I know how disease works, basically. An infected sim will express symptoms like coughing, vomiting or motive drops. Everytime that happens, they generate "disease tiles" in their vicinity. These tiles remain for some time and other sims that step on them catch the disease. So far, so good.
Now my question is: Does this "sheding" of disease tiles also happen on community lots and while the infected sim is over as a visitor at another played household? Or put differently, can sims catch a disease by meeting an infected on a community lot and/or by inviting a disease carrier to their home?
I think the answer is yes in both cases, but I'm not entirely sure. (The most recent illness I remember is a teen catching food poisoning from gone bad sandwiches while I had him over as a visitor. But now I have a Mystery Disease outbreak - my first ever since launch - and would like to know the nitty-gritty details of contagion exactly).
A little background for those interested: The breakout happened in a fresh megahood consisting of Strangetown/Desiderata/Pleasantview. No household was played longer than a week so I'm not overly attached to the sims yet and there's only easily restartable premades present anyway. That's why I want to let the plague run it's cause and see how many sims (or if any at all) I can save. Definitely switching to one-day rotations now to keep track of the flow of the event.
The disease carrier is Circe Beaker, who managed to contract the Mystery Disease at the Biotech station with a combination of low fun (tanking overall mood), 4 measly logic points and a low nice score - pretty much everything that upps virus chance, lol. Her aspiration was gold, though it may have dropped back to green while she was working, not sure.
According to my retconned backstory Circe is the head of the alien genome project, the major employer in the region. Almost every playable sim works in the project one way or another. So chances are high she'll infect everyone working with and under her. Sure, the game just told me flat out "Circe has a mysterious disease", but I'm going to treat her as unaware until reality proves otherwise. It's something new, never heard of before, so you do not get up from your seat in the full awareness of what just hit you. It's more like "Whoa, I overworked myself today, body takes it's toll, let's go to bed early and sleep it off". Mystery Disease conveniently gives two randoms symptoms and Circe may believe to have whater other illness those symptoms match at first.
My plan is to summon (or invite, if relationship allows for that) Circe to every household after their workshift ends and have every member do one interaction with her to simulate the chance of the employees contracting the disease from her during work. But for that to work she needs to distribute disease tiles while being summoned which you all reassured me she will do :)
Stage 1 is tame so far, likely the calm before the storm, where everyone is still thinking "Oh, it's nothing and will pass."
Circe refused to distribute any germs to the Smiths.
Next up were the Specters. Recentlly both Caliente sisters have made a move on Nervous, Dina because he stands to inherit a mansion and Nina because her bios claims she feels close to her roots. Her alien roots, to be specific and I declared Nervous just another half-alien in this save. Nervous threw a party to get to know both women better and why not invite your best friends (Pascal and Johnny), too? And, oh, I don't know, how about your disease ridden boss >:) Within two hours I had my (almost) neighborhood-wide infection :) Around 8 pm Nervous's symptoms couldn't be overlooked anymore. Olive taught Ophelia how to make the Comfort soup and two doses of that cured Nervous. But I'm positive I still have plenty of disease tiles lying around in the east wing.
Next was the Long/Curious family consisting of "Julia Long" (amnesic Bella Goth), Pascal and their two half-alien daughters. Too bad I had given both parents the family secondary aspiration and Pascal, seeing that he needed to skill cooking for his job anyway, had learned that darn soup recipe before the outbreak already. I even invited Circe over for a chat to perhaps re-infect him, but she left quickly on account of not feeling well. So, by then Pascal should have made the connection between Circe and the disease, therefore he used his many paid time off days to evade her in the near future. I cannot play the sims too dumb, especially not when they are research scientists. But just you wait, I'm getting you still!
With the disease came an increase in crime to Strangetown. While playing Olive Specter I witnessed the charlatan do his conman routine on the cashier in Strangetown's cinema. It looked real bad with the poor kid's head going right through the counter during the animation. So that little incident became "an outragous increase in crime coupled with violence of proportions unheard of in our town" in the story album.
@EnkiSchmidt :D :joy: That is awesome! Glad your disease is spreading well. That sounds like a really fun story, and everyone knows crime and violence increases with a deadly disease on the loose!
Interesting thread. :D I've never had anyone spread that deadly disease before. It's always been those townies from Bluewater that I wasn't playing who were going all over the community (seen everywhere) spreading their germs then flu would spread through out my hoods.
"earthgirl;c-16381685" wrote: I honestly forgot there were diseases in TS2. I played a family but had no health issues with them. Not a flu or anything... I should probably get a sim into the Science career and see what happens.
Or just leave trash lying around, preferably outside! That will attract roaches and these will make your sims ill reliably.
Update on the Strangetown Mystery Disease under spoiler:
The Caliente got off the hook as neither Circe nor Johnny were in the mood to be contagious despite Nina and Johnny exchanging touches and kisses applenty.
At a party at the observatory (Curious household) Circe once again failed to infect her team. But she was fevering badly and suddenly flirted with her teenagehood crush Vidcund! She also agreed to go to a date with him the next day. Afterwards a woman named Meredith called Vidcund (one of Circe's two best townie friends and judging by her attire a cafeteria worker in the project). I think Circe asked Merry to occupy Vidcund for her in an attempt to save her marriage. So far it seems to work. Not strictly epidemic-related, but touching :)
At the Bells' apartment Hannah brought Circe from work, she infected their downstairs neighbor Julia and Julia in turn infected Ivan. Now we are talking! Hannah Bell also knows the blasted mircale soup recipe, but I won't let it fly this time. No way a hick from Desiderata knows such a potent medicine! So it was bedrest for Ivan and much to my joy he escaped to work twice. As Strangetown's deputy he felt honor bound to do so, I suppose. So that were two workshifts with the mystery disease. After the second shift Ivan he got the "Cured" message. Police work in Strangetown obviously counts as bedrest, lol. While Ivan was ill the Bells had John Mole over as a guest, but that prime chance to spread the disease to Desiderata Valley passed.
By now I'm questioning whether what Circe caught is really the Mystery Disease. Translation mistake, maybe?
@EnkiSchmidt Great update! Good the disease is still spreading and hasn't died out. LOL apparently Ivan took a nap in his police car. He must have had speed trap duty those days. :D
"earthgirl;c-16381685" wrote: I honestly forgot there were diseases in TS2. I played a family but had no health issues with them. Not a flu or anything... I should probably get a sim into the Science career and see what happens.
There's a random chance your sim might get a flu or cold while at work too. Lots of rest and fluids should help take care of it. Or food poisoning when eating spoiled food.
- Johnny succesfully passed his genes and the Mystery Disease to Nina Caliente. - Circe electrocuted Luis Aspir in the hospital (Smith lot), seconds later he caught the disease, too. Not sure if she's conducting human testing now :o Anyway, the disease is going to Desiderata now :)
I also retconned most of the sims in Olive's cemetary to victims of the Mystery Disease, including Lyla Grunt and Ophelia's parents. Story scribble under the spoiler tag. It's set in spring, so one season prior to my actual gameplay.
Strangetown Community Center. Grocery Store. Spring 199x.
Theodore “Tank” Grunt navigated his shopping cart along the colorfully stocked shelves, across dissections cluttered with sales offers and through narrow pathways that didn’t allow for more than cart to pass. The layout forced the consumer to slow down and re-consider whether they’d probably wanted something put on display here, after all? Tank’s father had explained the thought process behind this elaborate consumer trap to his son when he had been younger already and so Tank had come well prepared: He had eaten well to not fall to the temptation of snacks and checked each item off a shopping list as not to end up with duplicates. Most importantly, the teenager had brought bait to the battlefield: two agemates that would succumb to the shiny advertisement in his place and thus remind Tank to how much more mature he was.
KLIRR! Damn!
The sound of a shopping cart neatly crashing into another rand a teen boy cursing himself for not being focused enough on his immediate task ran through the store. Someone had parked their shopping cart right between two rows refrigerators, effectively blocking the path for everyone else. Tank muttered something under his breath. He drew back own cart back to the last dissection they had passed. He handed it over to his companions, then strode into the tunnel again where he bent over the other shopping cart. Some time passed while the boy was rummaging through it’s contents, with the other two none the wiser about what was happening here. When Tank returned to them he carried an assortment of goods in his arms.
“Practicing shoplifting by taking the wares out of another cart rather than off the self?” Johnny Smith teased the slightly younger teen.
“Nonsense!” Tank replied. “I’d still have to pay for them, so what would be the use?”
“What do I know how Lawful Neutrals tick”, Johnny said with a shrug. “For your standards that could already be an outrageous act of rebellion!”
Ophelia Nigmos giggled, but also stepped forward to relieve her friend of half of the stuff he was shakily balancing.
“Where would you like that to go?” she asked.
“Right back where it comes from!” Tank said with grim determination.
While putting back everything he had taken to the correct shelf, the boy explained how much he hated shoppers who let their carts standing at random places in the store:
“It’s like they’re setting up a basecamp from which they do forays into the surrounding wilderness to hunt and gather! They never think about what path they may block and if you dare to move their carts to be able to pass, they teleport to your side from where-ever they have been and give you looks reserved for thieves! Inconsiderate oafs, all of them!”
After the final item had returned to it’s place of origin, Tank nodded satisfied.
“I hope that’ll teach them a lesson!”
“Even when you are mean, you only ever have the best of the community in mind!”
Ophelia spoke these words less than that she breathed them.
“Well, hehe… Thank you, Feli!”
An embarrassed smile crossed Tank’s face. The teenboy could only hope he hadn’t just blushed…
Johnny watched the exchange silently. He still didn’t consider himself Tank’s friend by a long shot, but since the Grunt boy and Ophelia went steady the three of them hung out together often. Had Feli ever looked at HIM with the expression of a lobotomized poodle, Johnny wondered? Or treated everything he said as the most wondrous revelation, the pinnacle of wisdom? Most likely not. Theirs had been a relationship of a different kind, less on the infatuated side and more a teaming up of two outsiders: the mutant and the creepy undertakers’ daughter. The creepy undertakers' equally creepy daughter, if you believed some.
That had been before the Genome Project, of course. Earlier this year this program had come to Strangetown, in it’s wake mutants from all walks of life not to mention that the researchers involved in this project weren’t the most adapted or even stable. And suddenly Johnny and Ophelia were blending in nicely, free to discover WHO they were instead of WHAT. In fact, Johnny appeared a rather bland boy, desirering nothing beyond a well-payed job to provide for a traditional nuclear family. Soon his and Nervous’s age difference, that had once seemed to glaring, would mean nothing anymore. Maybe Johnny would date Feli’s cousin soon. But that newcomer Nina Caliente was hot, too! And she had never known Johnny as a child, so she'd never bring up humilating memories from that time!
“…dad sold his manuscript?”
Johnny jerked around. “Ey? Oh, yes, he did! Encounter of the third kind.”
“He should write two more”, Ophelia claimed.
She pushed the trio’s cart in front of her, resuming their shopping tour.
Tank nodded. “Yeah! Or do YOU know what the first and second kind of encounter are supposed to be? Now that would be a revelation, whereas alien invasions have been done to the death already.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of the new project?” Ophelia reminded the boys. “To prove that the greenskinned mutants are descended from aliens?” For that was what the story went like: In the distant past, it was believed, an alien species had left genetic material in the early humankind. Over time the ancestry diluted, but if two carriers of the correct sequences met, something closely resembling the original aliens might be born. The scientists called Johnny a half-alien, his sister was at least alien-blooded and individuals like Apollon “Polly” Smith and Tolgate Curious were believed to express the full alien heritage.
“Yes…” Tank had to admit. “But… I dunno…” At a loss for words he looked to Ophelia.
The girl smiled. “I know what you mean! Mr. Smith and Mr. Curious do not make convincing alien invaders. They could become villains, but they’ve been shaped by the same culture as us. To the contrary with real aliens the danger would come from that no one can tell how they think.”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Back to topic! Encounters of the first kind would be normal, everyday socializing, I think”, Johnny started to speculate.
“Makes sense,” Tank agreed. “And second kind maybe everything including violence and crime. Then third is extra-terrestrial and maybe fourth the supernatural? They never talk about there being a fourth kind…”
By now the teenagers had finished their shoppping. When they checked out, Johnny raised his voice: “Let’s hide and watch what happens when the other cart’s owner realized they lost half of their stuff!”
“I do not draw satisfaction from…” Tank started.
However, Johnny and Ophelia had already taking cover behind an advertisement blackboard.
“Oh, for the love of Ea and Maxis in Origin Beyond!” Tank exclaimed. “You could just as well hide in front of that blackboard. Bloody civillians…” Tank grabbed the other two and shoved them elsewhere. Johnny ended up behind an assortment of potted plants on account of his green skin. The boy didn’t object, only when Tank attempted to smear some orange pulp into his face to make him appear to be in bloom and garnish him with tiny loose vines did Johnny slap the other’s hand.
“You are making fun of me!”
“Nah. Cover and color alone are only two thirds of the equation, concealment being the final one.”
“Just shut up and hide!”
And that Tank did. He found a niche where he squeezed in to together with Ophelia and then it became increasingly boring.
After a while Tank and Feli started giggling.
Okay, boring and infuriating.
The teenagers waited and waited, but their prey never showed itself.
Twenty minutes had passed – an eternity! – when a scream echoed through the store. And then someone shouted to call an ambulance. When it arrived Johnny saw his mom exit first. The boy was glad he was hidden so well, because his mother seeing him on site of an accident site would only have worried her needlessly, even if Johnny wasn’t even involved in the accident.
The paramedics carried out a tan, black-haired woman in a red jacket. She was unconscious, probably fevering and radiated a faint smell of urine as she passed the teenagers.
Johnny felt a hand grab his. It was Feli’s. Then another hand landed on his shoulder: Tank’s.
At first they said not one word. Then Tank spoke up, hoarsely: “I think I remember everything she wanted to buy. Let’s… let’s put it back into her cart and bring it to the hospital. It’s on me.”
“Nah, I’ll chip in, too”, Johnny replied. “It’s the least we can do.”
“I mean”, Tanks aid while the teenagers restocked the abandoned shopping cart, “it’s still not nice of her to block the path. And had she taken her cart with her, she’d probably hung on to it instead of collapsing out of everyone’s sight. But that doesn’t negate the fact that she needs help now.”
“As long as you do not greet her with these actual words when she wakes up”, Johnny snorted.
Only the woman never woke up again. She succumbed to what the doctors dubbed “Mystery disease” and was buried on the small town’s graveyard.
Danielle Greaves.
First victim of the Mystery Disease.
Just for the record, all three encounter types refer to UFOs. The first kind is a sighting, second kind is sighting with evidence and third kind is contact.
The Aspir household starts with a genie lamp (= 3 free rescurrections) so I didn't pull any punches here. I made Luis stubbornly refuse bedrest and instead live as normally as possible. He peed himself once so far and sometimes drops actions from doing the fevering/disorientation idle. The poor guy is definitely suffering. I saved around (ingame) midnight. First thing in the morning will be throwing a party to share the love with the rest of the valley >:)
On a sidenote I had Victor quit his job to devote his time to the big family he wishes for. Incidentally that job was in the medicine career, so storywise I think he heard rumours of the plague and didn't want to take any chances.
This makes me wish there were better illnesses in ts3 besides germy and allergies.
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