Goonhub
01-11-2019, 08:18 PM
I bounced this idea around in Discord a bit, and I like it enough to post it here. There should be an application delay on medical patches if the person applying the patch doesn't have the medical training trait.
Reasons this is a good idea:
-It makes doctors more useful as they can heal much more effectively than not-doctors, leading to situations where you'd rather have a doctor heal you when you could easily heal yourself. Access is supposed to cause this, but doesn't succeed because medical supplies is very easy to get littered around the station and sec officers, the upper-heads, detective. and janitor all have nano-med access.
-It significantly reduces the (currently MASSIVE) survivability boost having a single med-kit in your bag gives you, unless you are a doctor. It's very possible to pull out a patch and undo any brute or burn you may have taken in a fight currently, but if there was a delay the other person could run up to you and interrupt you, or take the time to run away or heal for themselves. Overall, it makes using medical gear in combat more of a strategic thing than "pull patch out, press C".
-It makes people who aren't doctors applying patches shady. If a non-doctor begins sticking a "styptic powder" patch onto your arm, you know currently that that patch is not only styptic. If there was a delay, it would be a gamble even if it was a perfectly fine patch. You would have no idea if that scientist is hitting you with silver sulfadiazine or sarin! This would allow for more devious sneaky evil to be done with tainted patches, or might encourage people to only trust doctors healing them. I think either option would be fun.
-It would make patches all around less effective at instantly healing very large amounts of damage unless a doctor was applying them. You wouldn't be able to tank several bullets as an assistant because you grabbed the mini-patch box at roundstart or run through a raging plasma fire as an engineer because you nabbed the burn medkit as an engineer.
I'd like feedback on the validity of the points I have made and also I want to be told why this is a terrible awful idea. I'm sure this idea wouldn't be very popular but I legitimately think it would be a large improvement that would have several interesting and fun gameplay implications.
Reasons this is a good idea:
-It makes doctors more useful as they can heal much more effectively than not-doctors, leading to situations where you'd rather have a doctor heal you when you could easily heal yourself. Access is supposed to cause this, but doesn't succeed because medical supplies is very easy to get littered around the station and sec officers, the upper-heads, detective. and janitor all have nano-med access.
-It significantly reduces the (currently MASSIVE) survivability boost having a single med-kit in your bag gives you, unless you are a doctor. It's very possible to pull out a patch and undo any brute or burn you may have taken in a fight currently, but if there was a delay the other person could run up to you and interrupt you, or take the time to run away or heal for themselves. Overall, it makes using medical gear in combat more of a strategic thing than "pull patch out, press C".
-It makes people who aren't doctors applying patches shady. If a non-doctor begins sticking a "styptic powder" patch onto your arm, you know currently that that patch is not only styptic. If there was a delay, it would be a gamble even if it was a perfectly fine patch. You would have no idea if that scientist is hitting you with silver sulfadiazine or sarin! This would allow for more devious sneaky evil to be done with tainted patches, or might encourage people to only trust doctors healing them. I think either option would be fun.
-It would make patches all around less effective at instantly healing very large amounts of damage unless a doctor was applying them. You wouldn't be able to tank several bullets as an assistant because you grabbed the mini-patch box at roundstart or run through a raging plasma fire as an engineer because you nabbed the burn medkit as an engineer.
I'd like feedback on the validity of the points I have made and also I want to be told why this is a terrible awful idea. I'm sure this idea wouldn't be very popular but I legitimately think it would be a large improvement that would have several interesting and fun gameplay implications.