Oxygen Not Included

Oxygen Not Included

[Vanilla + DLC] Diseases Expanded
Dovahkick 4 Apr, 2023 @ 7:19pm
My thoughts on the Medicinal Nanobots
I've done a little bit of testings on sandbox for these medical nanobots...I think the way they work and how they can be upgraded is something that should be rethought.

First, I think that having them spawn directly upon craft from a Molecular Forge is alright on its own, but maybe having a way to transport them around once they're crafted before deploying them could be more practical if you ever wish to send them into a specific place, like a sealed room for example. Think of putting them into a canister of air, and releasing them from a Canister Emptier.

As for them hanging around in the air, a problem I notice too often is that they just die from overpopulation in oxygen, until a point where there isn't enough per tile and just trigger the "Dying off" factor, which isn't great if you're looking to give your duplicants the bonuses they provide should they be upgraded, because most of the time they don't trigger the bonuses even at lvl 15 in Exposure Threshold within tiles of 40k nanobots.

The bonuses they grant to duplicants are really good, at max levels they grant:
-45% stress/cycle (-3% per level)
+500 kcal/cycle (+33.333 per level)
+45% stamina/cycle (+3% per level)
+4.5 germ resistance (+0.3 per level)
+15 to all attributes (+1 per level, which IMO is stupidly powerful)
+2% breath /s (they can just hold their breath infinitely)
+900 health/cycle (+60 per level)

Personally, the only ones that could be changed would be the stress reduction and the health regeneration. -45%/cycle is quite a lot, it's not as efficient as a massage clinic, but it doesn't cost any power and it doesn't prevent dupes from doing their tasks and such. Maybe it should be tuned down to -30%.
The health regeneration however is just ridiculous. I've spawned a dupe within a 1x2 enclosed room full of magma, gave him the nanobots boost and he'd be like "NANOMACHINES, SON!"...well, it wouldn't fully heal him, but he lasted a good minute in that magma before being incapacitated. Now there's a duplicant roaming around the base who's 650 °C hot. Sooo, I'd say it should be lowered down, like REAL down. Maybe 150/cycle should be the max for health regeneration.

Now, there's a big problem I'd like to cover though, it'd be the costs to deploy and to upgrade the nanobots. If there was one way for me to describe it, it would be this way: https://youtu.be/WfjHbpXt-oQ?t=6
The price to release the nanobots? 10 tons of steel!
And to upgrade them by one level? 10 tons of steel and 10 tons of common materials, or 1 ton for rarer ones!
Could you imagine how much time it would require just to go from lvl 0 to 15 for a single type of upgrade, and how much it would require in materials? There's no way anyone would be able to reach that before the 500th cycle, or beyond even, not without mods at least.

Some of the upgrades don't seem to work at all, the Leaden Coating doesn't seem to make any difference. I've reached lvl 15 for rad protection, and now the radiation kill rate shows -2.235174E-08...so I'm not sure if it's meant to say that it now multiplies in radiations since it's a negative number, or if it's supposed to be a flat 0. But either way, putting them next to heavy radiations seems to just kill them whatsoever.
The Operative Optimization upgrade gives the equivalent of the ImmunoBoost Protocol rather than the extended duration like intended, which means it cannot upgrade the duration of the bonuses.
The Integration Protocol doesn't trigger the bonuses even in high numbers, they need to be in VERY high numbers to actually trigger them (like I said above, with the 40k per tile not triggering the bonuses at lvl 15).
The Insulation Coating doesn't prevent them from dying in less than half a cycle within a 8x5 enclosed room full of oxygen, for 1000g of oxygen and 1 million nanobots per tile in the room at 27°C for their supposed tolerance of -65 °C to 105 °C.
The Perpetum Mobile Protocol still doesn't prevent the overpopulated factor from triggering, and it doesn't mitigate the loss either, it still shows as -13% dead/cycle.

So yeah, there's still a lot to rework about them little bots. The idea to have nanobots so they can enhance and protect your dupes, is an idea that I welcome with open arms, but the way it's made right now, it leaves quite a lot to be desired.
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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments
pether.pg  [developer] 20 Apr, 2023 @ 1:46pm 
Hey, that's a good feedback, thanks for starting the discussion here :)

The idea was to make them super late-game power and resources sink, to give player additional end-game goal. Cycle 500 sounds about correct, maybe even later. That's why they are so expensive, and the effects are super OP to make them worth pursuing. But I don't claim they are perfectly balanced and probably more changes will be made to them

Upgrades not being applied is a real problem, I wasn't aware of it, thanks for reporting, I will need to investigate it. Same goes with infection threshold, at max level it should be really easy to catch the bots, not sure what's wrong there.

Transport of the bots was another thing I was considering at one point, thanks for reminding me of that, I should probably go back to this idea.

I could tweak some values, rebalance some things and post beta .zip file here for you for testing, would you like help me like that? (Ofc anyone else is more than welcome to the discussion)

Once again, thanks for the post, balancing the Nanobots is the most difficult part of the mod so far and any feedback is really, really helpful!
Dovahkick 21 Apr, 2023 @ 10:21am 
It's good to see you're checking around, I thought that creating this discussion would allow the problems to be set in front, to be noticed, so that they could be fixed in priority.

For the price of the upgrades, in order to make them more fair, I have two ideas in mind.
The first one would be that the overall price is lowered, but remains the same no matter the level of it.
The second would be that the prices are cheap on early levels, but would become more and more expensive depending on how high the level is, for example, an upgrade from lvl 0 to 1 would require something like 500kg of each material, while going from lvl 1 to 2 would instead require 750kg, and it gets higher and higher on each level.
On the other hand however, I don't think that OnI supports crafts that changes themselves during gameplay, which makes me believe that having such a feature would be hell to code in, although I'm no coder, so I'm only guessing at this point.
But if you manage to make a crafting system that updates itself based on how many times each are applied, that would offer a lot of potential not just for this mod in itself, but for other mods as well.

The upgrades do apply when you check the stats of the nanobots from the germs UI, but they have no effects at all. Only those who affect duplicant stats (like breath, stress, attributes, health, calories, etc...) actually work as intended. All of the other upgrades simply have no effect. The Insulation Coating does change what's written on the nanobots' UI, but it doesn't actually increase their tolerance to extreme temperatures. The stats that are written down do change, but the actual stats don't.

I could help you beta-test your mod, since you are asking. Just a warning though, I may not always be available because I am already a spriter for a Terraria mod, plus I commit myself to learn at the driving school every day from 16:00 to 17:00 (french hour) except Saturday and Sunday.
In the case that I am however, let me know if you want my Discord ID, or if you want to talk through whatever social platform you'd like, and we'll be able to discuss the mod in further details.
pether.pg  [developer] 12 May, 2023 @ 3:19pm 
Beta 2023.05.13 aviable: https://github.com/pether-pg/ONI_Mods_byPether/releases/tag/DiseasesExpanded_beta
It focuses on Nanobots' balance. Please try it out and let me know how do they feel now. Ofc, please alarm me if something goes terribly wrong and crashes your game.

Changes in this version:
-reduced Medical Nanobots healing and breathing boosts
-increased Nanobots pressure resistane and minimal population - should die slower now
-Nanobot swarm recipe is cheaper, but spawns less germs
-Nanobots update recipes are now cheaper, but the cost grow with each upgrade in given category
-Nanobots update recipes are now removed once reaching maximum level
-added new recipe for Nanobot Pack. It requires additional 1kg of Oxygen and can be disposed in Gas Bottle Emptiers
-fixed Nanobots effect duration upgrade not applying correctly
-fixed an issue causing germ updates not to apply until game reload (affecting Nanobots and Mutating Virus)
Dovahkick 15 May, 2023 @ 4:51pm 
Okay, I've tried the Beta on Sandbox. So far, most of the issues I've mentioned seem to have been fixed, including radiation resistance, temperature tolerance and buff duration.

The Nanobot Pack works like a charm, the nanobots get transported to the gas bottle emptier just fine, and dupes who pick up the item are covered in nanobots, which is a win-win in my books.

The nanobot recipes that updates on each craft works perfectly, and the crafting requirements are indeed lower on the first 4 levels...though I can't help but mention that the total amount required to reach lvl 15 from zero is even higher than before.

Before it was 10,000 x 15 = 150,000 kilos. Multiply this value by the 12 types of upgrades available, and you get 1,800,000 kilos.
Now, it starts at 2,000 and increases in increments of 2,000.
2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 16 + 18 + 20 + 22 + 24 + 26 + 28 + 30 x 1000 = 240,000 kilos
240,000 x 12 = 2,880,000 kilos...yikes :meepyikes:

Exposition threshold is still an issue however, they still have trouble giving the buff to passing dupes at max level. Also, I've ran into a crash whenever I'd reach the max level for the attribute increase, which means I can only allow dupes to get up to +14 to their stats.
pether.pg  [developer] 15 May, 2023 @ 5:26pm 
I will need to check on the Expo Threshold, tbf I didn't have much time for it while making this beta.
I don't get the crash with lvl 15 of Attribute Increase, could you share Player.log after that happened?

As for the cost - it should equalize with non-beta cost around lvl 10 of each upgrade. At this point, Nanobots grant you so much bonuses that everything else feels like overkill. I didn't want to make the upgrades to reach 100% too soon - at this point in the game, there is little to do anyway, so let's give player something big they can aim for. First upgrades are cheap enough so you could tailor something impactful without insane investments, and after that it's up to you
Dovahkick 15 May, 2023 @ 6:30pm 
I guess the cost is fair enough.
I'll try to replicate the issue tomorrow when I have the time, and figure out how I can share the log to you.
Last edited by Dovahkick; 15 May, 2023 @ 6:31pm
Dovahkick 16 May, 2023 @ 4:21pm 
I've attempted to replicate the crash, but somehow it doesn't happen anymore. Also, the recipe to upgrade the BioEnhancement was just gone when I opened the save, so I forced the upgrade from the Sandbox menu, and it just worked as normal.

That left me rather confused.
pether.pg  [developer] 16 May, 2023 @ 4:45pm 
hm... the recipe was gone at lvl 14?
Dovahkick 16 May, 2023 @ 5:39pm 
When I loaded the save, it was gone, yes.
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