06-29-2013, 04:29 AM
For those following along in the SA thread, you already know that Cogwerks is working on new ailments caused by specific damage types, in an effort to improve the job of doctor. You might also have seen my latest post, which is what I'm here to discuss with you today!
Gentlemen and gentleladies! I ask you today to imagine... imagine a world with no crit. With no endless black screens, with no lack of gameplay as a gameplay element. Imagine a world where you're conscious, if not fully abled, right up until you finally take your last breath... I say it is possible! And I say that Cogwerks has shown us the means to do so!
Here's my idea: Give each damage type two associated ailments. One that happens when you take 50 of that damage, one that happens when you take 100. The way things are now, if you take 100 damage total you drop into crit. Period. One the one hand, this new idea would mean that you could coast along with 25-30 of each type of damage, and make it above the crit threshold scott-free!
However, despite the major hoops you'd have to jump through for that to happen in the first place, you'd still have to contend with ailments. Once one of those types passes 50, you're screwed. Let me illustrate my point, using Oxygen damage, and the possible ailments Pneumonia and Emphysema:
Take enough O2 damage, and you contract pneumonia. Your movement speed is slowed, (By the same amount you previously would be slowed for 50 total damage, under the Crit system) red text flashes letting you know that breathing is ragged. And you start to cough. On it's own, annoying but not completely debilitating. Once your O2 damage drops below 50, you have a chance of it going away, or you can get some cheap pills that will fix you right up from a doctor.
Once you top 100 O2 damage, though, then shit gets real. The coughs are frequent, terrible spasms rendering you barely better than a cluwne. Talking is simply not going to happen, not with your lungs as raggedy-ass as they are. And when you do get up, you can't run. You have asthma, stupid pubbie, running is for healthy people. You can slowly walk your ass to medbay, and try to sign to a doctor that you need radical surgery, or use a note to bribe some chemists for pills to mitigate the worst effects. Either way, you're not in crit, but you're also going to have a hell of a hard time actually doing anything.
Similar ailments could be added for the other three damage types, with the 100+ being crippling, and the 50+ being annoying... unless you have more than one, in which case it's still pretty damn crippling.
Imagine it, though. You take a fuckton of damage, and are sitting at 150~ total. No more black screen. No more dead silence, and waiting. You can scream at passerbys that you're fucked, or yell in the radio where the doctor needs to go. You can limp to medbay, or hole up in QM and hope your fellow Quartermaster knows how to use that scalpel he stole effectively. You're as able to take action as you were before, but you're not out of the game like you were before. And best of all, it will be fucking awesome to be a doctor.
Medbay is full of patients, you diagnose their symptoms, check them over with the health scanner, and prescribe a regiment to combat their ailments. A borg drags in a burned miner, and oh shit he's starting to code! Grab some epinephrine and strap his ass to the table, you need to operate now!
Gentlemen and gentleladies! I ask you today to imagine... imagine a world with no crit. With no endless black screens, with no lack of gameplay as a gameplay element. Imagine a world where you're conscious, if not fully abled, right up until you finally take your last breath... I say it is possible! And I say that Cogwerks has shown us the means to do so!
Here's my idea: Give each damage type two associated ailments. One that happens when you take 50 of that damage, one that happens when you take 100. The way things are now, if you take 100 damage total you drop into crit. Period. One the one hand, this new idea would mean that you could coast along with 25-30 of each type of damage, and make it above the crit threshold scott-free!
However, despite the major hoops you'd have to jump through for that to happen in the first place, you'd still have to contend with ailments. Once one of those types passes 50, you're screwed. Let me illustrate my point, using Oxygen damage, and the possible ailments Pneumonia and Emphysema:
Take enough O2 damage, and you contract pneumonia. Your movement speed is slowed, (By the same amount you previously would be slowed for 50 total damage, under the Crit system) red text flashes letting you know that breathing is ragged. And you start to cough. On it's own, annoying but not completely debilitating. Once your O2 damage drops below 50, you have a chance of it going away, or you can get some cheap pills that will fix you right up from a doctor.
Once you top 100 O2 damage, though, then shit gets real. The coughs are frequent, terrible spasms rendering you barely better than a cluwne. Talking is simply not going to happen, not with your lungs as raggedy-ass as they are. And when you do get up, you can't run. You have asthma, stupid pubbie, running is for healthy people. You can slowly walk your ass to medbay, and try to sign to a doctor that you need radical surgery, or use a note to bribe some chemists for pills to mitigate the worst effects. Either way, you're not in crit, but you're also going to have a hell of a hard time actually doing anything.
Similar ailments could be added for the other three damage types, with the 100+ being crippling, and the 50+ being annoying... unless you have more than one, in which case it's still pretty damn crippling.
Imagine it, though. You take a fuckton of damage, and are sitting at 150~ total. No more black screen. No more dead silence, and waiting. You can scream at passerbys that you're fucked, or yell in the radio where the doctor needs to go. You can limp to medbay, or hole up in QM and hope your fellow Quartermaster knows how to use that scalpel he stole effectively. You're as able to take action as you were before, but you're not out of the game like you were before. And best of all, it will be fucking awesome to be a doctor.
Medbay is full of patients, you diagnose their symptoms, check them over with the health scanner, and prescribe a regiment to combat their ailments. A borg drags in a burned miner, and oh shit he's starting to code! Grab some epinephrine and strap his ass to the table, you need to operate now!