Sentient Disease
| VIRAL STAFF | |
 Sentient Disease |
Access: None Additional Access: Wherever your hosts carry you Difficulty: Hard Supervisors: Your DNA Duties: Infect the crew Guides: This is the guide Quote: SHUT . . . DOWN . . . EVERYTHING |
You are a sentient virus: extremely adaptable, resistant to mutations, and inherently stealthy. Somehow, you're now established on this particular Nanotrasen-brand space station. Time to spread!
Becoming a Sentient Disease
There is a low chance that a random event will take place which will spawn a sentient disease on station. This sentient disease starts off by infecting only a single host, a "Patient Zero" if you will, and has to move quickly to infect as many people as possible. The disease then has to endure the rest of the shift (with the CMO and virologist probably hot on your ass) in order to maximize its chances of getting a host to CentCom. There's no official notification for the spawning of a sentient disease, so the first few infections should be easy. (especially considering that your infection modifier is relatively stalbe)
Objectives
All sentient diseases have the same two, non-varying objectives:
- Survive and infect as many people as possible.
- Ensure that at least one infected host escapes on the shuttle or an escape pod.
Plague Inc.
The Sentient Disease spawns with 0 evolution points, gaining more as it infects more hosts. A good portion of the symptoms listed here can be evolved, but not all of them. (imagine how terrifying a sentient disease with brain rot would be) One trait which differentiates a sentient disease from a normal, virology disease is that the sentient disease can evolve more than 6 symptoms.
The sentient disease has two unique abilities:
Cough: This ability forces the host that the virus is following to cough, transmitting the virus two tiles away from the host. Costs no evolution points, and is the only symptom you receive upon spawn. Your main source of transmission in the first few minutes of your existence. There is a 10 second cooldown before this ability can be used again.
Sneeze: This ability forces the host that the virus is following to sneeze, transmitting the virus four tiles away in a cone to the front of your host. Costs 3 evolution points, and is therefore relatively easy to unlock. 20 seconds cooldown between uses.
Evolvable Symptoms
| Symptom | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Voluntary Coughing | 0 | Force the host you are following to cough with extra force, spreading your infection to those within two meters of your host even if your transmitability is low. Cooldown: 10 seconds |
| Voluntary Sneezing | 3 | Force the host you are following to sneeze with extra force, spreading your infection to any victims in a 4 meter cone in front of your host. Cooldown: 20 seconds |
| Involuntary Coughing | 4 | Cause victims to cough intermittently, spreading your infection if your transmitability is high. |
| Involuntary Sneezing | 4 | Cause victims to sneeze intermittently, spreading your infection and also increasing transmitability and resistance, at the cost of stealth. |
| Beard Growth | 8 | Cause all victims to grow a luscious beard. Decreases stats slightly. Ineffective against Santa Claus. |
| Choking | 8 | Cause victims to choke, threatening asphyxiation. Decreases stats, especially transmittability. |
| Confusion | 8 | Cause victims to become confused intermittently. |
| Eternal Youth | 8 | Cause victims to become eternally young. Provides boosts to all stats except transmittability. |
| Hallucinations | 8 | Cause victims to hallucinate. Decreases stats, especially resistance. |
| Itching | 8 | Cause victims to itch, increasing all stats except stealth. |
| Self-Adaptation | 8 | Cause your infection to mimic the function of normal body cells, becoming much harder to spot and to eradicate, but reducing its speed. |
| Sensory Restoration | 8 | Regenerate eye and ear damage of victims. |
| Skin Paleness | 8 | Cause victims to become pale. Decreases all stats. |
| Weight Loss | 8 | Cause victims to lose weight, and make it almost impossible for them to gain nutrition from food. Reduced nutrition allows your infection to spread more easily from hosts, especially by sneezing. |
| Vision Loss | 8 | Damage the eyes of victims, eventually causing blindness. Decreases all stats. |
| Voice Changing | 8 | Change the voice of victims, causing confusion in communications. |
| Vomiting | 8 | Cause victims to vomit. Slightly increases transmittability. Vomiting also also causes the victims to lose nutrition and removes some toxin damage. |
| Metabolic Boost | 16 | Increase the metabolism of victims, causing them to process chemicals twice as fast and grow hungry more quickly. |
| Regenerative Coma | 16 | Cause victims to fall into a healing coma when hurt. |
Statistics
Each evolved symptom affects 4 stats; stealth, transmission, resistance, and stage speed, which all can change how your disease interacts. For more information, see Infections#Understanding stats. A list of how the various symptoms positively or negatively change these stats can be found in the symptoms table below.
Oh Shit There's a Sentient Disease on Station
- Step 1: Turn on internals
- Step 2: Make sure that the virologist/CMO is alive
- Step 3: Wait for him/her to do work and make vaccines
Of worth noting is that viruses can, and often will go become beneficial to the crew, but it almost always requires purchasing various negative symptoms to increase the transmissibility enough so you can actually evolve Regenerative Coma or Sensory Restoration/whatever. Spaceacillin can also be useful if you are already infected by the disease.
