Dinosaurs General Gameplay Disease Revamp & Overhaul

[Jurassic_DX]

I will try to be more brief than usual.

In another of my recent thread's ideas for how to rework disease as it functions in Jurassic World Evolution (JWE) started to take shape. However, to keep things more focused over there, I thought it important to splinter this off into its own thread. Basically, ever since Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (JPOG) I always felt there was something really unsatisfactory and disappointing in how disease was handled and I hoped in JWE that this longstanding problem would be addressed. I was a bit letdown with how bare bones disease as a feature of the game functions. It really doesn't add any new gameplay opportunities outside of an extremely narrow window (a diseased carcass) and most of the time a player removes the corpse before it can ever begin to rot. Its not satisfying to just hover over a diseased dinosaur and be like it has this and then immediately send a ranger to medicate it, or if you forgot and just panic and research it. Disease doesn't work in either game because it has diminishing value and doesn't change your gameplay its more of a nuisance than a threat at this point except when it spreads illogically from one enclosure to another on the other side of the park.

Here are my proposals (aided by helpful commenters on my thread):

-Diseases must be identified by a Ranger Team (Like Foot & Mouth in the Secrets of Dr. Wu)
-Medical Research is moved to a new veterinarian building
-Medicated darts must be purchased in quantities
-Dinosaurs can develop immunities to medications
-Quarantining dinosaurs can logically control the spread of disease
-Vaccines can be administered by the veterinarian
-Weather conditions can impact susceptibility and introduce disease

What this does is make disease far more interesting and easier to control. You don't know what disease is spreading in your park, you have to send a Ranger Team which has a timed duration to identify it. Then you have to research it if you haven't already, and secondly consider if you have purchased the necessary medicated darts for treatment. You can purchase the medicated darts from the veterinarian, 1 dart = 1 treated dino, there is a UI counter storing the number of medicated darts you have purchased. They also have a production time thus encouraging players to plan ahead and buy them early on and save them as needed.

Next, in order to solve the diminishing returns issue, dinosaurs that have been medicated previously for a disease build a resistance to the medication. Once the percentage is raised to 100% the dinosaur has developed an immunity to the medication and must be treated at the veterinarian's office for significant cost. As a countermeasure to offset this cost, you can vaccinate your dinosaurs with an expensive booster found at the vet's office. (It'll be more expensive to treat a dinosaur with an immunity to a medicated dart than to vaccinate them) Naturally, a dinosaur that has developed an immunity will only be immune to a medicated dart for that specific disease! This is important to note, your dinosaur will only develop a new immunity for a specific disease's medication not immunity to all medication. This is essential to making diseases interesting because every species has an "immunity" and "susceptibility" stat that currently does very little. However, this allows you to further play around with how you manage your dinosaurs. Maybe you seriously look at those stats now and decide to house dinosaurs together with different susceptibilities and immunities to avoid having to build quarantine wards for sick dinos. This gives players choice, if the susceptibilities interfere with their fun they can vaccinate their dinos or create a quarantine ward to avoid spreading disease. In doing this, the player has tools at their disposal to control and manage disease according to their preferred play style while introducing a new money sink and creating emergent gameplay.

Finally, I did want to discuss the idea that maybe certain weather conditions can create new susceptibilities for certain diseases or introduce a seasonal disease if you will. Players could anticipate the upcoming season with a tweak to the UI and decide to research the medication or vaccinate their dinos before it arrives. Similarly, they could forego it and take the risk. It creates real player choice and adds a lot of replyability so that every time they play Jurassic World Evolution its never the same playthrough they experienced beforehand.

Please let me know what you think. Always open to new suggestions or better explaining my thought process.

 

[Alan_Grady]

I like the core idea, although I think the "immunity" thing is not as intended. Currently, ingame's immunity just means a certain species cannot suffer from a certain disease. To my knowledge, it has nothing to do with immunity to treatment and shouldn't have to, unless...

I think more different diseases should be implemented, with different and distinctive levels of severity and gameplay. That would also make an excellent DLC and further expansion to the campaign (the DX virus comes to mind).

It could also help with your dart management too: a bacterial disease cannot be treated with antivirals and a viral infection cannot be treated with antibiotics... so I think some kind of distinction could help managing all the system. For instance:

• Bacterial diseases, no species is immune to them, but they only can develop under heavy adverse conditions: bites and other wounds not quarantined, overpopulation, proximity of corpses and/or contaminated water, etc. They can be treated via food medication, but several treatments develop resistance, requiring further research for new treatments.
• Viral diseases: some species are immune to them (like herbivores for rabies), but they are highly contagious and can develop at almost anytime, anywhere, with particular chance among those stressed dinosaurs with already poor health or among older ones. I wish we had JPOG's option to develop vaccines and apply them to the newborn dinos in order to stop at least some of them breaking through too, that would also encourage another branch of research and limit some of this chaos.
• Diet and environmental diseases: poisonings, prions, vitamin-deficits, parasitic infections, you name it. These can be avoided by providing the appropriate conditions for living, each requiring some specific way of playing. There's no need to have many of these, just enough to pay attention to things like don't grow these plants with that trike, don't feed goats to the spino, don't let dilos bathe in stagnant water, etc

Edit: forgot to mention that we just don't know what kind of diseases dinosaurs actually had, and we certainly don't know what kind of health problems would they suffer should they were de-extinted this way, so I think there's a whole new frontier (wink) of creativity there to explore... they don't even need to be "known" diseases, you know.

 

[MarkyB83]

Also liking the general concept - perhaps it could be tied in with a few other existing game mechanics too though.... I'd suggest that if you had to identify the diseased dinos manually, there could be something built into the attraction cameras to help automate this - this would finally give us an extra incentive for increased dino visibility, other than an artificial guest satisfaction measure. Any dinos wandering outside the visibility zones would therefore have to be identified by the rangers manually.

Additionally I think certain genes should increase susceptibility to disease, and maybe the shark DNA could go to 4.0 allowing any dinos modified with this to be immune to disease fully.

Plus to the second poster - particularly a fan of the 'viral' disease suggestion. All diseases feel like they work in the same way and only seem to spread faster if you are on a later level in campaign or higher difficulty on challenge.... why not allow a proportion of the diseases to spread rapidly, and possibly have the rate dependant on 'authenticity' - i.e. a more authentic enclosure means a) less disease anyway and b) a slower rate of viral spread.

I also agree it would be better if some sot of immunity could be developed during incubation too!

 

[Jurassic_DX]

I like the core idea, although I think the "immunity" thing is not as intended. Currently, ingame's immunity just means a certain species cannot suffer from a certain disease. To my knowledge, it has nothing to do with immunity to treatment and shouldn't have to, unless...

I think more different diseases should be implemented, with different and distinctive levels of severity and gameplay. That would also make an excellent DLC and further expansion to the campaign (the DX virus comes to mind).

It could also help with your dart management too: a bacterial disease cannot be treated with antivirals and a viral infection cannot be treated with antibiotics... so I think some kind of distinction could help managing all the system. For instance:

• Bacterial diseases, no species is immune to them, but they only can develop under heavy adverse conditions: bites and other wounds not quarantined, overpopulation, proximity of corpses and/or contaminated water, etc. They can be treated via food medication, but several treatments develop resistance, requiring further research for new treatments.
• Viral diseases: some species are immune to them (like herbivores for rabies), but they are highly contagious and can develop at almost anytime, anywhere, with particular chance among those stressed dinosaurs with already poor health or among older ones. I wish we had JPOG's option to develop vaccines and apply them to the newborn dinos in order to stop at least some of them breaking through too, that would also encourage another branch of research and limit some of this chaos.
• Diet and environmental diseases: poisonings, prions, vitamin-deficits, parasitic infections, you name it. These can be avoided by providing the appropriate conditions for living, each requiring some specific way of playing. There's no need to have many of these, just enough to pay attention to things like don't grow these plants with that trike, don't feed goats to the spino, don't let dilos bathe in stagnant water, etc

Edit: forgot to mention that we just don't know what kind of diseases dinosaurs actually had, and we certainly don't know what kind of health problems would they suffer should they were de-extinted this way, so I think there's a whole new frontier (wink) of creativity there to explore... they don't even need to be "known" diseases, you know.

Oh, I am certainly aware of that. No one even bothers to look at the immunities/susceptibilities of their dinosaurs the whole point of this push is for people to utilize it. It gives players the power and choice to determine how they want to handle disease. By reviewing each dinosaur's immunities/susceptibilities they can plan their paddocks with dinosaurs that can be mutually beneficial to one another. Say one species is susceptible to a disease, but the other has an immunity, to avoid the rapid spread of disease you might want to house them together. It gives you another layer of management or alternative means for how you plan your park.

Similarly, I wanted to medicated immunities as a solution to "diminishing returns" on the effectiveness of disease in the game. Its too easy to just research and forget them, they aren't a serious threat as the game goes on. Immunities help revive that level of threat that is lost later in the game and you are forced to make hard choices such as an expensive medical treatment at the vet or selling your dinosaurs.

I am behind more diseases being included, I just hope to avoid following in the footsteps of the dinosaurs packs. The new dinosaurs have altered or unique animations, but the older ones stay one-dimensional. I want to utilize the most of what we have rather than trying to add new things to make up for their lack.

Must confess, I love the idea of breaking diseases into categories, that is another way of going about it or creating a really deep system with this inclusion on top of my own suggestions. Not sure how willing Frontier would be for such an in-depth system, it might overwhelm new players with its level of complexity though which is one concern.

There is a lot of creative potential and to finally address a weakness that has persisted in "Jurassic" park simulators. I hope Frontier takes the opportunity to exam this potential and take advantage of it.

Also liking the general concept - perhaps it could be tied in with a few other existing game mechanics too though.... I'd suggest that if you had to identify the diseased dinos manually, there could be something built into the attraction cameras to help automate this - this would finally give us an extra incentive for increased dino visibility, other than an artificial guest satisfaction measure. Any dinos wandering outside the visibility zones would therefore have to be identified by the rangers manually.

Additionally I think certain genes should increase susceptibility to disease, and maybe the shark DNA could go to 4.0 allowing any dinos modified with this to be immune to disease fully.

Plus to the second poster - particularly a fan of the 'viral' disease suggestion. All diseases feel like they work in the same way and only seem to spread faster if you are on a later level in campaign or higher difficulty on challenge.... why not allow a proportion of the diseases to spread rapidly, and possibly have the rate dependant on 'authenticity' - i.e. a more authentic enclosure means a) less disease anyway and b) a slower rate of viral spread.

I also agree it would be better if some sot of immunity could be developed during incubation too!

I did float an idea for how I would implement security cameras, motion sensors, etc. last year when that was all the rage in discussion topics. I do think there are ways to slide those kind of features in, but its on the higher management side of things, I am not sure how far we want to dive into that from the onset, but I definitely think they could be use to monitor dinosaur populations and comfort level as an early warning system of sorts. In terms of increased visibility, I think its actually more of an issue that the current system want every dinosaur within some visible range at all times. I think its a little excessive to be honest same with the transport rating often being fickle. I think there is room for elaboration on the topic though could create interesting gameplay if a dino is outside the perimeter you establish for it like the Indominus and the "invisible fencing" in JW. It was really easy to overlook, it was in like one line of dialogue near the start of the film, but there are possibilities with it.

I love the idea, I think adding more risk to genetically modified dinosaurs is a fair trade off. Now if we encompass all my other ideas, genetically modifying your dinosaurs involves a lot more thought and planning. If you increase breeding possibilities, disease susceptibility, on top of incubation success rate and people will be more careful with how they go about making these super dinosaurs. In general, I want the genetic system in the game to be more fleshed out, right now it feels too much like just click on this and hope it succeeds or make it succeed by flooding it with success rate upgrades. The Secrets of Dr. Wu certainly added a lot more risk, but I think we can push this envelope more, every dinosaur must feel dangerous, but again, I do worry if new players see that and are like, what, everything has huge negative risks and it discourages them. Maybe improved mechanic gating, like most of these ideas wouldn't affect the campaign or be scaled back for story purposes.

That is an interesting one. Dinosaur authenticity affecting susceptibility, not a bad idea to help mitigate the above problem. When I try to come up with ideas I like to think of a way for the player to implement a countermeasure kind of like how emergency shelters exist as a measure against twisters, but you have to plan on building them first, it punishes you for not taking heed early on, but doesn't restrict your play style which is why I felt vaccines were an important preventative measure.

Finally, relating to vaccinations at incubation. I think we should be careful with that, JP:OG had that same system in place and it made disease completely irrelevant once it was researched. Maybe it would be less a problem in JWE given there are a larger number of diseases, but I think we should specify it more. You can only vaccinate one species at a time, my reasoning was that you would vaccinate individuals to keep the consistent risk of disease alive. However, I do think a compromise where you can vaccinate one whole species at a time for a significant investment would be worthwhile and help out newer players in particular. Keeps a solid balance of fairness and helps put frustration at bay, but I still think my new immunities idea would be needed to balance it out, so that you can't just vaccinate a whole species and it never has to fear disease again especially if you vaccinate them with every disease researched.

 

[Alan_Grady]

Oh, I am certainly aware of that. No one even bothers to look at the immunities/susceptibilities of their dinosaurs the whole point of this push is for people to utilize it. It gives players the power and choice to determine how they want to handle disease. By reviewing each dinosaur's immunities/susceptibilities they can plan their paddocks with dinosaurs that can be mutually beneficial to one another. Say one species is susceptible to a disease, but the other has an immunity, to avoid the rapid spread of disease you might want to house them together. It gives you another layer of management or alternative means for how you plan your park.

The problem I see with that kind of approach is that it might actually decrease the possible combinations, many of which are already limited.

For instance, why we cannot place Baryonyx with Stegosaurus is one of these weird design flaws resulting from arbitrarily yet stonely dividing animals, if suddenly we couldn't place trikes with, say, gallis or pachys because they might contagiate flu to one another is not an improvement.

Similarly, I wanted to medicated immunities as a solution to "diminishing returns" on the effectiveness of disease in the game. Its too easy to just research and forget them, they aren't a serious threat as the game goes on. Immunities help revive that level of threat that is lost later in the game and you are forced to make hard choices such as an expensive medical treatment at the vet or selling your dinosaurs.

I am behind more diseases being included, I just hope to avoid following in the footsteps of the dinosaurs packs. The new dinosaurs have altered or unique animations, but the older ones stay one-dimensional. I want to utilize the most of what we have rather than trying to add new things to make up for their lack.

Must confess, I love the idea of breaking diseases into categories, that is another way of going about it or creating a really deep system with this inclusion on top of my own suggestions. Not sure how willing Frontier would be for such an in-depth system, it might overwhelm new players with its level of complexity though which is one concern.

There is a lot of creative potential and to finally address a weakness that has persisted in "Jurassic" park simulators. I hope Frontier takes the opportunity to exam this potential and take advantage of it.

My point with breaking diseases in categories was more the way I said:

• First, it would help deepen the gamplay's level which is shallow enough for a 5 year old to get. Three categories as mentioned would be enough to do the trick: easy to explain/learn, tricky yo master. That's the key.
• Second, they would add to the JP/JW feeling, as they are one of the core problems a potential, real try would face, since no one actually knows what kind of health problems dinosaur had, much less what kind of diseases would they facd in the modern Earth. So it definitively play to immersion.
• Third, the fact that, initially, they all play against you also helps the fight-against-chaos and difficulty I think the devs where working to.

 

[Jurassic_DX]

The problem I see with that kind of approach is that it might actually decrease the possible combinations, many of which are already limited.

For instance, why we cannot place Baryonyx with Stegosaurus is one of these weird design flaws resulting from arbitrarily yet stonely dividing animals, if suddenly we couldn't place trikes with, say, gallis or pachys because they might contagiate flu to one another is not an improvement.



My point with breaking diseases in categories was more the way I said:

• First, it would help deepen the gamplay's level which is shallow enough for a 5 year old to get. Three categories as mentioned would be enough to do the trick: easy to explain/learn, tricky yo master. That's the key.
• Second, they would add to the JP/JW feeling, as they are one of the core problems a potential, real try would face, since no one actually knows what kind of health problems dinosaur had, much less what kind of diseases would they facd in the modern Earth. So it definitively play to immersion.
• Third, the fact that, initially, they all play against you also helps the fight-against-chaos and difficulty I think the devs where working to.

I think there was a miscommunication here on my part. I will try to better delineate what I mean by "immunities" I propose a split-two Immunity system:

1) Inherent Immunities
2) Medicated Immunities

Every dinosaur already has an "inherent immunity" to a disease they cannot catch. I want to introduce a "medicated immunity" functionality, so now you juggle between the two. Player choice is not limited in any way with its introduction. The rate of disease occurrence is no different than the current game, this is an option for more meticulous and conscious players that simply don't want to deal with the potential of huge disease outbreaks. I want JWE to shape into a game of options, you can choose some of the disasters you wish to prevent and others you are willing to tolerate. I say "prevent" loosely since a lot of it may merely mean better prepared/managed.

The point I was illustrating about the enclosures and the different dinosaur breeds was that some players might want to look at the different immunities of the dinosaurs and house one species with another that has an immunity to the disease they are susceptible to that way the spread in the enclosure is limited. There is no restriction on housing dinosaurs with similar susceptibilities or lack of immunities together, it will just be like how it is currently in the game.

I would agree that simple categories would be easy enough to follow. Although I would suggest you add a 4th category "Parasites" seeing as we already have a few of those in the game listed under diseases. Personally I would love the challenge and I find the game's systems lacking to the extreme, so perhaps I am being too cautious, options would give the game a whole lot more life. Further, they could use DLC like the Secrets of Dr. Wu to introduce players to the new mechanics, so its easier to digest and understand without adversely affecting the ease of access approach of the base game which is the entry point for new players.

So once we have our categories lets see how we can balance this all out.

You mentioned that there are no immunities to bacterial infections and that they can achieved in a number of ways. Corpses already function in game as a vehicle for disease if left to rot, to simplify this to bacterial all you have to do is remove the diseases that have been reclassified as something other than bacterial infections. Overpopulation and water contamination are interesting ideas, but the only form of water pollution I can really picture working is still just the use of corpses as your mechanism for disease. The spread of disease via overpopulation might explain why dinosaur comfort could fall or serve as an alternative outcome than simply rampaging and fighting each other to the death. Not sure about spreading disease via bites, while you could balance it with a low rate of probability, it might also lead to an overabundance of disease especially due to dominance displays. To top things off, I do like the idea of resistances and having to research treatment levels, and even the fact you could have medicated feeders.

Moving onto the viral infections this is more akin to what we currently have with each dinosaur having different immunities and spreading like wildfire. Not a whole lot more to add here, the method of treatment can be via Ranger medicated dart, medicated feeder, etc. I could actually see unique mission designs where containing a disease requires you to build a quarantine ward and then tackling it in stages from feeders, to direct dart treatment, or having them moved to the vet's office for more comprehensive treatment.

These are more interesting to me. I like the idea of prion born diseases like DX (hence my name) although DX in itself could be escalated to a pandemic level disaster scenario would be a pretty incredible final mission objective actually. I like these diseases in particular since they are based more on the environmental factors of their enclosures these could very well become a reality with proper terrain tools and decorative features added into the game. I also love some callbacks to Michael Crichton's first novel and it does have precedence with the sick Triceratops in the first film as well.

The last one I added being "Parasite" with these I think they can be some real nasty buggers that cause some interesting affects. Medicated feeders might not be a treatment option for them since say tape worms, you get them from eating improperly prepared meat, so your carnivores might learn to avoid eating from the feeders since it made them feel sick leading them to be attack other dinosaurs instead. It isn't going to line up with the real life affects of these guys exactly, but it creates a different pattern of behavior to make it distinct from the other disease categories. For the prion diseases it may be more about environmental factors, viral are like what's in the game, and you have no immunities with bacterial and they develop resistances. Parasites could impact dinosaur behavior in different ways, these last two categories would be rare/uncommon due to being more involved and devastating plus requiring more effort to implement, but it adds some spice and flavor to disease we currently lack.

Bacterial = no immunities / builds resistances
Viral = contagious and rapidly spreads
Prion = environmental factors
Parasite = changes behavior

In fact, the more I have thought about it, I prefer your categorical approach compared to my immunities based one. Further, you incorporated my idea into the resistance for bacterial infections. Overall, its more straightforward to not have to deal with trying to differentiate between two things with very similar things sharing a name/naming convention. You have my approval with this idea. Makes things more interesting in both terms of how things are obtained, react, and are treated.

 

[Jurassic_DX]

Now that Claire's Sanctuary has been revealed I would like to continue to press for new methods of disease transmission.

While it might be too late to include with just two weeks until the DLC's release, I still think it is important not to forget about this aspect of the game. The Greenhouse is a reality now and there are a variety of different foods you can grow for your herbivores; this got me to thinking about why not take an approach that was explored in the Crichton's novel. Maybe we can have some of these floral items cause deleterious effects on your dinosaurs. If you neglect to feed your animals the proper vegetative foods, they can succumb to foodborne illnesses. I think this is one such way we could make disease a more naturally triggering event while creating a new interesting gameplay dynamic, more management and thought will go into planning out your park, individual enclosures, and the species that ultimate inhabit them.

 

[Alan_Grady]

I think there was a miscommunication here on my part. I will try to better delineate what I mean by "immunities" I propose a split-two Immunity system:

1) Inherent Immunities
2) Medicated Immunities

Every dinosaur already has an "inherent immunity" to a disease they cannot catch. I want to introduce a "medicated immunity" functionality, so now you juggle between the two. Player choice is not limited in any way with its introduction. The rate of disease occurrence is no different than the current game, this is an option for more meticulous and conscious players that simply don't want to deal with the potential of huge disease outbreaks. I want JWE to shape into a game of options, you can choose some of the disasters you wish to prevent and others you are willing to tolerate. I say "prevent" loosely since a lot of it may merely mean better prepared/managed.

The point I was illustrating about the enclosures and the different dinosaur breeds was that some players might want to look at the different immunities of the dinosaurs and house one species with another that has an immunity to the disease they are susceptible to that way the spread in the enclosure is limited. There is no restriction on housing dinosaurs with similar susceptibilities or lack of immunities together, it will just be like how it is currently in the game.

I would agree that simple categories would be easy enough to follow. Although I would suggest you add a 4th category "Parasites" seeing as we already have a few of those in the game listed under diseases. Personally I would love the challenge and I find the game's systems lacking to the extreme, so perhaps I am being too cautious, options would give the game a whole lot more life. Further, they could use DLC like the Secrets of Dr. Wu to introduce players to the new mechanics, so its easier to digest and understand without adversely affecting the ease of access approach of the base game which is the entry point for new players.

So once we have our categories lets see how we can balance this all out.

You mentioned that there are no immunities to bacterial infections and that they can achieved in a number of ways. Corpses already function in game as a vehicle for disease if left to rot, to simplify this to bacterial all you have to do is remove the diseases that have been reclassified as something other than bacterial infections. Overpopulation and water contamination are interesting ideas, but the only form of water pollution I can really picture working is still just the use of corpses as your mechanism for disease. The spread of disease via overpopulation might explain why dinosaur comfort could fall or serve as an alternative outcome than simply rampaging and fighting each other to the death. Not sure about spreading disease via bites, while you could balance it with a low rate of probability, it might also lead to an overabundance of disease especially due to dominance displays. To top things off, I do like the idea of resistances and having to research treatment levels, and even the fact you could have medicated feeders.

Moving onto the viral infections this is more akin to what we currently have with each dinosaur having different immunities and spreading like wildfire. Not a whole lot more to add here, the method of treatment can be via Ranger medicated dart, medicated feeder, etc. I could actually see unique mission designs where containing a disease requires you to build a quarantine ward and then tackling it in stages from feeders, to direct dart treatment, or having them moved to the vet's office for more comprehensive treatment.

These are more interesting to me. I like the idea of prion born diseases like DX (hence my name) although DX in itself could be escalated to a pandemic level disaster scenario would be a pretty incredible final mission objective actually. I like these diseases in particular since they are based more on the environmental factors of their enclosures these could very well become a reality with proper terrain tools and decorative features added into the game. I also love some callbacks to Michael Crichton's first novel and it does have precedence with the sick Triceratops in the first film as well.

The last one I added being "Parasite" with these I think they can be some real nasty buggers that cause some interesting affects. Medicated feeders might not be a treatment option for them since say tape worms, you get them from eating improperly prepared meat, so your carnivores might learn to avoid eating from the feeders since it made them feel sick leading them to be attack other dinosaurs instead. It isn't going to line up with the real life affects of these guys exactly, but it creates a different pattern of behavior to make it distinct from the other disease categories. For the prion diseases it may be more about environmental factors, viral are like what's in the game, and you have no immunities with bacterial and they develop resistances. Parasites could impact dinosaur behavior in different ways, these last two categories would be rare/uncommon due to being more involved and devastating plus requiring more effort to implement, but it adds some spice and flavor to disease we currently lack.

Bacterial = no immunities / builds resistances
Viral = contagious and rapidly spreads
Prion = environmental factors
Parasite = changes behavior

In fact, the more I have thought about it, I prefer your categorical approach compared to my immunities based one. Further, you incorporated my idea into the resistance for bacterial infections. Overall, its more straightforward to not have to deal with trying to differentiate between two things with very similar things sharing a name/naming convention. You have my approval with this idea. Makes things more interesting in both terms of how things are obtained, react, and are treated.

I think I've somehow failed to read all that. My apologies, because I often use my phone to check the forum while waiting to enter work and it isn't the best way to stay tuned to everything.

To be honest, I've already counted "Parasites" as "Enviromental diseases" because most of them are catched from the surrounding habitat. And I do agree that they would be the most behaviour-changing of them all, but also could require further mechanics to rightfully implement them: for instance, animal handlers would likely be a must because most exogene parasites require skin treatments and habitat desinfection, while endogene infections are usually treated with medication. I can totally picture a plague of fleas or ticks or whatever exogene parasites dinosaurs might catch being treated with a quarantine, individual treatment by rangers/animal handlers and paddock fumigation.

Water pollution occurs really often in nature, actually. Mainly, due to dregs, urine and other bodily fluids added to stagnant waters (as are all JWE's water sources) by infected animals. So, as long as there is only one water source in a certain paddock, an one animal infected, there is really no dire need for a corpse for the bacterial infection to flourish.

Bites can (or should) cause wounds, usually bleeding wounds, which act as gateways for all kind of exogene patogens, specially on young, old or otherwise weak individuals. And it doesn't even need to be a predator-prey relationship for them to happen: social species used to fight for dominance can sport that kind of injuries quite often.

Overall, I think the most pressing urge in terms of diseases is fixing the spread speed and ratio, something which is extensively researched and calculated, and there are even simulators out there (Plague Inc. for instance). But I totally support this whole feature request =)