Disease

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This article is about treatable illnesses. For physical damage, see Injury. For chronic health conditions, see Ailments.

Diseases are temporary and treatable ailments, that pass away after a certain amount of time or treatment.

Contract

Most diseases are contracted as part of an event. Your colony's biome determines how common diseases are, as well as how common each disease is. However, some diseases happen situationally, regardless of biome:

• Infection may occur after a bleeding injury, burn, or frostbite is inflicted. Tending the injury in a clean room reduces the chance of infection.
• Lung rot occurs randomly when inhaling enough rot stink.
• Blood rot and paralytic abasia are exclusively part of quests, while infant illness can only happen during birth.

Note that diseases are not contagious in RimWorld. Disease does not ever spread between colonists, though disease events often simulate "outbreaks" by inflicting multiple colonists at the same time.

The drug penoxycyline protects against Malaria, Plague, and Sleeping sickness. The disease event still happens, but colonists will not be affected.

Summary

Humans and animals can get diseases. Most diseases uses the severity mechanic. As a disease progresses, its symptoms progressively get worse. If a fatal disease's severity reaches 1.0 (100%), then death occurs. Most diseases go from minor -> major -> extreme. How fast a disease progresses depends on the disease itself.

Diseases

Note: Base values of severity and immunity gain speed used in the table.
Treatment's reduction of severity depends on tend quality. 50% tend quality equals half the reduction.

Disease	Fatal?	Description	Severity	Treatment
Infection		Generic infection of individual wounds. Fast moving and dangerous. < 1.25 days to kill if untreated. <1.5 days for immunity. Mild symptoms until extreme severity (>0.87). (+5% to +12% pain)	Severity: +0.84 / day Immunity: +0.644 / day Treatment: -0.53 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Bed rest and medicine Amputation of infected body part
Flu		Relatively mild and common disease. Non-elderly adults can survive without treatment, with just bedrest. Lowers consciousness, manipulation, breathing (−5% to −20%).	Severity: +0.249 / day Immunity: +0.239 / day Treatment: -0.077 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Bed rest and medicine
Malaria		Common in tropical biomes. Attacks blood filtration, slowing immunity speed. Later stages cause pain and reduces consciousness.	Severity: +0.370 / day Immunity: +0.314 / day Treatment: -0.232 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Bed rest and medicine
Plague		Fast moving and extremely painful. ~1.5 days to kill if untreated. Constant pain (+20% to +85%). Also reduces consciousness and manipulation (up to −30%).	Severity: +0.666 / day Immunity: +0.522 / day Treatment: -0.362 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Bed rest and medicine
Sleeping sickness		Very slow-moving infection. Native only to rainforests and swamps. Relatively easy to treat if rested. Threat is the amount of rest / medicine required. Mainly lowers consciousness & manipulation (−2% to −20%).	Severity: +0.12 / day Immunity: +0.11 / day Treatment: -0.07 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Bed rest and medicine
Scaria		Drives animals to become manhunters. Exclusive to animals in manhunter packs. Humans and colony animals immune.	Kills in 5 days, unless cured	Surgery 3 medicine Medical Skill 8+
Lung rot		Occurs after enough exposure to rot stink. Avoid rot stink to avoid. Resisted by sources of Toxic Environment Resistance. Easily treatable overall. Can drain medicine. Impairs breathing slightly. Minimal symptoms overall.	Severity: +0.300 / day Treatment: -1.000 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Medicine Resolves from: Min 360,000 ticks (6 in-game days) Max 480,000 ticks (8 in-game days)
Gut worms		Doubles hunger rate. Also painful (+20% pain).	No progression Cured at 300% total Tend Quality	Medicine (48hr per tend) Stomach replacement or removal
Muscle parasites		Heavily impairs work. Significant tiredness. Lowered manipulation and movement speed (−30%). Also painful (+20% pain).	No progression Cured at 300% total Tend Quality	Medicine (48hr per tend)
Fibrous mechanites		Very long-lasting, but improves working. Painful, significant tiredness. Significantly increases manipulation, moving and blood pumping (+50% to all).	Severity: +0.25 / day Treatment: -1.00 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Medicine Prevents pain increase only Resolves from: Min 900,000 ticks (15 in-game days) Max 1,800,000 ticks (30 in-game days)
Sensory mechanites		Very long-lasting, but improves many stats. Painful, significant tiredness. Significantly increases sight, hearing, and talking (+50% to all). Increases manipulation (+30%).	Severity: +0.25 / day Treatment: -1.00 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Medicine Prevents pain increase only Resolves from: Min 900,000 ticks (15 in-game days) Max 1,800,000 ticks (30 in-game days)
Organ decay		No natural cure. Only targets specific organs. Causes increasingly worse pain and weakened part efficiency of the afflicted organ, ultimately destroying it at 1 severity. Only treatable by replacing the organ. Only targets the heart, lungs and kidneys. Can appear rarely as a disease event, or on Creepy joiners.	Severity: +0.0166 to 0.0334 / day	Replacing the organ Does not affect bionic or prosthetic organs Reaches max severity after: Min 1,800,000 ticks (2 quadrums) Max 2,400,000 ticks (40 in-game days)
Blood rot		Extremely long lasting blood affliction. Quest only. Mild and easily treated, but can be a drain on medicine.	Severity: +0.40 / day Treatment: -1.00 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Medicine Surgery for immediate cure 10 glitterworld medicine Medical Skill 5+ Resolves from: Min 1,800,000 ticks (30 in-game days) Max 2,400,000 ticks (40 in-game days)
Paralytic abasia		Complete immobility. Extremely long lasting. Quest or transport pod crash only.	No progression 1% per day to instantly cure	Waiting Surgery for immediate cure 10 glitterworld medicine Medical Skill 5+ Always resolves after: Min 1,800,000 ticks (30 in-game days) Max 2,400,000 ticks (40 in-game days)
Infant illness		Inflicted after a sick birth of a baby. 4 different types of illness, from mild to grave. Switches every 1-3 days. Uniquely, reducing severity to 0 cures the disease (no immunity required).	Starts as Major severity (0.40) Severity gain depends on the type From -0.25 to +0.5 severity / day Immunity: +0.10 / day Treatment: -0.35 severity / day (at 100% quality)	Medicine and bed rest

Treatment

Most diseases can be tended to, just like an injury or ailment, by a Doctor pawn and when the afflicted pawn is assigned to Patient themselves. Tend Quality is determined by a variety of factors, including the doctor's skill and the quality of Medicine used. Generally, higher quality tends reduce the total time until recovery, though mechanics vary. How often a disease can be tended depends on the disease itself.

There are 3 types of diseases to tend to:

• The disease will progress over time, and treatment slows down progression. Immunity is gained over time, dependent on Immunity Gain Speed and independent of tend quality. Once immune, the disease will slowly fade and the colonist will stop being a patient. This applies to most fatal diseases, including the flu, infection, and plague.
• The disease does not progress. Treatment must reach a total tend quality (300%) before the disease is cured. For example, 4 tends at 80% quality would equal 320% total tend quality. Applies to gut worms and muscle parasites.
• The disease progresses over time, and treatment slows and even prevents progression. The disease fades only after a certain time. Applies to lung rot, fibrous mechanites, sensory mechanites, and blood rot.

Certain diseases have specialized cures. For example, infection in a non-vital part can be cured by amputating or replacing a limb, blood rot can be instantly cured with glitterworld medicine, and gut worms can be treated by replacing the stomach. In addition, a healer mech serum immediately cures any disease.

Immunity gain

Main article: Immunity Gain Speed

Some diseases are a race between the increasing severity of the disease and the increasing immunity to it. This immunity gain is controlled by several factors:

• Base immunity gain speed for the particular disease.
• InfectionLuck, an uncontrollable generated value that adds randomness to the diseases progression. Each disease has a variance in Immunity gain speed of 20% up or down.
• The Immunity Gain Speed stat of the patient

Immunity Gain Speed is affected by the following:

• Food: Pawns above 12.5% Saturation do not have any penalties to immunity.
• Rest: Actively resting gives a bonus to speed. Resting in any bedroll or bed increases the stat, a hospital bed increases it further, and a hospital bed with an attached vitals monitor increases it the most.
• Age: As a pawn gets closer to and past their species' life expectancy, immunity gain speed decreases.
  • For baseline humans, immunity gain speed is gradually lost after age 54. Genes like cell instability can affect the pawns lifespan and, in turn, affect this progression.^[Verify]
• Blood Filtration: Mostly increased via luciferium. Reduced with kidney or liver damage, slightly improved with a detoxifier kidney.
• Direct boosts: The Super-immune trait, Immunoenhancer, and genes can increase immunity speed.

Note that these only apply to diseases with immunity mechanics. For example, you don't need to give a pawn with gut worms bedrest.

Disease frequency

Disease frequency by AI storyteller

Disease frequency is controlled directly by the Disease frequency AI storyteller setting.

This value can be changed in custom storyteller settings, but has the following default values by difficulty:

Difficulty	Disease interval multiplier
Peaceful	3
Community builder	2.5
Adventure story	1.3
Strive to survive	1.0
Blood and dust	0.95
Losing is fun	0.9

Disease frequency by biomes

Version history

• 0.7.581 - Added with flu, plague, malaria, sleeping sickness.
• 0.9.722 - Diseases can now cause vomiting.

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Disease

Deadly diseases

Flu • Infection • Lung rot • Malaria • Plague • Sleeping sickness • Organ decay • Blood rot • Infant illness

Non-fatal diseases

Fibrous mechanites • Gut worms • Muscle parasites • Sensory mechanites • Paralytic abasia

Animal diseases

Scaria