How health & mood actually work

Every symptom icon you see is a live body stat crossing a real numeric line, re-checked every half-second — not a cosmetic flourish. Here's how the individual gauges chain into one shared life-or-death state.

The four life stages

Underneath every symptom is one shared escalation: your body moves through four stages as its worst vital gets worse, and any single gauge crossing its line is enough to push you to the next stage.

1Stable

None of the dying conditions met.

2Dying (warning)

Early-warning critical state. Entered by any one of: heavy bleeding (>0.134) or bleeding with blood volume < 40; not breathing; hunger < 10; thirst < 10 (or > 175 with brain health < 50); septic shock > 75; temperature < 29 or > 41; radiation sickness > 60; rising fibrillation; blood pressure < 80 or > 170; blood oxygen < 65; pulmonary embolism; stroke > 50.

3Critical (last stand)

Severe state that triggers the last-stand panel. Entered by any one of: bleeding with blood volume < 30; blood oxygen < 50; starvation (hunger < 0 with thorax muscle < 25); septic shock > 82.5; temperature < 27 or > 41.5; fibrillation > 60; cardiac arrest; blood pressure < 70.

4Dead

Brain health reaches 0. This is the only true death condition; every other vital kills only by eventually driving brain health to 0.

Full per-vital numbers live on the vitals & survival thresholds page.

Two dead ends outside the normal ladder

Two states short-circuit the usual stage order entirely — they can start the countdown to death on their own, independent of how the rest of your vitals read.

Cardiac arrest

Heart rate < 20 bpm.

Brain death

Blood pressure < 10 and consciousness < 5 — brain health begins to fall.

Every symptom has its own severity dial

What looks like one status icon is usually 3–4 separate tiers, each with its own exact cutoff on a live stat — the icon gets worse as the number does, the same way blood pressure or blood oxygen do on the vitals page. Ten representative examples:

BleedingDriven by total bleed rate across all wounds

Same stat as the Blood volume threshold table.

Brain damageDriven by brain health

Same stat as the Brain health threshold table.

Low blood oxygenDriven by blood oxygen saturation

Same stat as the Blood oxygen threshold table.

Low blood pressureDriven by blood pressure

Same stat as the Blood pressure threshold table.

High blood pressureDriven by blood pressure

Same stat as the Blood pressure threshold table.

ConfusionDriven by consciousness

Same stat as the Consciousness threshold table.

PainDriven by average pain across all limbs
Radiation sicknessDriven by radiation sickness

Same stat as the Radiation sickness threshold table.

Heart fibrillationDriven by fibrillation progress

Same stat as the Heart fibrillation threshold table.

ExertionDriven by stamina (lower stamina, worse tier)

Worked example: a heavy bleed

A wound past the heavy-bleed line doesn’t just show a red icon — it starts pulling blood volume down every second. Once blood volume drops under 40 while still bleeding, you enter the Dying stage above; under 30, Critical. The fix is the same two-step every time: stop the bleed (dressing, tourniquet or cauterizing), then replace lost volume if it’s already low. See first aid triage for the exact item-by-item steps, and the container guide for what to load into a syringe or blood bag once you get there.