[CLOSED PR] Broken Bones, Casts, Splints, and Crutches

[Kotlol]

Well if that's the case I guess I have no more things to say. I am still against it due to the messiness of it all, but if you tell me that most antagonists can avoid broken bones that this is an okay add then. Maybe a few tweaks or "emergency tools" for security so they can get back up a lil faster then average joe schmoe, but if both sides can avoid it and both sides can add it then it's fine.


One thing though. You can spawn with cybernetic arms with a trait or synthetic arms.
How do synthetic arms count in the process? Just curious on that part.

[Tyrant]

Kneecapping someone is definitely one good way to keep a prisoner that doesn't involve drugging your opponent, but again, this is a more rp oriented view rather than a classic one. Of course, if you have the firepower to deal over 30 brute per hit, i don't think bones breaking a little will slow you down in flat out killing them anyway, but just makes healing a bit more cumbersome (and autopsies more interesting).

A point which i think i failed to mention is that the broken bones dont hurt until you try to use them, so you can get dragged around without incurring injuries, and even with two shattered legs you can still crawl or hobble away, albeit slowly (and causing the fragments to dig into your surrounding tissue and cause general brute damage). The meta then becomes towards "which limb should i target", because targeting the chest won't break things, and different limbs have different effects (break two elbows and they can't hold things or attack as well, break two legs and they can't eacape). If the combat system doesn't include it already, targeting things other than chest should have a higher fumble chance and greater chance of missing, which should balance the bone breaking strats somewhat.

A lot of people have suggested organ damage to me as well, but idk much about it and honestly have no interest in coding that so yea.

---

My current plan is to have borg or synthetic arms be unbreakable, since they don't have bones and are made of sterner stuff. Body armour should lessen brute impact and protect you from bone breaking somewhat, but if all else fails, we can have some kind of security exoskeletal brace which lets you ignore your broken bones and move as normal or something.

One thing i hope people do is not go "oh new meta ew" but instead go "hmm how can i use this/defend against this". I don't want every fight to become about bones though, i'd like for breaks to be rather rare actually. We'll have to see what consensus is though.
I've temporarily halted progress on the code in order to let people and devs come to a consensus about this, because i understand it's quite a big change. Thanks to everyone once again for the feedback

[Frank_Stein]

i do believe that 'fights having long lasting consequences' is a pretty significant tonal shift for goon.

I think our combat system is just too fast to this and players generally hate the lingering negative effects

I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Currently, combat and recovery are pretty quick. 

While I think the system has promise, it doesn't quite match the current game pace.

I think one way you could take it is make losing a limb a more dangerous thing, with heavy blood loss you'd need to mitigate. Create more space for a broken limb as the less serious injury.

[Tyrant]

I think one way you could take it is make losing a limb a more dangerous thing, with heavy blood loss you'd need to mitigate. Create more space for a broken limb as the less serious injury.

This is a good point actually... buff limb loss so that people prefer bone breaking. Probably worth being put in a separate PR, I suppose.

[babayetu83]

instead of full on broken bones, why not a half-step in that direction with twists and sprains? mildly inconvenient but not to where you would want to always have cybernetic limbs to circumvent it

[TDHooligan]

having thought on this more, and reading posts about limb loss:

There could be room to make lethals less "big damage number" and more "fuck people up with damage". As yetu suggested, re-brand this as sprains/dislocations.

If you make it so limbs get sprained/dislocated as they're hit, lethals don't need to stop your living in 3 hits, and instead cripple you REALLY bad in shallow crit - This could lower the necessity for stun weapons' current raw power.

You can fix your sprains/breaks with a short help-action on the affected limb (perhaps give players a helpful tip if they haven't fixed it in X seconds) - but now limb targeting might add something more useful to combat.

Sprained arms could have a drop chance, reduced crits, so that a lucky fire extinguisher from a losing player makes the winner drop their weapon. Legs give a movespeed penalty and a trip chance on sprinting. Lethal fights get funnier and messier as they go along, but they're always a couple 5-second actions away from a full reset if you aren't in mid-late crit.

In one way it kinda slows down healing yourself after a fight (which I think has been an issue anyway) but also stops people dying quite as fast (which i think is a net speed-up). Players can re-set their own limbs or have a doctor do it for them, but it's seconds rather than minutes.

[Kotlol]

This seems better... but maybe we need a different damage type for bones too then insted of it being brute. (Though brute does help)

This damage "doesn't" count for going critical, but certain bones being fractured or broken can add a disadvantage against brute damage.

Example: "Broken ribs = 10% more brute damage to the chest + gasping for breath"
Skull fracture = 25% more brute damage + brain damage added.

That kinda stuff for statuses, but for damage I just wanna add "Fracture" damage. Similiar to "organ damage"
So some weapons can do "fracture damage" more then normal damage and be more tactical.

This is why I rather have more ways to do ORGAN DAMAGE before doing this whole bone thing.
Imagine shooting someone in the chest and their longue or heart are punctures and need surgery.
They won't die right away.. but it's still long.

This kinda stuff I think is what combat needs more then a broken bone system at the moment as there are ways to disabling people or disorient em by attacking organs.

Heck you can make people blind and deaf too with the right methodes.

[Tyrant]

Okay, let's summarise the conclusions and suggestions that have been said so far (the bold words summarise the point):

• Good for RPing, not so much for classic.
  
• Suggestion: It's worth introducing chems to interact with the bone system, in terms of repair speed (or bone health directly), strengthening and weakening. Certain brute repair chems could 'also' heal bones.
  
• Doesn't fit in properly with the combat system:
  

1. Combat is too fast for this to be viable, as a broken bone equals an instant loss of the fight basically
   
2. People will aim for bones in order to try and cripple faster (good or bad depending on your view on lethality vs incapacitation). Similar functionality as severing limbs with katana, it fucks up their movement. Similar applications. It's also worth buffing limb severing so that bone breaking is favoured over that rather than being the same. This can also make 'lethals' more about fucking them up so they can't escape rather than outright putting them on death's door.
   
3. Powergaming involves preemptively installing borg arms because they can't break (should they be breakable? not really, casts won't do anything on them. If they do break they have to be fixed some other way). This will annoy roboticists, but also rewards thinking ahead...
   
4. Buffs people who play aggressively and have big strong brute weapons. Sec tends to use stuns, so this buffs basically exclusively antags, or the collective force of a crowd attacking valid antags.
   
5. Hinders reengagements by forcing people to slow down. Both good and bad.
   

• Doesn't fit in properly with the medical system:
  

1. Doctoring on classic involves a lot of "help yourself" and prioritises speed. Broken bones are pretty much as far from that as you can get..
   
2. Long lasting consequences are a very big tone shift. Nobody seems to like having long lasting afflictions
   
3. There should be more than just splints and casts for bone repair. Possibly keeping it as a low tech "do it yourself" option while there's some more high tech and faster sci fi bone repair methods, like possibly cryo or chems.
   
4. The brute damage from the bone fragments will most likely confuse people (like how appendicitis confuses people when they start losing health for no discernable reason). However, you'll only incur damage when you try to use said broken limb. Still, like organ damage, it may annoy people.
   

• "Hey what if you did organ damage instead" for long lasting damage. Or just having weapons that have long term impacts. (the reason why is that i don't want to, i want bones to go crunch, i want people to hobble about on crutches. The speed of bone healing is a side thing honestly, i could just have it be repaired under brute, i just want heavily injured people to have their movement hindered)
  
• Bones will only take damage when the individual damage source is above 30 brute. This means nukie and sec armour should prevent most bone damage.
  
• The only bones being considered in this PR are arms and legs. Ribs and skulls are a whole other kettle of fish which i am not touching right now.
  
• Suggestion: Twists, dislocations and sprains could have similar movement debuffs without the slow recovery, and could be fixed with a quick help intent on the affected limb (possibly incurring a small amount of brute when being 'set') . Has a similar 'heat of battle' impact but doesn't have the long after battle care of bones. Makes limb targeting in combat actually have an impact (if you sprain the arm they're attacking you with, they might drop their weapon )
  
• Suggestion: Fracture damage (i.e. bone damage) makes that limb incur more damage under circumstances depending on usage. Quite similar to the original idea.
  

[Tyrant]

After much consideration, I've decided to close the PR.
The scope was too big, and there was too much of the combat balance being changed.
I'll still work on crutches and possibly sprains, and leave fully broken bones for much later once some feedback comes in on the sprains and dislocations.
Thanks for all the wonderful feedback.