Medical patch should have an application delay for non-doctors

[Flaborized]

Okay additional side-idea:

Also add a delay when people with medical training apply a patch to themselves. This would totally eliminate the whole "use a couple patches instantly mid-fight" thing while allowing doctors to still heal others at the same rate and ease they do now.

Currently roboticists, medical doctors, and the MD all have medical training. I don't think having it be transferable via implants is a great idea unless there was some sort of reason not to take them. If you put, say, two in the MD's locker, and then there is no MD, you are functionally giving the HoP and cap and anyone else who pleases medical training. 

I think it'd be fine to make it something you only can get by actually being a job. After all, hired chaplains don't become immune to wizards and hired sec officers don't get all the buffs that sec officers have.

[kyle2143]

I think the idea definitely warrants trying it out. I like the idea, but I am concerned how it would work from a balancing perspective.

I would like it if patches and damage in general actually cared about the targeted/damaged area, but that's too much to ask for.

At the very least, I think that this should be tried for a bit. And I dunno if current custom patches use the actionbar graphic or something, but applying patches definitely should to make it clear what is being done.

[poland spring]

yeah only people with medical training get instant use of patches on others, and NOBODY gets instant use on themselves. Game becomes more dangerous but makes it more fun to be a doctor, and you definitely cut down on cheap strategies for rampages. It's a good "nerf" because it adds a layer of tactics to the game that was previously overshadowed by easy access to instant healing. Though I suppose now people will just carry a bunch of beakers around, it's still more prepwork than duck into the nearest room with a medkit

[kyle2143]

yeah only people with medical training get instant use of patches on others, and NOBODY gets instant use on themselves.  Game becomes more dangerous but makes it more fun to be a doctor, and you definitely cut down on cheap strategies for rampages.  It's a good "nerf" because it adds a layer of tactics to the game that was previously overshadowed by easy access to instant healing.  Though I suppose now people will just carry a bunch of beakers around, it's still more prepwork than duck into the nearest room with a medkit

That beaker thing is a good point. This is essentially a nerf to medkits and patches and a buff to chemistry (or people who have access to beakers and a chem dispenser)

I'd say that a fair compromise would be to add the delay for pouring 10 units of a beaker onto a person or yourself like how there would be a delay for patches. That way, if you wanted to cheese it with beakers and chemistry, it would force you to take the extra step and use 2 beakers or pills to quickly splash 10 units of reagent in a beaker.

[Tarmunora]

One thing to note about beakers, is that a large beaker only holds 100, I iirc medical patches were 40 each, so if you wanted to use (non-artifact) beakers you'd have to be refilling them pretty constantly

[Wisecrack34]

Maybe have beakers contents slowly apply their effects over time (With an additional chemical tom act as an accelerator, requiring more work) but this would be a secondary suggestion that would need to be looked into after this one

[Roomba]

Yeah, but I think we should add an additional delay to the delay delay, otherwise people will delay the delay so they can delay the delay delay. Perhaps if we delayed the delay to delay the delay delay, we could delay the delaying of the delay for the delay delay.

Delays!

[Firebarrage]

Make people pass a randomly generated medical test to get medical training

[Prichard]

I think beakers slowly applying their contents over time would break too many things. There are quite a few touch reagents that would lose functionality (fluorosulfuric acid im looking at you).

Plus it just doesn’t make sense to me why or how they would do that *shrug

[warcrimes]

what if :

a) remove all delays on all patches
b) make patches very slowly infuse their chems, requiring 30+ seconds of skin contact to dump it all
c) make patches removable by self-clicking with grab / disarm, with open hand, removing the last placed patch (stack, not queue)
d) give a red "this patch feels weird" for custom patches with reagents other than whitelisted "good" chems.

this accomplishes most of the wants in this thread without most of the broken rebalancing.
> patches become less broken, while medical docs retain the most effective means of healing (yknow, the rest of medbay, including cryotubes!!!!)
> deathpatches become less obvious, and while still distinct from "pristine" med patches, indistinguishable from "okay" med patches.
> realism

[Roomba]

I don’t think you realize how much more that breaks the game.

Slow chem infusion means hands-free, zero management upkeep. Cue people slapping custom meth/healing patches on themselves, then running around functionally invincible for the next few minutes.

[warcrimes]

I don’t think you realize how much more that breaks the game.

Slow chem infusion means hands-free, zero management upkeep. Cue people slapping custom meth/healing patches on themselves, then running around functionally invincible for the next few minutes.

Well i'm not suggesting cigarette-level slowness, more like 1/4 of the contents every 5 seconds or so. The point is to give yourself reaction time to remove it, and give you assailant time to finish you off before your gaping chest wounds magically flex-seal themselves up

[Roomba]

With instant patches, the victim still has to take them out of wherever they’re stashed and slap them on themselves. This can be countered by the usual method of stunning and/or otherwise incapacitating the victim.

Good luck doing that when the victim has slapped a half-dozen meth/omnizine patches on themselves prior to combat.

[Prichard]

Fair point. If patches are delayed application you better believe im covering every square inch of my body when the hecking syndicate show up

[warcrimes]

i'm not really understanding this - by the time you got to the 5th or 6th and engaged someone, you've already got half the payload in your bloodstream, and by the time the second punch is thrown, they're fully infused.

We're not talking about the same timescales here