What's with the automender change?

[Meggal Bozale]

Title, I don't see what this does except annoy anyone trying to survive. I can think of a few ways to get around it, but I don't see what was so broken about menders that their access had to be so severely limited to anyone who isn't a doc.

[Leeanei]

The point of the change was to give Doctors a leg up on anyone who just felt like having a full medkit. Lean on docs more so they have more to do.

[Splints]

I don't have an opinion on the change, but the reasoning for the change is outlined in the pull request here https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/5747

Quoting Kyle:

This aims to pivot the Auto-Mender from being a ubiquitous healing item that everybody and their mother has on them, to a specialized tool for doctors. We want them to have a high value item for doctors, and everyone really. Like a Security Officer's stun baton. You'll not want to just throw it away when it runs out of "charge" or let anyone take it from you.

As to the other part of the rationale behind this change; it's that currently with all the menders everywhere, it's been a bit trivial for anyone to very quickly heal themselves from even extreme damage without the aid of another player. This is sort of a symptom of chemistry being essentially the only reasonable way to heal from anything, but these menders everywhere puts those in the hands of everyone for too cheap.

[Meggal Bozale]

I sure hope to see more competent docs out there, then. I try my best to work as a doctor, and I do pretty damn good, but I see about one or two other competent doctors at maximum per round. Other doctors are new/very new and don't know in what ways to respond quickly enough to save a patient. I'm worried more about that aspect than allowing doctors to do their job.

[Chayot]

It seems like, for a while now, they've been trying to solve this critical, near-dead player-zombies problem.

Players who are mortally wounded, like -400% HP, and still fighting on. (I've seen even -800% still alive, before)
They've decreased the Life Loop (?) to as low as -200% to try to mitigate this. Thankfully it was raised again as too many were dying too quickly.

Do you know how often players reach -300% HP, pull out an automender and just heal themselves back to full health??
Rampagers who carry boxes of automenders because it's the cheesiest, space-effective way to heal yourself?

Now, if you want one you have to be a doctor, or kill one. (Of course you could make them if you get the mats)
I think this is great.
Sad for any doctor that has his stolen or lost.
Easy healing, it seems they've long been moving away from. (Automenders used to heal with greater proficiency.*)

Aside from that, as you may know, there are methods that are effective at healing which don't require automenders.

I agree with the changes overall, it's interesting.
Have you, as an experienced player, found that not having automenders has been detrimental to your gameplay experience, or ability to keep your player healthy?
Personally, I haven't.

---
Worded a sentence better. Removed a comma.

[Flaborized]

The people who are best at doctoring should be doctors, so doctors now have superior access to medical tools. Medkits that have refuel carts are still useful to non-doctors (through patches and epi pens) but you'd *rather* have a doctor using a medical kit on you. It's more interesting to play doctor if you offer something unique, and doctors are more valuable of a role to have or lose if they matter more. The idea is partially to add importance to the role.

Not every change that restricts something needs to be because somebody complained or to 'nerf' something broken. There doesn't have to be something glaringly wrong with the game for a change that makes someone in the game weaker at something to be justified if it improves the game overall.

[Meggal Bozale]

Oh uh, just noticed that the refill cartridges are only 200 units. Docs can grab a fuel tank and have twice the storage. Maybe it's worth changing something to rectify that? Preferably more storage in their refill cartridges to be a two-time use ordeal.

[Ikea]

Always been that way for chem storage to refill automenders with, havent checked but I assume the refill cartridge is a small item. This means you can fit it in boxes, 7 refill cartridges in a single box is 1400u for a single inventory space, compared to one fuel tank which is 400u also taking up a single inventory space.

[Froggit_Dogget]

I really like these changes. Lethals might actually be lethal.

[HonkyDonky]

Pretty good change overall, though personally I'd like to see atleast one Auto-Mender in Robotics.

[BatElite]

Spawning roboticists with a brute mender (+ high-cap refill?) seems reasonable to me, they go through styptic like candy.

Is this going to make geneticists even less useful at doctoring? :P

[HonkyDonky]

Have Geneticists ever been useful at doctoring? XD

[kyle2143]

Pretty good change overall, though personally I'd like to see atleast one Auto-Mender in Robotics.

Yeah, this is good, I just did this. I forgot about roboticists' need for menders I guess.

[Katzen]

Title, I don't see what this does except annoy anyone trying to survive. I can think of a few ways to get around it, but I don't see what was so broken about menders that their access had to be so severely limited to anyone who isn't a doc.

Common complaint was traitors putting someone into crit and then watching them use an automender to bounce back.

[Oremir]

I think these changes were possitive in general, it wasn't uncommon for Sec or someone else to drop by Medical and help themselves to a full medkit with menders, i've done it myself a couple of times, wich always felt a bit awkward when you were playing Meddoc.

Nah this has put some more responsibility back in the shoes of the Meddoc, a good reason for people to go Paramedic and go into the thick of things to help wounded crewmembers.

ⁿᵒʷ ˡᵉᵗˢ ᵗᵃˡᵏ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ˢᵘʳᵍᵉʳʸ ᵃⁿᵈ ʰᵒʷ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ'ˢ ᵃ ˡᵃᶜᵏ ᵒᶠ ᶦᵗ ᵃᵗ ˡᵉᵃˢᵗ ᵒⁿ ᴿᴾ