This post can be used to provide us feedback on the Status Effect changes Summary: Reducing Overlaps: Minimizing simultaneous status effects (SE) that affect the same stats (e.g., health). Consolidation: Ideally, each SE focuses on only one area of effect. Cascade System: Introduction of progression tiers, in which typically only the most severe effect within a group is active. Some now require a certain condition to trigger. Indicator Effects: New SEs for temperature and radioactivity serve as warning signals without their own penalties, but can trigger secondary damage. NPC Adjustment: Enemies primarily cause T1 “starter” effects to reduce the severity of penalties during combat. Changes: The following groups and progressions exist: Running speed reduced (Speed Loop) > T1: FractureOpen, FractureClosed; Will slow down the player. T2: Mutilation; Occurs only if one of the two T1s is present while the second one expires. Note: The running speed loop is isolated in itself and does not affect any other effects or loops. Health points loss - Start/Acceleration (Main Loop) > T1a: Open Wound; a deep laceration with significant blood (and thus health) loss. T1b: DermalBurn < Frostbite < RadiationBurn; The “Tissue” group refers to superficial skin damage (after the suit has been penetrated) that would translate to: it “hurts” but does not drain a lot of HP. Only the highest of this sub-group is ever active (see arrows). The lower ones get exchanged for the higher one in the order noted above. T2a: Infected Wound; Will only occur if Open Wound and one of the T1b members OR Poison Bite is active. Imagine it as “getting dirt into an open wound”. T2b: Necrosis; Each of the T1b develops normally “over time” into Necrosis. Health points Threshold - Plateau (Main Loop) > T3: Sepsis (Intoxication); Occurs as an unstable "plateau" (on which no more HP are drained for the duration); Sepsis occurs ONLY when Infected Wound and Necrosis are present or develop further into Sepsis as long as both SEs are active. Sepsis starts the SE in brackets as a co-SE when triggered and thus loops into the Poison-Loop (see further below)! Health points loss - Imminent Death (Main Loop) > T4: Organ Failure; This SE can be reached as a result of some other cascades - not only in the health-main-loop. When triggered, nothing happens at first. After the time runs out, all health points are drained from the player. Note: The health points loop (Main Loop) has several phases. A manageable start (T1), an acceleration (T2), a plateau (T3), and the Death-Drop (T4). Within the cascade, it is only possible to receive some of the effects from group T1b (low/slow HP loss) again after reaching T3. T1a and T2a (both high-HP loss) remain blocked when T3 is reached to not double-penalize too much with HP-threshold AND high HP-loss at the same time. Poisoning & Food / Thresholds (Poison Loop) > T0: Indigestion; Technically, Indigestion counts towards the Poison Loop, but has no connections to other SE of this or other loops, thus it stands on its own and causes a reduced food threshold - unless the player gets Poison Food (which dissolves the Indigestion for the more dangerous Poisoned Food SE) T1a: Poison Bite; Contains minimal HP drop over time. Evolves directly into T2. T1b: Poisoned Food; Greatly reduces the maximum food point limit; Continuously creates an Intoxication (T2) if not treated. T2: Intoxication; An uncertain plateau that can arise from T1a or T1b in this cascade, but does not cause damage or malicious effects itself. It is an “indicator” and provides an opportunity to prevent the next stage. Repeatedly evolves into a Fever Attack (T3) if not treated. T3: FeverAttack; Increases body temperature and slightly increases food consumption; Continuously creates a Bad Trip (T4) if not treated - but also replaces it if a new FeverAttack is started to keep the progression intact. T4: Bad Trip increases food consumption significantly but transitions into the less dangerous Hangover after timeout. T5: Hangover; increases food consumption slightly. Transitions into Exhausted after timeout T6: Exhausted; Disables stamina regeneration and increases food-consumption a lot while the SE lasts. Note: The so-called “Poison Loop” is somewhat similar to a mountain, which contains a dangerous ascent on one side, but tapers off harmlessly on the other, although you could possibly stumble and fall flat on the ground on the last step. Environmental conditions (Environmental Loop) > Temperature > T1: ColdEffect / Hot; These are purely “indicators” that body temperature has fallen/risen. Both SEs generate no penalty. T2: Freezing (Frostbite) / Heatstroke (DermalBurn); Also indicators, but they continuously start the SEs in parentheses. T3: BlackoutCold / BlackoutHot; Both are indicators, but they start the SE “Organ Failure”. Radioactivity > T1: RadiationPoisoning; These are purely “indicators” that RAD in the body has risen. No other SE or penalty is generated. T2: RadiationSickness; Also an indicator, but it continuously generates a DermalBurn. T3: RadiationOverload; An indicator for the final escalation stage, which starts the SE “Organ Failure”. Note: The Environment-loop is about indicators that repeatedly (!) trigger certain Co-SEs when a certain body temperature or body radiation level is reached/surpassed. They do not have their own malicious or beneficial effects on them. Parasites (Parasite Loop) > T1: DermalParasite; An indicator. The parasites crawl on the suit, but do not inflict any penalty or damage. T2: EndoParasite; As soon as T1 is present and one of the following effects “damages” the suit and injures the player, the skin parasites “crawl” inside and into the wounds (FractureOpen, OpenWound, InfectedWound, DermalBurn, Frostbite, RadiationBurn, Necrosis, PoisonBite) T3: AlienParasite; After the time limit expires, all HP are drained from the player. Note: The parasite loop is a special case because it gives the player a positive buff in T2 (doubles health points) for a slightly higher food consumption. T2 also removes all active, negative SEs and protects against radioactivity as long as it lasts. However, if it is not cured, the subsequent T3 is almost immediately fatal.
