Medical Doctor and Medbay Ideas

[paradox97]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Hello! I'm new on the forums but I have played CMO about 80% of my games for the past few months, I also have a limited knowledge of the system on paradise station.

I find paradise station makes medbay more interesting by reliance on surgery, generally the one thing in medbay that requires any semblance of skill. The new brain trauma system is a step in the right direction in this regards, typically only medical staff performs a surgery, rather than the self-service in everything else. Perhaps the addition of broken bones, sprains (for brute) or 3rd degree burns requiring skin grafts (for burns) could be added as surgeries. Also, sterility protocols and the possibility of infection increase the skill curve. I am aware paradise pulls this off by having longer rounds than TG, but currently surgery doesn't take too long on TG.

Another idea would be an increase in the amount of diseases undetectable by the general population or just more disease in general that cannot be cured via sleeper. As CMO I've never had a patient self-serve when they have appendicitis (it's because they can't xD), they come to me, ask me what the heck is wrong, and then I take them into surgery. Perhaps more diseases from poor life choices could be added (diabetes from surgery food, obesity can become a bigger deal, muscular atrophy from sitting around, lung cancer from cigarettes, a more fleshed out liver disease from alcohol). Diabetes could be a unique system of regular bloodwork and balancing insulin with sugar intake, involving regular doctor visits and chemisty. The obesity system in game is decent, but I don't think people have to eat enough currently, making it so people have to eat more often could tempt them to stuff themselves. Staff like the head of personnel could get muscular atrophy from sitting around too much, perhaps doctors can choose whether to suggest more exercise or risk providing steroids. Cigarettes and radiation exposure could perhaps cause cancer (surgery to remove the tumor with a risk of it coming back or damaging healthy tissue), lung surgery should perhaps require a ventilator to be used simultaneously. Perhaps there could be a 1% of someone arriving on a shuttle having the common cold, or a viral infection. Perhaps surgeries or brute damage could result in bacterial infection requiring novel antibiotics to be researched. If we're really ambitious these antibiotics could eventually spawn resistance.

I would also like to see more medbay roles as opposed to less, with a reduced number of MDs. The first that come to mind are EMT (emergency medical tech) and coroner. I think a coroner is necessary in order to update medical records on the deceased, as well as notify security of suspicious findings, perhaps they could find artifacts that other staff could not find, such as perpetrator hairs, bullets, etc... in some ways this would also buff the detective. A psychologist would be an interesting role to consider but unlike paradise it would need an actual mechanic. I'm not sure what that mechanic would be, but I'd like it to be text based, perhaps x person can only say an unintelligible slur of letters and the psychologist has a a guide (like the DSM) that can be used to decode a cure, the problem here is I can see no possible way this mechanic could be unique for more than few rounds. Perhaps looking at screens too long could induce nearsightedness in players to various degrees, and an optometrist (or just an optometry department for normal docs) would be needed to create the right prescription glasses. If the afforementioned diabetes and infection systems are implemented maybe certain players could be lab techs who synthesize antibiotics and run tests. Nurses could ensure sterility before operations, and take care of patients who are quarantined or maybe waiting on a bone to mend. Overall I would like to see more specialization in medbay, perhaps each department doesn't need to be a role per se, but specialties none the less (akin to RnD, xeno, and toxins inside science).

I was going to suggest something else here but forgot. If anything above seems interesting I'd be happy to try to develop the idea in more detail.

EDIT: Part of the reason I would like to see more specialists, as well as disease involving multiple specialists, is because it would require coordination by the CMO. In addition to the problem of MDs not having much to do, I also find that the CMO being little more than an MD with a cloak is also a problem.

[cedarbridge]

Hello! I'm new on the forums but I have played CMO about 80% of my games for the past few months, I also have a limited knowledge of the system on paradise station.

I find paradise station makes medbay more interesting by reliance on surgery, generally the one thing in medbay that requires any semblance of skill. The new brain trauma system is a step in the right direction in this regards, typically only medical staff performs a surgery, rather than the self-service in everything else. Perhaps the addition of broken bones, sprains (for brute) or 3rd degree burns requiring skin grafts (for burns) could be added as surgeries. Also, sterility protocols and the possibility of infection increase the skill curve. I am aware paradise pulls this off by having longer rounds than TG, but currently surgery doesn't take too long on TG.

Another idea would be an increase in the amount of diseases undetectable by the general population or just more disease in general that cannot be cured via sleeper. As CMO I've never had a patient self-serve when they have appendicitis (it's because they can't xD), they come to me, ask me what the heck is wrong, and then I take them into surgery. Perhaps more diseases from poor life choices could be added (diabetes from surgery food, obesity can become a bigger deal, muscular atrophy from sitting around, lung cancer from cigarettes, a more fleshed out liver disease from alcohol). Diabetes could be a unique system of regular bloodwork and balancing insulin with sugar intake, involving regular doctor visits and chemisty. The obesity system in game is decent, but I don't think people have to eat enough currently, making it so people have to eat more often could tempt them to stuff themselves. Staff like the head of personnel could get muscular atrophy from sitting around too much, perhaps doctors can choose whether to suggest more exercise or risk providing steroids. Cigarettes and radiation exposure could perhaps cause cancer (surgery to remove the tumor with a risk of it coming back or damaging healthy tissue), lung surgery should perhaps require a ventilator to be used simultaneously. Perhaps there could be a 1% of someone arriving on a shuttle having the common cold, or a viral infection. Perhaps surgeries or brute damage could result in bacterial infection requiring novel antibiotics to be researched. If we're really ambitious these antibiotics could eventually spawn resistance.

I would also like to see more medbay roles as opposed to less, with a reduced number of MDs. The first that come to mind are EMT (emergency medical tech) and coroner. I think a coroner is necessary in order to update medical records on the deceased, as well as notify security of suspicious findings, perhaps they could find artifacts that other staff could not find, such as perpetrator hairs, bullets, etc... in some ways this would also buff the detective. A psychologist would be an interesting role to consider but unlike paradise it would need an actual mechanic. I'm not sure what that mechanic would be, but I'd like it to be text based, perhaps x person can only say an unintelligible slur of letters and the psychologist has a a guide (like the DSM) that can be used to decode a cure, the problem here is I can see no possible way this mechanic could be unique for more than few rounds. Perhaps looking at screens too long could induce nearsightedness in players to various degrees, and an optometrist (or just an optometry department for normal docs) would be needed to create the right prescription glasses. If the afforementioned diabetes and infection systems are implemented maybe certain players could be lab techs who synthesize antibiotics and run tests. Nurses could ensure sterility before operations, and take care of patients who are quarantined or maybe waiting on a bone to mend. Overall I would like to see more specialization in medbay, perhaps each department doesn't need to be a role per se, but specialties none the less (akin to RnD, xeno, and toxins inside science).

I was going to suggest something else here but forgot. If anything above seems interesting I'd be happy to try to develop the idea in more detail.

EDIT: Part of the reason I would like to see more specialists, as well as disease involving multiple specialists, is because it would require coordination by the CMO. In addition to the problem of MDs not having much to do, I also find that the CMO being little more than an MD with a cloak is also a problem.

Most of the suggested roles you added (coroner, psychologist, etc) function better in HRP servers or at least Higher RP servers because the rounds go longer and characters are more defined and developed. For example, an optometrist in a TG round would have nothing to do that any other MD (or guy who can open a box) could do and basically nothing at all useful to do in 90% of rounds. This is all really well-meaning but where the only way to get players to interact with these suggestions is for the players to just bite the bullet and RP and that's something that is really not to be relied upon here.

[ShadowDimentio]

personally i enjoy playing MD right now, you can start a round by actively seeking out the injured and patching up minor damage and when the round gets moving you can head back to medbay and treat the influx of major injuries. rarely feels like there's nothing to do

This, the "medbay has nothing to do" argument is retarded, there will always be injuries happening somewhere, it's literally your job to go fix them.

This in mind, I don't know why the hell people are always trying to make medical/healing slower and more shit as a ploy to force people to go to medbay.

[NanookoftheNorth]

Looking over this thread for the hundredth time I have a different approach to the problem.

Like I've said before, I dislike how anyone can swing in and do the job, and usually this happens in emergencies. What if there was a way to discourage this activity? The mime finds the clown half dead, swings by medbay with him, and instead of treating him outright, drops him off instead. What would encourage that behavior? I know what would, making it more difficult or more time consuming to heal; in other words, making it a hassle or too much effort to actually perform. I know this isn't realistic, because what mime would help a clown?

Anyway, it's a thought provoking idea, what would make medicine too much effort for the average user to do it? Time? Complexity? The problem with these thoughts is that they nerf the current medbay balance (which a lot of people enjoy).

I think complexity would make being a doctor equally as difficult as any other role (which would be great). This would mean nerfing the current healing system. It would discourage people taking matters into their own hands because it's more effort.

[ShadowDimentio]

The mime finds the clown half dead, swings by medbay with him, and instead of treating him outright, drops him off instead. What would encourage that behavior?

People do this already, we don't need coding mechanics to force people to leave injured in medbay when they ALREADY do that because they have better shit to do than heal the clown.

[TribeOfBeavers]

Lowering the OD limit of trek chems by 10 would probably do it. Instead of mashing all the buttons in the sleeper and sending them on their way, major injuries would require a second dose or other chems to be applied. You'd have to put up with people ODing everyone for like a week though

Also it wouldn't increase healing time in any meaningful way, just the amount of effort needed for a full heal.

[NanookoftheNorth]

The mime finds the clown half dead, swings by medbay with him, and instead of treating him outright, drops him off instead. What would encourage that behavior?

People do this already, we don't need coding mechanics to force people to leave injured in medbay when they ALREADY do that because they have better shit to do than heal the clown.

I understand people already do this, but ask what would make people do this more often?

I'm saying make it more difficult mechanically or timing wise to heal up, as proposed in the copy pasta someone posted. The thing I realize is that we probably cant make it take longer to heal, since who wants to sit at their computer waiting like that. I think the complexity of healing up someone should be changed instead, like the copy pasta, so it's too much effort, however it doesn't change the timing.

[ShadowDimentio]

I understand people already do this, but ask what would make people do this more often?

I'm saying make it more difficult mechanically or timing wise to heal up, as proposed in the copy pasta someone posted. The thing I realize is that we probably cant make it take longer to heal, since who wants to sit at their computer waiting like that. I think the complexity of healing up someone should be changed instead, like the copy pasta, so it's too much effort, however it doesn't change the timing.

But WHY should healing be more annoying

[cedarbridge]

I understand people already do this, but ask what would make people do this more often?

I'm saying make it more difficult mechanically or timing wise to heal up, as proposed in the copy pasta someone posted. The thing I realize is that we probably cant make it take longer to heal, since who wants to sit at their computer waiting like that. I think the complexity of healing up someone should be changed instead, like the copy pasta, so it's too much effort, however it doesn't change the timing.

But WHY should healing be more annoying

Because being injured and avoiding injury should matter. The whole concept of fast healing is dumb.

[PKPenguin321]

I understand people already do this, but ask what would make people do this more often?

I'm saying make it more difficult mechanically or timing wise to heal up, as proposed in the copy pasta someone posted. The thing I realize is that we probably cant make it take longer to heal, since who wants to sit at their computer waiting like that. I think the complexity of healing up someone should be changed instead, like the copy pasta, so it's too much effort, however it doesn't change the timing.

But WHY should healing be more annoying

Because being injured and avoiding injury should matter. The whole concept of fast healing is dumb.

You have to consider that this is a game played for fun, and being injured (and therefore heavily slowed and made less capable in general) can detract from that. There's certainly value in the conflict that serious injuries creates, especially in terms of storytelling, but that shouldn't outweigh the individual experience of the game. If you get hacked at once for like 30 brute and it takes five minutes in the medbay to fix just that up, that's just detracting from the game with no benefit to the story or conflict of the round.

[cedarbridge]

I understand people already do this, but ask what would make people do this more often?

I'm saying make it more difficult mechanically or timing wise to heal up, as proposed in the copy pasta someone posted. The thing I realize is that we probably cant make it take longer to heal, since who wants to sit at their computer waiting like that. I think the complexity of healing up someone should be changed instead, like the copy pasta, so it's too much effort, however it doesn't change the timing.

But WHY should healing be more annoying

Because being injured and avoiding injury should matter. The whole concept of fast healing is dumb.

You have to consider that this is a game played for fun, and being injured (and therefore heavily slowed and made less capable in general) can detract from that. There's certainly value in the conflict that serious injuries creates, especially in terms of storytelling, but that shouldn't outweigh the individual experience of the game. If you get hacked at once for like 30 brute and it takes five minutes in the medbay to fix just that up, that's just detracting from the game with no benefit to the story or conflict of the round.

I'm not aware of any serious proposals to make minor injuries require severe healing methods. What is always proposed, however, is that severe injuries require severe methods of healing. The concept that "I should be able to heal from a hair's width from crit to 100% full-function ready to go in a matter of seconds is at issue more than superficial wounds leading to minor time distractions. I get what I think you're trying to get at with the "fun over annoyance" concept, but it falls flat when you realize we're talking about SS13. It also kinda falls flat when we talk about any game system (especially a roleplaying system) where bad things can happen. You go into the game fully aware of the bad things that can happen or may happen and that likely will happen to your character. You act accordingly and have to accept that sometimes you'll be in a position that you do not enjoy or that is not in your favor. We already have that in SS13 in a multitude of forms. Players die. Dying lasts until you're cloned or until the round ends. If you're gibbed, that's it. Nobody enjoys being gibbed unless they're the ones doing it. We're not going to remove gibbing just because players don't enjoy being gibbed because it would be silly to do so.

This is still going to keep coming back to the schizophrenic design mentality we have on this server though. On one side we claim this is a roleplaying game about a dangerous space station where things can happen outside of the player's control and that the goal is to survive. On the other we have the players who approach the game as a sort of 2d quakelike battle arena where everything needs to move at max possible speed and anything that slows you down from moving constantly at max speed to the next thing is bad and should be removed or changed to be faster.

The second mentality is what gives us the increasingly short roundtimes (though the changes that cause these shortened roundtimes are justified as needed because of the shortened round times they're causing), influxes of noRP griefers from Hippie and the like, and simplification of systems to the point the only thing we now have to control most of them is arbitrary time gates.

So yeah, nobody wants to be bored or do things they don't like, but we shouldn't be holding player's hands and taking the corners off from SS13 to make things more "fun" by making them simpler, faster, and more superficial.

[PKPenguin321]

>So yeah, nobody wants to be bored or do things they don't like, but we shouldn't be holding player's hands and taking the corners off from SS13 to make things more "fun" by making them simpler, faster, and more superficial.

Of course, and I agree, that would be too far in the direction of "injuries add nothing to conflict/story" and would also detract from the game. You should be wary of going too far in the direction of "injuries detract from the game more than they add to the conflict/story," though.

[cedarbridge]

>So yeah, nobody wants to be bored or do things they don't like, but we shouldn't be holding player's hands and taking the corners off from SS13 to make things more "fun" by making them simpler, faster, and more superficial.

Of course, and I agree, that would be too far in the direction of "injuries add nothing to conflict/story" and would also detract from the game. You should be wary of going too far in the direction of "injuries detract from the game more than they add to the conflict/story," though.

That entirely depends on the players, really. There's a weird psychological thing that goes on with most people when something isn't completely full that we feel obligated to top it off. Think of this like compulsive reloading in FPS games when you're only missing a single round or two from the mag. Now apply that same compulsion to healing. An injured player can do one of several things when they have an injury 1) accept that they have an injury but decide that they can just soldier on and deal with it 2) spend the time fixing it. As gamers, generally, players are used to thinking of their character's life as a numerical value of hitpoints. If you're missing one, you've got to stop and heal. I mean, you DON'T but you feel compelled to do so for any number of reasons all stemming from the same source. If we impliment some of the actual injury states from the design doc posted earlier, we could start moving towards players treating injured characters as injured characters instead of "This is my character with x HP missing, time to slap on this item/chem/machine until my hp is restored." This would explode the character design space as well. We could have characters start rounds with old war wounds, various disabilities (though I've already heard players screeching about how unfair this would be not to have everyone in their department at full capacity because min-maxing at a department level etc), and so on.

I just think a lot is being lost the faster and simpler we make the game and the more resistance there is to things that slow down or take somebody away from the SUPERNONSTOPACTION the more we move in the direction of SS13 playing out less like an RPG and more like a roguelike with superficial RP rules that ban you for fucking up.

[ShadowDimentio]

Because being injured and avoiding injury should matter. The whole concept of fast healing is dumb.

We have a fast and loose health system for fast and loose roundtypes. People play the game to have fun, not to sit around in medbay waiting for a doctor to show up. What you're calling for is to make the game more annoying, and for what exactly? Because you just don't like fast healing? Real solid reasoning.

Plus, it's not like we don't have more severe injuries, dismemberment and blood loss are a thing already.

[cedarbridge]

What you're calling for is to make the game more annoying, and for what exactly? Because you just don't like fast healing? Real solid reasoning.

If you can't post in good faith you should stop posting.

[ShadowDimentio]

Your words not mine.

[Dr_bee]

Because being injured and avoiding injury should matter. The whole concept of fast healing is dumb.

We have a fast and loose health system for fast and loose roundtypes. People play the game to have fun, not to sit around in medbay waiting for a doctor to show up. What you're calling for is to make the game more annoying, and for what exactly? Because you just don't like fast healing? Real solid reasoning.

Plus, it's not like we don't have more severe injuries, dismemberment and blood loss are a thing already.

Dismemberment and blood loss are still not enough to make medical doctors feel needed. Plus there has been a concentrated push for longer and slower rounds in many of the recent changes to the game, such as RnD techwebs.

In a game about cooperation and paranoia having fast and loose gameplay can be a detriment if you can rely on your self for EVERYTHING. There is no room for betrayal if you can take care of all problems yourself.

Making health matter more would be a welcome change, however it cant be so bad as to make it more worthwhile to clone a person than fix them.

Implants and modifications encourage people to not want to die and be cloned already, so there is always that route. Just giving the Medical protolathe access to augmentation parts that they dont already have would be enough.

[ShadowDimentio]

Dismemberment and blood loss are still not enough to make medical doctors feel needed. Plus there has been a concentrated push for longer and slower rounds in many of the recent changes to the game, such as RnD techwebs.

In a game about cooperation and paranoia having fast and loose gameplay can be a detriment if you can rely on your self for EVERYTHING. There is no room for betrayal if you can take care of all problems yourself.

They don't "need to feel needed", because they absolutely fucking shouldn't be. SS13 is designed to be fully playable with any crew composition, requiring there be people in medbay for when something as inevitable as severe injuries happens for surgery or whatever gloriously tedious task is deemed to be necessary to heal is a fucking awful idea that will only end badly when this is shoved through and people never get healed because there's nobody in medbay.

This is the reason everyone and everything (with a few exceptions) is self-reliant, because otherwise shit would fall apart when nobody was there.

Also your idea of betrayal is fucking awful. Traitors don't need to have their victims hand fed to them and laying on top of the operating table, they're supposed to be doing that themselves.

[Dr_bee]

Dismemberment and blood loss are still not enough to make medical doctors feel needed. Plus there has been a concentrated push for longer and slower rounds in many of the recent changes to the game, such as RnD techwebs.

In a game about cooperation and paranoia having fast and loose gameplay can be a detriment if you can rely on your self for EVERYTHING. There is no room for betrayal if you can take care of all problems yourself.

They don't "need to feel needed", because they absolutely fucking shouldn't be. SS13 is designed to be fully playable with any crew composition, requiring there be people in medbay for when something as inevitable as severe injuries happens for surgery or whatever gloriously tedious task is deemed to be necessary to heal is a fucking awful idea that will only end badly when this is shoved through and people never get healed because there's nobody in medbay.

This is the reason everyone and everything (with a few exceptions) is self-reliant, because otherwise shit would fall apart when nobody was there.

Also your idea of betrayal is fucking awful. Traitors don't need to have their victims hand fed to them and laying on top of the operating table, they're supposed to be doing that themselves.

>roles arent supposed to be needed

Try playing with no engineering department and see how long the lights last, try playing with no cargo staff and watch as no one gets fancy toys, try playing with no security and watch as antagonists run rampant.

You are just plain wrong about roles not being needed, there are consequences to not having departments staffed, with the exception currently being medbay.

All departments rely on the other departments, that is the purpose of non-traitor gameplay.

[ShadowDimentio]

>No engineers
>One guy goes and sets up the engine for the whole round in 5 minutes

>No cargo
>Lmao nobody asks anything from cargo anyways (not that they'd give you anything)

>No sec
>Welcome to the regular server

Nice comparison

[cedarbridge]

SD actually just plays SS13 solitaire.

[PKPenguin321]

>So yeah, nobody wants to be bored or do things they don't like, but we shouldn't be holding player's hands and taking the corners off from SS13 to make things more "fun" by making them simpler, faster, and more superficial.

Of course, and I agree, that would be too far in the direction of "injuries add nothing to conflict/story" and would also detract from the game. You should be wary of going too far in the direction of "injuries detract from the game more than they add to the conflict/story," though.

That entirely depends on the players, really. There's a weird psychological thing that goes on with most people when something isn't completely full that we feel obligated to top it off. Think of this like compulsive reloading in FPS games when you're only missing a single round or two from the mag. Now apply that same compulsion to healing. An injured player can do one of several things when they have an injury 1) accept that they have an injury but decide that they can just soldier on and deal with it 2) spend the time fixing it. As gamers, generally, players are used to thinking of their character's life as a numerical value of hitpoints. If you're missing one, you've got to stop and heal. I mean, you DON'T but you feel compelled to do so for any number of reasons all stemming from the same source. If we impliment some of the actual injury states from the design doc posted earlier, we could start moving towards players treating injured characters as injured characters instead of "This is my character with x HP missing, time to slap on this item/chem/machine until my hp is restored." This would explode the character design space as well. We could have characters start rounds with old war wounds, various disabilities (though I've already heard players screeching about how unfair this would be not to have everyone in their department at full capacity because min-maxing at a department level etc), and so on.

I just think a lot is being lost the faster and simpler we make the game and the more resistance there is to things that slow down or take somebody away from the SUPERNONSTOPACTION the more we move in the direction of SS13 playing out less like an RPG and more like a roguelike with superficial RP rules that ban you for fucking up.

I think I have an idea for something cool here thanks to this post that you might enjoy.

With our current anatomy system, we've done pretty well recently tying bodily functions to organs (eyes to sight, lungs to breathing, ears to hearing, etc). However, a flaw with these systems is that they're often all or nothing in terms of functioning. Either you have ears and can hear, or don't have ears and can't. Either you have lungs to breathe, or don't have lungs and can't. That kind of deal. The sort-of exception is eye damage, since it has intermediate stages (blurry, nearsighted, then blind), but it's still not as dynamic as it could be. It would be neat if any amount of damage past a certain threshold made an organ less functional, with more and more damage meaning less and less function, until eventually they go over some large threshold and only then stop working completely. For example, if your ears get damaged then maybe it would lower your range to hear others by a tile, then with more damage another tile, then another, until eventually you can't hear at all. With your lungs, you'd recover from oxygen damage more slowly and take oxygen damage at higher pressure levels than others would. With high enough damage, perhaps you'd have to rely on high-pressure internals at all times to be able to get enough oxygen to live at all. That kind of thing.

Dynamic disabilities instead of binary ones would allow us to have round start injuries for flavor like you suggested without making our spacemen too crippled to adequately play as, and of course would give a bit more depth to our medical system without impeding too much on what already currently exists. What do you think?

[Dr_bee]

I like that idea, it would be pretty interesting to have to actually give people with lung damage higher pressure oxygen internals.

Liver damage might be a bit harder to do, slowing down the rate of chemical consumption can be considered a buff as much of a debuff as it can keep healing chems in your system for longer. A lazy method of simulating liver damage would just give the person an unhealable amount of toxin damage.

Brain damage we already have, that new system is actually neat, but I wish mannitol wasnt as big of a cure all. Maybe add anti-depressants and anti-psychotics that suppress and eventually heal brain traumas.

Stomach damage would just be vomiting and being unable to keep large amounts of food down, so basically your character gets to the "cant force anymore down your throat" threshold earlier than others.

Limb damage could be simulated via reduction in max hitpoints, and eventually non-use without dismemberment. splints would remove the use of the arm to slowly heal the reduction in max limb hitpoints, or you can power through it. Crutches and wheelchairs can mitigate the slowdown from leg damage while slowly healing it.

morphine should be fixed to be an actually useful chemical outside of sedation, having it temporarily increase your max hitpoints overall along with its slowdown reduction while making it impossible to diagnose your current health similar to mining salve.

slow release pill tablets would be fun to add, as it would make using morphine as a painkiller possible as well as make other chemicals easier to use. However you need to have a healthy system to have them function well.

Probably ideas that have been said before. but the main goal would be to have chems be useful up to a threshold and then you need to use actual other shit besides popping a pill to return to full health. With some injuries being so bad that they can only be fixed via organ replacement or augmentation.

[Selea]

I'll say it again, but I think, that there should be more ways to frankenstein around. Do we need more complex healing system, or not-interesting question, but I think, that there should be much things, which can do bored medic. For example:
1.Being able to fully compensate negative effects from mutations without mannitol. But not very simple ways. It could be fun to feed mutagen to people and compensate blindness, seisures, deafness and turret syndrome with ton of crutches. To convert them to unnatural abominations with superpowers.
2.Make organs for space carps, bears, other things. To deconstruct them for organs. Possibly add immune rejection and ways to counter it.
3.Rework a little strange reagent.To allow it to revive corpse not when it injected, but when it presents in reagents. This way you can make funny coctails which will rapidly kill and revive human. Maybe add more reagents, which can be obtained with omnizine and SR. To make death and reviving have some interesting side effects.like growing additional organs with different abilities.So you can hold monkey between life and death to grow organs and tumors inside. for transplants and grinding for reagents.
4.Reverse MMI and BORIS. To control living body with positronic brain or even circuitry scheme.It could be hilarious to convert captain into brain inside AI shell with telekinetic powers, which remotely controlling 5 monkeys,assembled by organs from space carp, bear,xeno and 3 assitants.
5.There was good idea to allow assembling 2 body into one.To make ogre, centaur or even human centipede.
6.dialisys.To purge rapidly reagents from body...but maybe not purge.Maybe use bodys as chemreactor for something, unobtainable by other means.Like harvest venom spit from monkeys with spider organs.
7.Make it possible to summon Nar-sie related monsters to dissect them and produce chimeras with otherwordly beings.
and so on.

[cedarbridge]

With our current anatomy system, we've done pretty well recently tying bodily functions to organs (eyes to sight, lungs to breathing, ears to hearing, etc). However, a flaw with these systems is that they're often all or nothing in terms of functioning. Either you have ears and can hear, or don't have ears and can't. Either you have lungs to breathe, or don't have lungs and can't. That kind of deal. The sort-of exception is eye damage, since it has intermediate stages (blurry, nearsighted, then blind), but it's still not as dynamic as it could be. It would be neat if any amount of damage past a certain threshold made an organ less functional, with more and more damage meaning less and less function, until eventually they go over some large threshold and only then stop working completely. For example, if your ears get damaged then maybe it would lower your range to hear others by a tile, then with more damage another tile, then another, until eventually you can't hear at all. With your lungs, you'd recover from oxygen damage more slowly and take oxygen damage at higher pressure levels than others would. With high enough damage, perhaps you'd have to rely on high-pressure internals at all times to be able to get enough oxygen to live at all. That kind of thing.

Dynamic disabilities instead of binary ones would allow us to have round start injuries for flavor like you suggested without making our spacemen too crippled to adequately play as, and of course would give a bit more depth to our medical system without impeding too much on what already currently exists. What do you think?

This has a lot of space to work with. As is, the majority of our organs are either superficial or mandatory (I forget if removing a heart still causes suffocation, I seem to remember lungs doing nothing, etc). I'd like to see not only gradual stages of injury based on the sort of effects that would affect those organs but also actual internal injury to organs by sufficient shock/pierce weapons/etc. That would open space for 1) organ transplants or repair surgery 2) harvesting organs from "organ donors" in the morgue or monkey clones 3) a better use for the sleepers as a diagnostic tool rather than a clickfest healbox.

I was thinking something similar about eyesight as well. I'd like the ability to play a character who is actually nearsighted. This would be partly compensated by having roundstart prescription glasses but he'd still be in trouble if something caused him to drop or lose them. This would probably lead to needing other round-start glasses types to compensate for vision (sec huds, miner mesons, and QM shades come to mind) but that might tread into snowflake territory.

[NanookoftheNorth]

I think a non-binary healing system is a step in the right direction in keeping things interesting. I think, on a player to player basis, it makes things interesting.

However, not to detract from your great idea, I do not see how this would solve the issue of the doctor being neglected. One thing someone mentioned earlier was how "you don't need any department to play the game" or something along those lines. I agree and disagree. I consider each department doing their jobs or being there "keeping the station running just a little bit longer" since we're all prolonging the inevitable. A doctor shouldn't be necessary to keep the station running, but preferred to be there. I think adding complexity would make it where a doctor would be nice to have, however without having any unique skills, the clown or mime can come in and save lives too if necessary. I think the thought of a doctor clown, potentially embedding his clown horn into people, is a fun one.

I'd be happy with the change from binary to analog medical issues. I think it would have more people coming in.

[leibniz]

replacing blood with ADVANCED BLOOD (something something plasma)

[Dr_bee]

I think a non-binary healing system is a step in the right direction in keeping things interesting. I think, on a player to player basis, it makes things interesting.

However, not to detract from your great idea, I do not see how this would solve the issue of the doctor being neglected. One thing someone mentioned earlier was how "you don't need any department to play the game" or something along those lines. I agree and disagree. I consider each department doing their jobs or being there "keeping the station running just a little bit longer" since we're all prolonging the inevitable. A doctor shouldn't be necessary to keep the station running, but preferred to be there. I think adding complexity would make it where a doctor would be nice to have, however without having any unique skills, the clown or mime can come in and save lives too if necessary. I think the thought of a doctor clown, potentially embedding his clown horn into people, is a fun one.

I'd be happy with the change from binary to analog medical issues. I think it would have more people coming in.

From what I gather the idea is that you can get along without a doctor it is just you wont be back to 100% from your injuries without them helping you. Youll be injured but functional with first aid, but you will need to go to medbay and get real treatment if you want to fully recover.

Giving the trekchems a painkiller type of feature would be nice to have. reduce their healing but they also let you ignore the effects of the damage for a bit.

So you can run around with 30 brute all around but when the painkillers run out you are going to feel it, bad.

Crit should probably be deeper as well, Gooncrit is nice in that it is actually brain damage that kills you typically, as taking oxygen damage causes it and you take massive oxy damage in crit. it is an oddly realistic part of Goonstation's pretty cartoony medical system, and is probably something that should be better replicated in /tg/ instead of just flat up dying at -200 hp.

I mean, you can survive for 10 seconds with your head cut off, why should getting smacked with an e-sword 6 times in the limbs mean you instantly die.

[Shaps-cloud]

Meds that give stamina damage while healing other damages might be interesting as painkillers?

[Alipheese]

Meds that give stamina damage while healing other damages might be interesting as painkillers?

[Dr_bee]

Meds that give stamina damage while healing other damages might be interesting as painkillers?

Well I was thinking more like miners salve with a slowdown removal, you THINK you are healthier than you are and can act like it. Although giving healing medications side effects would be neat.

overall healing should take time as well, so some chems like styptic powder and silver sulfide should have the amount of damage they can heal at one time capped, this can easily be done by having people who have the chems in their system be immune from the topical healing they give, so you get the first bit of healing then you have to wait, it would also make more accurate dosage of them more important.

touching medbay touches combat, so this is gonna get hard to do.

overall players should be tougher if these medbay changes are implemented so there is actually time to diagnose and treat people if you manage to stabilize them. this COULD be done via lengthening the defib window, med-huds should also have an icon for people who can still be defibbed to make triage easier.

Lengthening the defib window can make things like augmenting a person to revive them possible, Cloning is almost too easy a fix sometimes.

[Selea]

Don't forget,that good chemist likes to make decent healing mixes of several medecines.
It's smart way to do his job and it should be encouraged.

[Cobby]

Can we please stop pigeonholing features because "the rounds are too short for it" when the reason we have short rounds is because we have a surprisingly low amount of features that have actual depth.

[EagleWiz]

A more complex medical system where being at 1 HP has more issues then just walking slow and needing to spend 15 seconds applying patches to heal would not only make medbay more interesting, it would make combat more lethal - which would make it harder to murderbone and discourage assistants from running around the station beating eachother with toolboxes. And that's not a bad thing at all.

It might also make mining injuries more serious, which would be a bit of a bad thing.

[Dr_bee]

It might also make mining injuries more serious, which would be a bit of a bad thing.

Not really, It would mean that miners might actually have to go station-side every once and awhile, making objectives where they are the target actually doable.

[CPTANT]

Can we please stop pigeonholing features because "the rounds are too short for it" when the reason we have short rounds is because we have a surprisingly low amount of features that have actual depth.

No we have short rounds because calling the shuttle leads to a win condition.

[imblyings]

Miners already go stationside every once in a while, antags just need to camp the department or even infiltrate into the base, where miners are so vulnerable.

I'm also not sure where the rounds are short meme is coming from, the rounds I were in last week all went for at least one hour and the months before that players ran into some truly long rounds all the time.