Cobbychem: A Separate Thread

[Kryson]

I'd like to start this thread by acknowledging that these chems are probably amongst the weakest medicines in the game. They are very slow, cannot effectively bring people out of crit and ferveatium doesn't purge toxins.

However, borg law issues aside, they are perfectly serviceable as medibot chems for the most part.

The new medibots seem to be fine for treating light to moderate wounds and won't kill you except in fringe cases where you have lost a lot of blood and the medibot is not around to inject you with dexalin.

I'd like to see them remain, at least as bot chems.

[oranges]

This post was deleted by oranges on Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:11 pm.
Reason: I warned you once about this before, this is your final warning, you will end up on post approval

[Kryson]

personal attacks removed.

I agree that the OD was dumb and that weak healing chems would probably be fine.

I like that they won't be able to save you from burn or toxin crit though.

[wesoda25]

Honestly like that idea too, but not how it was done.

[christ110]

If it makes you feel any better, the OD was an oversight. We intended to purge entirely upon first tick of OD but lacked the knowledge to make our code work, so we settled on increased metabolism rate. When someone noticed the original OD (which was 40dmg) we adjusted it, tried not to over-balance, leading to the 15dmg OD.

[Denton]

If it makes you feel any better, the OD was an oversight.

lol

[Arathian]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

The chem PR was coded in bad faith.

It was meant to make the codebase worse.

The change should be reverted on that by principle alone.

I don't blame cobble. He made a mistake merging this like that but it was an easy oversight to make. I do blame the coder who deliberately tried to sabotage this game.

The change should be reverted and I am willing to open a proper PR bounty for an entirely fresh code if someone wants to make a good faith attempt to improve early game chemicals.

[oranges]

it will not be reverted

[wesoda25]

I’d like to make a PR in which the chems dont deal alternate damage types, heal very slowly normally, will keep someone alive in crit but won’t take them out of it.

[oranges]

no

[Shadowflame909]

put me in the loop maintainers. Why does the downside of these tier 2 chems have to be lethality?

[Arathian]

no

What changes would be acceptable? I mean, besides making them not the deadliest toxins in the game which...lol.

Currently these chemicals will never, ever, ever be used by anyone who isn't forced to use them (bots/borgs). So they might as well not exist.

Ok, you don't like these changes. What changes would you like?

This is the coding feedback forum so no better place for your opinion/vision on this.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

were medibots/mediborgs healing 2/tick (trekchems) even a problem?

[gum disease]

Yeah, I'd like to know why this change was deemed necessary in the first place. Understanding the reasoning behind it would answer a lot of questions, given that players have been asking why these chems exist in ahelps (usually they ask what the chems actually do, which is then followed with "but why?"). I understand that how medicine works on /tg/ is being revamped, but more clarification would be appreciated.

I'm also not going to mince my words here: I don't think it's wise to keep changes that someone made for inherently malicious reasons in the game. I also think it's poor form to not explain why they're not allowed to be changed or replaced with something else. All I can really glean from this is that healing medicine needs to have some kind of drawback/be less straightforward to make injuries have more of an impact.

[Kryson]

Yeah, I'd like to know why this change was deemed necessary in the first place. Understanding the reasoning behind it would answer a lot of questions, given that players have been asking why these chems exist in ahelps (usually they ask what the chems actually do, which is then followed with "but why?"). I understand that how medicine works on /tg/ is being revamped, but more clarification would be appreciated.

I'm also not going to mince my words here: I don't think it's wise to keep changes that someone made for inherently malicious reasons in the game. I also think it's poor form to not explain why they're not allowed to be changed or replaced with something else. All I can really glean from this is that healing medicine needs to have some kind of drawback/be less straightforward to make injuries have more of an impact.

Trekchem bots were too strong and cheap for Cobby's new medical system. If doctors are supposed to treat the bulk of the damage with C2 chems and then top up the patients with with C1 and C3, we can't have round-start infinite auto-injecting medibots that have no drawbacks.

Even if they were created in bad faith does not mean that the chems themselves are bad. The brute to blood loss conversion is a good design choice that i've also considered.

I like them because the healing process is slow and cannot reverse burn and tox crit, while still being good enough to top people up, an excellent set of properties for a medibot.

[wesoda25]

I get trekchems were OP but have no idea why we added these new chems, not to mention give them to borgs

[NoxVS]

I don’t get why we don’t just keep trek chems in medborgs and medibots and plants.

[zxaber]

One of the ideas I pitched to Cobby was to remove the downsides from normal use, but keep them for overdose effects and set the OD limit super low. This would result in medics having to babysit the person they're healing to make sure the OD never happens, and give the doctors themselves reason to want the better chems. It would also mean mediborgs could use them without harm, as long as the keep an eye on the patient's chems.

[Anonmare]

These chemicals make me want to cry. I've completely lost interest in any kind of medical role due to the unnecessary complexity the system's been given and my first course of action is to cryo and last is clone. I legit do not understand why our chemistry system has 600 steps to making medicine and pyrotechnics barely 3. Its completely at odds with the fast paced health system.

[Shadowflame909]

Anonmare is right 100%.

This is what I'm trying to say. If you have to try to completely butcher /tg/'s style of play to make medical work. Then medical is just not fit for /tg/ and you might as well make an entirely different game.

But... I think cobby's onto something with that healing surgery. Get some healing sprays, spawn them with roundstart roller-beds and the ability to memorize advanced surgeries after doing them once on the surgery table. So that they can now do them on roller beds, this would allow for a pretty damn good compromise where medics are now going for where the bodies are. Revival Surgering people, healing people mid-action. It'd be pretty cool.

[wesoda25]

I fucking love cobby and randolfs surgery changes respectively, but fuck do i dislike this new chem system. We made so much progress with the organ/dissection PRs for making medbay fun again, and now its being ruined.

[Kryson]

These chemicals make me want to cry. I've completely lost interest in any kind of medical role due to the unnecessary complexity the system's been given and my first course of action is to cryo and last is clone. I legit do not understand why our chemistry system has 600 steps to making medicine and pyrotechnics barely 3. Its completely at odds with the fast paced health system.

I have the complete opposite experience, I find medical much more fun to play and the rework has just started.

As for the recipe issue, there is no medicine that is hard to make, you can make any medicine except the ones gated behind botany in under 30 seconds.

One semicompetent chemist can create more medicine than is needed, often way more in fact, especially since the medkits were buffed.

Medical gameplay has also not slowed down, at least not yet. In fact, you could argue that it has sped up, since salicylic & oxal got a major buff and thializid can potentially heal and purge more than twice as fast as anti-toxin(2 purge, 5 heal vs 1 purge, 2 heal)

By increasing mechanical depth we can make the doctoring require some knowledge to achieve the best results, i think this makes the role a lot more fun to play.

Tailoring a 3 component treatment for the patient is much more rewarding than just pressing the bicaridine button on a sleeper.

Back on topic:

These 3 medicines in particular are not that interesting:

sanguiose - slow, drawback is weak enough to not have much impact.
frogenite - is really slow but leaves no residual damage since oxyloss self heals, cannot reverse crit.
Ferveatium - completely useless without being combined with a burn med such a frogenite, cannot reverse crit or purge toxins.

We need to think of the new medibot as a single C1 treatment, rather than analysing these as bad pseudo-C2 chems in isolation.
These chems when supplied together makes the medibot able to top people up and treat moderate injuries like before, but unable to completely replace doctors or reverse serious conditions such as poisoning and crit.

[Shadowflame909]

You say that about every medical nerf though.

I feel like your end-game for medical is just very very different from the style of play a multitude of players actually want to see. A fast-paced medical that fits with the current server standard.

[oranges]

the medical system is not fast paced anymore

if you can't deal with that, that's your problem

adjust or die.

I have been extremely open about my intent to make the rounds longer and the approach to do that is to start making things take more time and be more in depth.

Nobody wanted to do artificial shuttle restrictions so im just doing it another way.

[wesoda25]

Oranges how does making it harder to heal people increase round time???

[Kryson]

I feel like your end-game for medical is just very very different from the style of play a multitude of players actually want to see.

I think that is at least partially true, right now.

Most players only want to heal as fast as possible(this type of player loves styptic and brute packs) or as easily as possible(this type of player really loved tricord).

However, I find that the consensus was that medical doctor was a really lame job mostly done by new players.

I am fortunate to align with Cobby and Oranges in that I want to get rid of brainless healing mechanics and one size fits all solutions.

I think that is a shame when an in-depth medical system easily could make the role the most interesting on the station.

Making anything less powerful or convenient is never going to be entirely free of controversy, even if it ultimately changes the game for the better. My feeling is that once implemented, not many people will want the old system back.

[tinodrima7020]

Oranges how does making it harder to heal people increase round time???

Obviously less people left alive mean less people out there murdering. It makes sense

[PKPenguin321]

Oranges how does making it harder to heal people increase round time???

Obviously less people left alive mean less people out there murdering. It makes sense

And when everyone's dead...
No one will be.

[Shadowflame909]

I feel like your end-game for medical is just very very different from the style of play a multitude of players actually want to see.

I think that is at least partially true, right now.

Most players only want to heal as fast as possible(this type of player loves styptic and brute packs) or as easily as possible(this type of player really loved tricord).

However, I find that the consensus was that medical doctor was a really lame job mostly done by new players.

I am fortunate to align with Cobby and Oranges in that I want to get rid of brainless healing mechanics and one size fits all solutions.

I think that is a shame when an in-depth medical system easily could make the role the most interesting on the station.

Making anything less powerful or convenient is never going to be entirely free of controversy, even if it ultimately changes the game for the better. My feeling is that once implemented, not many people will want the old system back.

Well, I hope you're right. I'm not into this core concept change very much right now though. But, things have been argued and then forgotten about. Like Techwebs and the Supermatter and even Meta-station.

[NoxVS]

I feel like your end-game for medical is just very very different from the style of play a multitude of players actually want to see.

I think that is at least partially true, right now.

Most players only want to heal as fast as possible(this type of player loves styptic and brute packs) or as easily as possible(this type of player really loved tricord).

However, I find that the consensus was that medical doctor was a really lame job mostly done by new players.

I am fortunate to align with Cobby and Oranges in that I want to get rid of brainless healing mechanics and one size fits all solutions.

I think that is a shame when an in-depth medical system easily could make the role the most interesting on the station.

Making anything less powerful or convenient is never going to be entirely free of controversy, even if it ultimately changes the game for the better. My feeling is that once implemented, not many people will want the old system back.

Well, I hope you're right. I'm not into this core concept change very much right now though. But, things have been argued and then forgotten about. Like Techwebs and the Supermatter and even Meta-station.

Yeah but this change just doesn't seem good in like, any way. I get changing trekchems but these replacements seem awful. I see no reason to ever make any of them with how completely and utterly useless they are. There are multiple steps to make all three of the emergency chemicals when things like styptic and silver are produced quicker, heal better, and dont have downsides.

[wesoda25]

Organ damage stuff was a good PR for making doctor interesting. This was not.

[Kryson]

Organ damage stuff was a good PR for making doctor interesting. This was not.

You keep saying this. Would you mind explaining your reasoning?

I've laid out mine in this thread.

[wesoda25]

Organ stuff was neat because it added depth, complexity, and management to a formerly straightforward process. Whereas before you simply stood by and waited to be asked to do some random surgery, new organ stuff requires management and rewards a busy doctor. In those down periods, you can be harvesting organs for later, dissecting corpses for points, etc. It actually gave doctors something to do!

But the new chem stuff? The system we had already encompassed depth, complexity, and management. A limited supply of good chems meant you had to be sparing and wise with your treatments. New chems are seemingly trying to add additional complexity to an already complex system! As a doctor, I don’t want to be balancing 4 chems in a syringe just to counteract the side effects of one another, let alone fix whatever is wrong with the patient. I want to use the best tools available, give them just enough to get them back on their feet, pat them on the back and send them on their way!

Its late and im tired but I think you get what I’m saying. The storm of chem PRs are trying to fix a problem that is nonexistent, and our players, and chemical system, are suffering because of it.

[Dr_bee]

The brute healing chemical is absolute dogshit because it is basically trading a rare resource (blood) for a common one (brute healing). I know this is what cobby wants, but in reality it isnt a choice anyone wants to make. using those chems to heal 50 brute damage at the cost of all of my patients blood is not a trade any doctor can make.

Right now the downsides of the chems are too high, you arent solving any issue, you are just trading damage types. Not to mention the problems with borgs using these chems.

In their current state If I had the choice between these chems and nothing, I would pick nothing as at least it wouldnt actively make the problem worse.

EDIT: The biggest problem is that brute damage already causes bleeding, so by using sanguiose you are making a bad problem worse instead of causing a minor problem. Trading blood for burn or toxin healing would be an acceptable trade, but for brute it becomes basically a poison.

[Kryson]

The brute healing chemical is absolute dogshit because it is basically trading a rare resource (blood) for a common one (brute healing). I know this is what cobby wants, but in reality it isnt a choice anyone wants to make. using those chems to heal 50 brute damage at the cost of all of my patients blood is not a trade any doctor can make.

EDIT: The biggest problem is that brute damage already causes bleeding, so by using sanguiose you are making a bad problem worse instead of causing a minor problem. Trading blood for burn or toxin healing would be an acceptable trade, but for brute it becomes basically a poison.

A shot of sanguiose is not going to make things worse unless you have already lost a significant amount of blood.

Also these should pretty much never be used by doctors, their creator made the recipe harder than it had to be just to discourage chemists from making it. I agree that borgs kind of got screwed though.

I have never regretted letting myself get injected with these by a medibot and the rate of healing seems to be tolerable.

[Screemonster]

Oranges how does making it harder to heal people increase round time???

Obviously less people left alive mean less people out there murdering. It makes sense

If picking random fights with people carries a chance of consequences that can't just be undone by slapping on a brute patch it makes serial tiding harder, even if you win whatever fight you started you still got fucked up for it

if you have to actually rely on (and trust) other people to get you back on your feet again instead of wordlessly breaking into the medbay and treating yourself that's both a disincentive for pissing off everyone you encounter and forces you to decide who you can trust to drop your guard around (which is a pretty big part of the paranoia game)

[Shadowflame909]

That would be good but murderboning isnt against the rules here screemonster

There is no disincentive for a murderboner to piss off everyone they see and leave them crippled thanks to changes like these.

Murderboners dont need to rely on lame healy gimmicks like these.

Wand of Restoration, Healing Holopara, Flesh-Mend, Syndicate Tome, Darkness Regeneration, and eating. They're self-healing killing machines. The only one taking these costs are the ones that try to defend themselves.

[actioninja]

That would be good but murderboning isnt against the rules here screemonster

There is no disincentive for a murderboner to piss off everyone they see and leave them crippled thanks to changes like these.

Murderboners dont need to rely on lame healy gimmicks like these.

Wand of Restoration, Healing Holopara, Flesh-Mend, Syndicate Tome, Darkness Regeneration, and eating. They're self-healing killing machines. The only one taking these costs are the ones that try to defend themselves.

Then maybe we should be taking a look at everything that heals instead of just circlejerking about how we can't do anything at all until the entire game is completely rebalanced in one monolithic pr that people will hate anyways.

[NecromancerAnne]

Half of shadowflames suggestions are either wizard specific or require allies to work or aren't actually exclusive to antags. Everyone can eat a donk pocket. They're literally everywhere on the station.

Most changes like these are more severe in cases of mass harm or scarcity in diverse healing, which hurts antags as well as anyone else. Cobbys changes are creating healing scarcity more than healing solution alternatives. The diagnosis is easy, the treatment unavailable.

The major complaint I see right now is just being unable to get the chemists to pick up their game and make stuff that heals rarer damage types over the common ones. Brute and burn are easy fixes. It's toxins, oxygen, organ and radiation that are all far too hard for the meth enthusiasts to bother with and without them, medical is screwed. There aren't any non-chemistry based fixes for these (except CPR but that requires the person to be in crit) that are easily applied. Radiaion probably can stay deadly without chemistry since that is exceedingly rare but it causes toxins damage which is currently very hard to fix because people aren't even making potassiun iodine let alone pentetic acid. And damage juggling is such a absolute pain in the arse because of chem purges that anything that is still killing you, will kill you, especially if that happens to also be killing the people TREATING you.

Radiation, viruses. This shit wipes crews right now without effort. They're also entirely the domain of chemistry to fix. Nobody else can do it.

We need more ghetto solutions. An inbetween that isn't reliant in some shitbag who took the role to grief or kill themselves on meth and leave everyone else dead. The hyper-reliance on chemistry needs to stop before cobbys changes can make sense. It's a step too far in the future despite it being in of itself not a bad change. It is just forced into a structure that presently doesn't accommodate it well enough.

[Dax Dupont]

we're getting closer and closer to baymed by the day.

Meanwhile damaging people in excessive amounts is just as easy as ever.

[CPTANT]

I seriously hate the idea that there shouldn't be basic healing chemicals for the 4 main damage types without downsides.

There should be something that is easy to make, but sorta slow to heal brute/burn/toxins/oxy damage without doing the entire hoola hoop of having to fix 10 other problems resulting from that basic shit.


Downsides should be for medicines with superior healing or niche effects.

[Super Aggro Crag]

i just dont heal people anymore let em die

[Shadowflame909]

we're getting closer and closer to baymed by the day.

Meanwhile damaging people in excessive amounts is just as easy as ever.

[Cobby]

I fucking love cobby and randolfs surgery changes respectively, but fuck do i dislike this new chem system. We made so much progress with the organ/dissection PRs for making medbay fun again, and now its being ruined.

I'm making chem not to the goto so you're more apt to fool around with the mechanics you've praised that i'd like to expand on as well.

Chem should, at best, supplement the medical process. It shouldn't BE the medical process.

Regarding medbots, I'ma change them once I roll out the first set of chem changes to simulate surgery like tend wounds with a few differences (probably not as good HPS, can be done with clothes on, etc.). They'll be supplemental to the actual medbay process though so the situations where you go to a bot INSTEAD of a person (or have them both work on you simultaneously) is low.

[Super Aggro Crag]

ok cobby, i'm hesitant but willing to see where you're going with this

[Timonk]

>murderboner comes and attacks you in medbay while you are stuck in crit, deaf, maybe even taking some toxin damage as a tradeoff for healing

>haha should have healed faster

[Cobby]

> you're suppose to outheal someone actively attacking you

remember guys, meds aren't a second armour :^)

[Shadowflame909]

if someone can crit me in three taps why cant medicine get me back to 100 in 3 taps

You know the rules and so do I

[oranges]

because death and crit are supposed to be punishing states.

maybe ify ou and others didn't shit the bed about every fucking balance change we could feasibly look at nerfing antag damage.

but right now whoever I ask to do it is going to have titanium armoured skin because this community will put them through a full wringer of toxicity.

[wesoda25]

it doesnt help that many unfinished prs are pushed through tho... dont forget its the players who have to play that version of the game. Its not fun when you're stuck with a worse chem system and need to wait for the rest of the prs to roll in and stuff.