Balancing repair nanobots CBM after healing overhaul

[Tamior]

Can you please specify what combination of health modifiers and mutations exactly will allow you to generate health even at 50% the speed repairs nanobots allow you to?

Also, bionic power out of combat is a complete non-issue as long as you have installed at least one decent power producing CBM (metabolic exchange/internal furnace/torsions/etc). And those are not particularly hard to both find and install.

[Eastwardrope91]

Regeneration and a few others I can’t recall off the top of my head and a decent health will allow you to watch your health bar replenish add medical items like bandaging and disinfectant and you will heal stupidly fast even in the middle of a fight I’ve watched the health bar change from almost nothing to full health in a matter of minutes in game.

But I agree the bionic can be a bit OP especially late game but late game your already OP so what does it matter? Seriously the only real way to Nerf it is to make it cause pain and cost more power otherwise it makes it pointless. I mean it’s nanites that are literally sticking you together from the inside worst comes to worst you feel pain. That is the possible worst case for it but anyone with half a brain would program their nanomachines to prevent pain while they work. I mean come on man think in the terms a scientist might who’s making it would you honestly want to stop at a healing aid? No you would continue until it mends tissue with ease makes guns seems trivial. I mean medical mutation tree makes it so you can laugh off all but the deadliest of attacks so it wouldn’t seem that odd for a machine to do it better. I mean machines do pretty much everything else better.

[Malkeus]

What if it was changed so when it was off, it gave a mild boost to all regen items alongside a really minor regen. Then when you need fast healing, you and activate ‘emergency mode’ or somesuch, and it would give you very rapid regen but hurt like hell so you’d only use it when you were safe or in dire straights with a syringe of morphine on hand.

Hmm…well, sensory deadening comes to mind as a counter for that. But that has it’s own downsides, so…

[Eastwardrope91]

That actually makes alot of sense and is better than just striping it and better than simply adding a higher cost.

Though to add to that I think it should have three states: off, passive, active. Passive should cost something minor like the cranial flashlight. Active should have a large power draw like the time dilation but to a lesser level instead of 50 a turn maybe 20 a turn or something less like that.

[darktoes]

I like that idea. Causing pain as your flesh is rebuilt would be a really solid balance, and high power consumption would help a lot. Having a passive mode to slightly (1.2x?) increase general health regen would stop it from being utterly useless without massive power input.
There are, of course, minor fringe cases like using the active mode with masochistic, but most of the time those are going to be at extreme ends anyway and aren’t really worth getting too bothered over.

[nameless_survivor]

A passive mode with a small regen bonus is good. For the active mode, rather than causing pain I propose that instead it forces you unconscious for an hour or so to facilitate repairs, and it would also repair broken limbs. It would solve the masochism issue, and prevent it being used in combat, while still allowing you to use it in a pinch if you can find a good hiding spot or secure location.

[darktoes]

If it forces the player unconscious it’s no better than just sleeping for the night, so it’s not really worth doing. Having it produce a bunch of pain up to a cap, so it hits your stats hard, means you can do it for 15 minutes while you read or craft or something, then get back into it.
Like I said, the masochism issue isn’t a big one since IIRC you still get stat penalties for pain with it, and can still pass out. The deadened mutation might be an issue, but that’s post-threshold medical so at that point you’re basically unkillable anyway.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

My take on the nanobots is that they are THE highest tier healing in the game. Standard healing was nerfed. There’s room in the middle for adding intermediate healing items.

I think that the CBM can remain where it is, with the power level that it has, because you need a top end.

What I’d suggest is that you make the CBM much, much rarer if you’re looking to ‘balance’ it. I also believe that the energy requirement could be increased.

[TheZoneWizard]

Sound idea Malk.

As for blacking out though. I would have that added too, BUT with a caveat option:

Off. Passive. Active. Mend.

I know, I know. “wouldn’t healing be healing?” Yes, But if the nano machines are capable of being programmed(as is the idea of them). Then you could specify WHAT to heal and WHAT to focus on instead of everything all at once. So “Mend” as an optional toggle to fix a broken bone specifically and then it would be very likely to cause the toon to black out. Sleeping through is fine. Example; you broken a bone and escaped death to safe spot. You repair your gear and keep busy on morphine or trudge through the pain until “Tired”. You activate Mend and you roll the dice on passing out or not and even if you do. It mends that bone/'s.

The idea made me think of a mansion. Non-specific healing is fine. But if you enter a large home, you wouldn’t run through the entire building turning on all your lights and appliances. So unless you have multiple wounds in would be a nice thing to fix specific parts. Stimpacks could be used for this too(specific body areas with a 1 syringe/injector portion).

[Malkeus]

Mend could be activate-able bionic that opens the limb menu, allowing you to apply an effect to a particular limb. While you had that effect, it would drain your bionic power and rapidly heal that area of the body. It would drain less power for cuts and bruises. Broken bones would need to draw a lot of power, since it forms a rigid splint that allows you full mobility while it’s repairing you. But you’d use that mode over the full body regen for the simple fact that it would let you keep running/fighting.
I feel like I started rambling somewhere in there, hopefully something coherent came through.

[Sanehatter]

It could also prevent/stop bleeding, infection and such. In general I think its best to leave the CBM alone until health management is mostly redone.
But yeah it was far too OP even before the healing nerf.

[TheZoneWizard]

I like that. Pairs well.

[pikolinian]

Nanobots healing could also increase hunger/thirst, reduce stamina. Rebuilding liver from scratch takes some energy (bionic), but also require matter (food/water). How much bionic power do you need to replace liter of blood from E=mc^2 ?

[Malkeus]

This. Start with this and balance it, then add things if it’s still wrong somehow. I think this would do the trick. Especially if it’s customizable in json.

[darktoes]

Probably be easier to just excite the bone marrow making blood for you, help it along a bit somehow.

[pikolinian]

If you loose blood, you loose mainly (approx 90%) water. So, if you run nanobots after serious
haemorrhage you should be thirsty. alternatively, water can be created from energy

Other 10% are lipids, proteins, carbohydrates etc. Even if you stimulate bone marrow, that mass has to be replaced (or created).

[darktoes]

Yeah, but that water could easily just be taken from other places, your stomach, your sweat glands, your bladder. Creating mass from energy is MASSIVELY inefficient and generally impractical. If even possible on that scale.

That said, your body replaces lost plasma in about a day. That’s not a big deal, the difficult part is the red blood cells, which takes a few weeks. Like you said, it’s only 10% by volume, so using up some protein stores to produce them shouldn’t be an issue for nanobots.

[Sanehatter]

The other places would still be within your body (unless its from your bladder, but assuming all the needed water came from there its a stretch), hence the thirst.

[darktoes]

Yeah, of course. Generating matter out of energy is… dubious though.

[TheZoneWizard]

We should have Coconut Water in game. NOT milk! Coconut Water when passed through a basic filter of something like cheesecloth for hard/stringy bits. The liquid when fed intravenous can replace a fair amount of blood in any blood type person. Used in Pacific theatre in WW2.

Not only becoming really popular in the american market place and rather common in package stores and the like. If we also add intravenous and makeshift variant to the game. We could restore vitamans and nutrients as well as replacing blood loss…just as soon as we make blood loss a thing too
(not cut loss, but like a major wound and black out due to loss of blood kinda thing)