"Hull Fungus" - a minor infectious growth on some derelict ship wreckage that spreads by ship-to-ship contact

Archvillain

Archvillain
I think this is a nice blend of game-mechanics, adventure-twist, and story-flavour that I'd love to see:
Some derelict wrecks have hulls discolored with creepy growths. Bumping into an infected ship spreads the growth to your hull too. It is removed via any of the existing station hull repairs/maintenance or by using regular hull limpets. Before it is removed you will spread the fungus to others upon any ship-to-ship contact.

Effects of hull fungus:
  • Ships are denied docking at those rare(ish) luxury-resort stations (they're too fancy for your filthy ship!)
  • Minor reduction in top speed
  • Minor reduction in jump distance (we have insane jump distances these days anyway)
  • Patchy discoloration of hull and/or maybe even some "ship kit" style organic ickk (Sell it as an actual ship kit too!)
Some likely player effects:
  • Getting and fixing hull fungus has no cost and is far less upsetting than being ganked, yet some griefers will pause ganking in order to spread infections, resulting in everyone involved having a better time
  • An infection is a flavorful wrinkle in your plans that unlike some of the existing mechanics (warrant, arrest, etc) doesn't make you feel like you must put your plans on screeching halt to deal with some infuriating show-stopper problem.
  • It adds to the story of our adventure, especially as described to others
  • It's a new way to interact with other ships. People will have fun with it! (The challenge of trying to give some NPC pirate an infection before escaping...)
To remove hull fungus:
  • Any hull maintenance - including limpets - removes it
  • Or just wait a week for it to die off? (I suspect devs might be more comfortable initially having this kind of time-limit so it can't spread too wildly)
To get an infected hull
  • Bump into any infected ship
  • "Patient Zero" (the source) is derelict ship wreckage floating in space
WmQFl5C.png
 
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aRJay

aRJay
varonica said:
Hang on, that's happened before right? Oh yes the Blood Plague in WoW, I am sure that's just what we need in Elite, apart from the fact I scoop fuel from stars so I doubt any fungus is going to last longer than a single jump!
Click to expand...
Scoop while silent running and charging the FSD just to be sure.
 

Fizzatron

Fizzatron
Aside from being transmissible, caustic damage does a similar thing, the main reason why I mention it is that I'd say that the space fungus should be able to be burned off in the same way thus not really causing any issues. Though if it started to infect modules that might make silent running ineffective? It's an interesting idea.
 
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