Organ Failure - An alternative to sleeper changes

[Luke Cox]

Currently, there's a pretty controversial PR on making sleepers not automatically regenerate chemicals. While I think that the goal of the PR (making medical less braindead) is a good one, I worry that the proposed changes would only serve to bottleneck medical behind a notoriously unreliable office and therefore make "I stubbed my toe" shuttle calls even more common. It's the wrong cure for a very real disease (tee hee medical reference). We've had a surprisingly robust and criminally underutilized organ system built up over the past year, and I think that it's the solution to this as well as a few other problems.

The Problems

• MD is a braindead job, that consists of dumping people into sleepers and pressing buttons
• A medbot thrown together from an empty medkit, an sensor, and a borg arm can do all the work a doctor can but faster
• Injuries are meaningless, with people on the brink of death being back on their feet at full health in about 30 seconds
• Dismemberment has made the limbs excellent targets in combat, but there is literally no reason to target the torso
• We have a bunch of different organs that do different things, but it almost never gets utilized in practice
• Surgery is a ghost town

The Simple Solution
After reaching a certain threshold, damage to the torso (heart, stomach, liver, etc) or head (eyes, tongue, ears) will have a small chance to cause organs to fail, with the chance increasing with damage (internal organ dismemberment basically). Failing organs require a new "organ repair" surgery to fix. Dead organs have to be replaced (augmented organs could be a thing in the future).

Benefits

• Medical is more exciting, with actual emergency surgeries
• Sleepers are reserved for minor to moderate injuries
• Cryo will get a new niche, being used to keep patients stable while surgery preps
• Severe injuries will actually matter
• Organ harvesting donors

tl;dr Sleepers aren't the problem, shallow damage systems are

[DemonFiren]

inb4 le baymed slippery slope

Though I've wanted this for fucking years.

[kevinz000]

and how will this make shuttle calls less common? this is not an alternative.

[Stickymayhem]

and how will this make shuttle calls less common? this is not an alternative.

He didn't list that in the problems or solutions

I think this is a great idea though. Makes total sense, makes people less superheroic and makes medbay more fun and useful.

There would need to be some counteracting effects though or antagonists will get fucked. Make torso armor protect organs from all but the highest force brute attacks, and make organ failure a long term problem, on a timescale of minutes not seconds, before you begin experiencing severe problems.

A somewhat unaccessible but self-applying solution is kind of a necessity too for when medbay blows up or is understaffed/rogue/incompetent.

[DemonFiren]

A somewhat unaccessible but self-applying solution

i keep forgetting if self-surgery is in again or not
and ghetto surgery is a thing

[kevinz000]

there's a big difference between making medbay make chems instead of getting t3 upgrades 10 minutes in and baymed lite.

[PKPenguin321]

>claims surgery is a ghost town
>hasn't seen a round where multiple people have been dismembered

[cedarbridge]

and how will this make shuttle calls less common? this is not an alternative.

He didn't list that in the problems or solutions

I think this is a great idea though. Makes total sense, makes people less superheroic and makes medbay more fun and useful.

There would need to be some counteracting effects though or antagonists will get fucked. Make torso armor protect organs from all but the highest force brute attacks, and make organ failure a long term problem, on a timescale of minutes not seconds, before you begin experiencing severe problems.

A somewhat unaccessible but self-applying solution is kind of a necessity too for when medbay blows up or is understaffed/rogue/incompetent.

I like the idea that we can add self-solution options to things in case medbay is inaccessible but I would like to stress the "unaccessible" bit. Medbay should always be the best possible care a patient can get. That would mean that out-patient solutions should be lesser in general availability, quality or both. If medbay is damaged/overrun/etc the fact that the best options/tools/facilities are there makes it an essential goal for crew to retake or repair the place. I think its already my general dislike for bruisepacks et al. but I really hate medical solutions that bypass medical entirely for medical issues that take longer in medbay than their outpatient counterpart.

I'm surprised I haven't heard the usual complaint that "its not fun to be injured" in a medbay changes thread though.

[Qbopper]

agreed, i'd honestly prefer if the only things you could do outside medbay would be shitty temporary things that are just supposed to keep you alive long enough to get actual medical attention, but that would require a big rework of the entire medical system

[cedarbridge]

agreed, i'd honestly prefer if the only things you could do outside medbay would be shitty temporary things that are just supposed to keep you alive long enough to get actual medical attention, but that would require a big rework of the entire medical system

It would just require a system like painkillers. Replace healing items widely spread around the station with painkillers and crappy bandages that temporarily heal or mask over injuries for a period of time but expire and return the injuries to the same state as before until 1) actually healed 2) more painkillers are consumed.

They also make for a near Max Payne reference if you end up with a sec officer/antag running a gauntlet of gunfire and only staying on foot with bandages to stop bleeding and painkillers to keep from passing out.

[Qbopper]

that would be pretty fucking funny

I'd love to paynepost

THEY WERE ALL DEAD

[Ayy Lemoh]

If your lungs are fucked then, according to what I think the current system will do, then you are already dead, unable to be saved if medbay or robotics can't help.
If your heart is fucked then you're done for the round if robotics or medbay can't help.
If your stomach is fucked then I don't know, really. I assume you'll slowly die though, still.
If your eyes are fucked with something that can't be cured with oculine then you're basically screwed but alive if medbay or robotics can't help.

What temporary solutions would work for stuff like that? I can understand eyes or heart being 'you're just fucked get good' but if someone hits me in the chest with a potted plant at roundstart and I have lung failure then die in five seconds then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Powergame a fucking armor vest?

It would also make some weapons/items, like beanbag shells the fucking bartender has and esword, more powerful than already if it was made possible for anything to break your torso's organs. I know the esword can easily delimb, but I don't think it should be able to make your heart stop working from one hit when combat isn't as advanced as lifeweb or some shit where it would make sense.

If the sleeper system is so bad that we need organ failure to replace it then just remove the sleeper system instead of making something that will probably be unbalanced as fuck.

[Bombadil]

People without lungs can be kept alive with epiniphrine and uh the chemical for oxyloss. You'd just have to keep getting pills or die. Or does it just instantly fucking kill you?

[Ayy Lemoh]

People without lungs can be kept alive with epiniphrine and uh the chemical for oxyloss. You'd just have to keep getting pills or die. Or does it just instantly fucking kill you?

It's not instant death.

[cedarbridge]

If your lungs are fucked then, according to what I think the current system will do, then you are already dead, unable to be saved if medbay or robotics can't help.
If your heart is fucked then you're done for the round if robotics or medbay can't help.
If your stomach is fucked then I don't know, really. I assume you'll slowly die though, still.
If your eyes are fucked with something that can't be cured with oculine then you're basically screwed but alive if medbay or robotics can't help.

What temporary solutions would work for stuff like that? I can understand eyes or heart being 'you're just fucked get good' but if someone hits me in the chest with a potted plant at roundstart and I have lung failure then die in five seconds then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Powergame a fucking armor vest?

It would also make some weapons/items, like beanbag shells the fucking bartender has and esword, more powerful than already if it was made possible for anything to break your torso's organs. I know the esword can easily delimb, but I don't think it should be able to make your heart stop working from one hit when combat isn't as advanced as lifeweb or some shit where it would make sense.

If the sleeper system is so bad that we need organ failure to replace it then just remove the sleeper system instead of making something that will probably be unbalanced as fuck.

Maybe its just me but being shot through the heart should probably just kill you. If we didn't want to go that far then we can invent some injector with a reagent similar to modern adrenaline injections to temporarily sustain a

Spoiler:

broken heart.

[DemonFiren]

If your lungs are fucked then, according to what I think the current system will do, then you are already dead, unable to be saved if medbay or robotics can't help.
If your heart is fucked then you're done for the round if robotics or medbay can't help.
If your stomach is fucked then I don't know, really. I assume you'll slowly die though, still.
If your eyes are fucked with something that can't be cured with oculine then you're basically screwed but alive if medbay or robotics can't help.

What temporary solutions would work for stuff like that? I can understand eyes or heart being 'you're just fucked get good' but if someone hits me in the chest with a potted plant at roundstart and I have lung failure then die in five seconds then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Powergame a fucking armor vest?

It would also make some weapons/items, like beanbag shells the fucking bartender has and esword, more powerful than already if it was made possible for anything to break your torso's organs. I know the esword can easily delimb, but I don't think it should be able to make your heart stop working from one hit when combat isn't as advanced as lifeweb or some shit where it would make sense.

If the sleeper system is so bad that we need organ failure to replace it then just remove the sleeper system instead of making something that will probably be unbalanced as fuck.

Maybe its just me but being shot through the heart should probably just kill you. If we didn't want to go that far then we can invent some injector with a reagent similar to modern adrenaline injections to temporarily sustain a

Spoiler:

broken heart.

Spoiler:

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give Med
A bad name (bad name)

Anyway, when do we let headshots deal brain damage?

[cedarbridge]

If your lungs are fucked then, according to what I think the current system will do, then you are already dead, unable to be saved if medbay or robotics can't help.
If your heart is fucked then you're done for the round if robotics or medbay can't help.
If your stomach is fucked then I don't know, really. I assume you'll slowly die though, still.
If your eyes are fucked with something that can't be cured with oculine then you're basically screwed but alive if medbay or robotics can't help.

What temporary solutions would work for stuff like that? I can understand eyes or heart being 'you're just fucked get good' but if someone hits me in the chest with a potted plant at roundstart and I have lung failure then die in five seconds then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Powergame a fucking armor vest?

It would also make some weapons/items, like beanbag shells the fucking bartender has and esword, more powerful than already if it was made possible for anything to break your torso's organs. I know the esword can easily delimb, but I don't think it should be able to make your heart stop working from one hit when combat isn't as advanced as lifeweb or some shit where it would make sense.

If the sleeper system is so bad that we need organ failure to replace it then just remove the sleeper system instead of making something that will probably be unbalanced as fuck.

Maybe its just me but being shot through the heart should probably just kill you. If we didn't want to go that far then we can invent some injector with a reagent similar to modern adrenaline injections to temporarily sustain a

Spoiler:

broken heart.

Spoiler:

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give Med
A bad name (bad name)

Anyway, when do we let headshots deal brain damage?

Hopefully the same time we let you remove the bullet with surgery.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Maybe its just me but being shot through the heart should probably just kill you.

There would have to be a lot of balancing then because that would mean shooting at the torso allows for an instakill with any gun that shoots bullets if you get lucky for hitting the heart.

You could say 'that's realistic' but why isn't the crowbar more lethal? Why doesn't the esword insta delimb and decapitate? Why doesn't the chef get to double deepfry?

Like I said, this isn't Lifeweb or some server with a robust combat system. Organ failure, if made without extreme dedication and effort to make sure it isn't shit or unbalanced, would make the game shitty if even more powergaming happened because no one wants to die from someone hitting you with a weak item enough times for it to make your liver, heart, and lungs to stop functioning because you didn't rush armor at roundstart.

I honestly doubt anyone here could make organ failure without it being garbage.

[Luke Cox]

and how will this make shuttle calls less common? this is not an alternative.

The reason for the proposed sleeper change is that medical is too simple. The creators of the PR say that they don't like how sleepers are just fire and forget. I agree with the premise, but as I said in the OP, my problem with it is that it bottlenecks an essential job behind a single, notoriously slow department. I want to make medical's difficulty scale in proportion to the severity of the injuries being treated. Gutting sleepers would make bar fights crippling.

>claims surgery is a ghost town
>hasn't seen a round where multiple people have been dismembered

Seeing a line for surgery is actually what in part inspired this. Outside of the rare esword rampage though, you don't see surgery used a ton. Plus, dismemberment isn't much more than an inconvenience. I want those busy surgery rooms to be more common, and I want dying people in the line.


Temporary self-fixes are necessary, and I have a simple solution in mind for that: Every department gets an emergency medkit or two in a case on the wall (like fire extinguishers), with two perfluorodecalin syringes, two corazone syringes, an epipen, and gauze. This will keep people with heart and lung failure from dying until they can get treatment.

The concerns about medbay being rendered inoperable are valid, but bear in mind that organ failure a. isn't instant and b. takes quite a bit to induce

[Dr_bee]

having lung failure make you require more oxygen in your air mix to breath would be a good thing to add.

It would simulate actual lung damage and could be easily solved by turning up the pressure on the emergency oxygen tank everyone starts with and running to medbay.

[DemonFiren]

having lung failure make you require more oxygen in your air mix to breath would be a good thing to add.

It would simulate actual lung damage and could be easily solved by turning up the pressure on the emergency oxygen tank everyone starts with and running to medbay.

make it a noob trap by making extreme high/low pressure also cause lung damage
watch as people crank their tanks up to full the moment they cough a bit of blood and promptly pop their lungs

[Luke Cox]

I was just thinking that torso damage past the threshold = organ failure, but we could definitely add organ failure brought on by specific conditions (i.e. alcohol and the liver). Different poisons could cause different types of organ failure too. Adding organ failure would open up a lot of possibilities.

[EagleWiz]

This is a pretty good idea, although as someone who plays shaft miner regularly I would really want this to be something curable with legion cores or something else to prevent shaft miners from dying or spending half the round in medbay because they engaged a watcher in combat and got bit by legion skulls.

Edit: Might need to expand the surgery room to add another table if we do this.

[Luke Cox]

This is a pretty good idea, although as someone who plays shaft miner regularly I would really want this to be something curable with legion cores or something else to prevent shaft miners from dying or spending half the round in medbay because they engaged a watcher in combat and got bit by legion skulls.

Edit: Might need to expand the surgery room to add another table if we do this.

We could definitely make legion souls heal organ failure. Lavaland is dangerous enough as it is.

[Anonmare]

Hivelord cores used to be full admin heals so it's not like that'd be a huge balance change anyway

[Luke Cox]

Thought of three more caveats:

1. Some types of damage should be more likely to cause organ failure. Brute should take crit levels of damage, toxins should cause it at moderate dosage, burn and oxyless fairly high but not quite crit.
2. Extreme burn damage (we're talking literally on fire for an extended period) should cause limbs to die. Dead limbs cause slow toxin damage until amputated.
3. MAYBE make it so that bruise patches and ointment don't work on wounds if there's more than 50 or so damage of the type it treats. Ideally I'd like to make it so that medical has to triage patients into four categories and administer appropriate treatments to each: medkits for superficial, sleepers for moderate, cryo and surgery for extreme, defib or cloning for dead.

[onleavedontatme]

Having regular invisible medical problems with your mob sounds like a nightmare in SS13.

It is very apparent both to a player and to the doctor when a limb is missing and it is easy to understand why you are suffering various consequences, not so much when your lungs are damaged and you're unconcious.

[Luke Cox]

Having regular invisible medical problems with your mob sounds like a nightmare in SS13.

It is very apparent both to a player and to the doctor when a limb is missing and it is easy to understand why you are suffering various consequences, not so much when your lungs are damaged and you're unconcious.

It would be pretty obvious to both parties. The player would have messages pop up that make it very clear what's going on ("you feel your heartbeat begin to slow down", "you find it difficult to breathe", etc). I don't know if I mentioned it in this thread, but it would show up on medical scanners just like other diseases (bold red text). Any doctor who isn't clinically retarded would know what's going on. There wouldn't be anything invisible about it. Organ failure would have nothing on random heart attacks and appendicitis.

[Dr_bee]

Having regular invisible medical problems with your mob sounds like a nightmare in SS13.

It is very apparent both to a player and to the doctor when a limb is missing and it is easy to understand why you are suffering various consequences, not so much when your lungs are damaged and you're unconcious.

It would be pretty obvious to both parties. The player would have messages pop up that make it very clear what's going on ("you feel your heartbeat begin to slow down", "you find it difficult to breathe", etc). I don't know if I mentioned it in this thread, but it would show up on medical scanners just like other diseases (bold red text). Any doctor who isn't clinically retarded would know what's going on. There wouldn't be anything invisible about it. Organ failure would have nothing on random heart attacks and appendicitis.

An organ damage icon on the medhud could also aid in diagnosis. And on the subject of knowing what is going wrong with you as a patient. You should know that you have something wrong and a vague idea, but there SHOULD be some unknown aspect about what is wrong with you. for example, chest pain could be heart damage, or it could be heartburn caused by the spicy chili the chef made.

If you feel off, head to medbay to get a checkup.

[Luke Cox]

Eh, that's a bit extreme. I think it should be evident to all parties involved that organ failure is involved.