Removes cryo and roundstart advanced scanners, adds IB/foreign body detection to handheld scanners, and more.

[MoondancerPony]

The PR: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/7287

• Removes cryoxadone and clonexadone.
• Reuses their recipes for two new chems, anadaxon and feredaxon.
• Anadaxon treats genetic damage.
• Feredaxon treats genetic damage, slight brain damage, and is a mild painkiller.
• Cryo cells are entirely removed.
• More sleepers and patient beds have been added to Medical.
• Handheld scanners now have a toggleable ultrasound functionality.
• You can now detect potential internal bleeding as well as foreign bodies by targeting the limb you want to check when scanning.
• Non-advanced handheld scanners have a chance for false positives for internal bleeding depending on how much brute damage has been done to the limb.
• Removes body scanners from the map; Research can still build them from essentially roundstart.
• WIP - Adds the ability to print scans from the ultrasound, similar to autopsy scanners.

My goal for this is to make Medical actually require some critical thinking, practice, and time to solve things. It also makes it so that, if you aren't fast or smart enough, you won't be able to save everyone 100%. It prevents routine and challenges Medical players to improve.

It's not more punishing for the sake of being punishing. Instead, it adds an element of deduction and analysis as opposed to "scan, print, put in cryo, send to surgery". I'm also hoping that by making everyone on the same footing, it can disrupt the clique-y nature of Medical and help new players integrate into the department better.

[Bygonehero]

It makes medical require more thought, while also not robbing it of the expediency that the job usually entails. I see having to use actual reasoning from just reading the answer from a paper will slow the treatment process down at first as players get used to the new system, but ultimately, it will be a process that is masterable.

[VUX]

I dunno, I have some reservations about it because medical barely functions as it is but it could be cool, it'd be nice to try at the very least.

[GreenBoi]

Don't remove body scanners. Make them less specific and super-handy in their base components, but don't make them need to be constructed by RnD for Medbay to use. If it's meant to be built pretty early on, at basically roundstart, why even remove them and add the pain of having less information to go on to get the patient on. Some things can't even be detected easily from telltale signs the patient has on the outside like coughing or limb pain.

[MoondancerPony]

Just now, GreenBoi said:

Some things can't even be detected easily from telltale signs the patient has on the outside like coughing or limb pain.

The entire point of the PR is to fix that.

[BurgerBB]

I am absolutely not a fan of this. Before any serious non-chemistry nerfs are made to medical, medical needs to be more fun to play. Honestly there is a literal brain drain for medical players because medical is absolutely not fun to play.

[Pratepresidenten]

This suggestion brings me back to the old CMO glorydays of Exodus medical. Especially engine-less rounds.

Where I would diagnose patients left and right, and the common medical doctor would come and ask...
"HOW U KNOW LUNGS BROKEN??"
And I would run a hand through my lush, long hair, smiling as I told them..
"Ara ara.. We have a stethoscope you know.."

Seriously though. Back to basics medical, having to use some proper trial and error and deduction to find out whats wrong.

I love it!

[VVipEdout]

God, yes. Cryocells are a bore for everyone involved and their only use outside of conveyor belt treatment is for duplication of chemicals. It's entirely possible to start with less than one unit of a chemical and end up with more than is ever practical to have. Handheld scanners being able to identify specially which limb contains shrapnel/IB is also great; it's a pain to have to use either the scanner bed or diagnose it via grab like we're in the middle of an Adhomai trench.

Meanwhile, anadaxon and feredaxon are fun alternatives. Obviously the first is meant for xenobiologist/ling cases while the latter is for cloning and possibly to be used with mannitol. On that note, how do you intend to make up for the fact getting to mannitol's optimal body temperature is now impractical? Given the overlap with feredaxon, you might as well give it trauma healing and cut out mannitol. IB false positives seem more like wasted time than a fun complication, but otherwise it is a good change.

EDIT: How do you feel about rezadone? As it is it's essentially clonexadone without the cryogenics part, but you'll never ever make more than 9u at a time because carpotoxin is such a pain to get. Should it be changed in light of the new medications, left as is, or made practical to manufacture instead of RNG dependent?

Edited October 28, 2019 by ChloralCocktails

[MoondancerPony]

 

3 minutes ago, ChloralCocktails said:

On that note, how do you intend to make up for the fact getting to mannitol's optimal body temperature is now impractical?

I wasn't aware that mannitol was temperature-sensitive. I'll probably just make it based on reagent temperature, like tricord is.

3 minutes ago, ChloralCocktails said:

IB false positives seem more like wasted time than a fun complication, but otherwise it is a good change.

Calling them IB false positives isn't really correct. It's an indication of excessive trauma that suggests the doctor should investigate possible internal bleeding; if they aren't regenerating blood like they should be, *then* you assume it's internal bleeding and not simply excessive trauma. It's not an indicator of internal bleeding, it's a sign that you should look for it with other methods like oxygen levels, unexplained blood loss, and inability to regain blood.

7 minutes ago, BurgerBB said:

I am absolutely not a fan of this. Before any serious non-chemistry nerfs are made to medical, medical needs to be more fun to play. Honestly there is a literal brain drain for medical players because medical is absolutely not fun to play.

I agree that Medical is not fun to play. However, I feel that this solves the issue, at least for me and several others; I think Prate summed it up pretty accurately. It makes it less of a boring routine and optimization problem and more of actual doctoring, without requiring that you know all sorts of medical terms and stuff. You won't fix everyone 100%. You might have to splint someone instead of do surgery. You might have to use a bicaridine overdose instead of surgery for IB. You might have to observe patients for a minute or two instead of sticking them in cryo and waiting for The Numbers To Go Down while they stare at a black screen and you twiddle your thumbs.

8 minutes ago, ChloralCocktails said:

EDIT: How do you feel about rezadone? As it is it's essentially clonexadone without the cryogenics part, but you'll never ever make more than 9u at a time because carpotoxin is such a pain to get. Should it be changed in light of the new medications, left as is, or made practical to manufacture instead of RNG dependent?

I'd probably leave it to another PR, but in my opinion carpotoxin should just be made easier to get. Perhaps if aquaponics ever happens, that'll be how it's obtained.

[BurgerBB]

Like I'm super fucking surprised that people are saying yes to this. I absolutely guarantee that there will be significantly more instances of malpractices with this PR considering that 25% to 50% of medical players are inexperienced or new.

The problems with medical is not because cryo exists or body scanners exist, it's because of all the bullshit chemicals that exist in chemistry that make wounds easy as hell to cure. Some of the people here are saying "oh cryocells take too long and are annoying" but these people don't seem to realise that instead of spending 1-2 minutes waiting in a cryo cell you're going to have doctors spending 2-3 minutes trying to diagnose you.

The only time medical is really ever used in Aurorastation is when miners fall or when the antagonist start shooting up the place, putting 3-4 officers in critical condition.

[Bygonehero]

Chemistry powercreep is pretty real, ngl

1 minute ago, BurgerBB said:

Like I'm super fucking surprised that people are saying yes to this. I absolutely guarantee that there will be significantly more instances of malpractices with this PR considering that 25% to 50% of medical players are inexperienced or new.

The problems with medical is not because cryo exists or body scanners exist, it's because of all the bullshit chemicals that exist in chemistry that make wounds easy as hell to cure. Some of the people here are saying "oh cryocells take too long and are annoying" but these people don't seem to realise that instead of spending 1-2 minutes waiting in a cryo cell you're going to have doctors spending 2-3 minutes trying to diagnose you.

The only time medical is really ever used in Aurorastation is when miners fall or when the antagonist start shooting up the place, putting 3-4 officers in critical condition.

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Bygonehero

[BurgerBB]

2 minutes ago, MoondancerPony said:

Medical is not fun to play. However, I feel that this solves the issue, at least for me and several others; I think Prate summed it up pretty accurately. It makes it less of a boring routine and optimization problem and more of actual doctoring, without requiring that you know all sorts of medical terms and stuff. You won't fix everyone 100%. You might have to splint someone instead of do surgery. You might have to use a bicaridine overdose instead of surgery for IB. You might have to observe patients for a minute or two instead of sticking them in cryo and waiting for The Numbers To Go Down while they stare at a black screen and you twiddle your thumbs.

Okay. As a contributor and an ex-dev, I want to remove cloning. I want to completely remove it to make the game better, but I know that it would be dumb to do that despite it making medical better because the issue is that it would seriously make medical absolutely more unfun.

Hell, a less extreme example, I want to seriously nerf the shit out of chemicals but doing that would make medical more more tedious. Medical needs to be more fun to play before it receives any nerfs that involve removing a core feature to medical.

[MoondancerPony]

 

Just now, BurgerBB said:

I absolutely guarantee that there will be significantly more instances of malpractices with this PR considering that 25% to 50% of medical players are inexperienced or new.

This has been mentioned previously. It's not like we don't have a wiki or anything, and additionally the changes aren't exactly that difficult. We already had malpractice all over the place because our medical system was similar enough to TG's and other servers' to cause massive confusion when things started to not line up; it was in this weird sort of uncanny valley situation where it was close enough for people to be dangerously comfortable with it when they shouldn't.

2 minutes ago, BurgerBB said:

The problems with medical is not because cryo exists or body scanners exist, it's because of all the bullshit chemicals that exist in chemistry that make wounds easy as hell to cure.

I agree that six wonder-healing chemicals is way too much. Omnizine, tricordrazine, epinephrine, cryoxadone, clonexadone, and rezadone. That's why this PR removes two of those outright; I'd be fine with nerfing the others more but that would make this already unatomic PR even more unatomic.

Just now, BurgerBB said:

Medical needs to be more fun to play before it receives any nerfs that involve removing a core feature to medical.

Cryo was incredibly broken both in terms of gameplay and in code. It was a nightmare to trawl through, and even though I tried to fix it I decided I'd be better off removing it.

I and several others feel that these changes are a step towards making Medical more fun and less of a routine. This already shakes up the metagame of what chems to make and use; you can't make and use super powerful cryomixes anymore, so the most you can give in a single dose is 15u in a needle (sure, you can use two, but that's technically two doses). This is already a substantial nerf to Chemistry, but given that it allows you to still detect and reason about injuries with a little bit of thinking I don't feel it's much of a nerf to doctors themselves, especially since I'm adding mechanics like scan printing back.

[Garnascus]

42 minutes ago, MoondancerPony said:

My goal for this is to make Medical actually require some critical thinking, practice, and time to solve things. It also makes it so that, if you aren't fast or smart enough, you won't be able to save everyone 100%. It prevents routine and challenges Medical players to improve.

Strongly disagree but i admit i do not play medical. In my experience you cant just make the tools a department has objectively worse and expect them to keep playing and having fun. I feel like making medical a more frustrating experience for both the patient and the doctor just wont be very healthy.

[BurgerBB]

Do you know what would nerf cryomixes? A limit on how much you body can metabolize chemicals at once. In total.

If I drink 800 different chemicals inside a 800 unit container it would all metabolize at once. That is why mixes are powerful. This is how you fix chemistry's bullshit, not by punishing doctors or players.

[Doxxmedearly]

Seems like a half-decent step, but I have to echo diggiez in that removal of the scanners full-out seems excessive. It'd be nice if they had a neutered functionality until upgraded. Otherwise I think the changes are pretty fine. I don't think it'll make medical as unfun as people say, but nor will it make it as fun as you seem to hope. Still, reworking a whole department and system is something to take a few steps at a time.

Quote

it's because of all the bullshit chemicals that exist in chemistry that make wounds easy as hell to cure.

Yeah this is pretty much the crux of what makes medical braindead easy. Chems work 2good2fast. It's not scanners or cryocells. All chems are as simple as inject and wait. Barely any risk of OD and the side-effects aren't even scary. There's no fun to it. Just "put the right reagent in the person and watch them be fine in 5 minutes." Medical needs more ways to treat things besides meds and surgery.

Quote

Omnizine, tricordrazine, epinephrine, cryoxadone, clonexadone, and rezadone. That's why this PR removes two of those outright; I'd be fine with nerfing the others more but that would make this already unatomic PR even more unatomic.

Omnizine sucks, tricord is balanced by being slow, and rezadone is strong as the cost of not being easy to produce. I'd say these are fine where they are.

Quote

This already shakes up the metagame of what chems to make and use; you can't make and use super powerful cryomixes anymore, so the most you can give in a single dose is 15u in a needle (sure, you can use two, but that's technically two doses). This is already a substantial nerf to Chemistry

Getting rid of cryomixes barely even touches the power of chem, if that's what you're thinking. Even basic wondermixes of the standard drugs are incredibly powerful, and creative/experienced chemists have made some potent things in the last few months. Half the time you don't need to use a cryocell because medication already covers it.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Doxxmedearly

[VVipEdout]

10 minutes ago, BurgerBB said:

Like I'm super fucking surprised that people are saying yes to this. I absolutely guarantee that there will be significantly more instances of malpractices with this PR considering that 25% to 50% of medical players are inexperienced or new.

The problems with medical is not because cryo exists or body scanners exist, it's because of all the bullshit chemicals that exist in chemistry that make wounds easy as hell to cure. Some of the people here are saying "oh cryocells take too long and are annoying" but these people don't seem to realise that instead of spending 1-2 minutes waiting in a cryo cell you're going to have doctors spending 2-3 minutes trying to diagnose you.

The only time medical is really ever used in Aurorastation is when miners fall or when the antagonist start shooting up the place, putting 3-4 officers in critical condition.

PR #5414, Adds Omnizine, Atropine, Epinephrine, Mannitol, by BurgerBB. The strictly worse tricordrazine nobody uses, two omni-healing chemicals while in crit, and what is currently considered an absolute requirement for cloning other than a psychologist. It's entirely possible to make a cocktail that will heal 7 brute/burn and 16 oxyloss for only 1 point of toxins with only atropine and tricordrazine on critical condition, plus 5 points of the highest damage when we throw epinephrine in. Strictly better than bicaridine, a specialised chemical, for brute damage and equal or better than dermaline if the highest damage is burn and the patient is in critical. Being responsible for what is essentially an optimal mix and then complaining about 'bullshit chemicals' is either shortsighted or dishonest.

On the 'miners falling and antagonists shooting' comment, what can be done but to doubt whether you play at all? Changeling and vampire are medical-intensive modes, there are regular psychological examinations, electrical accidents, radiation treatments, physical checkups, prisoners wounded by security or themselves, so on and so forth. If you really do believe that spending a minute unconscious and then rushing back out is the same as roleplaying a treatment and actively participating, I don't know what to tell you.

[MoondancerPony]

1 minute ago, Garnascus said:

In my experience you cant just make the tools a department has objectively worse and expect them to keep playing and having fun. 

They are not objectively worse. It changes Medical from a grindy, repetitive process into something that requires you to think even slightly. Cryo was incredibly broken and multiplied any reagents in it by ten, which some chemistry mains used to multiply hard to get chems exponentially using monkeys or similar.

3 minutes ago, Doxxmedearly said:

All chems are as simple as inject and wait. Barely any risk of OD and the side-effects aren't even scary.

I suggested adding side effects that required brief observation and mitigation if necessary, like warfarin-induced skin necrosis (as a severe example) or indigestion (like thetamycin). I'd also like to add chemicals to avoid these side effects which also have their own side effects; you can give someone an anti-vomiting drug to prevent the nausea caused by thetamycin, but it has a chance of causing drowsiness. You can give them a slight stimulant like caffeine pills to offset it, but that could exacerbate their nausea or cause jitteriness that makes you drop items, etc. Sometimes you'd have to simply decide that the primary side effect isn't bad enough to warrant putting them on a drug cocktail that exponentially increases the number of potential side effects to watch for.

I'd also love to add more drug interactions, i.e. mixing stimulants and sedatives amplifies the negative effects of both and nullifies their positive effects. You'd start having difficulty breathing, feel restless, anxious, and jittery, as well as drowsy. Mixing painkillers and alcohol is already a bad idea in-game, and the same goes for alcohol and most mental medications (I actually see them used the least out of all the medical chems, which is unfortunate!).

Rest assured, this isn't the last and only PR I'm going to make to try and rebalance Medical.

[Garnascus]

I dunno, i am skeptical but like i said i do not play medical. I would not mind seeing a test merge. 

[BurgerBB]

4 minutes ago, ChloralCocktails said:

PR #5414, Adds Omnizine, Atropine, Epinephrine, Mannitol, by BurgerBB. The strictly worse tricordrazine nobody uses, two omni-healing chemicals while in crit, and what is currently considered an absolute requirement for cloning other than a psychologist. It's entirely possible to make a cocktail that will heal 7 brute/burn and 16 oxyloss for only 1 point of toxins with only atropine and tricordrazine on critical condition, plus 5 points of the highest damage when we throw epinephrine in. Strictly better than bicaridine, a specialised chemical, for brute damage and equal or better than dermaline if the highest damage is burn and the patient is in critical. Being responsible for what is essentially an optimal mix and then complaining about 'bullshit chemicals' is either shortsighted or dishonest.

On the 'miners falling and antagonists shooting' comment, what can be done but to doubt whether you play at all? Changeling and vampire are medical-intensive modes, there are regular psychological examinations, electrical accidents, radiation treatments, physical checkups, prisoners wounded by security or themselves, so on and so forth. If you really do believe that spending a minute unconscious and then rushing back out is the same as roleplaying a treatment and actively participating, I don't know what to tell you.

are you aware that my opinions can change on a subject throughout the 1 year since I made that PR

 

My PR seemed like a good idea at the time but ultimately it's a bad PR. I've said this plenty of times before and expressed my regret for making that PR. That PR caused issues and so will this one.

 

[Forktress]

I'd be more inclined to give this a chance if the false positive thing was dropped. Seems like a massive nerf to medical, cryo I don't care about but as a surgeon player I can see these changes contributing to a LOT of deaths. Without the false positives I'd give it a whirl though. I can get used to anything with time if its reasonable.

[SatinsPristOTD]

I'm genuinely against removing sci-fi things from the sci-fi game. Cryotherapy is something we already use today. In fact, they freeze off my mothers skin cancer. Medical doesn't need to be HARDER, it needs to be more fun. It's an absolute drag to play the damn department.

Please don't take things from us. Add things.

Defibs
Life-support systems
Physical Therapy

[Resilynn]

Here is why I believe we still need scanners-

I probably have the most hours in medical on this entire server, I'm a wizard at all things medical, I can cure internal bleeding mycosis backwards uphill both ways etc etc etc.

 

I still take a scan to the OR every single time.  Because sometimes, OOCly, I forget what I'm operating on.  Often, because that's just solid RP.  

A posed solution to this problem was to include more pens and papers, and I find that hilariously LRP.  Imagine handing a surgeon a paper that says "his brain fucked" and the guy can just, somehow fix that exact damage.  A reminder than equipment is ICly more difficult to operate than it is OOCly.  ICly, a scan is very likely a complex series of numbers and advancing imaging that it takes a professional to read (which is why it's stupid when Janitor [name redacted] barges into medical and declares Assistant-and-friend-of-janitor-23 has IB in his left testicle).  Replacing that with a scrap of paper that says IB lower body is OOCly about the same, but ICly a world of difference.  If we were MRP, no problem.

Another posed solution was having the ability to print off an analyzer, in which case, that's just a buff.  That's just handheld scanners.

Moreover, a huge part of what doctors and nurses do is diagnosis and scanning before handing a patient off to the surgeon.  I feel this change removes that role.

The rest of the changes, cool.  I'm fine with removing cryo.  I'm fine with altering cryodaxone and clonexadone.  

[Code2200]

I'm for keeping Cryo as well as feel like it could cause problems - especially in terms of malpractice (though it could stand to be rewritten anyway tbh). A sci-fi space game should have those nice nostalgic space techs to keep the vibe. I also will say that I'm very hesitant to push medical too far into medical practice. This is a game after all. 

 

With that all said, I'm down to give it a try - it will either be fun or a pain in the ass <3

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Removing the advanced scanners will create longer wait times in medical, because individually checking every limb for damage is time consuming. In all the time I am trying to diagnose the patient, their damage is steadily increasing. Advanced scanners are absolutely necessary because they allow quick and easy examinations and identify what is wrong where. The second most important function of an advanced scanner is that you can print out a list of all the damage and run with it and the patient to the OR, giving the surgeon a reliable and consistent method of ensuring they don't miss anything.

You are removing the automation and increasing an incredible amount of human error into the system.  I predict that this will drastically raise the amount of fatalities from waiting times, with people with serious wounds dying before they can get necessary stabilization treatment. Things would probably level out, but these changes will most definately permanently increase waiting times and lower survivability in the medbay.

Removing cryo is.... Okay I guess... It'll have the same problems because it's really useful to keep people alive who are on the brink of death with insane levels of damage.

But all of this combined into one big PR is going to obliterate medical's ability to keep people alive for, heck, probably weeks or even months.

On an aesthetic level it also hurts our status as a high class research station to suddenly revert back to 21st century diagnostics. In star trek their handheld scanners were as precise as our advanced scanner beds.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix