Zanogear's Virology Guide
First attemp at making a guide, so apologies if it ends up being not properly formatted. This guide will inform you on how to create beneficial Viruses for the station that actually help the station and also how to identify and help cure pathogens that may spread during the round.
Tools you will use
Dropper: This will be your main chemical mixing tool when using various chemicals, always remember to set it to 1 unit by right 
or left 
clicking the dropper.
Medical Belt: This will be useful to store all the chemicals from the freezer for easy access.
Syringe: This will be used for taking blood samples from either infected people or cured people.
Beaker: Basic containers where you will mix chemicals and viruses
Science Goggles: For virology purposes, it will let you correctly identify the reagents inside containers.
Health Scanner HUD: For virology purposes, it will tell you if a person or monkey is infected with a virus, of course that only happens if a virus has a stealth value of 1 or less, more on that later.
Health Analyzer: When scanning the crew, it will show you the current virus and cure again only happens if a virus has a stealth value of 1 or less, more on that later.
Machines you will use
PanD.E.M.I.C 2200: This will be the main machine you will use, this machine can tell you everything about the virus you are scanning, more on that later.
Smart Virus Storage: Here you will have a bottle of most chemicals used with virology and 2 Viruses, one with cough symptom and another with sneeze symptom. Take every chemical into your medical belt.
Virus Food Dispenser: This is just a dispenser built into a wall, almost at reach from the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200, from here you can dispense 10 units of Virus Food when you left click it with any container.
Disposal Bin: Everytime you have an unwanted virus, you can safely dispose of it on the Virology's disposal bin, as it will clear the contents and also space it.
Chemicals you will use:
(ALWAYS USE 1 UNIT WHEN ADDING CHEMICALS TO VIRUSES)
Virus Food: It will give your virus a symptom of level 1 to 2.
Mutagenic Agar: Mix equal parts of virus food and unstable mutagen. It will give your virus a symptom of level 3.
Sucrose Agar: Mix equal parts, in order of mention, virus food, unstable mutagen and finally sugar. It will give your virus a symptom of level 4
Weakened Virus Plasma: Mix equal parts, in order of mention, virus food, liquid plasma and finally synaptizine. It will give your virus a symptom of level 5
Virus Plasma: Mix equal parts of virus food and plasma. It will give your virus a symptom of level 6.
Stable Uranium Gel: Mix 10 units of gold/silver with 10 units of uranium, and finally add 1 unit of plasma. It will give your virus a symptom of level 8.
Synaptizine: It will remove a random symptom from your virus.
Formaldehyde: It will neuter (remove it's effect but keep the stats) of random symptom from your virus.
Creating a beneficial Virus for the station
Apart from identifying and curing harmful viruses, the other main role of the Virologist is to create a symbiotic virus that will aid the crew on the duration of their shift, you could always ask the CMO or the rest of the medical staff for which symptoms they wish to have on the virus, in the end it is up to you to decide which symptoms makeup your virus will have and be responsible for. Remember that when planning out your virus, you can only have a maximum of 6 symptoms in total.
Basic Virus making Strategy
- In order to beging making your virus, you start with 2 samples on the Smart Virus Storage, one with the cough symptom and another with sneezing symptom. pick any of those 2 and load it up on the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200, and click on create a culture bottle. eject the sample and store it on the Smart Virus Storage.
- On the newly created culture bottle take one unit of the virus sample and add it to aBeaker , add 1 unit of any of the chemicals listed before to give your virus the desired symptom, and load Beaker to the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200, if the result is not what you wanted, press Empty and Eject and repeat this step.
- After getting your desired symptom, create a culture bottle of this current sample and discard the previous virus sample. this is done in order to have sort of a "SAVE STATE" of your virus.
- If the symptom is a negative effect, add 1 unit of formaldehyde to try and neuter the correct symptom. if it ends up neutering the wrong symptom (It's random), take another sample and try again until the correct symptom is neutered. Tip: Normally I try and get all of the negative symptoms first so that I just keep adding 1 unit of formaldehyde until they are all neutered.
- Repeat until you have the desired virus symptoms.
Understanding Virus Stats
Virus stats are listed as, Stealth, Resistance, Stage Speed and Transmission, every symptom you add to the virus will either increase or decrease these stats, and these stats will influence on how your virus behaves.
- Stealth: A virus with a stealth level of 2 or more will not show up on Health Scanners Hud. Detectable only by scanning a blood sample on the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200
- Resistance: Directly determines what cures the virus, the more resistance a virus has, the more complicated the chemical required to cure it is. It also acts as a defense agaisnt other diseases. For example, a disease with a resistance value of 6 can only be overridden by another virus with a transmission value of more than 6.
- Stage Speed: This will enhance the virus ability to progress to the next stage.
- Transmission: Determines what will be the transmission vector, 0-2 Blood, 3-6 Fluids, 7-10 Skin Contact, 11+ Airborne. All these vectors are cummulative, so an airborne disease will carry all vectors of transmission.
Apart from this, some symptoms have certain thresholds that enhance the effect if their threshold value is met, for example, Tissue Hydration will have it's healing speed increased if the virus's Stage Speed is 7 or more.
Plan your virus symptoms.
I can only recommend this Virology App Created by Michael Ashfield. Let's take a look at one of my favorite Virus to make, Plasmex, a virus centered around the Plasma Fixation symptom which heals brute, burn and toxin damage by just using plasma either by injection, pills, or patches. You can see how I combine some neutered bad symptoms like Sneezing, Shivering(chills) and Fever to boost it's stats which allows me grant Plasma Fixation's faster healing
Remember to neuter bad symptoms
It is important to neuter bad symptoms that you are going to use on your virus, so that they do not cause their bad effect but provide all of their stats. To do this mix 1 unit of formaldehyde to your virus, and one random symptom will be neutered.
Curing a Harmful Disease
During the shift, many viruses can eventually infect the crew, and it is your job to identify it's possible cure, cure the crew and extract a vaccine from the cured crew.
Steps on how to proceed:
- When using your Health Scanner HUD any harmful viruses will have the distinct sad or neutral face on the crew's health meter, a quick scan of Health Analyzer, will reveal the name of the disease and it's cure .
- Inject the required chemical into the patient.
- Once the virus is cured, take a blood sample from the cured patient.
- Take the blood sample into a Beaker and load it to the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200
- If antibodies are present in the sample, you will see the option of creating a vaccine.
- Distribute the vaccine, you can request help of chemist so they can produce pills of your vaccine.
What if crew is presenting symptoms but nothing shows on the Health Scanner HUD or the Health Analyzer?
We are probably dealing with a stealthy virus. steps are the same as before, but in order to get the possible cure we need to:
- Grab a blood sample from the patient,
- Take the blood sample into a Beaker and load it to the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200
- If it is indeed a virus, the PanD.E.M.I.C 2200 should list it's symptoms and cure. Proceed with the previous steps to cure the Virus.