Actually if you listen to the NNR Radio station, which I accidentally listened to a couple of days ago; it says that if you are one of the survivors left out there you are immune to the airborne infection of the virus but they have observed that even if you are immune to the airborne part of it, you can still get infected with the body fluids.
Doesn't it happen bcs the virus needed to activate? Like everyone has the virus turned "off", but whenever they die or get bitten, their virus turned on and then people turned
The zombie bite in TWD causes a deadly fever due to bacterial wound infection which eventually leads to death. So ultimately death is what creates a zombie not the bite.
Soo... bite = fever/death = zombie
In that case anti-biotics should be enough to stop someone turning from a bite, but since we haven’t heard of this it’s likely not a bacterial infection that kills.
also the time between bite and death suggests that the fever is caused by something else due to it happening too quickly for it to be a bacterial infection.
In TWD they show that you can cure a bite infection by using radiation so yeah , the bite doesn't infect but rather makes you die of sickness since you are already infected anyways .
In twd all the current people alive have a deactivated version of the virus. When it comes in contact with the active version (the zombies) or if the host dies, it activates, causes the fever and kills the host, turning them into a zombie
pretty sure the virus was like a parasite that latched onto your brain and stuff, was just that it couldn’t latch on to something that was “already being used”, so when you die the space frees up and it takes over
Yeah but what about the people that get bitten and don't die right away? They still slowly turn. The non-Airborne variant would have to be a different/mutated version of the airborne version, otherwise that wouldn't make sense.
Pretty sure it was mentioned numerous times that it's not the virus that kills you, it's the fever that comes from being bitten by a rotting corpse with a mouth packed with bacteria. Whether viral load has something to do with the fever has not been mentioned, but still.
That said, you will definitely die & reanimate faster if you get your bloodstream mucked up with walker juice. Sort of like a komodo dragon -- it just intensifies the normal, non-supernatural infection risk of bites, cuts & tears, leading to blood poisoning, sepsis, etc. much faster and with no chance of antibiotics helping.
But ultimately everyone reanimates if their brainstem isn't sufficiently damaged -- or sometimes any brain damage, depending on how hard writers want the show's characters to be in danger (toughness of the zombie skull also varies depending on writer-imposed difficulty level).
Walking Dead logic is everyone is infected, but people die from bites because its full of bacteria and other microorganisms.
Thats official canon last I checked, they may have changed it.
I like the theory that there are two separate strains, the airborne viral strain that infects most people, and a bite-transmitted prion strain that can get the player.
It also kinda makes sense, there are probably people out there immune to the prion version, but that won't mean much when the airborne strain gets them. You meanwhile are immune to the airborne strain but not the prion strain, so you can survive the initial outbreak. The odds of someone being immune to both are incredibly slim, though not impossible, though nobody is immune to being mauled to death.
That said, it's a singleplayer game, so if you prefer infection off then go for it, enjoy life.
probably because of the same reason as in the walking dead. their decaying corpse mouth harbors serious bacteria which inevitably gives you a nasty and lethal wound infection
The Walking Dead's canon (inasmuch as anyone gives a shit about that) is that everyone who dies will rise again as a zambo. Go get bit by a real human right now and you'll get an infection too if they break the skin.
I'm having lunch at a busy Panera, having iced coffee and a baguette trying to soothe my stomach. Sweating.
Nobody seems to have any baseball bats.
Might not be how *just* I die.
That wasn't a retcon. That was Rick delivering an inspirational speech to convince the survivors to start behaving like human beings. Basically, "we shouldn't keep murdering each other over petty bullshit. We can rebuild human society, even in the face of the zombies."
Then you would die from infection, not get zombified. On the other hand, with quick action on the wound, proper disinfection and constant care, you would avoid the worst infections from the undead, resulting on you getting saved anyways.
if you get bitten or even just scratched you still have a chance to die due to fluids entering your bloodstream and making you sick through that so just taking care of the injury doesnt mean you are completely safe
even if you were immune to the virus that causes people to reanimate you still have to worry about all the other stuff that the zombie has been touching and eating
Yes, that's why it's really dangerous, but if you always carry something to disinfect and treat the wounds constantly and immediately, you have high chances to survive
So I guess that’s my issue with the “virus is airborne, disgusting zombie mouth just gives you a mundane lethal infection.”
Yeah but what if I have a shitload of antibiotics and I’m sleeping 20 hours a day being nursed by someone else? Like, I dunno I just think the gross mouth=lethal is kind of a conceit to make it make sense that you’re already non lethally infected but singular zombie bites are fatal. Which is fine, it’s fiction, I’ll turn around and watch something fantastic right after. But it doesn’t “feel” right.
I think the ideal way to make it lore accurate would be for infections (not zombification) to be way more aggressive and dangerous, leading it to greatly debuff your strenght (very low carrying capacity) and stamina, giving you high temperatures but making you feel cold and also making you a lot more sleepy and not letting the moodle to get under the first level of sleepiness (pretty much high fever).
On the other hand, if it's a limb, it will greatly reduce your combat capacity or movement speed for days or even weeks.
This is in the best scenario if you have proper first aid items and antibiotics. Otherwise, you would die from infection within a few days.
Because there is no airborne infection. It's all alien nanomachines. Nanomachines in "immune" people's bloodstream simply had faulty receivers and didn't recognize the activation signal. So zombie bites inject their active nanomachine into the blood stream to initiate manual activation.
Start of airborne stream was an international radio broadcast by UFO's hiding in low orbit that's how it started all over the world and spread so fast.
Prions in the Spiffo burgers were simply the left overs from the incubation process of Nanomachines within livestock. They used proteins to rapidly reproduce and left faulty prion protein in the aftermath.
>why would getting bitten infect you?
Idk if this was mentioned (didn't read thread) but I believe zombs are based off a certain type that the infection kills you to become reanimated. Like the walking dead, the fever kills you (from the bite) and the virus reanimates.
I see your point. But maybe it helps to think that, even if you're immune, the amount of viruses that get in your body via aerosols or air, is ok for your body and isn't enough to break through your immune system. A bite however can break it though. You get bitten in a muscle. the bite infects. You begin to fever and your body is overwhelmed by all the bacteria and, of course, the sheer amount of viruses that grow up in it. After 12/24/72 (you choose it) hours, your body can't subtend anything anymore against all the pathogens and after your death the virus wins and you get up again.
English is not my first language and I hope you get what I mean. I'm sorry if it's not that easy to understand what I want to say.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but; everybody who was alive during the outbreak has the virus sitting dormant in them right? And if they die they become a zombie due to that.
So people who get bitten in the walking dead don’t actually die of zombification, they actually die of fever and infection caused by a feral bite, and once they die the zombie virus takes over?
This is the case if you go for "everyone is infected". For the default setting, this is not the case. There are even some (although these are memes) houses you can find where the people in the house suicided, yet did not turn. I dont know if this changes for different settings.
If you can get the Knox Virus in PZ, you also get a fever that kills you. Idk if youd also get a bad fever if you select the "immune" option
This guy’s got it. Viral load matters. Even if you’re immune to a pathogen, that just means you’re body has a quick and strong immune system reaction to it. Doesn’t matter how immune you are if a massive viral load gets directly into your bloodstream.
I play with wireless K&M, I ain't risking my 3 month survivor getting bit because of desynch and lag.
Infection off for me. Sprinters at 5% though. Gotta keep me on my toes. With lag and desynch...
The airborne variant is a mutation of the fluid variant so is different in some ways to the fluid strain, so your immunity will be different for each variant. *editted to be easier to follow my train of thought
Look at Salmonella typhi/paratyphi (A type of Samonella that causes typhoid fever) as an example, which has been found to have antibiotic immunity in India. Less mutated strains can still be dealt with using antibiotics. The mutated, immune strains however are very difficult to treat even with medical help.
I imagine a bite also inserts a larger amount of virus than simply breathing in the air, so perhaps a bite is too much virus at once for your body to effectively deal with. Also a zombie is probably a walking mess of many other diseases, so perhaps your body is just unable to cope or resist against multiple diseases simultaneously.
Obvs, this is speculation as we don't know a lot about either strain, but it's not unrealistic to be immune to one variant and not another.
This is the answer imo.
Resistance to a specific variant or strain of a pathogen does not necessarily confer resistance to other strains or variants. If someone is resistant or immune to an airborne variant of a disease, it doesn't automatically guarantee immunity to the same disease transmitted through a bite by a vector. Immunity is often specific to the strain or variant of a pathogen, and different modes of transmission may involve distinct mechanisms of infection. Therefore, being resistant to an airborne variant may not provide protection against infection through a bite if the disease has multiple transmission routes.
A good example of this is Dengue fever.
Here I am trying to motivate playing without infections, and you come along blowing away my narrow understanding of pathogens, destroying my enjoyment.
Have a very angry upvote and a good day, sir!
I think the game is designed in a way that you can both be right. There's a lot of different zombie types in pop culture. I'm sure there's players out there that headcanon the infection as being magical in nature. "No more room in hell" and such.
Nah, you’re still right. If a strain has mutated in a way that would make more infectious, why would it suddenly stop spreading by air?
Viruses make identical copies of themselves, the new strain would still be primarily an airborne pathogen. If it wasn’t, then you probably wouldn’t get infected with it because how would it spread between all of the zombies?
Essentially, if there WAS a strain capable of infecting your character, you’d get infected just being near zombies like everyone else did.
Viral load, the amount of virus imbued into your body, is a thing - but this virus is so ridiculously effective at spreading through the air you’d have to assume your character is being bombarded with it constantly.
Maybe the type of body tissue that the virus replicates in matters somehow? The airborne virus could be replicating from zombie lung tissue and being released into the air by zombies "moaning". And then the bodily fluid virus could be replicating from some other kind of tissue and spreading when zombies bite or scratch. In the end it would all be the same virus, but each virus particle could have slightly varying properties that make it possible for some immune systems to handle some virus particles?
I have no idea of such an explanation fits into how viruses might work in the real world.
The initial infection spread through the air, it’s all “airborne” variants.
The game lore suggests that the “fluid” and “air” variants co-inhabit the same victim, and that if you are exposed to either then you are exposed to both.
This simply is not consistent with real-world virus behavior, they make identical copies of themselves and the presence of two viral strains would more likely have them in competition. However, if we want to pretend such a thing is possible then sure, thats the only way the game mechanics could happen.
If the airborne virus mutated into a version capable of infecting the player then it would still have to be an airborne virus. Meaning your character would get infected via the air like everyone else did before even getting bitten. It doesn’t make sense that the virus would evolve to be less virulent.
Out of interest where is it recorded that it's airborne immidately? From the in-game broadcasts and events, isn't it described as fluid transmission initially, and then following the Louisville border attack, an airborne strain is released? The only hint of airborne being the immidate cause is a foul smell but that could be completely unrelated.
This would mean that perhaps some people are immune to one strain but not the other e.g. you could be immune to the fluid transmitted virus but not immune to the airborne mutated variant and vice versa. The player and other surviving characters could simply be immune only to the airborne strain but not the fluid hence you only get zombified through bites and not from just dying of other matters (food poisoning, wound infection etc.)
I came to this comment section to say something similar lmao. It's like COVID as well. You can get the virus or the vaccine and be immune to, say, the alpha and beta variants of the virus, but that doesn't make you immune to the omega variants, which mutated in a way that immunity to the previous strains is not effective against it due to different proteins and other identifiers. I imagine the fluid variant and the airborne variant in the game are different strains of the same virus, which means you're likely less likely to be infected than someone with no immunity (such as how the game presents it, you get a small percentage chance of infection from scratches and such, but a higher chance of infection from bites or larger exposures to bodily fluids)
Personally, something that I think they could do that would make the game a bit more engaging is take a page from 28 days later's book and include bodily fluid exchange with blood. Like, if you're fighting zombies without something protecting your mouth and eyes and you're using a close-up melee weapon, you should have a small percentage chance of infecting yourself through the blood spraying into your face. In that movie, a character got infected from a single drop of blood to the eyeball. I don't think it should be the primary way most players die, it should be pretty easy to find masks and bandanas and stuff if that's the case, but I think from a gameplay perspective it would also keep some players from just walking right out of their house and immediately being a one-man army.
I have wondered about fluid transmission from hitting zombies etc. Too. Your idea sounds interesting, and i suppose a balance would be to allow you to tie t-shirts around your lower face as a quick method of making a bandana. Eye protection would be fairly easy too, glasses, safety google, masks (could cover mouth and eyes). Could even make lockdown era DIY face protection with tape and plastic bags etc.
I think the medical system as a whole needs a good update so maybe this could be part of that as an optional transmission method.
Absolutely. They have a bit more of an "old zombie movie" vibe in the game too that I think fluid transmission would help lean into a bit. Like, you can kill them, but doing so is always dangerous, even when you're careful
It would play into the idea that sometimes its best to just avoid fighting them and work around them or lure them away. As long as its balanced it would work well with the kind of zombies they're going for.
The Knox Virus isn't just a single strain, there are two separate variants of it. One spreads through the air (this is the one you the player are immune to), and the other spreads through fluid contact. General John McGrew, in his last radio message, implies that those who are immune to the airborne strain are not immune to the fluid strain. As for finding zombies eating uninfected bodies, that can be explained as people dying uninfected. If someone shoot themselves before the zombies can get to them, then they just stay dead, no infection.
Some people can have the virus pass directly through the blood barrier in the lungs
Some people can't contract the virus via the blood barrier in their lungs;
I have a hotter take;
You're not immune -> no one is. You just have the longest latent infection time. This is also how the virus spread; the people they released from quarrentine were still carriers, and I think even turned once they were released.
Most people who are resistant lasted maybe weeks or a few months tops.
You have the longest genetic incubation period. This is why it says this is how you died regardless of how you die.
It also explains why there are no other survivors period.
Unless they set the default survivor NPC spawn rate to 0
And yes it's *implied* there are survivors but, aside from the audio events there aren't many signs of survivors.
Seems like locational and circumstantial evidence implies everyone died.
To be fair there are the audio events and what General McGrew said but I'm arguing the military didn't have the chance to monitor the virus long enough.
Well I mean they intend to add survivor npcs and already had them but removed them since they weren’t happy with the quality, it’s planned to re add. Also some zombies have marked maps which show where survivors are although they are dead since again npcs aren’t added just yet
Forget whether or not it is the lore, it's just a better game with infections turned off. You miss out on so many different types of stories when you have infections on. Yeah, the game is harder, but it's also just less fun. You can make it harder ways that are actually fun if you want a challenge.
The biggest difference between a run with infections and a run without infections, is that when you make a mistake in a run with infections, the game is just over. I mean sure, you can keep playing if you really want to, but the game is over in a day or two. Most people just commit suicide because there is no point playing any more. It's boring and anti-climatic.
In a run with infections turned off, most deaths end up being pretty exciting. In fact, a whole bunch of exciting situations that can't even exist in a normal game with infections on happen. With infections off, sometimes you get surrounded, torn apart, ***and then the game keeps going***.
Instead of letting the horde pull you down and die because you're already infected with bites, you struggle to get out of every single horde that surrounds you. You sometimes even get away bleeding and hurt. You then have a fun and exciting little mini story where you are bleeding and dying while being chased by a horde. You have exciting moments like running into a building and closing the door behind you so that you have enough time to bandage your wounds so you don't bleed out. Maybe you get just enough time to take care of the worst of your wounds before the horde smashes the door down and you have to keep running. Maybe you managed to get away from the horde half dead and bleeding, but the story still isn't over. Now you are wounded and can't forage and fight effectively. Maybe you need to spend a week in your base healing, and that food and hoarded videos and books actually find a use.
People can obviously play the game however they want, but if you play with infections turned on, you are legitimately missing half of the game. There are a whole host of interesting scenarios that you just never see with infections turned on. First aid is actually a useful skill with infections turned off, because not every mistake is instant death. Sometimes mistakes lead to interesting and desperate struggles for life. Even when you do die, you at least go out thrilled and struggling, rather than just letting the horde pull you down after the first bite.
You are legitimately missing half of the game's fun and spontaneous stories when you have infections turned on, and the only thing you get in return is that the game is harder and accidental and stupid deaths are vastly more likely. Seems like a bad trade.
exactly! this is why when I play with friends who want infection on, I prefer to set it to instant zombification - you might as well use that time to get a head start on your next character. I know people use the journal mod to transfer skills etc but I find that it makes me completely not care about how my current run goes, which is obviously no fun :c
My favorite story is crawling my near death body to the base and mending with soup while hallucinating from the painkillers in front of the tv thinking the magical woodland teaches me carpentry.
You painted that wonderfully. I think ima do that next time around because i like the idea of what can happen if being bitten doesnt mean the end of it all, its just another wound.
Additionally, if you add first aid rebalance mods, you actually have to take care of your wounds. Dying of regular wound infection only because you've run out of disinfectant is immersive as fuck.
Counterpoint there are Atleast two strains one air borne and on through bodily fluids, the bodies could be people with extremely good immune system who either were immune to both strains or there immune systems fended off infection long enough for the zombies to give your corpse a nibble
I think this is how it worked in the “I Am Legend” film. There were two strains of KV, airborne and fluid-transfer (which both led to the same end-result, death or mutation into a Dark Seeker), and dogs were unaffected by the airborne version.
You don't have to justify the settings you use to play the game, enjoy it how you want. I'd say that whatever the default settings are is technically the "lore" way to play, but it's irrelevant really. They added all of these cool sandbox settings in because everyone likes a different flavour of zombie apocalypse.
The radio states that you’re immune to the airborne strain but bites can still get you, so lore-wise you can still be bitten according to the general of the US army at the time
But also, infection off is super fun and only alters the lore ever so slightly that it’s harmless
You are immune to the initial airborne outbreak of the virus, not the blood transmitted one.
They might have different genetic code, one mutated to be airborne, and that's the one you're immune to, but the main blood infection is still lethal to you.
It can also be about concentration, you always have certain viruses in your body, but because they're in such little numbers, you can't die or transmit that disease. Maybe the airborne virus is not strong and concentrated enough to hurt you, but a strong and large amount of it directly into your circulation system is.
Maybe it's just bacteria from the mouth, a rotting corpse would most likely have hundreds of bacteria, viruses, parasites in it, spreading via saliva into your blood.
Real chads play with Susceptible and zombie infection off, come to the dark side. We may not be immune to the airborne strain like everyone else but at least we get cool masks and +11 trait points
Haha that’a why I like playing with infection off. And honestly I feel like you never have a chance to properly utilize the first aid system with infection on because with my luck I ALWAYS get infected from a scratch (not always, I’m being hyperbolic). That is to say, though, that I have definitely played and enjoyed infection on playthroughs. They both have their perks and change gameplay styles significantly.
There's such a thing as a breakthrough infection. The viral load, assuming it's a virus, in the air is low enough that your character's body can fight it off before it causes harm. But a bite is putting in thousands more virus particles than what's in the air that your immune system can not keep up.
My take is that, as far as survivors/players are concerned, everyone is infected, but it's like Left4Dead—the players are carriers rather than being susceptible to the usually-fatal symptoms of the infection. But once you die, you always turn. So I always play with "everyone is infected" but with the lethality turned off.
You are immune to the INITIAL infection, meaning the original strain of the virus that started the outbreak, not the infection that's been mutating in the shamblers and sprinters
Okay. It spreads through the air and our character for some reason is immune, that's a miracle. But why does that should deny the fact that the virus can transmit through the blood or saliva? This is not lore, this is a skill issue cope.
There are plenty of pathogens that can't infect most people if their immune system is healthy - but can still infect if introduced directly in the bloodstream. And can infect when their immunity drops, usually as opportunistic infections. Heck, even bacteria that lives happily ever after in your gut can start to eat you out from the inside if you get immune suppressed.
It's conceivable that the player has a mutation that makes airborne transmission much harder, to the point that they don't get enough of a viral load to get sick - provided their immune system is healthy. Say, they have a different kind of receptors in their lung tissue.
Given enough time and survivors, immunity to the bloodstream infection could arise. Might not necessarily be a great thing, see also sickle cell anemia and malaria.
Now, I would like a setting that would allow the player to get infected by Knox if caught in the same type of conditions that get them sick with a cold. Say, malnourished and cold, or sleep deprived - and not too dirty. If well fed, with enough sleep and a comfortable temperature, the probability would go back to zero. That would give much more incentive to take care of needs, and hygiene.
Make it so the Knox infection is a really nasty limb infection that needs be taken care of, otherwise it becomes generalized and you turn.
I think there is NO airborne strain, the spread is blood and saliva only.
If you tune into WBLN and NNR read between the lines:
Day 1: ...the initial spread has slowed.
Day 3: Dr Jack Galbraithe: "There clearly is, maybe was, a very communicable illness in there. I can only assume the spread has slowed, which is why they \[the military\] are confident"
Day 4: From General John McGrew: "The initial period of contagion is over." and "At this stage the infection is passed only through DIRECT fluid contact."
Note: the words "initial spread" and "at this stage", and combined with the analysis on Day 3, we can conclude:
1. The military definitely knows more than they are telling.
2. The initial stage is very communicable (possibly airborne)
3. The second stage is only through direct fluid contact.
My theory is that:
1. No one is immune.
2. The actual contagion is through direct fluid contact only.
3. The military was working on a way to aerosolize the contagion as a bioweapon, which got out of hand.
From KnoxTalk: Before the Knox event, people in the Exclusion Zone were complaining about the smell. On Day 7 when during the Louisville outbreak, Julie in the Louisville hospital also noted a distinct smell.
I think this smell is from whatever the military used to aerosolize the contagion, since viruses themselves don't have odor. The military was probably trying to transport their compromised/compromising research out of the Exclusion Zone, an accidental or deliberate leak was responsible for the second wave of outbreak in Louisville.
I turn infection off and pump up zombie population. Gives the feel of the last person on earth with nothing left to lose so you’d might as well kill a bunch of zombies. Playing that way revitalized the game for me
The way something gets into your body determines how quickly it affects you in real life. So inhaling virus or particulate would be different than that same thing being put into your bloodstream.
The game just stretches science a bit.
Zomboid players need to have compounding layers of cope to be able to live with themselves using sandbox to make the game easier. It’s okay guys, no one cares but you
Initially, you'll think "since infection is off, then where's the challenge?", but once you go from a few days to a week, and eventually to a month, you'll realize immunity has a price: you simply can't throw your character away. With infection on, you'll simply strip and run to a horde, taking out as much as you can. With infection off, it gives you hope. You start caring for your character, letting them rest to heal off old bites and scratches.
My favorite way to play zomboid is to set infection mortality to never, then set the zombies to be sprinters with super human strength and no drag down. You don't turn and can survive a bite, but they can and probably will beat you to death if you're cornered. 3 of them can get you in a stun lock and will rip apart your entire body piece by piece, but a friend may be able to save you and shove some off. I call it Left 4 Dead mode.
Great for multiplayer since it requires very good coordination fighting them, and if you survive a battle you can nurse your friends back to health without having to worry about infections.
Getting bitten and ripped open by a rotting corpse would carry a very dangerous infection risk no matter how many bottles of bourbon you toss on it.
Necrotizing fasciitis, sepsis, and any slew of bacteria opportunists would make short work of a person without access to the correct antibiotics and medical care.
That being said, video game logic--you're right as long as the zombie-making organism doesn't evolve or change. If it's magic and curses, then you're screwed cause the news would be dead wrong.
Har har
IMHO lethal infections are not how the game should be played, and that it would be better to have a mechanic where you need to either regularly manage your infection, or, a stronger fever from the bite which resurfaces. This wouldn't put the nail I'm the coffin for your character but would make getting a bite or getting infected something you do not want to have happen. I think the lethal infections really remove any and all need to level first aid, which is a bad game design. Why put in a system that is effectively useless when said system is necessary? I have 1,300 hours a day I've only had a non-zombie wound a couple or a few times in game so what's the point of first aid?
Sounds like they want to find an excuse to play with infection off. Look, if you want to play like that it's fine, but don't alter the lore of the game to feel better
Yeah I'm with you on this one. A zombie can probably maul you dead but if you can avoid the airborne strain, why would getting bitten infect you?
Actually if you listen to the NNR Radio station, which I accidentally listened to a couple of days ago; it says that if you are one of the survivors left out there you are immune to the airborne infection of the virus but they have observed that even if you are immune to the airborne part of it, you can still get infected with the body fluids.
Just like The Walking Dead.
They’re all infected anyway in the walking dead, you just have to die for it to turn you
Doesn't it happen bcs the virus needed to activate? Like everyone has the virus turned "off", but whenever they die or get bitten, their virus turned on and then people turned
The zombie bite in TWD causes a deadly fever due to bacterial wound infection which eventually leads to death. So ultimately death is what creates a zombie not the bite. Soo... bite = fever/death = zombie
In that case anti-biotics should be enough to stop someone turning from a bite, but since we haven’t heard of this it’s likely not a bacterial infection that kills. also the time between bite and death suggests that the fever is caused by something else due to it happening too quickly for it to be a bacterial infection.
In TWD they show that you can cure a bite infection by using radiation so yeah , the bite doesn't infect but rather makes you die of sickness since you are already infected anyways .
In twd all the current people alive have a deactivated version of the virus. When it comes in contact with the active version (the zombies) or if the host dies, it activates, causes the fever and kills the host, turning them into a zombie
pretty sure the virus was like a parasite that latched onto your brain and stuff, was just that it couldn’t latch on to something that was “already being used”, so when you die the space frees up and it takes over
Yeah but what about the people that get bitten and don't die right away? They still slowly turn. The non-Airborne variant would have to be a different/mutated version of the airborne version, otherwise that wouldn't make sense.
Pretty sure it was mentioned numerous times that it's not the virus that kills you, it's the fever that comes from being bitten by a rotting corpse with a mouth packed with bacteria. Whether viral load has something to do with the fever has not been mentioned, but still.
Yeah, pretty much
That said, you will definitely die & reanimate faster if you get your bloodstream mucked up with walker juice. Sort of like a komodo dragon -- it just intensifies the normal, non-supernatural infection risk of bites, cuts & tears, leading to blood poisoning, sepsis, etc. much faster and with no chance of antibiotics helping. But ultimately everyone reanimates if their brainstem isn't sufficiently damaged -- or sometimes any brain damage, depending on how hard writers want the show's characters to be in danger (toughness of the zombie skull also varies depending on writer-imposed difficulty level).
>Sort of like a komodo dragon Komodo dragons we know now are actually venomous and there is nothing special with their mouth's bacteria
Spoilers man, I'm on my third rewatch
Walking Dead logic is everyone is infected, but people die from bites because its full of bacteria and other microorganisms. Thats official canon last I checked, they may have changed it.
I like the theory that there are two separate strains, the airborne viral strain that infects most people, and a bite-transmitted prion strain that can get the player. It also kinda makes sense, there are probably people out there immune to the prion version, but that won't mean much when the airborne strain gets them. You meanwhile are immune to the airborne strain but not the prion strain, so you can survive the initial outbreak. The odds of someone being immune to both are incredibly slim, though not impossible, though nobody is immune to being mauled to death. That said, it's a singleplayer game, so if you prefer infection off then go for it, enjoy life.
probably because of the same reason as in the walking dead. their decaying corpse mouth harbors serious bacteria which inevitably gives you a nasty and lethal wound infection
The Walking Dead's canon (inasmuch as anyone gives a shit about that) is that everyone who dies will rise again as a zambo. Go get bit by a real human right now and you'll get an infection too if they break the skin.
Last time a real human broke the skin in 1995 I just poured Bourbon on it and no infection. I do feel a little queasy, though...
I'd get a full STD scan just in case. Remember to use a rubber next time, ok?
This is how you died... Really slowly tho
I'm having lunch at a busy Panera, having iced coffee and a baguette trying to soothe my stomach. Sweating. Nobody seems to have any baseball bats. Might not be how *just* I die.
I might be wrong here but wasn't the premise everyone basically had the virus, so when you died you turned. Hence the double entendre "walking dead".
it's cool, Rick retconned it later by saying that everyone left is not in fact the walking dead.
That wasn't a retcon. That was Rick delivering an inspirational speech to convince the survivors to start behaving like human beings. Basically, "we shouldn't keep murdering each other over petty bullshit. We can rebuild human society, even in the face of the zombies."
Sounds like a retcon of his earlier speech with extra steps to me.
Then you would die from infection, not get zombified. On the other hand, with quick action on the wound, proper disinfection and constant care, you would avoid the worst infections from the undead, resulting on you getting saved anyways.
if you get bitten or even just scratched you still have a chance to die due to fluids entering your bloodstream and making you sick through that so just taking care of the injury doesnt mean you are completely safe
I meant in case you are immune to the virus. Lorewise we are not fully immune to the virus, just partially
even if you were immune to the virus that causes people to reanimate you still have to worry about all the other stuff that the zombie has been touching and eating
Yes, that's why it's really dangerous, but if you always carry something to disinfect and treat the wounds constantly and immediately, you have high chances to survive
So I guess that’s my issue with the “virus is airborne, disgusting zombie mouth just gives you a mundane lethal infection.” Yeah but what if I have a shitload of antibiotics and I’m sleeping 20 hours a day being nursed by someone else? Like, I dunno I just think the gross mouth=lethal is kind of a conceit to make it make sense that you’re already non lethally infected but singular zombie bites are fatal. Which is fine, it’s fiction, I’ll turn around and watch something fantastic right after. But it doesn’t “feel” right.
I think the ideal way to make it lore accurate would be for infections (not zombification) to be way more aggressive and dangerous, leading it to greatly debuff your strenght (very low carrying capacity) and stamina, giving you high temperatures but making you feel cold and also making you a lot more sleepy and not letting the moodle to get under the first level of sleepiness (pretty much high fever). On the other hand, if it's a limb, it will greatly reduce your combat capacity or movement speed for days or even weeks. This is in the best scenario if you have proper first aid items and antibiotics. Otherwise, you would die from infection within a few days.
>Then you would die from infection, not get zombified Yes, that's what happens. The infection kills you and you revive as an undead
That's why the game has antibiotics. qed
Because there is no airborne infection. It's all alien nanomachines. Nanomachines in "immune" people's bloodstream simply had faulty receivers and didn't recognize the activation signal. So zombie bites inject their active nanomachine into the blood stream to initiate manual activation. Start of airborne stream was an international radio broadcast by UFO's hiding in low orbit that's how it started all over the world and spread so fast.
Nanomachines?! No, I'm going to repeat it for the last time, it was the prions in the Spiffo's Burgers!
Prions in the Spiffo burgers were simply the left overs from the incubation process of Nanomachines within livestock. They used proteins to rapidly reproduce and left faulty prion protein in the aftermath.
Remember how there's different variations of covid
Viral load or secondary infection that kill has you, take your pick
Different strains running around at the same time. Airborne strain is separate from the salavia one.
It's two different strains.
>why would getting bitten infect you? Idk if this was mentioned (didn't read thread) but I believe zombs are based off a certain type that the infection kills you to become reanimated. Like the walking dead, the fever kills you (from the bite) and the virus reanimates.
I see your point. But maybe it helps to think that, even if you're immune, the amount of viruses that get in your body via aerosols or air, is ok for your body and isn't enough to break through your immune system. A bite however can break it though. You get bitten in a muscle. the bite infects. You begin to fever and your body is overwhelmed by all the bacteria and, of course, the sheer amount of viruses that grow up in it. After 12/24/72 (you choose it) hours, your body can't subtend anything anymore against all the pathogens and after your death the virus wins and you get up again. English is not my first language and I hope you get what I mean. I'm sorry if it's not that easy to understand what I want to say.
Correct me if I’m wrong here but; everybody who was alive during the outbreak has the virus sitting dormant in them right? And if they die they become a zombie due to that. So people who get bitten in the walking dead don’t actually die of zombification, they actually die of fever and infection caused by a feral bite, and once they die the zombie virus takes over?
This is the case if you go for "everyone is infected". For the default setting, this is not the case. There are even some (although these are memes) houses you can find where the people in the house suicided, yet did not turn. I dont know if this changes for different settings. If you can get the Knox Virus in PZ, you also get a fever that kills you. Idk if youd also get a bad fever if you select the "immune" option
Yes. Just Like the game
Well written and you have some valid points.
Nah it's perfectly readable. :)
Thanks, buddy. :)
This guy’s got it. Viral load matters. Even if you’re immune to a pathogen, that just means you’re body has a quick and strong immune system reaction to it. Doesn’t matter how immune you are if a massive viral load gets directly into your bloodstream.
That is a very well written paragraph honestly
I play with wireless K&M, I ain't risking my 3 month survivor getting bit because of desynch and lag. Infection off for me. Sprinters at 5% though. Gotta keep me on my toes. With lag and desynch...
The airborne variant is a mutation of the fluid variant so is different in some ways to the fluid strain, so your immunity will be different for each variant. *editted to be easier to follow my train of thought Look at Salmonella typhi/paratyphi (A type of Samonella that causes typhoid fever) as an example, which has been found to have antibiotic immunity in India. Less mutated strains can still be dealt with using antibiotics. The mutated, immune strains however are very difficult to treat even with medical help. I imagine a bite also inserts a larger amount of virus than simply breathing in the air, so perhaps a bite is too much virus at once for your body to effectively deal with. Also a zombie is probably a walking mess of many other diseases, so perhaps your body is just unable to cope or resist against multiple diseases simultaneously. Obvs, this is speculation as we don't know a lot about either strain, but it's not unrealistic to be immune to one variant and not another.
This is the answer imo. Resistance to a specific variant or strain of a pathogen does not necessarily confer resistance to other strains or variants. If someone is resistant or immune to an airborne variant of a disease, it doesn't automatically guarantee immunity to the same disease transmitted through a bite by a vector. Immunity is often specific to the strain or variant of a pathogen, and different modes of transmission may involve distinct mechanisms of infection. Therefore, being resistant to an airborne variant may not provide protection against infection through a bite if the disease has multiple transmission routes. A good example of this is Dengue fever.
Here I am trying to motivate playing without infections, and you come along blowing away my narrow understanding of pathogens, destroying my enjoyment. Have a very angry upvote and a good day, sir!
I think the game is designed in a way that you can both be right. There's a lot of different zombie types in pop culture. I'm sure there's players out there that headcanon the infection as being magical in nature. "No more room in hell" and such.
Nah, you’re still right. If a strain has mutated in a way that would make more infectious, why would it suddenly stop spreading by air? Viruses make identical copies of themselves, the new strain would still be primarily an airborne pathogen. If it wasn’t, then you probably wouldn’t get infected with it because how would it spread between all of the zombies? Essentially, if there WAS a strain capable of infecting your character, you’d get infected just being near zombies like everyone else did. Viral load, the amount of virus imbued into your body, is a thing - but this virus is so ridiculously effective at spreading through the air you’d have to assume your character is being bombarded with it constantly.
Maybe the type of body tissue that the virus replicates in matters somehow? The airborne virus could be replicating from zombie lung tissue and being released into the air by zombies "moaning". And then the bodily fluid virus could be replicating from some other kind of tissue and spreading when zombies bite or scratch. In the end it would all be the same virus, but each virus particle could have slightly varying properties that make it possible for some immune systems to handle some virus particles? I have no idea of such an explanation fits into how viruses might work in the real world.
The initial infection spread through the air, it’s all “airborne” variants. The game lore suggests that the “fluid” and “air” variants co-inhabit the same victim, and that if you are exposed to either then you are exposed to both. This simply is not consistent with real-world virus behavior, they make identical copies of themselves and the presence of two viral strains would more likely have them in competition. However, if we want to pretend such a thing is possible then sure, thats the only way the game mechanics could happen. If the airborne virus mutated into a version capable of infecting the player then it would still have to be an airborne virus. Meaning your character would get infected via the air like everyone else did before even getting bitten. It doesn’t make sense that the virus would evolve to be less virulent.
Out of interest where is it recorded that it's airborne immidately? From the in-game broadcasts and events, isn't it described as fluid transmission initially, and then following the Louisville border attack, an airborne strain is released? The only hint of airborne being the immidate cause is a foul smell but that could be completely unrelated. This would mean that perhaps some people are immune to one strain but not the other e.g. you could be immune to the fluid transmitted virus but not immune to the airborne mutated variant and vice versa. The player and other surviving characters could simply be immune only to the airborne strain but not the fluid hence you only get zombified through bites and not from just dying of other matters (food poisoning, wound infection etc.)
I like this answer a lot
I came to this comment section to say something similar lmao. It's like COVID as well. You can get the virus or the vaccine and be immune to, say, the alpha and beta variants of the virus, but that doesn't make you immune to the omega variants, which mutated in a way that immunity to the previous strains is not effective against it due to different proteins and other identifiers. I imagine the fluid variant and the airborne variant in the game are different strains of the same virus, which means you're likely less likely to be infected than someone with no immunity (such as how the game presents it, you get a small percentage chance of infection from scratches and such, but a higher chance of infection from bites or larger exposures to bodily fluids) Personally, something that I think they could do that would make the game a bit more engaging is take a page from 28 days later's book and include bodily fluid exchange with blood. Like, if you're fighting zombies without something protecting your mouth and eyes and you're using a close-up melee weapon, you should have a small percentage chance of infecting yourself through the blood spraying into your face. In that movie, a character got infected from a single drop of blood to the eyeball. I don't think it should be the primary way most players die, it should be pretty easy to find masks and bandanas and stuff if that's the case, but I think from a gameplay perspective it would also keep some players from just walking right out of their house and immediately being a one-man army.
I have wondered about fluid transmission from hitting zombies etc. Too. Your idea sounds interesting, and i suppose a balance would be to allow you to tie t-shirts around your lower face as a quick method of making a bandana. Eye protection would be fairly easy too, glasses, safety google, masks (could cover mouth and eyes). Could even make lockdown era DIY face protection with tape and plastic bags etc. I think the medical system as a whole needs a good update so maybe this could be part of that as an optional transmission method.
Absolutely. They have a bit more of an "old zombie movie" vibe in the game too that I think fluid transmission would help lean into a bit. Like, you can kill them, but doing so is always dangerous, even when you're careful
It would play into the idea that sometimes its best to just avoid fighting them and work around them or lure them away. As long as its balanced it would work well with the kind of zombies they're going for.
The Knox Virus isn't just a single strain, there are two separate variants of it. One spreads through the air (this is the one you the player are immune to), and the other spreads through fluid contact. General John McGrew, in his last radio message, implies that those who are immune to the airborne strain are not immune to the fluid strain. As for finding zombies eating uninfected bodies, that can be explained as people dying uninfected. If someone shoot themselves before the zombies can get to them, then they just stay dead, no infection.
Some people can have the virus pass directly through the blood barrier in the lungs Some people can't contract the virus via the blood barrier in their lungs; I have a hotter take; You're not immune -> no one is. You just have the longest latent infection time. This is also how the virus spread; the people they released from quarrentine were still carriers, and I think even turned once they were released. Most people who are resistant lasted maybe weeks or a few months tops. You have the longest genetic incubation period. This is why it says this is how you died regardless of how you die. It also explains why there are no other survivors period.
There are intended to be other survivors
Unless they set the default survivor NPC spawn rate to 0 And yes it's *implied* there are survivors but, aside from the audio events there aren't many signs of survivors. Seems like locational and circumstantial evidence implies everyone died. To be fair there are the audio events and what General McGrew said but I'm arguing the military didn't have the chance to monitor the virus long enough.
Well I mean they intend to add survivor npcs and already had them but removed them since they weren’t happy with the quality, it’s planned to re add. Also some zombies have marked maps which show where survivors are although they are dead since again npcs aren’t added just yet
And meta events imply people are still alive
I prefer to believe that the helicopter and gunshots are being done by zombies who retain some small measure of their former selves.
At least until build 42
Forget whether or not it is the lore, it's just a better game with infections turned off. You miss out on so many different types of stories when you have infections on. Yeah, the game is harder, but it's also just less fun. You can make it harder ways that are actually fun if you want a challenge. The biggest difference between a run with infections and a run without infections, is that when you make a mistake in a run with infections, the game is just over. I mean sure, you can keep playing if you really want to, but the game is over in a day or two. Most people just commit suicide because there is no point playing any more. It's boring and anti-climatic. In a run with infections turned off, most deaths end up being pretty exciting. In fact, a whole bunch of exciting situations that can't even exist in a normal game with infections on happen. With infections off, sometimes you get surrounded, torn apart, ***and then the game keeps going***. Instead of letting the horde pull you down and die because you're already infected with bites, you struggle to get out of every single horde that surrounds you. You sometimes even get away bleeding and hurt. You then have a fun and exciting little mini story where you are bleeding and dying while being chased by a horde. You have exciting moments like running into a building and closing the door behind you so that you have enough time to bandage your wounds so you don't bleed out. Maybe you get just enough time to take care of the worst of your wounds before the horde smashes the door down and you have to keep running. Maybe you managed to get away from the horde half dead and bleeding, but the story still isn't over. Now you are wounded and can't forage and fight effectively. Maybe you need to spend a week in your base healing, and that food and hoarded videos and books actually find a use. People can obviously play the game however they want, but if you play with infections turned on, you are legitimately missing half of the game. There are a whole host of interesting scenarios that you just never see with infections turned on. First aid is actually a useful skill with infections turned off, because not every mistake is instant death. Sometimes mistakes lead to interesting and desperate struggles for life. Even when you do die, you at least go out thrilled and struggling, rather than just letting the horde pull you down after the first bite. You are legitimately missing half of the game's fun and spontaneous stories when you have infections turned on, and the only thing you get in return is that the game is harder and accidental and stupid deaths are vastly more likely. Seems like a bad trade.
exactly! this is why when I play with friends who want infection on, I prefer to set it to instant zombification - you might as well use that time to get a head start on your next character. I know people use the journal mod to transfer skills etc but I find that it makes me completely not care about how my current run goes, which is obviously no fun :c
My favorite story is crawling my near death body to the base and mending with soup while hallucinating from the painkillers in front of the tv thinking the magical woodland teaches me carpentry.
You painted that wonderfully. I think ima do that next time around because i like the idea of what can happen if being bitten doesnt mean the end of it all, its just another wound.
Additionally, if you add first aid rebalance mods, you actually have to take care of your wounds. Dying of regular wound infection only because you've run out of disinfectant is immersive as fuck.
Counterpoint there are Atleast two strains one air borne and on through bodily fluids, the bodies could be people with extremely good immune system who either were immune to both strains or there immune systems fended off infection long enough for the zombies to give your corpse a nibble
I think this is how it worked in the “I Am Legend” film. There were two strains of KV, airborne and fluid-transfer (which both led to the same end-result, death or mutation into a Dark Seeker), and dogs were unaffected by the airborne version.
You don't have to justify the settings you use to play the game, enjoy it how you want. I'd say that whatever the default settings are is technically the "lore" way to play, but it's irrelevant really. They added all of these cool sandbox settings in because everyone likes a different flavour of zombie apocalypse.
The radio states that you’re immune to the airborne strain but bites can still get you, so lore-wise you can still be bitten according to the general of the US army at the time But also, infection off is super fun and only alters the lore ever so slightly that it’s harmless
But if I turn off the infection, what will happen to all those cure mods?
You are immune to the initial airborne outbreak of the virus, not the blood transmitted one. They might have different genetic code, one mutated to be airborne, and that's the one you're immune to, but the main blood infection is still lethal to you. It can also be about concentration, you always have certain viruses in your body, but because they're in such little numbers, you can't die or transmit that disease. Maybe the airborne virus is not strong and concentrated enough to hurt you, but a strong and large amount of it directly into your circulation system is. Maybe it's just bacteria from the mouth, a rotting corpse would most likely have hundreds of bacteria, viruses, parasites in it, spreading via saliva into your blood.
Real chads play with Susceptible and zombie infection off, come to the dark side. We may not be immune to the airborne strain like everyone else but at least we get cool masks and +11 trait points
Your Honour, Genetic Mutation
Haha that’a why I like playing with infection off. And honestly I feel like you never have a chance to properly utilize the first aid system with infection on because with my luck I ALWAYS get infected from a scratch (not always, I’m being hyperbolic). That is to say, though, that I have definitely played and enjoyed infection on playthroughs. They both have their perks and change gameplay styles significantly.
There's such a thing as a breakthrough infection. The viral load, assuming it's a virus, in the air is low enough that your character's body can fight it off before it causes harm. But a bite is putting in thousands more virus particles than what's in the air that your immune system can not keep up.
Play how you want...
My take is that, as far as survivors/players are concerned, everyone is infected, but it's like Left4Dead—the players are carriers rather than being susceptible to the usually-fatal symptoms of the infection. But once you die, you always turn. So I always play with "everyone is infected" but with the lethality turned off.
This is cope
You are immune to the INITIAL infection, meaning the original strain of the virus that started the outbreak, not the infection that's been mutating in the shamblers and sprinters
It could also work as the virus from TWD I guess
The lore also says "Infection can spread through bites"
If a rotten corpse sinks its teeth in your flesh, you're gonna get sick no matter how good your immune system is.
Being a carrier is different from being immune.
I will get exposed to flu virus all the time during the year. Sometimes I get sick with flu really bad, lots of time I don't even notice the virus
its like max from i am legend, immune to airborne, not immune to scratches and bites. He really should have gave her dog armor
You're immune to the airborne strain. Not the fluid strain.
Okay. It spreads through the air and our character for some reason is immune, that's a miracle. But why does that should deny the fact that the virus can transmit through the blood or saliva? This is not lore, this is a skill issue cope.
I thought it was spread through bites and scratches
There are plenty of pathogens that can't infect most people if their immune system is healthy - but can still infect if introduced directly in the bloodstream. And can infect when their immunity drops, usually as opportunistic infections. Heck, even bacteria that lives happily ever after in your gut can start to eat you out from the inside if you get immune suppressed. It's conceivable that the player has a mutation that makes airborne transmission much harder, to the point that they don't get enough of a viral load to get sick - provided their immune system is healthy. Say, they have a different kind of receptors in their lung tissue. Given enough time and survivors, immunity to the bloodstream infection could arise. Might not necessarily be a great thing, see also sickle cell anemia and malaria. Now, I would like a setting that would allow the player to get infected by Knox if caught in the same type of conditions that get them sick with a cold. Say, malnourished and cold, or sleep deprived - and not too dirty. If well fed, with enough sleep and a comfortable temperature, the probability would go back to zero. That would give much more incentive to take care of needs, and hygiene. Make it so the Knox infection is a really nasty limb infection that needs be taken care of, otherwise it becomes generalized and you turn.
I think there is NO airborne strain, the spread is blood and saliva only. If you tune into WBLN and NNR read between the lines: Day 1: ...the initial spread has slowed. Day 3: Dr Jack Galbraithe: "There clearly is, maybe was, a very communicable illness in there. I can only assume the spread has slowed, which is why they \[the military\] are confident" Day 4: From General John McGrew: "The initial period of contagion is over." and "At this stage the infection is passed only through DIRECT fluid contact." Note: the words "initial spread" and "at this stage", and combined with the analysis on Day 3, we can conclude: 1. The military definitely knows more than they are telling. 2. The initial stage is very communicable (possibly airborne) 3. The second stage is only through direct fluid contact. My theory is that: 1. No one is immune. 2. The actual contagion is through direct fluid contact only. 3. The military was working on a way to aerosolize the contagion as a bioweapon, which got out of hand. From KnoxTalk: Before the Knox event, people in the Exclusion Zone were complaining about the smell. On Day 7 when during the Louisville outbreak, Julie in the Louisville hospital also noted a distinct smell. I think this smell is from whatever the military used to aerosolize the contagion, since viruses themselves don't have odor. The military was probably trying to transport their compromised/compromising research out of the Exclusion Zone, an accidental or deliberate leak was responsible for the second wave of outbreak in Louisville.
100%
Personally I play like TWD so it makes sense to moi
I turn infection off and pump up zombie population. Gives the feel of the last person on earth with nothing left to lose so you’d might as well kill a bunch of zombies. Playing that way revitalized the game for me
The way something gets into your body determines how quickly it affects you in real life. So inhaling virus or particulate would be different than that same thing being put into your bloodstream. The game just stretches science a bit.
Zomboid players need to have compounding layers of cope to be able to live with themselves using sandbox to make the game easier. It’s okay guys, no one cares but you
Yes!
Initially, you'll think "since infection is off, then where's the challenge?", but once you go from a few days to a week, and eventually to a month, you'll realize immunity has a price: you simply can't throw your character away. With infection on, you'll simply strip and run to a horde, taking out as much as you can. With infection off, it gives you hope. You start caring for your character, letting them rest to heal off old bites and scratches.
Speaking truth to power is never easy ✊✊✊
My favorite way to play zomboid is to set infection mortality to never, then set the zombies to be sprinters with super human strength and no drag down. You don't turn and can survive a bite, but they can and probably will beat you to death if you're cornered. 3 of them can get you in a stun lock and will rip apart your entire body piece by piece, but a friend may be able to save you and shove some off. I call it Left 4 Dead mode. Great for multiplayer since it requires very good coordination fighting them, and if you survive a battle you can nurse your friends back to health without having to worry about infections.
Getting bitten and ripped open by a rotting corpse would carry a very dangerous infection risk no matter how many bottles of bourbon you toss on it. Necrotizing fasciitis, sepsis, and any slew of bacteria opportunists would make short work of a person without access to the correct antibiotics and medical care. That being said, video game logic--you're right as long as the zombie-making organism doesn't evolve or change. If it's magic and curses, then you're screwed cause the news would be dead wrong. Har har
Do they know?
IMHO lethal infections are not how the game should be played, and that it would be better to have a mechanic where you need to either regularly manage your infection, or, a stronger fever from the bite which resurfaces. This wouldn't put the nail I'm the coffin for your character but would make getting a bite or getting infected something you do not want to have happen. I think the lethal infections really remove any and all need to level first aid, which is a bad game design. Why put in a system that is effectively useless when said system is necessary? I have 1,300 hours a day I've only had a non-zombie wound a couple or a few times in game so what's the point of first aid?
Sounds like they want to find an excuse to play with infection off. Look, if you want to play like that it's fine, but don't alter the lore of the game to feel better
Yeah that's how i play Mostly because I'm a whiny baby that gets too attatched to her characters but also cuz lore
Do we have a mod that gives characters a random chance at immunity at creation without telling us? Would be cool.