Virology Reworked

src/en/space-station-14/departments/medical/proposals/Virology Reworked.md

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+# Virology Reworked
+
+| Designers | Implemented | GitHub Links |
+|---|---|---|
+| AdmiralObvious | :x: | TBD |
+
+## Overview 
+Virology existed in the past and for the most part was very static and boring, as well as generally unpleasant to deal with. This proposal is hopefully going to make Virology as a job more interesting, as well as have more impact on a round. Viruses would be procedural instead of one and done.
+
+## Viruses
+At the start of a round, a large percentage of the crew should start with some sort of benign effect virus (will explain more later about benign versus active viruses). Each crewmember would start with between 0 and 3 viruses in their system.
+These viruses initially won't have any effects to the crew carrying said viruses, but later as the round progresses can mutate based on various factors.
+Viruses can be identified and tracked using a similar system to the detective DNA sequencing and collected by crew using sterile swabs on individuals, or by taking blood samples from crew. Method of sample collection will determine which, if any viruses are collected. These samples can then be inserted into the medical diagnoser (or something else but we have the machine for it) to determine the 6 core characteristics of the virus.
+
+## Viral Characteristics 
+Viruses will have 4 of 6 characteristics that the virologist can detect using the diagnoser. Symptoms, which can have many potential symptoms the virologist can see to assess who has what disease potentially.
+Volatility, which would operate on a sliding scale of how likely the virus is to mutate, and how severe the potential mutations can be using a random weighted point buy, similar to botany chem mutations.
+Estimated lifespan of the virus before it eventually "dies", by 20 minutes, none of the initial viruses should exist.
+Lastly, there'd be the mode of contagion spread. Most likely to spread would be airborne, least likely to spread would be blood to blood contact (this will also require medical to sterilize their tools, which will be discussed later). Contagion types can stack.
+Not shown to the virologist would be wether or not the virus is capable of jumping species type, nor the major health effect related to such an event occurring. 
+
+## Viral Mutations
+Viruses on their own will all start with a benign type symptom, or, the carrier of the virus won't know it exists. Over time, viruses will pass between crew naturally through normal work, physical contact, being near each other, and potential medical malpractice with improperly sterilized tools. 
+As the viruses transfer between hosts, there would be a variable chance for the virus to mutate based on the volatility rating of the virus (min of about 10% and max of 75%). When the virus mutates, it can select from a (hopefully) large list of symptoms and maladies, from literally nothing, to a cough or fever, to a series of more lethal traits like coughing blood, blindness, ecetra.
+The point buy can also remove previous traits the virus had, at a moderate weighting.
+Viral volatility should reroll every time the virus mutates. It should be possible for there to be a novel virus that only affects one or three crewmembers before it changes to a different virus based on the original.
+
+## Combating Viruses
+Cleanliness will go a long way to preventing viruses from getting out of hand. Medical tools, such as syringes will have a high chance to pick up viruses and transfer them between patients if the syringes are not sterilized properly. This can be done via a sterilization machine which would need to be added inside of medical, or in a pinch, you can use liquid soaps or space cleaners to attempt to clean syringes if you're in a rush, but with a much reduced probability of success.
+Alternatively, virologists can attempt to create vaccines to the virus in question, in order to create a vaccine, the virologist would need to provide multiple samples of the virus to the vaccinatior machine, which will then synthesize a vaccine with a hidden success probability based on the volatility of the target virus. Vaccine production will require *something* to actually create the vaccine. 
+A successful vaccine will prevent the specific virus the vaccine is created for from jumping to any person who has not already been infected by the vaccine parent, but will not prevent any future mutation of the same virus eventually coming around and infecting later.
+
+## External Infection Sources
+Viruses that don't originate in the crew round start can be instead picked up from other sources, such as raw meats in the kitchen, not cleaning meat cutting tools in the kitchen, rats and mice, artifacts creating (usually very lethal) diseases, and sometimes external sources, such as carp bites, vent spider bites, spawned blood puddles, and potentially bio terror from nukkies.
+This is mostly done so the crew can't somehow systematically wipe out viruses.
+
+## Viral Modification
+Virologists can take multiple viruses and attempt to take characteristics from each of them in an effort to create new viruses, which can potentially be used to combat other viruses, or be turned into bioweappns.
+Viruses can be modified when exposed to Mutagen or Spacacillin to cause different effects.
+Mutagen will immediately trigger a mutation of the virus as would normally happen when the virus transfers between subjects. 
+Spacacillin can be used to "stabilize" the virus, and then later be used to intentionally infect people without the virus that the original sample was taken from. A Spacacillin modified virus would block the original virus from transferring to the patient as an alternative to a vaccine, as a form of inoculation instead but still subject the patient to the symptoms of the virus.
+
+## Contagion Tiers
+These can all stack in one virus based on volatility and mutation, and will always start with at least one of these.
+
+Blood to Blood: Requires direct blood contact to transfer, such as repeated syringe use, or the same melee weapon used against multiple people. Drinking blood may or may not count. Very low point cost.
+Saliva: Would require someone to drink or ingest the virus from an item someone else has drank or eaten off of without being cleaned first. Low point cost.
+Airborne, Inhalation: Would require people to stand near each other in order to transfer the virus. Can be blocked with breath masks. Moderate point cost.
+Contact: Virus can be picked up through contact with objects the infected has handled with a lifespan assigned to the virus for objects, as well as hugs, cuffing actions, buckling. Moderate point cost.
+Airborne, Infectious: High virulence, able to infect through anything via proximity except for full virology suits and the CMO hardsuit and Paramedic Softsuit (gotta make them useful for something). High point cost.
+All of the above can also have a species jump modifier, which will allow the virus to transfer between species and survive successfully, at a higher mutation cost.
+
+## Virus Symptoms
+Viruses should only very rarely be beneficial. They should be something that the crew should be aware of however. Viral symptoms would be generated based on the mutation point buy system with low cost mutations being most common. Ideally these symptoms would be assigned a severity as well.
+When a virus jumps species, the severity should be bumped up by one or two equivalent levels to make the event impactful. The originator species may have a minor cough while the reciever species might be literally coughing up their lungs for example.
+
+Benign: The default virus state. Doesn't do anything.
+Runny Nose/Feels Funny: Basically doesn't do anything but let the carrier know they have something with an occasional popup. At higher levels, this can manifest into diziness or drowsiness.
+Coughing/Sneezing: Makes the carrier cough or sneeze intermittently, creates an invisible area of effect for the virus to cause infection if it has a contact or airborne infection type. Should not generate an AOE if the individual is wearing a sterile mask. Severe cough can include coughing blood, and would cause minor bloodloss.
+Dizziness: Applies the drunk effect to the carrier, more severe symptoms can apply a move debuff.
+Vomiting: Causes the carrier to vomit, will create a puddle containing any viruses the patient has, and can be spread to others via drinking (why) or through contact if they don't have shoes. Can cause blood vomiting at high severity which will remove a good chunk of the affected bloodstream.
+Drowsiness: Causes the character to yawn, affects stamina cap, can cause the character to enter forced sleep at high severity.
+Chills: Makes the patient feel colder than they are. Can potentially raise the target body temp of the affected. Would show on visual inspection as "clammy".
+Sweats: Makes the target feel overheated. Reduces the target body temp of the affected. Would show on visual inspection as "hot".
+Blindness: Applies a set vision damage value to the carrier. Would show on visual inspection as cataracts or a different indicator of eye damage.
+Blistering: Visible blisters develop on the carrier. Can have a severity level where it may add a slight level of armor, or can go the other way where it causes bleeding.
+Convulsions/Seizures: Stuns the carrier similar to touching an electrified object.
+Poison: Variable, but a severe symptom that will eventually kill the patient if left untreated.
+Zombification/Cluwne: Effectively a way for the zombie virus to spawn naturally, this should be extremely rare (like a 1 in 10k chance), but would function the same as poison above, but turn the victim into a zombie or cluwne on death.
+Insular: Virus will actively suppress other viruses, removing them from the carrier after a period of time based on the severity of this symptom. Should come with some other symptoms to offset.
+Vocal Modification: Can cause speech impediments, or if you want to be fun, cause full language/word replacements, such as Ravatarian, or straight up mute the patient.
+Numbing: Acts as a small increase to the patients critical damage threshold, but increases action doafters, and can induce the clumsiness trait.