Medicine supplies "left over from previous shift"

[Tomixcomics]

Right, so, I feel like this idea could work well for several departments, but I'm mostly gonna focus on it in the context of medical, since I feel like that's where it would apply best.

I think medical should have random things left over "from previous shifts" when a round starts. Namely meds. (To clarify: This doesn't actually have anything to do with what medbay had last shift, I'm talking about randomly generated items)
It always feels a bit weird to me how everything about medical "resets", arguably more than other departments do, between shifts.
There are never any meds in the fridge at the start of the shift even though there's usually plenty at the end of the shift (assuming there was a chemist). And even though almost every shift ends up with Medical getting something like a medibot, or special scalpels, or some other "boons", they're always gone by the time the next shift rolls around, yet all the characters know what they are.

I think it would be nice if, at the start of a shift, medical would start with a certain (SMALL! I don't want to take ALL the challenge out of it) number of randomly generated supplies, as though they were left over from previous shifts. Maybe like... 3 or so bottles of random chems in the chemistry fridge, or like, a %5 chance of there being a lazer scalpel in the OR, or a medibot, etc. Maybe you have like a %1 chance of rolling a mech parked in the EMT bay!

Mostly, the chems idea, though. I feel like this is mostly important in the context of leftover chems.

Now, obviously, I'm not saying we should just start fully kitted out. I don't want to take the job away from the pharmacists, roboticists and cargo techs who usually supply this stuff. But having just a FEW randomly spawned supplies at the start of the shift would...

1. Increase realism, because medbay wouldn't have to keep resetting and pretending nothing happened and that items just vanish between shifts for no reason like it was a bad sitcom, and science would actually need to check what medbay needs instead of just assuming all their gear disappeared again, leading to more interaction between departments.
2. Have a chance of helping you out at least a little on lowpop shifts where there just isn't anyone to make you the stuff you need
3. Add an interesting aspect of resource managment. ("We only have one half-empty bottle of X! Use it VERY sparingly! Wait... Who took it?!?! YOU'RE A SURGEON WHY ARE YOU TAKING OUR ONLY BOTTLE OF ALKYSINE?!")

Edited October 14, 2020 by Tomixcomics

[Playbahnosh]

We already have this. Cargo storage starts with a random variety of supplies, some of which is medical and can contain just what you described, bar advanced meds. You can rationalize this by the by the cleanup crew tidying up departments and dumping the stuff left by the previous shift into storage before the next one arrives. It sorta makes sense ICly. If cargo is competent, they usually sort the junk in the back and mail it to their respective departments.

To include your idea, we could add a locked "Pharmacy" crate to the random junk in cargo that would spawn a few bottles of random advanced chems.

[Tomixcomics]

I always felt like cargo was it's own seperate thing, like incoming supply shipments to the Aurora that just haven't been sent to their departments yet. That's the way I've seen it get played off by other characters, as well. I don't see why the cleanup crew would remove gear like advanced scalpels form the Operating Rooms and bring them to cargo. (I mean, obviously some suspension of disbelief has to be in play with ANYTHING involving the cleanup crew and shift transfers and all that, I realize that, but still... I feel like there's more mental gymnastics involved in how Medbay "resets" itself than there is with other departments). Plus, while there are exceptions to this, more often than not, Medbay only gets a shipment from cargo about halfway into the shift, if at all. If a mess has already hit the fan by then, it might take until the end of the shift to even realize a shipment arrived or get around to seeing what's in the crate in the firstplace.

I feel like having at least a small handful of items spawn in Medbay itself would help give the feel of things left over from previous shifts, help players during lowpop, and help cause discussion and variety between medical and science.
(I really feel like it's become a meme to have someone from science come to Medbay, drop off some stuff and walk off without saying a single word).

And if the amount of randomly spawned items is small enough I don't think it will detract from the contributions that pharmacy, science and cargo have in these regards, while adding value to both realism and resource managment.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Tomixcomics

[Boggle08]

I feel like this could be done just by altering the loot tables in the warehouse to contain more chems that are beneficial to medical, rather than just the lukewarm sea of bicardine, ATK's, stasis bags, and kelotane that I see on a regular basis. The whole point of the warehouse shipments, in my view, is to give cargo busy work that helps other departments by making them more versatile and self sufficient in regards to their material needs. Having that happen automatically is in my view equivalent to having a portion of the warehouse pre-sorted and shipped out to medical. The inconvenience of cargo needing to ship everything out before you have it is the price to pay for the increase in versatility when you have no chemist to brew things. Having everything in medical already makes a department that is infamous for doing nothing but kicking rocks in the warehouse have all the more reason to just kick rocks in the warehouse.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Boggle08

[Zundy]

100% agree with @Boggle08, better chem gear in the warehouse to be sent off.

[Carver]

I'd be fine with this sort of thing if it replaced the warehouse. Warehouse is currently a bit OP'd with having hundreds of telecrystals worth of shit concentrated in a two-story room. Having it alongside the warehouse, though, no.

[melodramatize]

4 hours ago, Carver said:

I'd be fine with this sort of thing if it replaced the warehouse. Warehouse is currently a bit OP'd with having hundreds of telecrystals worth of shit concentrated in a two-story room. Having it alongside the warehouse, though, no.

Oh god please don’t replace/get rid of the warehouse lol. That’s like 90% of the cargo tech’s job; it would be so mind numbingly boring without it.

[ThelonTV]

On 17/10/2020 at 03:13, Carver said:

I'd be fine with this sort of thing if it replaced the warehouse. Warehouse is currently a bit OP'd with having hundreds of telecrystals worth of shit concentrated in a two-story room. Having it alongside the warehouse, though, no.

I just love spending 10 of my traitor TCs on a random assortment of empty oxygen tanks, bags, watches, clothes and stuff! The other 15 usually go into Riot shields, Baseball bats, door locks, enough medkits to survive a TG greytide and fake guns!

In all honesty though... there is some cool stuff in there, it's just random. No firearms, no OP lethals. The coolest things you can find are voidsuits and RIGs IMO. The RIGs are ... rigged though. So without the help of a roboticist or METAing robo knowledge you're endangering yourself... like a lot.

 

 

there's also sometimes  a monowheel in there if you're really lucky, which makes you the king of the hallway

[Carver]

16 hours ago, ThelonTV said:

I just love spending 10 of my traitor TCs on a random assortment of empty oxygen tanks, bags, watches, clothes and stuff! The other 15 usually go into Riot shields, Baseball bats, door locks, enough medkits to survive a TG greytide and fake guns!

In all honesty though... there is some cool stuff in there, it's just random. No firearms, no OP lethals. The coolest things you can find are voidsuits and RIGs IMO. The RIGs are ... rigged though. So without the help of a roboticist or METAing robo knowledge you're endangering yourself... like a lot.

 

 

there's also sometimes  a monowheel in there if you're really lucky, which makes you the king of the hallway

Off the top of my head: combat medical kits, surgery kits, armour, riot shields (you laugh but these are incredibly good), entire engineering sets of gear, melee weaponry, antag dufflebags, as well as things like the suits you mentioned - I'd trade my entire 25 TCs for the whole warehouse every single time without hesitation as an antag. Hell, they're better equipped in there than the entire raider team starting out. Arguably with better starting chemicals/equipment than medical too, if there are a few combat kits and a surgery one.