As a research station, there are a lot of departments of research; the study of space viruses is one of those research departments! Congratulations doctor, you have been selected to study and treat various types of viruses, and create valuable vaccines. So grab your latex gloves and get your breath mask on and hole yourself up in Virology, it is time to perform some disease research.
Bare minimum requirements: If an epidemic breaks out aboard the station, don't be the source of it.
Welcome Doctor
Unlike Robert Nevile, you will not have a huge kick-ass adventure while curing diseases. You will have a boring time, and likely fuck up constantly. Just make sure the Chemist or the Chief Medical Officer are around (and attentive) or you won't be able to cure uncommon diseases and might have an outbreak.
Infecting Monkeys
Primarily, this is your job. Find a batch of virus, inject a monkey, and record the results. Then cure the monkey.
If you're concerned about the monkeys and don't want to have a pen full of contagion conveniently sitting around, move a single monkey to one of your isolation rooms and treat/infect them there. You can also use this as an easy way to keep all your cures localized and in a single sample, giving you an expedient route to creating the vaccines on the Pandemic 2000.
Take your sample, put that in a beaker and load it up on the Pandemic in your main room. Congratulations. You've found a vaccine.
You can also see the cure to a disease using your Pandemic machine, and reproduce it if there is an active culture in the blood, for whatever reason.
A MAN IN BRAZIL IS COUGHING!
Viruses can get loose on the station in many ways: random events, traitorous activity, and the most common way of all: your own incompetence. If you accidentally infect someone with a harmful virus, well, there is not much you can do except quarantine, treat, and ensure they aren't infectious before releasing them. Make sure only people that know exactly what they're doing can enter your room. Warn people beforehand that you're conducting experiments and remember to vaccinate yourself once you research a disease.
Viruses can be spread through blood. People with viruses will often spread blood everywhere. Do the math. Then do your job and clean up the blood.
CREATE A PANDEMIC!
You are able to create your own diseases with various symptoms, stats, and bonuses. Read this for a guide!
Symbiosis
Viruses don't always have to be something to be avoided. With a bit of work, you can engineer friendly viruses that come with a number of beneficial symptoms, such as eliminating the need to breathe, or even one that lets the body regenerate its own health when badly hurt. Just make sure you clear it with the CMO and let the station know what your friendly virus does before releasing it, or you might find yourself at the end of a pitchfork.
Tips
- Do not use sneeze or cough symptoms in beneficial viruses without neutering them. These are annoying and people will rush medbay to have it cured. They also make the virus appear negative on medical huds.
- A perfectly made virus blend from virology can heal you under certain conditions at a decent rate.
- A person can only be infected by one advanced virus at a time but can have up to six symptoms. In terms of beneficial viruses, there are several symptoms.
- Level 6 Beneficial Virus: This tier of virus can be made with all the resources available at round start, with minimal need for outside help. A nice symptom at this level is Self-Respiration.
- Level 8 Beneficial Virus: This tier requires you to grind uranium and silver or gold. Regenerative Coma is considered to be the "best" symptom overall.
- If you actually do manage to make a beneficial virus and want to distribute it, have a superior vet it and ask them to announce it to the station via their desk.
- If you get a virus with unwanted symptoms, use your dropper set to transfer one unit of Synaptizine to your virus. Your 30 unit bottle will be good for a full 30 uses.
- A beneficial airborne virus with decent resistance stat will protect the crew from most of the bad viruses that may be spawned from people breathing miasma.
Typhoid Mary
Being a traitor is where a dangerous job like this one really shines. Even if Gibbingtons is forever lost to the archives (F), you can still wreak a lot of havoc and confusion on the station. Make sure you get the heads of staff to crack a virus crate open for you, or use a traitor item on it to pop it open yourself. Brain Rot seems to be the best way to screw over the crew, and if people wonder why you are in a spot, mumble something unintelligible. (even though a good virologist would've cured himself already).
Releasing a pandemic is a good way to cause chaos, creating a convenient cover for illicit activities. As an added bonus, then curing the disease and eradicating it from the station is a good way to get in the good graces of the crew, further protecting you from any suspicion. As always, protecting yourself from the disease is most important. Be conservative, however. If the crew finds out that EVERY disease has been somehow released, they'll be out for your blood. Releasing diseases when not a traitor is a great way to be banned!
If for some reason you don't want to spread terrible death everywhere, your office is secluded and difficult to get into, making it a common base for gang or cult activity.
