Ailments
|
 | This article is suggested to be rewritten. Reason: Cleanup and standardization needed - treatment and stages sections for each required. See Template:Heal Option Table. Once the table is updated, also add chronophagy to relevant cured ailmetns. You can help the RimWorld Wiki by improving it. |
Ailments are health conditions that cannot be treated completely using medicine alone.
"MTB" stands for "Mean Time Between", and is how it's presented in the game files.
Some conditions can give rise to other conditions; the risk of this happening will diminish if the condition is treated.
Most permanent ailments are curable with body part replacements or usage of the healer mech serum.
Healing method table
Some injuries and health conditions will not naturally heal or cannot be immediately cured by treatment. In these cases, transplantation, artificial body parts, healer mech sera, luciferium or biosculpter pods
may help, but each has its own unique list of what it can and cannot cure.
The full comparison table between healing methods is collapsed due to length. Expand to view.
- ^Both Heals both relevant organs if condition is present in both.
- ^One Heals only one organ, even if condition is present in both.
- ^Prev This option prevents the acquisition of new cases of this condition, independent of whether or not it cures existing cases.
- ^IGS While this option does not outright cure these diseases, the increase to Immunity Gain Speed can hasten their healing and/or help prevent fatal cases.
- ^Note 1 This only heals the pawn it is applied to. The other pawn that gained duplicate sickness with this pawn must be separately healed.
- ^Note 2 This condition can only be cured before it reaches its final stage, "crumbled mind". Once it has, it becomes permanently incurable.
Chronic
Ailments that come with age. Either non-fatal, or progresses extremely slowly towards fatality compared to infectious diseases.
Alzheimer's
 | This article is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: "Forget memory" and "confused wandering" mechanics. |
A brain disease usually associated with aging. Alzheimer's disease causes progressive degradation in the ability to think and remember. Patients are known to forget close relatives and sometimes wander around in confusion.
Alzheimer's progresses by 0.003 per day, meaning that it will take 333.33 days for it to reach full severity from when it first appears.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Alzheimer's (minor) | ≥0% severity |
|
| Alzheimer's (minor) | ≥20% severity |
|
| Alzheimer's (major) | ≥50% severity |
|
| Alzheimer's (major) | ≥80% severity |
|
A human pawn must be at least 33.6 years old to get Alzheimer's, meaning it can first occur at their 34th birthday
| Alzheimers chance |
|---|
Treatment:
- Luciferium: Luciferium removes one randomly selected condition that it can cure every 900,000 to 1,800,000 ticks (15 - 30 in-game days). Having fewer luciferium-curable conditions will increase the chance that Alzheimer's is chosen, so it can be worth attempting to address any conditions that can be other means. Even with this however, it can take a significant amount of time. Also note that luciferium is a permanent decision - once taken, further doses are necessary to avoid madness and death.
- Healer mech serum: A healer mech serum will instantaneously heal one condition of the pawn, including Alzheimer's. Which condition is chosen depends on a priority order, with Alzheimer's being a moderately high priority. See the serum's condition order for details.
- Resurrector mech serum: Because the resurrector mech serum will replace a destroyed head with a healthy one, it can be used to heal brain ailments, including Alzheimers. Consistently destroying the head can be difficult. With the Ideology DLC, extracting the skull from a dead pawn will do this reliably and safely, but without it, the best way is allowing colonists or animals to eat sections of the corpse, at the risk of consuming the entire body and permanently losing the pawn. Furthermore, no matter how successful the head removal, there is always the risks normally associated with resurrection, including dementia, blindness, and resurrection psychosis. Note that pawns will initially be incapacitated due to resurrection sickness.
- Death refusal: Similar to the Resurrector mech serum, a pawn imbued with death refusal can self-resurrect and replace a destroyed head with a healthy one. This comes with the drawback of the pawn losing experience in their skills that happens upon imbuing the death refusal. Pawns resurrected via this method will also have resurrection sickness and a negative moodlet upon being resurrected.
- Chronophagy: As pawns younger than 34 cannot get Alzheimer's, reversing age to younger than that in a Chronophagy ritual will remove it.
Asthma
A chronic health condition where inflammation causes the airways to narrow, restricting the flow of oxygen to the lungs. Unlike other chronic diseases, asthma can be contracted at almost any age, meaning it's not terribly uncommon to have an asthmatic person some time down the line.
When not treated, it progresses by a rate of 0.25 per day, meaning it will take 2 days to reach full severity (50%).
Good treatment will reduce the rate of progression by up to 0.8, meaning it will regress by 0.55 a day; it can be returned to its initial severity, but cannot be cured completely.
Asthma's severity will fluctuate depending on the quality of treatment received, with a treatment quality of 32% beginning to regress the stages of asthma (the higher, the better).
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Asthma (minor) | ≥ 0% severity | -10% part efficiency |
| Asthma (major) | ≥ 30% severity | -30% part efficiency |
| Asthma (major) | ≥ 45% severity | -50% part efficiency |
Treatment:
- The severity of asthma can be reduced with treatment, which can be given every 420,000 ticks (around 7 days). One treatment applies to both lungs.
- Asthma can be cured by replacing each affected lung with a healthy replacement.
A human pawn can first get asthma at any age.
| Asthma chance |
|---|
Asthma can also affect animals, domestic, tamed and wild. Domestic and tamed will notify you that they "need treatment", although there apparently is no downside for ignoring that request except slowing them down which may be bad for trained or pack animals. Similarly, asthmatic wild animals on the map can roam and eat indefinitely without treatment. In fact, wild animals with asthma are easier and slightly safer to hunt, because asthma will reduce their move speed to 81%, and their manipulation to only 90%, which makes any counter-attack less effective.
Bad back
Degradation in the spinal column and surrounding musculature. This makes it hard to move and bend smoothly.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Bad back |
|
A bad back can be cured by installing a bionic spine, or with the use of biosculpter pod's bioregeneration cycle.
A human pawn must be at least 40 years old to get a bad back, meaning it can first occur at their 41st birthday
| Bad back chance |
|---|
Cataract
Milky-looking opacity in the eye. Cataracts impair vision.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Cataract | -50% part efficiency in the affected eye. This results in 50% sight if both eyes are affected. |
Cataracts can be cured through the following methods:
- Replacing the affected eyes with a bionic or archotech eye.
- Use of a healer mech serum which will heal cataracts in both eyes at once
- Via luciferium use. Note that this does not occur instantaneously, but instead at healing instances that occur periodically. See that page for details.
- Through the use of the biosculpter pod's bioregeneration cycle.
- Via the Scarless gene.
Note that this does not occur instantaneously, but instead at healing instances that occur periodically. See that page for details.
A human pawn must be at least 48 years old to get cataracts, meaning it can first occur at their 49th birthday
| Cataract chance |
|---|
Carcinoma
| This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: How do the stages progress/occur and what chances and factors affects them?. |
A carcinoma (or cancer) is where mutated cells uncontrollably divide to form tumors, which then 'crowd out' normal bodily cells and hinder bodily function in that area. Carcinomas can be surgically removed by a skilled doctor or, in some cases, the affected body part can be removed, either by amputation, transplantation of a healthy body part, or replacement by an artificial body part. Ordinary treatment will prolong the development of a carcinoma or speed up remission, and can be done by doctors of any skill, though better treatment quality is more effective.
A carcinoma typically starts out at 30% severity. There is a 30% chance that a carcinoma won't cause any pain whatsoever.
A cancer has 3 stages; growing, stable and remission.
- When growing, it progresses by 0.003 per day, multiplied by a random factor of 0.45 - 1.65.
- When stable, it neither grows nor regresses on its own.
- When in remission, it regresses by 0.002 per day, multiplied by a random factor of 0.7 - 1.5.
Good treatment can slow progression by 0.0027 per day, meaning that the carcinoma will:
- grow more slowly when in growing stage
- some slow-growing carcinomas (something less than half) may stop or actually regress (very slowly) during their "growing" stage with good treatment
- slowly regress when stable
- regress quickly when in remission
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Carcinoma (minor) | ≥0% severity |
|
| Carcinoma (minor) | ≥15% severity |
|
| Carcinoma (major) | ≥40% severity |
|
| Carcinoma (major) | ≥60% severity |
|
| Carcinoma (extreme) | ≥80% severity |
|
| Carcinoma (extreme) | 100% severity |
|
Treatment:
- Treated every 240,000 ticks (66.67 mins)
- The carcinoma will disappear if severity reaches 0.
- "Excise carcinoma" surgery; this needs 4 medicine of industrial quality or above, 4,500 ticks (1.25 mins) of work, and a doctor with a medical skill of 10 or above. The surgery only has a 70% base chance to succeed.[Fact Check] Also note that if the surgery fails, there is a 25% chance that the patient dies. Thus, as the maximum success chance of any surgery is capped at 98%, there is always at least a 0.5% chance of death per attempt.
A human pawn must be at least 22.4 years old to get carcinoma from aging, meaning it can first occur at their 23rd birthday. Carcinomas from other sources, including toxic buildup and nuclear stomachs
, can happen at any age. Installed nuclear stomachs create a carcinoma on the torso with an MTB of 120 days.
| Carcinoma chance |
|---|
Dementia
Dementia is simply the functionality of the brain declining, and affects all cognitive functions.
It can only be healed with luciferium or a healer mech serum.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Dementia |
|
A human pawn must be at least 68 years old to get dementia from aging, meaning it can first occur at their 69th birthday. Dementia from other sources including toxic buildup can happen at any age.
| Dementia chance |
|---|
Frail
Generalized loss of muscle and bone density. Note that frail can stack with bad back.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Frail |
|
Can only be cured with luciferium, a healer mech serum, implantation of the scarless gene, or with the use of biosculpter pod's bioregeneration cycle.
A human pawn must be at least 50 years old to get frail, meaning it can first occur at their 51st birthday
| Frail chance |
|---|
Artery blockage
A blockage in one of the critical arteries in the heart. Heart artery blockages randomly induce heart attacks. Artery blockages can be treated by replacing the heart with a natural, prosthetic or bionic replacement, with a healer mech serum, with luciferium, or with the use of biosculpter pod's bioregeneration cycle.
Artery blockages progress by a base of 0.0007 per day, multiplied by a random factor between 0.5 - 3. This means that artery blockages can take anywhere from 7.9 to 47.6 in-game years from onset to become fatal on its own.
Artery blockages can be treated by replacing the heart.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Artery blockage (minor) | ≥0% severity |
|
| Artery blockage (minor) | ≥20% severity |
|
| Artery blockage (major) | ≥40% severity |
|
| Artery blockage (major) | ≥60% severity |
|
| Artery blockage (extreme) | ≥90% severity |
|
| Artery blockage (extreme) | 100% severity |
A human pawn must be at least 20 years old to get an artery blockage, meaning it can first occur at their 21st birthday
| Artery blockage chance |
|---|
Hearing loss
Inability to hear quiet sounds due to degradation of hair cells in the cochlea.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Hearing loss |
|
Can be partially mitigated with one or two cochlear implants
Can be completely mitigated with a single bionic ear, even if the other ear remains affected.
A bioregeneration cycle can completely cure hearing loss in both ears.
A human pawn must be at least 48 years old to get hearing loss, meaning it can first occur at their 49th birthday
| Hearing loss chance |
|---|
Acute
Some ailments arise as a result of an acute lack of food or exposure to extreme temperatures. These ailments can only be treated by addressing the underlying cause (e.g. providing food or moving to more comfortable temperatures).
Malnutrition
When a pawn's food meter reaches 0%, they will begin to suffer from malnutrition, shown on the health tab. When a colonist is starving they will prioritize eating over other activities, including firefighting and doctoring.
Malnutrition severity without food will advance at an average of 17% per day. There is a variation for each pawn that will vary this by 20% in both directions, meaning a pawn may actually die of malnutrition between 4.9~7.4 days of first having symptoms. There is no stat indicating the specific rate that a pawn may die of malnutrition, but the modified rate is determined for each specific pawn in a given playthrough.
| Stage | Usually Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Malnutrition (trivial) | 0.0 days since hunger hit zero |
|
| Malnutrition (minor) | 1.2 days since hunger hit zero |
|
| Malnutrition (moderate) | 2.4 days since hunger hit zero |
|
| Malnutrition (severe) | 3.5 days since hunger hit zero |
|
| Malnutrition (extreme) | 4.7 days since hunger hit zero |
|
| Malnutrition (extreme) | 5.9 days since hunger hit zero |
Blood loss
A reduction in the normal blood volume. Minor blood loss has relatively mild effects, but as severity increases, the consciousness rapidly become debilitating. Extreme blood loss leads to death. Total blood loss is listed under whole body, with a tooltip showing the percent.
Blood loss can occur when a pawn has untreated bleeding injuries, has had blood harvested for hemogen packs, or has been fed on by a Bloodfeeder. Blood loss from multiple sources stacks additively.
All pawns recover 33.3% of their blood per day, regardless of traits, genes, drugs, or artificial body parts. All natural blood recovery is stopped when a pawn is bleeding, even in small amounts. Pawns can also recover through a blood transfusion operation, using 1 hemogen pack to recover 35%. The biosculpter pod's medic cycle will also cure all blood loss, though it should be noted that non-transhumanist pawns would recover completely from blood loss in the same time as the cycle takes to complete anyway. If there is no other reason to use the medic cycle, non-transhumanist pawns should just recover outside of the pod and remain productive for that time.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Blood loss (minor) | ≥15% blood loss |
|
| Blood loss (moderate) | ≥30% blood loss |
|
| Blood loss (severe) | ≥45% blood loss |
|
| Blood loss (extreme) | ≥60% blood loss |
|
| Blood loss (extreme) | 100% blood loss |
Heatstroke
Heat stroke occurs when a pawn has prolonged exposure to temperatures 10°C (18°F) above their maximum comfortable temperature, and recovery occurs in temperatures less than the maximum comfortable temperature. Note that it is possible for a pawn to have both heatstroke and hypothermia at the same time if time is spent in both extreme heat and cold - their severities are unrelated.
Pawns additionally take periodic burn damage in temperatures more than 150°C (270°F) above their maximum comfortable temperature.
Severity Increase
The procedure for determining severity growth every 60-tick interval is given by:
- Take the amount by which the ambient temperature exceeds the pawn's maximum safe temperature (which is the maximum comfortable temperature +10°C).
- Pass the amount through the curve shown below to obtain the effective temperature excess. Note that for amounts from 0 to 25 °C, this doesn't result in a change.
- Multiply the excess by
6.45e-5to obtain the severity growth this interval (60 ticks, 1 second). - If the growth is less than
0.000375, set it to that number. This sets a minimum amount the severity increases by for temperatures in the range of 10 to 15.814°C above the maximum comfortable temperature.
Increase in heatstroke severity every 60 ticks = max(0.000375, 0.0000645×effective_temperature_curve(ambient_temperature - (maximum_comfortable_temperature + 10°C)))where effective_temperature_curve() is a post-processing curve with points: (0, 0), (25, 25), (50, 40), (100, 60), (200, 80), (400, 100), (4000, 1000).
| Effective temperature curve |
|---|
| Graph | Ambient Temperature - Maximum Comfortable Temperature (°C) | Growth per 60 ticks | Time to 100% severity (ticks) | Time to 100% severity (in-game time) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | - | - | |
| 5 | 0 | - | - | |
| 10 | 0.000375 | 160000 | 2.7 days | |
| 15 | 0.000375 | 160000 | 2.7 days | |
| 20 | 0.000645 | 93023 | 1.6 days | |
| 25 | 0.000967 | 62016 | 1 day | |
| 100 | 0.003612 | 16611 | 6.6 hours | |
| 300 | 0.005386 | 11141 | 4.5 hours | |
| 4000 | 0.064339 | 933 | 0.4 hours |
Severity Decrease
If the ambient temperature is less than the maximum comfortable temperature, the amount the severity will decrease every 60-tick interval is given by:
Decrease in heatstroke severity every 60 ticks = max(0.0015, min(0.015, 0.027×heatstroke_severity))
This means that as long as the ambient temperature is less than the maximum comfortable temperature, heatstroke recovery is independent of temperature, but severity decreases at its fastest when it is above 50%, and at its slowest below 5.6%. Full recovery from near-100% severity occurs after 151 real-time seconds, or 3.6 in-game hours.
Symptoms
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Heatstroke (initial) | >0.04 Severity |
|
| Heatstroke (minor) | >0.20 Severity |
|
| Heatstroke (serious) | >0.35 Severity |
|
| Heatstroke (extreme) | >0.62 Severity |
|
| Heatstroke (100%) | =1.00 Severity |
Hypothermia
Hypothermia occurs when a pawn has prolonged exposure to temperatures 10°C (18°F) below their minimum comfortable temperature. Insectoids don't experience hypothermia, but instead get hypothermic slowdown.
Note that it is possible for a pawn to have both heatstroke and hypothermia at the same time if time is spent in both extreme heat and cold - their severities are unrelated.
The rate of severity growth depends on the difference below the pawn's minimum safe temperature and the ambient temperature. The specific algorithm is:
- Take the amount by which the pawn's minimum safe temperature (which is the minimum comfortable temperature -10°C) exceeds the ambient temperature.
- Multiply the excess by
6.45e-5to obtain the severity growth this interval. Note that unlike hyperthermia, hypothermia calculations don't use a postprocessing curve. - If the growth is less than
0.00075, set it to that number. As a result, temperatures between 10°C and 21.63°C less than the minimum comfortable temperature all have the same severity growth.
Expressed as a formula, this is:
Increase in hypothermia severity every 60 ticks = max(0.00075, (degrees_below_comfortable - 10)*0.0000645)
| Graph | Minimum Comfortable Temperature - Ambient Temperature(°C) | Growth per 60 ticks | Time to 100% severity (ticks) | Time to 100% severity (in-game hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | - | - | |
| 5 | 0 | - | - | |
| 10 | 0.00075 | 80000 | 32.0 | |
| 20 | 0.00075 | 80000 | 32.0 | |
| 25 | 0.000967 | 62016 | 24.8 | |
| 50 | 0.00258 | 23256 | 9.3 | |
| 100 | 0.005805 | 10336 | 4.1 | |
| 300 | 0.018705 | 3208 | 1.3 |
Recovery from hypothermia uses the same process as recovery from heatstroke, which results in complete recovery within 3.6 in-game hours:
Decrease in hypothermia severity every 60 ticks = max(0.0015, min(0.015, 0.027×hypothermia_severity))
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Hypothermia (shivering) | >0.04 Severity |
|
| Hypothermia (minor) | >0.20 Severity |
|
| Hypothermia (serious) | >0.35 Severity |
|
| Hypothermia (extreme) | >0.62 Severity |
|
| Hypothermia (100%) | =1.00 Severity |
Hypothermic slowdown
A special biological state used by some creatures to survive extreme cold. Instead of trying to stay warm, the creature's body chemistry adapts to prevent internal freezing despite very low temperature. Bodily functions are slowed and capacities are reduced, but the cold does no permanent damage. Some biologists call it a wakeful form of hibernation.
Insectoids avoid hypothermia and experience hypothermic slowdown instead with similar penalties but avoiding death at 100% and no frostbite.
Slowdown value increases many times above 100% with apparently no upper limit. When defrosting insects this total value is used so defrost time is proportional to total time frozen.
The rate of severity growth depends on the difference below the pawn's minimum safe temperature and the ambient temperature. The specific algorithm is:
- Take the amount by which the pawn's minimum safe temperature (which is the minimum comfortable temperature -10°C) exceeds the ambient temperature.
- Multiply the excess by
6.45e-5to obtain the severity growth this interval. Note that unlike hyperthermia, hypothermia calculations don't use a postprocessing curve. - If the growth is less than
0.00075, set it to that number. As a result, temperatures between 10°C and 21.63°C less than the minimum comfortable temperature all have the same severity growth.
Expressed as a formula, this is:
Increase in hypothermia severity every 60 ticks = max(0.00075, (degrees_below_comfortable - 10)*0.0000645)
| Minimum Comfortable Temperature - Ambient Temperature(°C) | Growth per 60 ticks (1 sec) |
Real Time to 63% severity |
In-Game Time to 63% severity |
Real Time to 100% severity |
In-Game Time to 100% severity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | - | - | - | - |
| 5 | 0 | - | - | - | - |
| 10 | 0.075% | 50,400 ticks (14 mins) | 20.2 hrs | 80,000 ticks (22.22 mins) | 32 hrs |
| 20 | 0.075% | 50,400 ticks (14 mins) | 20.2 hrs | 80,000 ticks (22.22 mins) | 32 hrs |
| 25 | 0.09675% | 39,070 ticks (10.85 mins) | 15.6 hrs | 62,016 ticks (17.23 mins) | 24.8 hrs |
| 50 | 0.258% | 14,651 ticks (4.07 mins) | 5.9 hrs | 23,256 ticks (6.46 mins) | 9.3 hrs |
| 100 | 0.5805% | 6,512 ticks (1.81 mins) | 2.6 hrs | 10,336 ticks (2.87 mins) | 4.1 hrs |
| 300 | 1.8705% | 2,021 ticks (33.68 secs) | 0.8 hrs | 3,208 ticks (53.47 secs) | 1.3 hrs |
Recovery from hypothermia uses the same process as recovery from heatstroke, which results in complete recovery within 3.6 in-game hours:
Decrease in hypothermia severity every 60 ticks = max(0.0015, min(0.015, 0.027×hypothermia_severity))
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Hypothermic slowdown (minor) | >0.04 Severity |
|
| Hypothermic slowdown (moderate) | >0.20 Severity |
|
| Hypothermic slowdown (serious) | >0.35 Severity |
|
| Hypothermic slowdown (extreme) | >0.62 Severity |
|
Pregnancy
This creature is gestating offspring. It will give birth if the pregnancy comes to term. If starved or injured, there may be a miscarriage.
— Description
Tamed, non-human, non-insectoid, non-egglaying, female animals have a 50% chance to get pregnant from mating. While this is not an ailment in the traditional sense, it does have mechanical effects. For the first 600 ticks (10 secs) this condition will be invisible, after which point a message will come up mentioning the pregnancy.
Humans can be pregnant only if the Biotech DLC is enabled. They have a different list of symptoms. See Reproduction for details.
A pregnant animal suffering from malnutrition of 25% or higher or that is injured may miscarry. Miscarriages are noted by an in-game message.
Some animals will give birth to multiple young. The probability of this is determined by a curve, and is different for each animal.
The duration, and thus the severity gain per day, depends on the gestation time of the animal in question.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Early-stage | >0 Severity |
|
| Middle-stage | >0.333 Severity |
|
| Late-stage | >0.666 Severity | |
| Birth | 1.0 Severity |
|
Sterilized
| This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: Missing details, sources, mechanics etc. Are there any other causes in humans?. |
This creature's reproductive system has been permanently shut down.
— Description
Animals can be sterilized by use of the "Sterilize" operation to prevent them from being able to reproduce, and the sterilized animal won't attempt to mate with others nor will others attempt to mate with it. Egg laying animals will stop laying eggs when sterilized. The animal acts as normal in all other ways, including milk production.
Sterilizing a pregnant animal will not terminate the pregnancy.
The sterilization operation requires Medical skill of 3 and 500 ticks (8.33 secs) of work.
Humans with the "Sterilized" health trait can only be healed with a healer mech serum. Pawns can[Will?] receive the sterilized ailment from a failed vasectomy or IUD insertion. It is currently unknown if there are other sources.
Drug damage
These ailments are caused by excess drug use.
Cirrhosis
A degenerative liver disease caused by excessive alcohol consumption. An otherwise healthy pawn with cirrhosis will have an immunity gain speed of 70%, making them extremely vulnerable to disease.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Cirrhosis |
Treatment:
- The easiest method of treatment is the transplantation of a new liver. Due to the extreme vulnerability to disease, even if your colony dislikes organ harvesting it may be worth it to replace the livers of valuable pawns as doctors will struggle to get high enough tend qualities on diseases to counterbalance the decreased immunity gain, often needing a very good hospital plus a very good doctor or glitterworld medicine to do so.
- Other than transplantation, only healer mech serum, unnatural healing
and resurrector mech serum can cure cirrhosis.
Chemical damage
Permanent damage that occurs as a result of drug overdose or tolerance. There are two variants.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Chemical damage (moderate) |
|
| Chemical damage (severe) |
|
Treatment:
- Kidney chemical damage can be cured by replacing with a non-damaged kidney or with a detoxifier kidney
- Brain chemical damage can only be cured with a healer mech serum or via unnatural healing
Trauma savant
Injuries to the brain can cause increased motor function, but loss of social capabilities.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Trauma savant |
|
The chance to receive trauma savant on any physical (non-chemical) injury to the brain is equal to the percentage of the brain damaged multiplied by 0.12. For an adult human, this represents 1.2% chance per point of damage. Animals can also become trauma savants.
A Ghoul or a humans with the Scarless gene will not get brain scars from damage to their brain, but they still have a chance to become trauma savants. This makes it possible to voluntarily give the condition to a pawn by repeatedly damaging and healing their brain, although this can be time consuming and expensive. For an adult human, the brain will need to take on average 83 points of damage. Using other methods to heal the brain such as the Bioregeneration cycle of the biosculpter pod is theoretically possible, but prohibitively expensive.
Currently, the most cost-effective known method to damage the brain is to purposefully fail the surgery to remove a painstopper. Painstoppers are the cheapest brain implant that can be removed. Attempting to remove it costs only one herbal medicine and failing will not destroy the implant. Performing the operation outside, on a Sleeping spot or an Ancient bed, in the dark, with a low level surgeon with lowered Sight and Manipulation will maximize the chance for the operation to fail. If the operation accidentally succeeds, then the patient should be moved to a high quality hospital to reinsert the painstopper, as failure would destroy the implant and greatly increase the overall cost. It takes on average between 50 and 100 failed brain operations for a patient to become trauma savant.
Trauma savant negates the consciousness penalty from all brain damage, including scars that existed before the condition. On another hand, those brain scars will still lower the brain's health and can potentially still cause pain. Also, Trauma savant will not prevent loss of consciousness from other brain conditions like Dementia.
Trauma savant can be healed with a healer mech serum or the Unnatural healing ability (or possibly through other means as well). It can also be treated by killing the pawn, removing their skull then resurrecting thanks to a Resurrector mech serum or death refusal.
Bliss lobotomy
 | This section relates to content added by Anomaly (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
A whole-body condition that gives a constant +20 mood bonus but imposes a -50% global learning factor penalty. Makes pawn incapable of cooking, construction, plant work, mining, crafting and intellectual. Can generate on cultist raiders or be deliberately induced via a brain surgery at the cost of 2 medicine and 30 bioferrites.
General
These ailments appear in gameplay, and usually wear off on their own (except death-causing ones).
Cryptosleep sickness
After-effects of using a cryptosleep pod. Cryptosleep suspends and replaces many bodily functions in order to prevent aging and death. Upon exiting cryptosleep, the body takes time to restart and rebalance its natural metabolic processes. While this is ongoing, the patient suffers from nausea, dizziness, and a sense of fuzziness in the mind.
Occurs after having been in a ship cryptosleep casket or a cryptosleep casket for any amount of time. The colonists in the "Crashlanded" scenario have a chance of starting with cryptosleep sickness, as they were in cryptosleep before crashing on the planet.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Cryptosleep sickness |
|
Treatment:
- Wears off after 10,000 ticks (2.78 mins)
Food poisoning
Occurs after eating a contaminated meal or occasionally from raw food. The chance of contamination for cooked meals is determined by the cleanliness of the room where it was prepared and cook's food poison chance stat.
Raw food has a flat 2% chance of giving food poisoning, while corpses have a flat 5% chance. Cooked meals roll two separate probabilities to determine if the food is poisoned. The first checks the cleanliness of the kitchen used. See the accompanying graph for specifics. Note that cleanliness above -2 prevents this roll from producing poisoned meals. If the cooking station is outdoors, the default chance is 2%.
If the first roll fails to poison the meal, then a second roll is performed, this time based on the food poison chance of the pawn, controlled entirely by their cooking skill. If the second roll indicates that the meal is poisonous, the probability of poisoning the pawn is 100% for that individual meal. However, when the poisonous meal is part of a stack with other meals, the probability is distributed among all the meals in the stack. This distribution reduces the chance of food poisoning from 100% to the ratio of total meals to poisonous meals within the stack. For instance, if a poisonous meal is placed on top of a stack containing three non-poisonous meals, the probability for each meal to poison the pawn becomes 25%. Consequently, even if the original meal was poisonous, there is a possibility that no pawns will experience food poisoning.
| Cooking Skill Level | Chance from Skill Level | Chance from Room Cleanliness |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 5.00% |
Chance = (Room Cleanliness + 2) * 0.05 / 3 |
| 1 | 4.00% | |
| 2 | 3.00% | |
| 3 | 2.00% | |
| 4 | 1.50% | |
| 5 | 1.00% | |
| 6 | 0.50% | |
| 7 | 0.25% | |
| 8 | 0.15% | |
| 9-20 | 0.10% |
- Symptoms and progress
Food poisoning lasts 24 hours with no after-effects. It has 3 stages: the first unpleasant 4 hours, followed by a crippling 16 hours, and finally an unpleasant 4 hours largely similar to the first stage, as described in the table below.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Food poisoning (initial) | 0–4 hours from onset |
|
| Food poisoning (major) | 4–20 hours from onset |
|
| Food poisoning (recovering) | 20–24 hours from onset |
|
- Treatment and Prevention
Food poisoning can only minimized by manipulating the factors that cause it mentioned above. Prevention can only be guaranteed by exclusively consuming meals purchased from traders or nutrient paste meals as they will never cause food poisoning, or by installing a sterilizing , nuclear stomach or fleshmass stomach , or having the strong stomach gene which renders the pawn immune. Note that bionic stomachs reduce the chance of getting food poisoning by 50% but cannot outright prevent it.
There is no practical treatment for food poisoning, you simply have to let it run its course. Healer mech serum will cure it (if there is nothing worse to cure), but this costly measure is rarely if ever worthwhile, as food poisoning only affects the pawn for the 24 hour cycle and then leaves them as healthy as they were before.
Because of the high chance of vomiting at any moment, putting the patient on a temporary diet of pemmican may be useful. Vomiting interrupts the process of eating, resetting it to the start, but a colonist can more quickly consume several pieces of pemmican between "attacks" that they can eat an entire meal. This allows the poisoned pawn to more easily avoid malnutrition without feeding them raw foods that could cause further poisoning.
Because of the penalty to blood filtration and consciousness, food poisoning in combination with other ailments such as an infection can be a cause for concern.
Toxic buildup
| This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: What is the effect of Toxic Environment Resistance vs Toxic Resistance. |
Primarily occurs with exposure to toxic fallout, pollution, and tox gas.. Prolonged exposure gradually increases the buildup severity.
Alternatively, some attacks cause instantaneous increases in toxic buildup severity, such as cobra and waste rat bites, the venom talon , or venom fangs .
A colonist under a roof is protected from toxic fallout, and avoiding interaction with the other sources can prevent buildup from them. If they are exposed to the fallout, they will accumulate Toxic Buildup at a rate of 40% per day. Pollution will accumulate at the same rate, but cannot be mitigated through roofing. When walking through polluted terrain in caravans, they will accumulate buildup at 20% per day in Moderately Polluted terrain (50%-75% polluted tiles) and 40% per day in Extremely Polluted terrain (above 75%). Buildup from both pollution as well as toxic fallout can stack, meaning a pawn standing in polluted terrain while a toxic fallout can gain 80%/day.
This buildup severity gained is proportional to the Toxic Resistance stat - thus, humans buildup at the full rate, animals at half, and insects and mechanoids are immune.[Body Size?] Buildup can also be reduced through a variety of of other means including items such as the gas mask , detoxifier kidney , and detoxifier lung , as well as genes such as Partial antitoxic lungs and Total antitoxic lungs, or Tox resistance and Tox immunity.
There is, effectively, a multiplier for each pawn on their toxic buildup accumulation from these indirect sources. This can vary between 15% faster buildup or 15% slower buildup than the average rate. There is no stat in the information panel to convey this variation, but it is static for a given pawn. This means that baseliner humans standing in pollution and a toxic fallout, with no Tox Resistance of any sort, can vary from either 68% to 92% buildup per day, rather than a constant 80%.
The buildup severity occurs in stages. The later stages cause permanent dementia which does not wear off even after toxic buildup subsides. When a pawn affected by toxic buildup dies, there is a chance that its corpse will instantly rot - this chance is equal to the severity.
Once a colonist returns to a safe area, such as a roofed area for toxic fallout, or otherwise stops taking severity increases, their buildup severity will gradually decrease. Once no longer exposed, severity reduces by 8% per day, meaning that it will take up to 12.5 days to eliminate all toxins accumulated in the body. However, colonists that reach high stages of toxic buildup are likely to develop further complications.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Toxic buildup (initial) | ≥4% severity |
|
| Toxic buildup (minor) | ≥20% severity |
|
| Toxic buildup (moderate) | ≥40% severity |
|
| Toxic buildup (serious) | ≥60% severity |
|
| Toxic buildup (extreme) | ≥80% severity |
|
| Toxic buildup (extreme) | 100% severity |
Brain shock
"After-effects of an electrical shock to the brain. This is generally cause by feedback from brain implants hit by EMP pulses." - In-game description
Occurs when an EMP effect hits a pawn with the following brain implants:
It lasts between 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) and 3,500 ticks (58.33 secs).
Despite only occurring with implants from the Royalty DLC, it is defined in the core code.
| Stage | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Brain shock |
|
Psychic shock
A state of psychic chaos in the brain and mind. Caused by psychic attacks or critical level of neural heat, this effect is debilitating until it wears off.
— In-game description
Occurs when a pawn is hit by the effect of a psychic shock lance or when exceeding a pawn's neural heat limits when psycasting .
It lasts 7,500 ticks (2.08 mins).
| Stage | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Psychic shock |
|
Psychic coma
"A form of benign coma during which the brain recovers from a psychic overload."
— In-game description
A coma inflicted by certain psycasts including:
- Neural heat dump, lasting 1 day.
- Neuroquake, lasting 5 days.
- Word of serenity, lasting 6 hours with duration scaling with psychic sensitivity.
Note that despite only being caused by psycasts from the Royalty DLC, the hediff itself is defined in Core.
It has the following effects:
- Consciousness: 10% Max.
Psychic breakdown
 | This section relates to content added by Royalty (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
| This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: Unknown whether should remain on Psycasts, whether it should be moved here, or whether a transclusion or template should be used to duplicate it in both places. |
Biosculpting sickness
 | This section relates to content added by Ideology (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
"The after-effects of an incomplete biosculpting cycle. It causes nausea, dizziness, and fuzzy thinking."
— In-game description
Occurs when a pawn is ejected early from a biosculpter pod either manually or as a result of 24 hours without power.
It lasts between 8,000 ticks (2.22 mins) and 12,000 ticks (3.33 mins)
| Stage | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Biosculpting sickness |
|
Scanning sickness
 | This section relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
"This person was scanned by a softscanner to produce a mechanoid subcore. The high-energy scanning device has caused disturbances in their brain chemistry which will take time to resolve themselves. There won't be any long-term damage."
— In-game description
A person scanned in a subcore softscanner to produce a standard subcore is afflicted with scanning sickness starting with a severity of 4 and decreasing in severity by 1 per in-game day.[Mechanitor Factor?] This has the following effects:
- Consciousness: ×75% (Post factors)
- Manipulation: ×75% (Post factors)
- Moving: ×75% (Post factors)
- Vomiting MTB: 1.5 days
- Mood: −8
Bio-starvation
| This section relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
"This person was in a growth vat which wasn't functioning properly due to lack of power or nutrition feedstock. This has left their body in a state of bio-starvation."
— In-game description
A pawn in a growth vat with no power or nutrition, will enter bio-starvation, increasing in severity by 50% per day starved, and decreasing 10% per day properly supplied or spent outside the vat. Bio-starvation increases nutrition consumption in a vat by +10% at all severities, and kills at 100%. If a bio-starved pawn leaves the vat, a number of status effects will be applied to them. These include:
- Pain: +15%
- Hunger Rate Factor offset: +50%
- Consciousness: −25%
Vomiting
| This section is a stub. You can help RimWorld Wiki by expanding it. Reason: what does it interrupt, what happens when different tasks are underway - e.g. eating cancels the eating task but doesn't waste the meal, explanation that vomiting is expressed as mtb etc. |
The body attempting to forcefully expunge toxins. Unfortunately for your pawns, this doesn't work in Rimworld.
Vomiting is caused by a wide variety of ailments[List Needed?], some Psycasts, or being hit with an EMP while having the Sterilizing, Reprocessor, or Nuclear stomachs installed.
A pawn that is vomiting will stop in place, face the side, and begin vomiting. The process takes away .05 nutrition over 3-5 ticks[Verify], and causes 3-5 piles of Vomit to appear on the tile they're facing. A pawn lying in a bed will not stand up to vomit[Details].
Vomiting will interrupt most tasks, including eating, walking, aiming a weapon, or working at a station, but they will resume the task once they stop vomiting[Mechanics]. For this reason, it is recommended that pawns who are afflicted with an ailment that causes frequent vomiting, such as food poisoning, eat foods like pemmican, as a pawn who vomits while in the middle of eating a normal meal will lose all progress towards consuming it (note that the meal is not wasted), but a pawn eating pemmican will still consume part of the stack. Similarly, they should also avoid long tasks that have their progress reset on being interrupted, such as cooking 4x lavish meals.
Crumbling mind
| This section relates to content added by Anomaly (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
 | Spoiler warning: This section may contain details about the gameplay that might be considered spoilers. If you wish to enjoy the content first hand, you probably shouldn't continue reading beyond this point. |
The gradual breakdown of the mind. While technically non-fatal, it applies mounting consciousness penalties, and its final stage renders a pawn incapable of nearly all work.
Crumbling mind is caused by two Anomaly events - The Corrupted obelisk and the Creepjoiner. It cannot affect pawns that existed before those events, only ones created by them. It can be detected before ailments show by a surgical inspection.
Creepjoiners with this condition will begin showing symptoms within 2-3.33 days. Duplicated pawns will begin showing them within 12-48 hours. Severity progresses by 33% per day. Progress can be paused through the use of a cryptosleep casket.
Crumbling mind can be cured by a healer mech serum as well as the unnatural healing ability so long as it hasn't progressed to the final stage of Crumbled mind. Once it has, the condition is incurable, short of destroying the colonists brain then resurrecting them with either a resurrector mech serum or death refusal. If this strategy is used, remember not to euthanize them or they will be no longer of your faction after resurrection.
Counterintuitively, Ghoul infusion will not cure Crumbling mind and it will hinder ghoul's combat abilities.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Crumbling mind (mild) | Initial |
|
| Crumbling mind (moderate) | ≥40% severity |
|
| Crumbling mind (extreme) | ≥80% severity |
|
| Crumbled mind | 100% severity |
|
Surgical
These ailments happen with medical operations.
Anesthetic
Used in surgery to make sure that a pawn is unconscious. It can also be administered outside of operations using a medical bill, consuming medicine.
A pawn under anesthesia is unconscious for the first 6 hours, and the worst effects of anesthetic wear off after 12 hours, so arranging operations to be performed some time just before a pawn needs to sleep is recommended if you want them functioning the next work day.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Anesthetic (sedated) | 0–6 hours from onset |
|
| Anesthetic (woozy) | 6–12 hours from onset |
|
| Anesthetic (wearing off) | 12+ hours from onset |
|
Treatment:
- Wears off on its own between 45,000 ticks (12.5 mins) to 75,000 ticks (20.83 mins) even if severity has not reached 0%
- Surgery is unaffected even if it wears off before finished
Version history
Prior to 1.1 it lasted only 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) and did not have any other stages afterwards.
Resurrection
These may occur after a dose of resurrector mech serum is applied on a dead pawn.
Resurrection sickness
After-effects of being resurrected by mechanite injection. Artificially-kickstarted body processes take time to rebalance themselves.
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Resurrection sickness |
|
Treatment:
Probability:
- 100% chance of being applied
Blindness
Mechanites fail to properly repair the eyes, instead causing more damage to it, resulting in blindness.
Blindness from resurrector mech serum applies to both eyes, resulting in total blindness
| Ailment | Symptoms |
|---|---|
| Blindness |
|
Treatment:
- Replace eyes with bionic eyes or archotech eyes
Probability:
- 2% chance when used at 0.1 days or less of decay
- Linearly increases to 80% after 5 days decayed
Resurrection psychosis
Chaotic thought patterns caused by the decoherence of resurrection mechanites. Resurrection psychosis progresses and eventually causes total psychosis and death.
The severity of the psychosis increases by 0.01 per day, meaning that it will kill in 100 days after resurrection, or 90 days after this ailment becoming visible. Hopefully this gives you enough time to find a healer mech serum to heal the ailment, find another resurrector mech serum to attempt the resurrection again once the psychosis has run its course, or build a cryptosleep casket to give you time to find either serum. There are no other ways to cure the disease.
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Resurrection psychosis (hidden) | ≥0% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (early) | ≥10% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (moderate) | ≥25% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (advanced) | ≥40% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (severe) | ≥55% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (total) | ≥70% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (catatonic) | ≥85% severity |
|
| Resurrection psychosis (catatonic) | 100% severity |
Treatments:
- Healer mech serum
- Allowing the pawn to die again, then resurrecting once more (rerolls the disease)
Probability of contracting:
- 2% chance when used at 0.1 days or less of decay
- Linearly increases to 80% after 5 days decayed
Prevention:
- Freeze corpses immediately after death. Corpses placed in a sarcophagus are still affected by the temperature of the room they are in, and can be removed later but are protected from butchering, hungry animals and assuming you build the sarcophagus from something non-flammable, fire.
Heart attack
Heart attacks can randomly occur on any pawn/animal at any time, but they become more frequent as they pass half of their life expectancy (e.g. 40 years in humans), triggered by the birthday event. There must be more than 2 colonists on your colony for this to occur.
The average interval between heart attacks is curved as follows (in days):
- 0-50% of life expectancy: 99,999,999 - 99,999,999
- 50-60% of life expectancy: 99,999,999 - 2,500
- 60-100% of life expectancy: 2,500 - 300
Examples of intervals and chances:
- 55% of life expectancy (i.e. 44 in humans): 50,001,249.5 days (approx. 0.00000002% per day)
- 80% of life expectancy (i.e. 64 in humans): 1,400 days (approx. 0.000714% per day)
Stages
| Stage | Begins at | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Painful | 0% Severity |
|
| Debilitating | 60% Severity |
|
| Fatal | 100% Severity |
Progression
Heart attacks always start at 40% severity. Every 5,000 ticks (1.39 mins) the heart attack severity will randomly change by a value between -40% to +60%. This means that it is possible for a heart attack to recover on its own, but usually (~76% likelihood) an untreated heart attack progresses to fatal severity.
Treatment
Like injuries, medicine can be used to treat a heart attack.
Doctors treating heart attacks will administer treatments rapidly, consuming medicine in the process. Each treatment has a chance to succeed, reducing the heart attack severity by 30%. Successfully reducing severity below 0 will completely treat the heart attack.
The maximum chance a particular treatment can succeed is 65%.
Prevention
Replacing a pawn's heart with either a prosthetic or bionic heart will completely prevent heart attacks. Note however that while the bionic heart improves the blood pumping capacity, the prosthetic heart decreases it, and thus all of the stats and capacities it affects.
Version history
- 0.7.581 Added with cataracts and bad back
- 0.8.657 - Added hypothermia, frostbite, heatstroke, and burns from being in areas with extreme temperatures.
- 0.9.722 - Food poisoning and cryptosleep sickness added. Some ailments can now cause vomiting.
- 0.10.785 - Starvation and blood loss are now staged and affect consciousness as they worsen.
- 0.12.906 - All organisms including animals have life expectancies and will develop chronic conditions like frailty or cataracts in old age. Heart attacks added.
- 0.13.1135 - Carcinoma, asthma, and hearing loss added.
- 1.0.0 - Minor starvation (below 25% severity) no longer causes miscarriages.
- 1.1.0 - Pregnant animal is no longer viewed as sick because pregnancy affects its capacities. and thus now sells for the same as one with no health conditions.
- 1.3.3117 - Extreme blood loss now reduces consciousness by 40% in addition to setting the capacity's max to 10%. Prior to this, pawns could nonsensically die by healing from extreme to severe bloodloss if their consciousness was below 40% from other symptoms - extreme would simply max it at 10% but healing to severe would reduce it by 40% to 0% and kill the pawn.
- 1.4.3523 - Sterilized animals no longer lay eggs.