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Add some kind of limiting factor to health analysers/body scanners


Bedshaped

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Health analysers and body scanners make medical too easy.


If you grab somebody passively and then use help intent on them while aiming at body parts it allows you to do direct examinations on a patient. You can use a stethoscope to test someone's heartrate and breathing. If you use a penlight on someone's eyes you can test their pupils and see if there's brain damage; all of these features are really cool and under used.


My suggestion is to give health analysers and body scanners some kind of mechanic to limit their ease of use/availabililty. Some ideas of the top of my head:

  • Power - Make health analysers require power to be used and have to be charged in the recharger, make body scanners require a large amount of power to be switched on perhaps
  • Obscurity - the readouts given should be slightly obscure, so that it can be RPed that only the most highly trained doctors can read them
  • Probabilities - all the readouts from these devices should give estimates of damages eg. "patient has a 20% chance of damage to lungs", "93% positive reading for fractured left leg". This would make it so some injuries could be misdiagnosed without an actual physical examination being conducted afterwards.
  • ??? - not really sure what else. Having tricorders is OP in star trek and since it's ripped directly from star trek it's OP here too

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

this would not provide benefits that would surpass the drawbacks. Medical is not "too easy". If you have a bone fracture or advanced damage you still need an advanced scanner to find out exactly where, and afaik the handhelds do not detect internal bleeding. There is only a single advanced scanner in the entire station. Health analyzers are good for helping you figure out the basics of the damage and quickly deal with surface-level wounds or toxin damage. Adding additional steps will do nothing but leave an even bigger pile of complaining and groaning patients in the lobby or strewn around the medical hallways. These specialty items can still be used if you want to use them but the answer to fixing their redundancy isn't to weaken the rest of medical.

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I'm with barnes that diagnosis is a little too easy.


I don't think the problem is with the hand analyser though.


The scanner bed makes detecting bone and organ damage a bit too easy. I'd rather it be some giant machine that takes up 3x3 tiles and needs a whole seperate room, and youd nee to scan sections of the body at once


Dr Magojiro has chosen to specialise in diagnostics. 70% of the time i can tell what happened to someone by looking at the vitals monitor, it rises to about 90 if i can examine them in person. i only use it for confirmation, but its a bit too easy of a crutch to rely on


The detailed examination feature is good, and should be expanded. but its also kind of a pain since you have to click things on that tiny person-shaped targeting hud.


The health analyser does have a bit too much information, but I wouldn't like to see some of it removed unless new ways to get it were added. A thermometer for temperature, a blood pressure thing for finding blood levels, etc

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A thermometer for temperature, a blood pressure thing for finding blood levels, etc

 

Already does both of these. Reads off body temp and tells blood loss to you.


No, it's fine. We exist in an ultramodern futuristic era, I see no reason why we need to strip features from medical to make their job harder.


A violent mercenary or rev round is already more than enough of a challenge for medical.

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Adding additional steps will do nothing but leave an even bigger pile of complaining and groaning patients in the lobby or strewn around the medical hallways.

 

The idea i think, is not to globally add extra steps (which is pointless gruntwork) but to add extra steps to less skilled doctors.

To raise the skill ceiling, so that those who've learned and studied in detail can have a greater margin of effectiveness from those who aren't.


If a patient comes in with a swollen chest, suffocation damage, and coughing blood, i can quickly diagnose a ruptured lung and begin treatment, without any need for a scan


And when things are more complex and arcane, it encourages more IC training sessions. i've both recieved and given a lot of training in medical procedure from/to various people. its fun!

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A violent mercenary or rev round is already more than enough of a challenge for medical.

 

the challenge in violent rounds is mostly a backlog in surgery waiting for bones to fix. i'd like to improve splints at some point so that bone surgery is less necessary.


As far as diagnostic load goes, violence doesn't add much. Wounds to chest probably means broken ribs and all the organs in there are damaged

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Why would an EMT or even a medical doctor not want to know these things for an initial diagnosis?


Genuinely curious.

They would, of course.

Security would also like a machine that pinpoints and instantly incapacitates the antag from a distance of several lightyears. Engineering would love to have a machine that generates infinite energy with a simple on-switch


anyone will welcome something that makes their job easier. it's a question of whether its too powerful, and useful.

Personally I like the obscuring suggestion. make the information harder to read, so it requires some degree of medical understanding to interpret


The fact that the subject has brain damage is pretty much a given with such a massive head injury, that's not really necessary. And detecting abnormalities in brain structure is kind of an advanced thing, it seems odd that a hand scanner could detect it.


Reading the exact blood level, or the fact that there's internal bleeding, seems a bit odd too. Realistically you'd detect the subject's blood pressure, and notice internal bleeding by a falling BP after external bleeds are dealt with

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The scanner bed makes detecting bone and organ damage a bit too easy. I'd rather it be some giant machine that takes up 3x3 tiles and needs a whole seperate room, and youd nee to scan sections of the body at once

 

I was thinking about something like this while I made the post.


A huge machine that popped out a little bed like one of the morgue storage units and had to be controlled by a computer in a separate room because it emits low levels of radiation in a small area as a byproduct that doesn't effect the patient inside the unit of course. Kind of similar to how an MRI works except instead of high magnetism (not really possible ingame) it has another reason why the room has to be evacuated. Scanning specific body parts is a really good idea; it should definitely take longer than jump_in_scanner -> print -> get_out_of_scanner though.


Most of what I see as being the best RP in medical comes from interacting with patients during a diagnosis. I like to ask questions like "what happened to cause this?", "where is the pain?"; questions I don't need to ask because I can pull them straight to either a scanner or use my analyser to get the answer immediately but it creates positive RP engagement, in my mind.

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Most of what I see as being the best RP in medical comes from interacting with patients during a diagnosis. I like to ask questions like "what happened to cause this?", "where is the pain?"; questions I don't need to ask because I can pull them straight to either a scanner or use my analyser to get the answer immediately but it creates positive RP engagement, in my mind.

This is a great suggestion. I love it. It just hurts me internally when I see the doctors (not the bald ones, normal characters with flavor text and records) just scanning everyone who's inside the medbay's lobby, no matter if they're hurt or not.


I want to see more RP! Actually examining bodies and talking to patients, instead of just wordlessly scanning them. Prescribing medicines (or natural ones like tea for toxins) to the injured ones, instead of just pumping them with sleepers' shit. More surgery and chemistry, instead of the fucking cryotubes. Actual skill of knowing the proper things, instead of just cryo and sleepers that fix almost everything.



Through, if we were to remove the handheld health analyzers, I believe that body scanners (there's just 1 anyway, but it could use some delay-thing) and medHUD's should stay. Can't suddenly make the easy hugbox of medbay a hardcore shit.

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I remember a long while back someone made a batch of suggestions to increase roleplay in medbay. I think it was Skull, or some other admin, who said that medbay isn't the place for roleplay. You have a job to do, so do it, you're here to help people, and get them out to make NT more money. This will just add extra steps that aren't needed, that are grunt work, and aren't needed at all. And I guarantee this wouldn't "fix" anything anyway, and people would just forgo talking and emoting, and go through the new steps of scanning people just the same.

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People talk about increasing roleplay, when all I see is increasing time in medbay. If it takes longer, then you'll have either more deaths from slow treatment or more deaths from idiots who immediately toss people into cryotubes.


Most people who come to medbay to RP aren't injured, most people who come to medbay injured don't want to be there because it will likely mean they'll be KO'd by either gas or cryo for atleast 10-20 minutes or they'll die from someone incompetent.

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Security would also like a machine that pinpoints and instantly incapacitates the antag from a distance of several lightyears. Engineering would love to have a machine that generates infinite energy with a simple on-switch

 

absolute false equivalency and you know this Nanako, that is not an argument.

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People talk about increasing roleplay, when all I see is increasing time in medbay. If it takes longer, then you'll have either more deaths from slow treatment or more deaths from idiots who immediately toss people into cryotubes.


Most people who come to medbay to RP aren't injured, most people who come to medbay injured don't want to be there because it will likely mean they'll be KO'd by either gas or cryo for atleast 10-20 minutes or they'll die from someone incompetent.

This is all true


SEE GUY SHOVED INTO CRYO WITH HIS EMERGENCY OXY TANK ON AND MASK TOO

LOOC IT TO DOCTOR BECAUSE GENEROUS GHOST THAT HE APPEARS TO BE SUFFOCATING BECAUSE TANK RAN OUT

BWOINKED BECAUSE METAGAMING


Literally going to medical now a days is a death sentence because by the time you get to the desk? The two doctors there are asleep.


Why would anything than makes medical job even harder be a good idea with our current influx of incompetent tajara doctors?

By the time you're even done doing diagnostics on Urist Mcliggersec during a violent op round because you needed to shove him in three different machines, ask him 'ok sir do i have your consent? i need to do things on you, where does it hurt etc etc', Couldn't tell where he was bleeding from because half the station is blown to shit and your analyzer is dead from not charging it. He already died and ahelped about you, and write up a player complaint on the doctor being shit and claiming to be metagruged by lesbian medical.

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I'm seeing a lot of people saying that adding more steps or content to medbay would cause even worse delays, and while that might be true, there's a reason why medbay is often full of quasi-erp and idle/afkers - it's not engaging. The typical round in medical (unless you are a chemist, who has a marginally better deal in terms of engagement with the game) involves sitting around waiting for people to be injured and bleating at the rest of the crew to turn on their sensors (and being largely ignored). I see doctors doing pointless things like wandering off to rearrange the surgery tools, counting and sorting medkits, and forgetting to turn on the cryo tubes. Adding more content for them would make it more exciting for them than silently scanning everyone who arrives and dragging them to the scanner before shoving them in the magical cure-all cryo tube. Doctors sometimes fight over who gets to do surgery just because it brings some brief excitement to their miserable, dull lives.


I fully support anything that would make people feel more immersed and interested in being in the medical department, and some of the ideas, like the big MRI type scanners, sound pretty fun.

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I remember a long while back someone made a batch of suggestions to increase roleplay in medbay. I think it was Skull, or some other admin, who said that medbay isn't the place for roleplay. You have a job to do, so do it, you're here to help people, and get them out to make NT more money.

 

Everywhere is the place for roleplay, except engineering. Engineers mostly interact with objects, machines, wires and walls, they have nobody to talk to. Medical fixes people, and having medical issues often shows a different, weaker side of folk that isn't normally seen, i've had plenty of great RP with patients.

 

This will just add extra steps that aren't needed, that are grunt work, and aren't needed at all. And I guarantee this wouldn't "fix" anything anyway, and people would just forgo talking and emoting, and go through the new steps of scanning people just the same.

The idea with nerfing the diagnostic tools, is that RP would be more effective. if the body scanner is more cumbersome to use, you might find it quicker to ask the patient where it hurts, so that you at least know exactly where to scan, or perhaps even feel confident enough to start treatment immediately

 

or they'll die from someone incompetent.

 

 

SEE GUY SHOVED INTO CRYO WITH HIS EMERGENCY OXY TANK ON AND MASK TOO


Literally going to medical now a days is a death sentence because by the time you get to the desk? The two doctors there are asleep.

 

Doctors are often SSD at the desk because of what kaed describes, a lack of things to do during downtime.


Nevertheless, a good CMO will notice, remove, and replace them. And as for the incompetence, start naming names. I've been thinking of holding performance reviews on medical staff, if anyone in particular seems incapable to you, note it down




Anyways to summarise, the parts i agree with are obscuring some information behind medical terminology and stats, and heavily nerfing the scanner bed or redesigning it. I'd also like to see the penlight and stethoscope improved, i'm sure they have a few bugs to work out at least

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Claiming that medbay shouldn't be a place for roleplay is a slippery slope.

It is. You can do physicals, check-ups, filling prescriptions, etc.


But if someone comes to the place injured they're not coming because they want to spend 30 minutes watching as you fumble with a billion checkups whilst they're dying from internal bleeding or an infection, they're coming because they want to get fixed so they can go back to what they were doing in a timely fashion.

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Let's not, please.

It's not like I (or we) am asking for the medbay to be remodeled after some real life hospital, with months of waiting between visits, and appointments taking 30 minutes with long queues.


I just want the good players that know things to be, well, good and praised for being good. You can tell someone's injured just by examining them, then, it's a matter of asking what happened and what's wrong, and then just applying some bandages, or whatever. You get the point, Medical shouldn't be just health analyzer and cryo for everything. Anyone can do this.


And by "good players that know things", I don't mean that I want every medical player to have IRL medical degrees, finish schools, and stuff. I just want the players to know that "swollen chest, suffocation damage, and coughing blood" probably means that the patient has a ruptured lung. It's not rocket science, it's just the equivalent of corporate regulations book, or the usual science powergame everyone is doing in 10 minutes. So, remove the handheld health analyzers, don't touch medhuds or the scanners.


Apparently, it's too much. I guess, the players just want to keep rekting antags. I also would like cloning to be removed, but let's not make the game too hardcore. Not yet, at least.

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Its not that Dreamix, it's just that for every time you guys say you want, you want, you want, other people have had two legitimate reasons why people wouldn't like it, and why it wouldn't be a good idea. I REALLY don't see the problem. There are people who know the signs, swollen chest, coughing blood, means punctured lungs, as you can tell from Nanako's several posts saying that she does, and lets just ignore that literally everyone and their mothers knows that coughing blood means lungs. There are people in medical who know that, and more, and there are people who don't in medical. Oh well. There are also people in science who know how to max levels fast, there are people who don't. Oh well. There are people in sec who have every reg memorized, and there are officers who need to look in the book. Oh well. We don't need to go adding more steps to mechanical jobs just because people want.

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Are any of the features inherently gamebreaking or legitimately bad from a gameplay standpoint?


Because anyone with a premise that starts with "but roleplay first" has absolutely no idea to the concept of how RP environments work and are set upon video games and should just go and stay go, because this is clearly not the hugbox for you.


The game you are playing needs to be balanced from a gameplay standpoint before it is even remotely considered for roleplay-intensive hoo-hah. Ground up, not top-down. Top-down solutions kill games.

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The game you are playing needs to be balanced from a gameplay standpoint before it is even remotely considered for roleplay-intensive hoo-hah. Ground up, not top-down. Top-down solutions kill games.

 

scanner beds are too easy at detecting everything, and organ-fixing surgery is far too simple, and doesn't offer an even slightly believable representation of cardiac/neurosurgery. i'd consider these gameplay problems

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