
Berserker Rabid mice Non-contagious Haloperidol, THC Dangerous Swearing, shouting, attacking nearby crew members uncontrollably. There is also a non-contagious mutation.
Teleportitis Liquid spacetime Non-contagious Electric shock Dangerous Teleporting around randomly, including tiles exposed to vacuum. Unlike most other diseases, teleportitis has only a single stage, meaning it takes full effect at the moment of infection.
MRSA Unknown Non-contagious Spaceacillin Dangerous Rapidly accumulating toxin and burn damage in later stages.
Robotic transformation Roburgers, cheeseborgers, nanomachines Non-contagious Electric shock Dangerous Minor brute damage, occasional paralysis. Humans eventually turn into a Cyborg, while both player and NPC Monkeys (and people banned from the Cyborg role) become NPC bots, including possibly GuardBuddies.
Nano-Infection Corrupted nanomachines Non-contagious Electric shock Dangerous Horrifying chat messages about stiffening joints and stabbing pains, minor BRUTE, occasional paralysis, minor TOX in last stage, transformation into a Mechanical Monstrosity named "[name]...?".
Appears on analyzers as "????" and is also referred to as "corrupted robotic transformation".
Necrotic degeneration Zombies Contact Styptic powder injection Dangerous Minor toxin damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a zombie.
GBS Gibbis Non-contagious Cryoxadone Deadly Toxin damage, exploding into gibs. Rarely, GBS may be airborne. A fake and largely harmless version also exists.
Rat Plague Rat spit Non-contagious Mercury Dangerous Coughing, sneezing, TOX damage, chat messages about feeling incredible pain. Randomly gives you other diseases, though not as dangerous as the ones the space plague will give you.
Space Plague Rat venom Non-contagious Mercury Deadly Coughing, sneezing, TOX damage, randomly contracting other diseases.
Grave fever Vampires, grave dust Non-contagious Spaceacillin Deadly Suffocation, severe toxin damage, paralysis, death.
Space Kuru Cannibalism, prions Non-contagious Incurable Deadly Escalating toxin damage, uncontrollable laughing and seizures, death. No symptoms for people with Aquatic Genetics.
Toxoplasmosis Mewtini Non-contagious Spaceacillin Dangerous Sleepiness, feelings of discomfort due to involuntary muscle contractions, transformation into a cat.
Frog Flu Sheltestgrog Non-contagious Robust coffee, Robustissin, getting robusted Dangerous Transformation into a frog critter.
Monkey Madness Banana peel (reagent) Non-contagious Incurable Minor Transforms you into a monkey.
High Fever Too Much Non-contagious Ingesting ice Dangerous Body temperature increases that worsen with each stage. In last stage, increases stop, but the arms transform into "hot arms" that can melt items and sometimes people.
Parasites Spider eggs Non-contagious Surgery Deadly Will remain hidden until it is too late. In the first 4 stages it only has a small chance of putting some histamine in you. In the final stage you will receive a foreboding chat message about something tearing it's way out of your skin, get a fuck ton of histamine pumped into you and have a 30% chance of being gibbed into 3-5 ice spiders with a 1% chance of the spiders being 6-12
Plasmatoid Liquid Plasma Non-contagious Mutadone Deadly TOX, BRUTE, and OXY. Messages in chat about coughing and a "strange pressure" in the chest. In final stage, lungs transform into plasmatoid lungs.
Lungrot Lungrot bloom Non-contagious Robustissin after removal of Salbutamol from the victim Dangerous Deals TOX and makes the victim produce Miasma. Messages in chat about problems to breath and a fuzzy feeling on their tongue. In later stages, begins coughing out large clouds of Miasma.

Infection methods

Most contagious viruses spread through two means: airborne and contact transmission. In these cases, the infection vector is external, which means that wearing protective clothing (mostly a full biosuit and internals) will usually protect you from infection. As long as you don't eat or inject yourself with anything strange, you should be safe.

Furthermore, infections are tied to certain 'events' instead of happening on every life tick. Such events may be as simple as coughing, sneezing or talking. In other words, you aren't guaranteed to contract an airborne disease by just standing near an infected person, though this is a gamble you'd probably still want to avoid.

Contact

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Contact transmission means that if you're right next to or touch the infected person in some way, you'll catch the virus from them. This includes bumping into them, accessing their Inventory, using any of the empty hand intents (help, disarm etc.) or attacking them. Note that this works both ways in all cases - the infected can transmit the disease to someone else by punching them, or someone uninfected can catch the disease by punching the infected.

Airborne

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Airborne transmission just requires you to be near the person. You don't even have to be right next to them, just being within a certain range means you run a high risk of infection. Any gibs or blood spilled by the infected will also be contaminated, so if someone with airborne GBS explodes, going near their remains will get you infected.

Other vectors

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The viruses you're most likely to catch are the contagious ones described above, but that doesn't mean you should discount non-contagious diseases as a threat. Consuming spoiled, badly cooked, poisoned or special kinds of foods or drinks can result in an infection, as can being injected with a viral reagent (willingly or otherwise). In these cases, protective clothing won't help you, since the virus is already inside you.

Cures

So, you've been infected with something. What can you do to stop it? This largely depends on the virus itself. Some viruses have a common cure, while others require a unique one that only works for them. If in doubt, trust the information provided by the health analyzer.

Sleep

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Simple - just go to sleep somewhere, preferably somewhere nice and safe, and rest. The virus will recede until it is cured completely. It would probably be best not to go to sleep in a busy area, unless you like getting mugged while you take a nap.

Chicken soup

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Have a wholesome serving of chicken soup. While the Discount Dan's Quik-Noodles cups do indeed have chicken soup, there's far more of it (and far fewer poisons being passed off as "soup") in the actual, real-deal chicken soup you get in a real can from, for some reason, the coffee machines.

Tumeric Powder

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Have some tandoori chicken, chicken pineapple curry, potato curry, or coconut curry. You can also extract tumeric powder directly from tumeric roots you harvest in Botany. Tumeric helps with colds, the flu, and food poisoning.

Robustissin

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Ask a local Scientist/Medical Doctor/Bartender to make you some Robustissin, the superior option to chicken soup. (But it can't cure the avian flu) Don't ask for too much though; Space DXM overdoses are pretty crazy.

Haloperidol

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Go to Medbay and ask for haloperidol. It's a bit rare, but they'll usually have a few syringes of it in or around Treatment Rooms-type areas, and the Medical Director has a bottle of it in their restricted medicine cabinet. Alternatively, drink a lot of Dr. Pubber. Haloperidol is also used in tranquilizer darts for tranquilizer rifles and the knockout/sleepshot setting for the Lawbringer, so you could ask the Medical Director and/or Head of Security to be shot with those, if you're feeling like becoming target practice for a brief while (and they comply with your odd request).

Antibiotics

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Go to medbay and ask for an injection of spaceacillin, an antibiotic. Medibot's can also inject you with this.

Electric shock

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Get zapped by something. The stronger the source, the more likely it is to cure your disease. Power cables, electrified grills and doors, and stun batons may be able to help you here.

Prevention

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Much like reality, prevention is often preferable to infection. This can be achieved by wearing protective gear in the case of airborne and contact-transmitted viruses (as described above) or through other means. Resistances can be obtained by curing diseases through their usual means. Not all diseases will grant resistance when overcome, however.

Incurable diseases

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Though very rare, some diseases flat out cannot be eliminated. If "cured", the virus will simply re-establish itself some time later, ignoring any resistances you might have. Your only hope of defeating these diseases is to not catch them - once contracted, they stay with you until the end of the round. Death or robotics are the only ways to escape.


Game Mechanics
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