Virus

Viruses are assorted types of disease, infection or malady which can be contracted and spread around the station. They often come into play via a number of different ways, the most common being random events and pathology research. Viruses can be detected by using a health analyzer on a person. The readout will indicate the name of the virus, 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.

Name	Causes (primary)	Spread	Cure	Danger Level	Effects
Common cold	Random event	Airborne	Sleep, chicken soup	Harmless	Coughing and sneezing.
Tissue necrosis	Unknown	Non-contagious	Formaldehyde	Harmless	Skin rotting off, turning into a skeleton. Doesn't cause any permanent damage.
The flu	Random event	Airborne	Sleep, chicken soup	Minor	Coughing, sneezing, minor toxin damage.
Food poisoning	Tainted food	Non-contagious	Sleep	Minor	Vomiting, random stuns.
Clowning around	Random event	Non-contagious	Spaceacillin	Minor	Slowly turning into a clumsy clown. A variant of this virus transforms people into cluwnes instead.
Space madness	Random event	Airborne	Haloperidol	Dangerous	Loss of sanity.
Berserker	Random event	Contact	Haloperidol	Dangerous	Swearing, shouting, attacking nearby crew members uncontrollably.
Teleportitis	Unknown	Non-contagious	Electric shock	Dangerous	Teleporting around randomly, including walls and tiles exposed to vacuum.
MRSA	Open wounds	Non-contagious	Spaceacillin	Dangerous	Rapidly accumulating toxin and burn damage in later stages.
Robotic transformation	Roburger	Non-contagious	Electric shock	Dangerous	Minor brute damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a cyborg.
Necrotic degeneration	Zombies	Contact	Styptic powder injection	Dangerous	Minor toxin damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a zombie.
GBS	Unknown	Non-contagious	Cryoxadone	Deadly	Toxin damage, exploding into gibs. Rarely, GBS may be airborne. A fake and largely harmless version also exists.
Space AIDS	Unknown	Non-contagious	Incurable	Deadly	Toxin damage, randomly contracting other diseases.
Grave fever	Vampires	Non-contagious	Spaceacillin	Deadly	Severe toxin damage, paralysis, death.
Space kuru	Cannibalism	Non-contagious	Incurable	Deadly	Escalating toxin damage, uncontrollable laughing and seizures, death.

Note: These diseases are fixed in their parameters and always progress in the same way, but this isn't the case for every virus. Pathology research can create pathogens with an unique combination of symptoms and attributes.

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

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

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

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

Simple - just go to sleep somewhere. 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.

Antibiotics and -psychotics

Go to medbay and ask for an injection of spaceacillin, an antibiotic. Certain diseases can only be cured by the anti-psychotic haloperidol, but other reagents may count as an antibiotic influence. Experiment and find out!

Electric shock

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

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

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.