MedSci discussion

[cheekybrdy]

Just wanted to voice some concerns about MedSci which are both my own and others I've heard which I may to some degrees attempt to address and would like second opinions.

Medsci has been in a rather weird position for a while, each part for completely separate reasons. Science has near no demand in regards to crew responsibilities, other then artsci formally. Medical while protected by rulings on RP has really bad tiding culture on classic which gives powergamers a hoarded supply that either results in them avoiding medbay or the staffing itself for the rest of the round, crippling doc numbers due to the lack of demand from them being ignored (medborgs also render docs obsolete due to internalised creation of heals to all 4 damages). I'm not going to get into robotics here cause I know that there's a active solution attempt there (augmentations).

This is what I really want input on for this topic before making anything:

1. Do you like the laidback/carefree lack of responsibility that science currently has? Would people want more responsibility/accountability as science?

2. I am considering adding Scientist Training as a trait, which from what I can look at in order to make scientists more depended on for certain access may be things that could be anti-QOL as following.

Making Artifact markings scientist only (I doubt that John Tide the staffie IC would be able to recognise the markings of a anomaly, feels like anyone unqualified touching a artifact should really have a fuck around and find out aspect anyway.)

Chemical accidents (Bartender would also be exempt medical considering 3.) (going back to John Tide the staffie, while their player may have the full knowledge on a spreadsheet OOC, is the untrained John Tide really able to perfectly pull off perfect pouring of volatile chemicals without any chance of risk without a OOC mistake?) I can tell this would be controversial cause anti-QOL, please give better alternatives if you got one.

3. What are people's thoughts on Pharmacies? Medbays usually don't run out of their supplies except maybe char but I feel like most demand that Chem could ever get from anywhere on station is made naught from this private one, pharmacies are also very tided due to medical goon1 culture crippling demand to chemists (bar too as well).

4. Should medicals stockpile get nerfed? alot of firstaid kits being tided give people a lack of a need to return to medical without surgery or a long duration from already obtained supplies. I don't remember the last time I've seen a empty nanomed either.

5. Thoughts on taking away medborg surgery to give human doctors a guaranteed demand in medical?

6. Do you like the merged technicality of MedSci, would you like them to be seperate?

7. Any solutions to the things I've brought up that I haven't made a dot point?

[Kotlol]

1: Science in my opinion should be researching, not curing. I am fine with Science being carefree and having lil to no responsability.
Their focus should be on their experiments and if they yield results, share it with the station. With some requests here or there.
If they get involved with medical supplies and such... you will get science players unable to do things like an A-zone cause "Medbay has no supplies"

2: Traits for scientists are 100% fine as this forces players to use science for their help. In my opinion it's very annoying for engineering to get a chem dispenser then start doing chemical stuff or engineer mcgee starts making his own drinks and takes away the bartenders customers. I don't mind these things being build, but it's just annoying to play a bartender trying to do their thing and here is everyone going to the "engineering bar" cause it looks fancier and it took effort to build.
So in this case... having specific jobs have specific traits that makes them safer and more luxurious is a good idea. Scientists can chemical perfectly and bartenders and chefs can cook and mix perfectly. Where as the non have like a 25% chance to mess up massively.

3: Pharmacies are a nice thing to have and in my opinion feel like it should be there. Mechnically on the other hand... it's basically chemistry place number 2.
As you say... Medbay is well kitted and only needs charcoal technically.
If anything it should be retooled directly. Still have a chem dispenser, but mostly have all the medical supplies that NORMAL people can use.
Mostly you got to a pharmacy that gives you medicine YOU CAN USE. So patches and such can be there. Thats' what I would change.
Focus pharmacy more on giving supplies staffy mcgee can use. Maybe add a trait that menders fail to work by staffy mcgee so doctors can use it freely.

4: I am fine with supplies as in very chaotic rounds, medical supplies drain too fast. I'd say lock 1st aid kits behind pharmacy and have the Nanomed only have things doctors can use safely where as staffies mess up. Then add Nanopharm to the mix that can be summoned as well.
Simply put.. Just divide Pharmacy and Medbay in their ways of handling. Medbay is stuff doctors only can do, pharmacy is supplies for crew to use safely.

5: IN my opinion... this is fine, but I do prefer if doctors when they mess up have way less impact then staffy mcgee goofing up.
Thus borg surgery is safe, but doctors messing up is just a minor annoyance, but staffy mcgee will mess up HEAVILY.

6: Sci and Med need to stay seperate. While they can be working together. Science should be focus on RESEARCHING AND IMPROVING.
Medbay on TREATING and HELPING
And Pharmacy on SUPPLYING THE COMMON FOLK WITH MEDICINE.

7: I said it several times already.. but change pharmacy's functionality. Like you go to a drug store or pharmacy to pick up prescriptions or standard pills you can buy to treat minor problems. You have 20 brute damage? Just go to pharmacy and they have a patch or pill to fix you right up.
Have 80 brute damage and 40 burn damage with 10 toxin damage? NOW medbay has to treat you asap.
It's nothing more annoying as a doctor to get overrun with medbay with people who have like 40 brute damage wich they can walk off with 2 patches. Since it always results in shoving when critical patients arrive.
But if those low brute damage people or people who aren't deadly ill can just knock on the pharmacy and get some medicine to be treated. Suddenly doctors can focus more on surgery, more on roleplay, more on fun things. Heck they might even be able to go EMTs as long as someone is doing pharmacy work.
Cause as it stands now... Mutadone, Mannitol and such. Are only available in the main med dispensers... wich means you need to bother a doctor who needs to go there, grab you the mannitol so you can swallow it. While in reality it should be someone at pharmacy getting to hear: "I got a headache, can I get a mannitol?" And the pharmacy guy just grabbing it behind them and giving them to the patient.

Not only will this probably trigger a "return" of the pharmacist role (wich I am fine with), but it would just make medbay flow nicer and have the front desk have more use. Cause let's be fair.. No one mounts the front desk and checks after a scan if you are injured. In reality someone opens medbay or every doctors is in the front lobby doing mending and injections... wich is not what i think medbay should be. And this is if the doctors get to do it.

So insted of tiding happening on classic and RP doctors just mending and injecting. Have it be more divisive.

And I didn't even touch the medical check points on bigger stations being useless. Heck no one uses/mounts the security check points in stations either XD
So insted I recommend pharmacists at the front desk and have the medical check poitns also be changed into "smaller" pharmacies where the pharmacist can go to.
Or have them contain the medical vendors... cause as I see it right now. Medical check points are barely used while they can function well as mini medbays.

[Chasu]

1. I enjoy a quiet science shift as much as anyone else, but I don‘t think science is free of responsibilities. Of course, demand for their services varies every round (radstorms bring artifacts, some rounds are messier and require more cleaner, etc.), but that applies to every department, especially the one that‘s supposed to do experiments. Some more rewarding tasks for them to do would be neat, but nothing that disrupts whatever they‘re working on.

2. Good idea imo, many other jobs have traits like that, and your point about John Tide makes sense. It‘s gonna very controversial, but as long as it‘s a trait that can be added in the Character menu (like the engie trait), I wouldn‘t see anything wrong with it.

3. They‘re useful in theory, giving chemistry more freedom to fulfill requests for the crew, but in reality, there‘s usually one MD/Doc making barrels of pent at roundstart, even on RP. I don‘t play on classic a lot, though I don‘t think it‘s very different there.

4. This goes back to the problem of supply and demand. The unpredictability of random events and which departments are staffed make such nerfs difficult to decide on. When the pop is high, there‘s not enough equipment, but when it‘s low, there‘s too much. I don‘t mind people carrying medkits when exploring, but having one „Just in case“ when there‘s no real reason for it feels kinda powergamey.

I can‘t think of an ideal solution to these right now, but it feels like most of the community would agree on this being an issue

[meaow589]

1. i prefer low responsibility from science department may be more interesting objective or contract.
2.Scientist trait sound interesting I prefer it involve chemical measurements , gas analysis.may be artifact but I not sure how.
3.I have play medical doctor for along time and in chaos round i have order first aid like 10 crate. so I think pharmacy is still necessary but some chemical scientist has some advantage to do them.
4.yeah I agree with this some stock supply is too much but some doesn’t for example mannitol and mutadon is easily run out while speckling and robust is is all full may be reduce some of it to make it more reasonable is good idea.
5.im not sure about nerf borge by remove surgery tool from them is good or bad .but in my opinion I want to remove it like you because I think it should be human work more than robot and I have see many Borge use this tool for fight
6.i not feel any different from it. So * shrug*

[Lord_earthfire]

To 3.: Remove it. Like Chasu said, it only makes the MD or doctors do the tasks scientist in chemistry are supposed to do. Or the chen dispenser is used for deathchems like the bar.

Heck, why do even janitors have access to that thing?

In general, i think we should split chemistry from science again and have dedicated chemists. That way, you can hold them accountable for their job instead of just doing fuck-whatever.

[Kateaclysm]

I feel like the pharmacy really needs to be toned down or removed, honestly. There's a tendency lately on the RP servers to just get the MDir or a knowledgeable doctor to immediately make a trillion bottles of pent/perc which immediately removes any sort of department interaction that chemistry would have had with medbay. I don't really know how we'd tone down the pharmacy other than just. Removing it entirely, though. It's just a big shame that even on maps where chemistry and medbay are DIRECTLY next to eachother like Donut 3, it's rare to see medbay talk to chemistry at all.

[Kotlol]

I think we mostly agree pharmacy is too annoying. Let's change it. Opening up a suggestion on the suggestion forums.

[TDHooligan]

I think chem requests have gone down as there are rarely chemists willing and able to fulfill them.

IMO the chem skill floor is way, way, way too high atm. and the ceiling is dropped down as of the rework.
The only reason most experienced chemists get shit done is because they know exactly what they're making, and they make it.

On the other hand, newbies meandering around with chemistry are tasked with creating some incredibly slow, boring reactions. So they don't do them. So they never learn, which is why we're seeing the same names single handedly making pent/perf A Thing, and why they the chem rework barely impacted them.


If you're too new to know that oil can be heated, fucking up your oil is punishable by waiting for a literal 20 minutes. There's a tedium making everything you do for others even slower (cooling shit down again. waiting for acetone, waiting for diethylamine, waiting for oil, waiting for sulfuric.)
A lot of these recipes require 4 things you wait for. And a lot of these things have noob traps built into them.

Now, you're trying to figure out what cool things go boom (not many) so you're scouring the wiki, making Phlog, whatever. And someone asks you to do a 12-step reaction? It's clear as day why chemists blank medbay. They're likely trying to do the most basic stuff.

[Emimiyu]

About pharmacy, there is one gimmick job called "pharmacist". You get access to chemistry but not all of science and you have access to medical but not the locker. Just maybe, what if it's a regular job so medical has someone who is already designated to work there (which may also lessen "chemist doctor" issue on RP, cause stay in your lane and such) and someone who connect chemistry with medbay (also they can get more advance chemistry tool from chemistry)? Though, as someone who pick this on RP it usually ended up with you don't have to do chems because the doctors are already rushing it 5 minutes into the round or you just get the awkward stare in sci and everyone think you are not supposed to be there. At the same time, I can't imagine playing pharmacist for a whole round if it's a regular job. You are making medicine that can be done under thirty minute and it's already enough for the whole shift, what else you can do?

Though, on removal of pharmacy, I don't know about it. Classic wise, I would prefer for doctors to still have it and again they would tide chemistry especially if chaos happens and you can't just rely on chemistry. On RP? I imagine a bunch of docs would just ask for chemistry access or just give up on making chems. Like Kate comment, they don't talk to chemistry a lot. I have even seen people OOC who just said they don't have reason to "roleplay" with chemistry and, tbh, it's kinda not uncommon for people to just ignore interdept roleplay, but this feel like another different discussion. Also, people don't like waiting too long, even if they don't need the medicine urgently or acknowledge that not all people are "good at the games"

Anyway, I brought up pharmacist role because just "what if" there is a regular job that has responsibility to make medicines, have their workplace in medbay (the pharmacy), and have access to chemistry so they can connect sci and med?

[Lord_earthfire]

I think chem requests have gone down as there are rarely chemists willing and able to fulfill them.

IMO the chem skill floor is way, way, way too high atm. and the ceiling is dropped down as of the rework.
The only reason most experienced chemists get shit done is because they know exactly what they're making, and they make it.

On the other hand, newbies meandering around with chemistry are tasked with creating some incredibly slow, boring reactions. So they don't do them. So they never learn, which is why we're seeing the same names single handedly making pent/perf A Thing, and why they the chem rework barely impacted them.


If you're too new to know that oil can be heated, fucking up your oil is punishable by waiting for a literal 20 minutes. There's a tedium making everything you do for others even slower (cooling shit down again. waiting for acetone, waiting for diethylamine, waiting for oil, waiting for sulfuric.)
A lot of these recipes require 4 things you wait for. And a lot of these things have noob traps built into them.

Now, you're trying to figure out what cool things go boom (not many) so you're scouring the wiki, making Phlog, whatever. And someone asks you to do a 12-step reaction? It's clear as day why chemists blank medbay. They're likely trying to do the most basic stuff.

You're vastly overestimating the difficulty of the new reactions. In fact, i would say the rework decreased it for some chemicals, most notable pentetic acid.

Most of chem's skill floor comes from remembering multiple indrigients and hiw to make them. This means that once you cut down on indrigients, you cut down on the complexity by a lot.

Or, differently speaking, you need to have the wiki open when playing chemistry. This is the big hurdle beginners fail on. If a reaction takes time or is instant hardly matters.

The problem with people playing chemistry only is the same reason people don't often play rancher. Or geneticist. It is a job where you stay in your department all shift. But in contrast to ranching and genetics, people don't come to you because they got a multitude of ways to make what they need themselves. It's simply unrewarding. Especially with medical chems, where you are only asked for 3 things: synthflesh, perf and pent.

SS13 is a game where people need to learn complex systems. And ot is proven tine to tine afain it works. Heck, /tg chemist is played by people, simply because it, as a job, is mire rewarding.

[Solenoid]

I know you mentioned this in your post, but it's also my biggest gripe with medsci right now too, mediborgs.

As a non-silicon player, I find my job is often made useless when I sign up as a medical-doctor if there's mediborgs around. This isn't anything against those players, but I do wish that their toolsets were toned down significantly. I feel like I've signed up for a job with little to no value so long as a medical cyborg is in the crew, because they can teleport super easily so long as there's a miner, have all the healing chems on board, and can do 99% of the important medical stuff a human can.

Want to run over and pick up a patient? You're good, the mediborg with treads and a speed upgrade has already grabbed them and stabilized them back at medbay. Don't have all the medical chemicals on you and need to go run over to the nearest nano-med that's five tiles away? No worries, the mediborg has already stabilized them with their full hypo of some chemical you never expected to need. 

Again, this is not a player problem, and I personally harbor 0 spite towards any mediborg players, it's just a problem with the kit being too overtuned and more powerful than what most humans doing that same job can do. If you want to be a doctor, there's little reason to not be a mediborg, in my opinion, since you can do everything the human doctor can do with minimal drawbacks and even more potential to perform via cyborg upgrades. Maybe removing or nerfing the auto-generating hypospray would be a first good step, since it does feel pretty broken to have effectively unlimited amounts of all major med chems at your disposal. 

This is just my opinion though, and if others disagree I'm fine with hearing those perspectives too, maybe I'm missing something that makes medical cyborgs as they are now balanced in some way that I'm just not seeing.

[Kotlol]

I know you mentioned this in your post, but it's also my biggest gripe with medsci right now too, mediborgs.

Iroincally this is also true for engineer borgs as they can fix things much faster and effeciently over a normal engineer with a RCD.
That said.. Engineers do more then just repair. They also build stuff and maintain the engine. And in some of those cases.. borgs are ACTUALLY WORST AT IT!
With engines? while immune to rads and heat. They don't have magnetic locks so anything that can drag and knock them around will do so.

Reason I bring this up is because mediborgs can litterly do anything. A doctor can....cept making players unconcious with internals.
I think they are fine as it is.. but considering on classic being a doctor is already a boring job with greytiding...it becomes worst with borgs around.

Well they can't replace organs technically yes? But.. eh...

I don't know how to nerf mediborgs in a fun way or change them cept: "They can't restock unless a robotcist does it."

[Snowy :D]

Personally, I never saw the issue with mediborgs. They always just felt like regular doctors to me. Maybe its because I prefer to stay in medbay for most of my doctor shifts. However, I do think that it is important to make sure that human and borg doctors have their own set of strengths and weaknesses. One shouldn't be completely superior to the other.

I don't think that pharmacy should be nerfed or removed for the same reasons that I have stated in this thread:
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=22364

If chemists need more to do, then add new stuff for them to make/do. Don't nerf other departments in hopes of chemistry filling the role instead, because it likely won't work out the way you want it to.

Honestly, my biggest issue with medsci is that healing people can kinda feel redundant at times when you can easily be revived in cloning. Defects tend to be inconsequential.

[Lord_earthfire]

If chemists need more to do, then add new stuff for them to make/do. Don't nerf other departments in hopes of chemistry filling the role instead, because it likely won't work out the way you want it to.

I heavily disagree here. Most departments are simply too non-reliant onto another. We are getting there and have cut out some resilience of some department of the past, but medbay was unscathed mostly for "beginner friendlyness". And that had turned to... greytiders on classic being able to waltz into medbay and treat themselves, because all they need is always in the same place it spawns in and in ridicilous quantities. And on RP medbay staff don't need to move out of their department for 90 minutes, while multiple departments have mechanics to potentially aid them in treatment. And we were already talking about "infinite chem dispensers" aka mediborgs.

The other departments this applies to are "basic supplier" departments, like botany, rancher, genetics or mining. And botany at least interacts with cargo a lot to get their needed nutrients, so even the department that can raise entire stations of the ground is in practice more relying on other departments than medbay.

Then again, it's not about just nerfing a department. You have to give something in return. The problem with medbay is simply it being, in its current state, ridicilous overpowered between cloning, ridicilous purge chems and its 3 baseline chems very potent healing.

[Snowy :D]

If chemists need more to do, then add new stuff for them to make/do. Don't nerf other departments in hopes of chemistry filling the role instead, because it likely won't work out the way you want it to.

I heavily disagree here. Most departments are simply too non-reliant onto another. We are getting there and have cut out some resilience of some department of the past, but medbay was unscathed mostly for "beginner friendlyness". And that had turned to... greytiders on classic being able to waltz into medbay and treat themselves, because all they need is always in the same place it spawns in and in ridicilous quantities. And on RP medbay staff don't need to move out of their department for 90 minutes, while multiple departments have mechanics to potentially aid them in treatment. And we were already talking about "infinite chem dispensers" aka mediborgs.

The other departments this applies to are "basic supplier" departments, like botany, rancher, genetics or mining. And botany at least interacts with cargo a lot to get their needed nutrients, so even the department that can raise entire stations of the ground is in practice more relying on other departments than medbay.

Then again, it's not about just nerfing a department. You have to give something in return. The problem with medbay is simply it being, in its current state, ridicilous overpowered between cloning, ridicilous purge chems and its 3 baseline chems very potent healing.

The thing is, I don’t dislike the concept of medbay relying on other departments. The issue is that those departments are impossible to be relied upon because there is rarely anyone willing to take your requests. I’m almost never able to get science to make anything for me, even with features that are supposed to make such a thing easier (request consoles and chem interlinks).

Outside of cloning, I don’t see how the any of the things you’ve stated make medbay “overpowered”. Well, I can see the issue of people treating themselves, but I feel that usually only happens then there are no doctors around.