Better first aid healing system?

[vipches]

I was thinking if we can make those medical supplies like medkit or something healing the health on a little time instead of immediately?

if you wounded, you use one medkit, and you will gain a “recovering” buff, in this buff, you will not use other medkit, but you wound will healing quickly till this buff gone

and if you get attacked again when you have this buff, it will decrease the healing speed, and even stopped

I make this suggestion because I think our medical supplies mabye a little wasted, we need a better healing system to keep our combat, and this can make fun and challenge, don’t you think?

[jcd]

I say let’s take it one step further:

Let the base healing rate be as it is now, dependent on natural health + traits, but track each body part’s healing rate independently.
Then apply buffs/debuffs to healing rate depending on stuff like: Asleep/awake status, illness, drugs/bandages/medkits used, infections, traits etc.
Let the buffs be active until the condition they simulate has ended (bandages need to get changed, asleep/awake, etc.)

EDIT
if the official dev answer is: “fine, code it yourself”, i will be tempted to do just that. Finally i plan to have some free non-holiday time during August. (at least after the 18th)

[Coolthulhu]

It probably wouldn’t be hard to make bandages/kits/etc. apply an effect to the selected body part. You could then check for the existence of this effect on the body part when calculating regeneration.

[dakenho]

it would be interesting if it was a process, change bandages and such or at-least a more detailed system keep the display over all health but then have a health screen where individual more detailed injuries can be treated.

[voskhod]

Really, the idea of healing in Cata is kinda overblown, at least in my opinion. This is kind of the reason why I always take the traits Flimsy and Slow Healer.
When I get myself smashed half to death by a zombie brute, I shouldn’t be able to just sleep on it and be fine the next morning. I really, really hate Fallout 3 style healing like this. At least with SlowHealer+Fragile/Flimsy, it takes me several days to fully heal the damage done, like it more realistically would. Getting mauled almost to death should at the very least put a character out of commission for a couple days, maybe even a week or more, while they stay in a safe place to heal up and recover. I mean, shit, when I have a nasty fall or pull a muscle, I can feel it for a week or more! It doesn’t just go away after a single night’s rest. Getting damaged should be something you try to actively avoid, not just a minor nuisance that can go away by going to sleep or just using a bandage. All in all, damage means nothing because healing just happens too fast / is too readily available, and I really, really hope this gets changed some time soon.

Another thing is the universality of HP. How is it that when I’m in a burning building and slowly suffocating, I can somehow negate this by plastering my torso with cotton balls and bandages? How in God’s name would that stop me from suffocating? The same goes for poison, and many other kinds of damage that aren’t just plain “the zombie hits you for x damage”

[keldoclock]

Another thing is the universality of HP. How is it that when I’m in a burning building and slowly suffocating, I can somehow negate this by plastering my torso with cotton balls and bandages? How in God’s name would that stop me from suffocating? The same goes for poison, and many other kinds of damage that aren’t just plain “the zombie hits you for x damage”

It’s a very complicated procedure, you cut open your chest cavity and make an incision into the lungs, than use the cotton balls like a q-tip to clean the inside of each lung, before stuffing the bandage into the trachea to act as an air filter and sewing yourself back up. For poison, well, you just eat them. They’re medicinal cotton balls, after all! Says so right on the package.

[i2amroy]

Sadly the universality of HP is one of those systems that it’s very easy to say is bad, but is very complex to actually replace. I’d agree with you that it’s not necessarily my favorite thing, it probably wouldn’t be too much work to eventually separate out both a total oxygen and blood counts (we already have the barest minimums of the oxygen one) and make it so that you suffer bad effects, and then eventually collapse and die if either gets too low.

[Shopkeeper]

I get that the first aid based healing system could probably do with an expansion and overhaul to better represent the myriad injuries someone might accumulate during the apocalypse. But isn’t the current wolverine-lite overnight healing provision handwaved by the Blob present in each survivor’s body? When you counseciously shut down to go to sleep it kicks your body’s natural auto-repair systems in overdrive, causing nicks, cuts, and bruises to heal in hours instead of days, along with allowing even totally broken limbs to knit themselves back together in the timespan of days rather then weeks or months.

As an extension of that I’ve always just rolled with the idea that it’s less the cotton balls or bandages themselves that magically allow a survivor to heal themselves almost instantly, rather it’s the same Blob making use of the new resources provided by your first aid to begin healing you even while awake. And thus the reason you heal more at higher skill levels using the same supplies, because you get better at best applying first aid to the most damaged places in order to speed recovery.

[i2amroy]

But isn’t the current wolverine-lite overnight healing provision handwaved by the Blob present in each survivor’s body?

Yes but just because it’s handwaved with a lore explanation doesn’t mean it has to stay that way if we have a good explanation for why it should be changed. For example we used to handwave that robots didn’t recognize zombies as humans (and thus didn’t target them) back before we had monster infighting as well.

[Shopkeeper]

Well, of course. I’m just saying we could consider adapting and working with the current system instead of changing wholesale; ergo, maintain something similar where smaller nicks, cuts and abrasions can heal quickly and reliably without much issue while making larger more serious wounds require time and proper medical attention to fix.

[troll_from_behind]

That part about “proper medical attention”…from where would one be getting this, there aren’t that many options currently around, we have Mr.Stimcell and Healing Nanobots, but besides that…?
Realistically there isn’t much a single person can do to fix any major injuries he or she has.

[Shopkeeper]

That’s where the Blob comes in. While nothing can beat a proper doctor like the one that eventually ends up at the Ranch or an auto-doc in the form of Mr. Stem Cell. Having a small part of the massive interdimensonal gestalt entity that started this mess in the first place has its benefits. Mainly that insanely enhanced regeneration, if we can heal broken limbs with nothing but a splint and a couple days rest, then with even rudimentary first aid a survivor should be able to take care of themselves (or atleast prevent a non life threating injury from getting worst).

Of course getting your spine severed and both lungs punctured in the middle of fight won’t be at all conductive to your continued performance. But if you manage to survive, crawl back to base while dealing with the crippling pain, and take care to not perform any strenuous activity your body (with a little help, like a craftable harness version of the splint to realign your spine) should fix itself eventually. And if you want to avoid spending a week crippled by pain and bedridden due to the worst possible combat injuries, seeking out a doctor/medical attention or knowing where that is accessible already would be quite helpful.

[troll_from_behind]

That part 'bout blob making EVERYONE Wolverine was new info, but does make sense.
Don’t suppouse stat or skill minuses from different “wounds” (a crit to certain bodypart), that you need to bandage would be a short-term solution while Kevin tweaks his system?