Infection, Purging and Healing: Staying Alive in the Zone

Gunfights are only part of survival. Infection meters, bleeding and burning decide how long you can stay out, and healing decides how fast you recover between fights. This guide explains the systems the site models and how they fit together.

Protection and accumulation are different stats

Two kinds of stat deal with infection, and they are easy to confuse:

• •Protection (radiation, bioinfection, psy-emission and thermal protection) reduces what the zone around you does to your meters. It comes mostly from armor.
• •Accumulation is what your artifacts add to the meters themselves. A positive value is a hazard; a negative value is a purge.

A suit with high protection does not cancel artifact accumulation, and a purge artifact does not replace protection.

Entering infected areas

A common rule of thumb is that an area with a level X infection needs about X × 100 of the matching protection: 100 for level 1 up to 400 for level 4. This is game knowledge rather than something the site calculates, but it explains why zone suits such as Saturn (415 in all four protections) exist. Environmental protection does not grow with upgrades, so a suit below a threshold at +0 stays below it at +15.

Purging artifact hazards

Your build's net accumulation is the sum of every artifact's value for each infection:

• •Purges cancel accumulation from other artifacts before anything else applies.
• •Inner protection then reduces any positive total that is left. With 50% inner protection, +4 radiation becomes +2.
• •Purges are not boosted by container effectiveness, but they do grow with rarity and upgrade level.

Frost is the exception

Frost behaves differently from the other four infections:

• •Inner protection never reduces frost.
• •Some containers add frost of their own (Sheaf adds +1.0) and some remove it (ZIVCAS ArcticSafe-6 removes 2.5).
• •Many temperature-purging artifacts, such as Rime, Fahrenheit or Chilly, carry a frost downside.

The Artifact Optimizer keeps net frost at 0 by default for this reason.

Two healing systems

The site models two kinds of healing, and they scale differently:

• •Periodic healing heals a fixed amount every second. It comes from artifacts such as Fossil and Heart and from some suits, such as the ZIVCAS M2-C and the RAPS AH-6 Nomad. It is multiplied by healing effectiveness.
• •Health regeneration is background recovery, from artifacts such as Sun and Bismuth. In combat the site counts it as (2.5 + regeneration) × 0.2, so it works at a fifth of its value while you fight. Healing effectiveness does not change it.

Point for point, periodic healing contributes more in a fight; regeneration matters more between fights.

Bleeding and burning

• •Bleeding protection reduces the bleeding each hit adds. The separate bleeding stat changes how fast bleeding wears off; negative values are better.
• •Burning cuts healing effectiveness by 65 and health regeneration by 5 while it lasts. Incendiary ammunition uses this to shut down a target's healing.
• •Burning and bleeding reductions on artifacts scale with container effectiveness, unlike infection purges.

Putting it together

• •Pick armor for the areas you visit, by protection first.
• •Plan artifact purges so the net infection stays within your limits, and watch frost separately.
• •Choose periodic healing for fights and regeneration for long trips.

Check your totals

The Build Calculator shows your infection totals after inner protection, your healing and your effective HP for a full loadout. The Artifact Optimizer keeps its results inside the infection limits you set.