Virus

Virii are assorted types of disease, infection or malady which can be contracted, suffered and spread around the station. There are many different kinds of virus, and they often come into play via a number of different ways, the most common being Disease Research "accidents" and Random Events. Virii can be detected in a person by using a Health Analyser on them - information will be shown such as the name of the virus, how it spreads, how far the infection has progressed, and what can be done to cure it.

Known Virii

Name	Causes	Spread	Cure	Danger Level	Effects
Owns Syndrome	Unknown	Non-Contagious	Beatings	Beneficial	Minor healing, stun recovery, free sunglasses
Panacaea	Unknown	Airborne	Self-Curing	Beneficial	Healing, removes diseases
Common Cold	Random Event	Airborne	Sleep	Harmless	Coughing and sneezing
The Serious	Tainted Food	Non-Contagious	Beatings	Harmless	Clothes fall off, uncontrollable ranting, rainbow flashing
Cosborrhea	Random Event	Contact	Antibiotics	Harmless	Ranting about jazz, turning into Bill Cosby
Space Rhinovirus	Random Event	Airborne	Antibiotics	Harmless	Turns everyone into a copy of patient zero
Space Autism	Vaccines	Non-Contagious	Incurable	Harmless	Makes you hatefully sneer at various things
The Flu	Random Event	Airborne	Sleep	Minor	Coughing, sneezing, minor toxic damage
Food Poisoning	Tainted Food	Non-Contagious	Sleep	Minor	Diarrhea, vomiting, stunning
Explosive Diarrhea	Tainted Food	Non-Contagious	Sleep	Minor	Diarrhea, farting, stunning, minor toxic damage
Clowning Around	Random Event	Contact	Antibiotics	Minor	Honking, generating clown clothes, tripping over
Hair Growititis	EZ-Grow Formula	Non-Contagious	Burnings	Dangerous	Minor brute damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a monkey
Robotic Transformation	Roburger	Non-Contagious	Electric Shock	Dangerous	Minor brute damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a cyborg
Jungle Fever	Unknown	Airborne	Incurable	Dangerous	Only infects monkeys - infected monkeys become viral
Space Madness	Random Event	Airborne	Antibiotics	Dangerous	Loss of sanity
Teleportitis	Unknown	Non-Contagious	Electric Shock	Dangerous	Teleport around randomly
Berserker	Random Event	Contact	Sedatives	Dangerous	Swearing, shouting, attacking nearly crew uncontrollably
Plasmatoid	Unknown	Non-Contagious	Hyronalin	Dangerous	Become unable to breathe oxygen, only plasma
Type-D Owns Syndrome	Unknown	Non-Contagious	Ryetalyn	Dangerous	Minor healing, stun recovery, retardation
Necrotic Degeneration	Random Event	Contact	Healing Reagents	Deadly	Minor toxic damage, occasional paralysis, turning into a zombie
GBS	Unknown	Airborne	Cryoxadone	Deadly	Toxic damage, exploding into gibs (a fake version exists)
Space AIDS	Unknown	Airborne	Incurable	Deadly	Toxic damage, randomly gives you other diseases
Grave Fever	Vampire	Airborne	Antibiotics	Deadly	Severe toxic damage, paralysis
Space Kuru	Cannibalism	Non-Contagious	Unknown	Deadly	Escalating toxic damage, uncontrollable laughing and seizures

Note that just about all of the diseases can be researched and spread by unscrupulous Scientists, so if you catch anything marked as having an Unknown cause on this list, it means either a rogue pathologist is on the loose or an admin has decided to give you a disease for some reason.

Infection Methods

Contagious virii currently spread mostly through two means - Airborne transmission and Contact transmission. In the case of both Airborne and Contact transmitted virii, the infection vector is external - this means that wearing clothing that protects against disease (mostly a full biosuit and internals) will protect you from infection. Absolute protection from external infections can be achieved by wearing a sufficient amount of gear - as long as you don't take any of it off or inject/eat anything strange, you won't have to worry about infections at all.

Contact

Contact transmission means that if you touch the infected person in some way, you'll catch the virus from them. Contact means bumping into them, attacking them, taking or putting items onto them, and helping/disarming/grabbing/punching them. Note that this works both ways in all cases - an infectee can infect 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 if you remain in their presence. This infection vector also affects any gibs or blood spilled by the infected - if someone with airborne GBS explodes, going near their gibs will get you infected.

Other Vectors

The virii you're most likely to catch overall are the contagious ones described above, but that doesn't mean you should discount non-contagious virii as a threat. Consuming spoiled, badly cooked, poisoned or special kinds of food or drink 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, you can't stop the infection. Whoops!

Cures

So you've been infected with something - what can you do to stop it? This largely depends on the virus itself. Some virii have a common cure between them, while others have a unique cure that only works for them. The common cures will be covered here - the other ones you'll have to puzzle out for yourself (though to be fair, they're not exactly difficult to figure out).

Sleep

Simple - just go to sleep somewhere. The virus will recede until it is cured completley. 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

Go to Medbay and get an injection of Spaceacillin. The virus will begin to recede after you get your injection - spaceacillin tends to work quite quickly. 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. Cables, machinery, and rambunctious security may be able to help you here.

Beatings/Burnings

You just have to take a lot of brute or fire damage, respectively. This can easily be done to yourself, but make sure not to overdo it!

Prevention

Much like reality, often the best way to stop yourself from catching a virus is to not catch it in the first place. This can be achieved by wearing protective gear in the case of Airborne and Contact virii (as described above) or through other means. Vaccines can be made by Scientists doing disease research - being injected with a vaccine will give you a weakened form of the disease, which will soon wear off and make you resistant to the disease proper. Resistances can also be obtained by curing some other 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 gotten rid of once contracted. 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 robotisation are the only ways to escape.