bro just one more gel bro PLEASE I promise I'm not a powergamer PLEASE

[DrAmazing343]

What's everyone's thoughts on powergaming in Medbay?

I think a fair few people know about the "carry around the roundstart multiver" cheese for poisons, and maybe a few enterprising Seccies know about Nuka Cola speeding you up; where does chem gaming/cheese go from fair game to foul play?

My personal opinion on the matter is that there's no real line for powergaming chemistry as Medical unless you're prepping full combat mixes on a greenshift; however, I believe that that too, can be gamed or worked around or reasoned out, given one chem more or less or whatever bullshit someone can come up with.

I like to prep one of the FULL roundstart boxes of Medical Gels in the Chemistry room and then keep backup beakers of my constituent mixes in an emptied out pill bottle box from the same locker; this takes me 25-30 minutes around the start of the shift and keeps me stocked until past shuttle time, for the most part.

I absolutely love to use chems to speed up as MUCH medical treatment as humanly possible because there's something incredibly satisfying about diagnosing, dosing, deffibing, and having a patient standing within thirty seconds even after a gruesome death. Some of my friends make fun of me for being a nerd.

What do you guys think?

[Drag]

Interacting with your own job content is not powergaming.

Going out of your way to obtain strong gear from outside of your reasonable play area is powergaming.

If you try to poison a medical staff member and their response is to use multivier, skill issue on your part.

[Timonk]

honestly if i only spend 1 minute in medbay i am happy

[RedBaronFlyer]

Yeah I’ve always taken powergaming to refer stuff like making super aids viruses as a non-antag virologist, toxins so vile they rot you to the core as a non-antag chemist, etc. Usually involving having something to kill antags easily without proper IC reasoning (this part is more the case for Manuel) It’d be like saying stealing escape pod engines as a CT to make the cargo shuttle go faster is powergaming, or making super good food as a chef is powergaming.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

It’d be like saying stealing escape pod engines as a CT to make the cargo shuttle go faster is powergaming

???

YOU CAN DO THIS?

[scamoppi]

the people working in medbay are drinking strange substances like "multiver" and "libital" but if i down two bottles of hooch then all of a sudden i'm the one who's been poisoned!?

[Jacquerel]

I think we should fix water/potassium chem purging (unless... maybe the recent organ change already did?)

[iwishforducks]

I think we should fix water/potassium chem purging (unless... maybe the recent organ change already did?)

unless the recent organ changes fixed it, im pretty sure maintainers blocked any removal of it unless it gave some proper way to clear chemicals that isnt complete ass

edit: here was a pr trying to remove water+potas https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/66261 - and i still completely agree with what people have said so… l0l

[Timonk]

It’d be like saying stealing escape pod engines as a CT to make the cargo shuttle go faster is powergaming

???

YOU CAN DO THIS?

No

[Jacquerel]

I think we should fix water/potassium chem purging (unless... maybe the recent organ change already did?)

unless the recent organ changes fixed it, im pretty sure maintainers blocked any removal of it unless it gave some proper way to clear chemicals that isnt complete ass

dont worry i am maintainers

[conrad]

I think we should fix water/potassium chem purging (unless... maybe the recent organ change already did?)

unless the recent organ changes fixed it, im pretty sure maintainers blocked any removal of it unless it gave some proper way to clear chemicals that isnt complete ass

dont worry i am maintainers

*worries

[dendydoom]

it only makes me sad cus when i roll doctor i want to larp as a doctor, and that involves strapping my patients to a bed and carving them up to heal them. it lets me talk to them and it's the main source of my interactions with the wider crew outside of medbay metagang *wag spamming and headpatting.

having a 4000 hour chemist set up a healmix shower in the doorway with 15 medbots so that i never have to get up except to defib for the mediborg or put someone's arm back in its socket every 20 minutes even on a highpop 70 crew round makes me want to put a gun in my mouth.

nothing personal to the people that do this, they are playing the game and having fun and i don't think this should change. but there is only so much healing that needs to be done and it's quite easy to optimize the fun out of it in my personal anecdotal experience.

as for powergaming, it's always going to be a case by case basis, because it's a matter of judging intent. two people doing the exact same thing but under different circumstances with different intentions makes all the difference. but generally if you're preparing for a threat that you have no IC reason to believe exists, then you are approaching a questionable orbit.

[oranges]

I will remove dispenser eventually dont worry.

[britgrenadier1]

honestly if i only spend 1 minute in medbay i am happy

its this. Being dead sucks. Everyone complains about medbay powergaming until you are healed from 500 brute and dead to full in 10 seconds

[MooCow12]

Nothing about medbay is powergaming and I would even go as far as saying that the dozens of tiders looting it for quick heals at round start are not powergaming either since realistically you want medical supplies scattered throughout the station, not centralized to one location, especially with the current iteration of wounds where treating it asap helps with alot of long term headaches for both the inflicted individual and the medical staff themselves.


They are literally FIRST AID supplies....

[Constellado]

The only thing I think is power gaming in med is filling the chem gun with powerful and deadly chems every round for no reason other than "i wanna protect myself from antag"

Getting stuff to be a better healer? Not power gaming but might end up getting boring if its the same technique every round.

[Blacklist897]

I created a cmo setup so powerful that it ruined any fun of med so I swore off most chems

[chocolate_bickie]

The only thing I think is power gaming in med is filling the chem gun with powerful and deadly chems every round for no reason other than "i wanna protect myself from antag"

Getting stuff to be a better healer? Not power gaming but might end up getting boring if its the same technique every round.

Paramedics doing this shit is why using the crossbow to heal gets you lynch'd 90% of the time

[RedBaronFlyer]

The only thing I think is power gaming in med is filling the chem gun with powerful and deadly chems every round for no reason other than "i wanna protect myself from antag"

Getting stuff to be a better healer? Not power gaming but might end up getting boring if its the same technique every round.

Paramedics doing this shit is why using the crossbow to heal gets you lynch'd 90% of the time

95% of paramedics are tiders and/or antags. I’m amazed the job has the access levels it has considering how often I see it abused, even on Manuel. I would trust a clown with a syringe gun more than a paramedic honestly.

[warbluke]

I created a cmo setup so powerful that it ruined any fun of med so I swore off most chems

Is it possible to learn this power?

[DrAmazing343]

I created a cmo setup so powerful that it ruined any fun of med so I swore off most chems

A lot of the pure Synthflesh/Seiver factories tend to feel like this. I remember a Northstar round when I didn't have fuck-all to do because all we had to do was the splash potion of healing and a little pill to take two of and call back in the morning; not super engaging, but certainly efficient.

I love the rounds where my personal kit that I hand-made and tailored over loads of experience in rounds is almost completely empty, but I have the knowledge I saved like 20-30 people in the round. I won't shittalk factories because they're complex and my beloved chemists are smartypants, but I do like my way a lot better because it's far more personal.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

I created a cmo setup so powerful that it ruined any fun of med so I swore off most chems

A lot of the pure Synthflesh/Seiver factories tend to feel like this. I remember a Northstar round when I didn't have fuck-all to do because all we had to do was the splash potion of healing and a little pill to take two of and call back in the morning; not super engaging, but certainly efficient.

I love the rounds where my personal kit that I hand-made and tailored over loads of experience in rounds is almost completely empty, but I have the knowledge I saved like 20-30 people in the round. I won't shittalk factories because they're complex and my beloved chemists are smartypants, but I do like my way a lot better because it's far more personal.

Yeah, I'm kinda of the opinion factories should be removed. Sure, they're complex, and the things that people can do with them is incredibly cool, but at the same time it feels frankly god awful when it happens because now there's literally no need for the rest of Med.

What's the point of being "skilled at Med" if it's rendered completely irrelevant because one single chemist decided to automate enough chems to keep the entire station fully healed through hell and high water.

[mrmelbert]

People really be like

slaps all-heal-sali-salbu-oxy-atro-mani-40u-one-only-or-else-overdose patch onto everyone God I'm so bored why is there so little to do in medical

[Itseasytosee2me]

People really be like

slaps all-heal-sali-salbu-oxy-atro-mani-40u-one-only-or-else-overdose patch onto everyone God I'm so bored why is there so little to do in medical

code issue. we cant expect players to not optimize fun out of the game

[EmpressMaia]

The only thing I think is power gaming in med is filling the chem gun with powerful and deadly chems every round for no reason other than "i wanna protect myself from antag"

Getting stuff to be a better healer? Not power gaming but might end up getting boring if its the same technique every round.

so many people do this any admins dont carre

[BonChoi]

jokes on you I have the severe medicine allergy quirk to make medical's job interesting and to get pissy at them when they give me something I'm allergic to.

[EmpressMaia]

People really be like

slaps all-heal-sali-salbu-oxy-atro-mani-40u-one-only-or-else-overdose patch onto everyone God I'm so bored why is there so little to do in medical

THIIIIIS, med players are SO BOOOORING. and will actively shove you out of the way to have the least fun tending someone, ive been critted in med before for daring to tend wounds on a patient ratherthan use the fuck you patch

[Higgin]

speed and efficiency in removing consequences is the measure of good medical play, but unfortunately there is very little skill or art to the quickest and best ways of getting spacemen vertical and back to their robusting

once you've made the healing mix or fac, gotten your slime cores or strange reagent or what have you, the measure of your skill as a doctor is in managing the environment, your resources, and other things than any discrete act of healing - there is no skill involved in any discrete act of healing except knowing which one is best and switching to it.

it'd be cool if tending had a minigame of some sort that let you make it extra fast by like, moving your mouse through a series of dots on a track without hitting the walls - a way to change that, maybe, idk.

[Critawakets]

I'm surprised how nobody has mentionned that cryostasis can basically fix like 50% of the wound people come in and that's only with the basic cryox mix. It is disgustingly powerful for something roundstart that you can just shove people into. I've seen more than a fair share of docs that just don't use cryo because it's too busted to be fun.

[Timonk]

I'm surprised how nobody has mentionned that cryostasis can basically fix like 50% of the wound people come in and that's only with the basic cryox mix. It is disgustingly powerful for something roundstart that you can just shove people into. I've seen more than a fair share of docs that just don't use cryo because it's too busted to be fun.

As a heavy sleeper user NO

[DrAmazing343]

jokes on you I have the severe medicine allergy quirk to make medical's job interesting and to get pissy at them when they give me something I'm allergic to.

I joke a lot about slaying allergy users but it did give me the good practice habit of always right clicking with the analyzer, and it does reward me for carrying individual chems in addition to my mixes like I normally do. I never thought I'd say this, but allergy users shaking up my normal med cycle is probably pretty good.

I think a lot of the fun of med "powergaming," in addition to mass-verticalling spacemen (which has led to a few 2008-tier montage edits in my head to Battle Tapes songs), is certainly the individual journey of discovery, memorization, and eventual mastery. This is, of course, the main loop for a lot of the game's content, and is rewarding in of itself, but for med/chem it's very interesting personally because there's just so fucking many chems.

At first, it was figuring out what did what; then, it was realizing I could mix two different chems that produced the same result to do it faster, or more efficiently. Then, it was learning about methods of application, whether syringe gun, spray, patch, or pill. After that was purity, and acquiring the Holy Texts (google document) that showed me general ways to brute-force purity, as well as helping me create pure and effective chemicals that were more esoteric and not expanded upon in the wiki's article. Now? I'm STILL finding out little things about each method I've mentioned!

That's the beauty of it for me. Yesterday, I figured out I could cool water to make ice like the cool chemists use for their patches, but instead toss it in my one (1) extra gel can that I have had leftover for a while in my "loadout" to create an ice/potassium can that has a whopping twelve uses instead of carrying two extra beakers that were very clunky.

I initially created this thread because one of my friends who deliberately plays chemless teases me endlessly about "chemless Jane" (among other things) and prods me about powergaming, so I wanted to gauge reactions. I think, overall, my thoughts haven't changed a whole lot broadly, but overall this has softened a bit of my harsher ideas about underperforming and incompetence people who need a little bit of correcting in the medbay.

I really do love this game, and the intricacy of Chem is endless, no matter how "gamed" it has been, is, or will become. I'll keep maintaining that until the next (oversimplified) system comes in and instantly drains every ounce of blood from my body and embalms my corpse in oil. Also, as an aside, witnessing LRP is wild for discovering chem tricks because there's a mix of Einsteins and monkeys on typewriters on Sybil and Terry that you can't get anywhere else, and I love it, too, even if I can hardly stand to play it.