After reading another post, (which I will link to below, but not until I’ve left a disclaimer that that post may not be relevant at the time you’re reading, so please check the dates.)
I looked into radiation sickness and decided to write my own post about it.
How it actually works
From what I can tell, there are two general types of radiation exposure; internal and external.
Internal radiation exposure happens through consuming contaminated food or water or breathing unfiltered contaminated air. or by being shot with uranium bullets Internal radiation exposure can be avoided by consuming potassium iodide, before exposure, by treating contaminated food or water with Prussian blue or DTPA, by filtering contaminated air before inhaling, inb4 placeable deradiationinator and by avoiding radioactive areas and materials.
External radiation exposure happens by having exposed skin in a radioactive area, or by failing to remove clothing which has been contaminated by radioactive materials quickly enough. External radiation exposure does not just cause radiation sickness, but can also cause burns, swelling, or open sores. External radiation exposure can be avoided by covering as much skin as possible, and by removing contaminated clothing as quickly as can be done safely. Do NOT remove clothing that is only slightly contaminated, if doing so would expose you to more radiation.
Radiation sickness may cause headache, fever, diarrhea, the feeling of nausea, the action of vomiting, weakened immune system, bone marrow damage, dehydration, weakness, fatigue, fainting, confusion, bleeding from any/all of the holes, hair loss, ulcers in the mouth, esophagus, stomach, or intestines, but not all of these symptoms are relevant to Unturned. Radiation sickness can be treated by consuming potassium iodide, Prussian blue, DTPA, or certain proteins which help the bone marrow and white blood cell production.
Effects of radiation sickness generally start at 1 Gy (or 100 roentgens or 100 rad if you prefer.) If radiation exposure exceeds 10 Gy, they are almost guaranteed to die within two weeks, even with proper medical care.
How it might be applied in Unturned
To apply these to Unturned, perhaps a radiation sickness stat could be added, which could be damaged by consuming contaminated food or water, being in a radioactive area with exposed skin, being in a radioactive area without a gas mask, or wearing contaminated clothing or being shot with plutonium bullets and could be cured by consuming certain medicines. Once the radiation bar gets to a certain level, it would start having negative impacts on the health, immunity, stamina, and hydration bars, and if the radiation sickness bar gets damaged to another, even further, point, the player would either die instantly, or get a status effect that will eventually kill them.
As for clothing contamination, I think being in a dead zone would slowly damage the player’s health and radiation bar and slowly increase the contamination level of their clothing. Wearing clothing would slow down the effects of the dead zone on the player’s health and radiation stats, but as the contamination level of an article of clothing increases it would damage the health and radiation sickness stats faster and faster. Wearing 100% contaminated clothing would cause damage just as quickly as being completely exposed to the dead zone. Certain clothing, such as hazmat suits would protect against external exposure and not get contaminated, while others such as thin T-shirts would become 100% contaminated relatively quickly.
(btw I copy-pasted and then reformatted some of this info from the Mayo Clinic and Medline Plus. I figured I’d mention that so it’s not quite as much plagiarism.)