Broken Limb Healing Time?

Game Talk The Bunker
8

Alright. The question would be: Do you wear a splint? A splint (on the body part that is actually broken) is mandatory for it to start healing (unless you have a specific regeneration mutation).
An autodoc, as others mentioned, might splint it for you, but that depends on the game version you’re playing on (I’d need to check, but I think stable 0.E did not have that function).

Other than that, from what I see, the effect_mending takes 10 days (assuming normal mending rates) until its mended enough to heal the limb back to 1 hp, from where you can treat it normally to get it back to full health.

9

Yes, I’ve been wearing a splint from spring day 62 (day 73 currently), and it doesn’t seem to have made much progress… At least originally, it simply showed as “disabled”, now it’s “started mending”, which seems like an improvement.

10

Again, it’s a bit hard to find out what’s actually happening. What was the exact message?
Was it “Your [BODYPART] has started to mend!”, seen in the message log (at this point, the limb should be at 1 hitpoint, based on the code)?
Or was/is it “Started recovery” in the [@] Player info menu, which - when selected - describes it as “This damaged limb is slowly regaining its functions.” (code, identical for 0.E stable and experimental)?

11

could you maybe have the splint on the wrong limb? It being on your left arm, when it’s the right that is broken?

12

a broken limb takes about 1-3 weeks (depending on how quickly your character’s healing speed is and how often you sleep) of uninterrupted healing, as each time you take damage on the broken limb it will reset or set back the progress. Due to poor blood circulation a broken limb it will be significantly colder than the rest of the body, and the damage from freezing will prevent it from healing.

13

Well, I went ahead and tested it.
Since you did not name the version you’re playing on, I’ve picked a random one I just happend to have (experimental 2021-06-13-0522).

This is how it went:

Spring, Day 81, a little before 17:00 (no splint):
My broken limb shows as ~~%~~ (color: red) in the sidebar.
The player info menu lists it as “Disabled”.

Day 81, 17:00 (with splint):
Sidebar: ----- (color: blue)
Info: “Disabled”, as well as “Started recovery”

... more progress

Day 82, 14:00 (with splint):
Sidebar: #---- (color: blue)
Info: “Disabled” + “Started recovery”

Day 83, ~23:00 (with splint):
Sidebar: ##--- (color: blue)
Info: “Disabled” + “Recovering”

Day 84, ~10:30 (with splint):
Sidebar: ###-- (color: blue)
Info: “Disabled” + “Mostly recovered”

Day 85, ~18:00 (with splint):
Sidebar: ####- (color: blue)
Info: “Disabled” + “Mostly recovered”

Day 87, 13:00 (with splint):
Sidebar: :.... (color: red)
Messages in the log: Your [BODYPART] has started to mend! (color: green) & The broken limb has mended. (color: green)
Info: [Nothing]

To make my test as accurate as possible, I took off my clothes to stay as cool as possible (I did the same thing for the character :grin: ). The temperature of the limb bounced between 2 and -43 and stayed at -20 to -30 for the most time, so your -32 should not have had any influence on the healing process (unless you dip into damaging ranges).
As shown, it took around a week to mend the limb, and whatever time it takes to fully heal from :.... to |||||.
I did have some factors that did benefit the healing progress, like having enough to eat/drink and I let my character sleep alot (I’d like to do that too, at some point).
I did walk around, and chased and killed some birds as well with no problems. I’ve taken care that my broken limb did not take any more damage though, as that could/will throw you back quite a bit in the recovery process.

So, it seems to work as stated; it takes around 10 days to mend. So, the question remains; what message did you see? Or even easier; what symbols are shown in the sidebar?

For the sake of completion, the following affects the healing rates (in the current versions):

Mending factors

Negative:

  • Smoking and Alcohol, and their addictions.
  • Being radioactive (unless you’ve mutated the Radiogenic trait).
  • Being Dead tired or worse.
  • Being Very hungry and Very thirsty or worse.
  • Having a low health stat.
  • Some mutations.
  • Taking damage on the broken limb (actually reverses progress).

Positive:

  • Sleeping/Resting.
  • Enough stored fat & water.
  • Having a high health stat.
  • Some mutations.
14

Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. There were no “limb has started to mend” messages; the status is simply “started recovery” and the limb is still broken. Debugging in self-aware shows 0% recovery.

15

Then, based on my experience, the source code and experiments (as described above) and without more information (like your game version), I have to assume that your limb took damage during recovery, which set you back to 0%; as it should take around 10 days to mend (give or take a few days).

16

Not unreasonable; during the previously mentioned incident with a fire, I’m fairly sure my limbs did take a bit of damage. I haven’t been eating much (mostly just drinking water) because (a.) my only food supply is two sealed MREs that I’ve been reluctant to open, and (b.) my character’s still Obese and I’ve been trying to lose weight. Is it worth opening the MREs, or risking looting a house?

17

Day 74 and my limb is at #====! Hopefully it goes faster from here. I also wanted to say that I appreciate @Valase putting in the effort to test it- thanks everyone!

1 Like
18

In my opinion; no.
If you plan on lose weight anyway, I wouldn’t bother to eat long lasting food.
As for looting houses, it depends on how much you’ve cleared out the city (or the area around the house specifically). With a broken limb, it’s better to stay put and let it regain its function and heal a bit.

If you in dare need of food (just in case) or out of anything else to do, I’d suggest you go into the forest and forage through some underbrushes, as this is probably the safest way to have a chance to get something to eat. But I’d still suggest to avoid any fights and carry a (single hand) gun & some zombie pheromones if you have any.

Looks like some progress has been made, great!
I’m glad this is working now :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: .

19

Thanks for the advice. I do have a Glock 19 with ~50 rounds of ammo, although I should mention that due to the fact I’m using Magiclysm, am a mage and haven’t had much to do in the refugee center other than study spells, Magic Missile actually does more damage, not to mention being armor-piercing and having perfect accuracy- with my current mana storage, I effectively have 54 castings or “rounds of ammunition” per day. I did take a trip to the outskirts of the city, clearing out a block which consisted of six soldier zombies plus a few regular while taking minimal damage. Currently I’m still running back and forth lugging all the military gear back to the refugee center (Safe Place start- There were about thirteen MREs, seven M4A1 with ~40 rounds total, one UMP45, and quite a bit of military armor, about half of which I’ve gotten back so far). As I mentioned, I did take a few hits, but luckily nothing on my left arm- things seem to be looking up.
Judging from this, I can safely do a bit of exploration while my arm heals- almost nothing can actually make it to melee range.

Edit: Ooooops. I can only take one rifle per trip due to the length, and there were seven… on one of the trips, a zombie hunter went after me and dealt damage to my arm- it was pretty hard to stay out of range given how fast they move. Back to =====… All the rifles were too good an opportunity to pass up, though- they’re worth ~$200 each for barter. Looks like my arm’s going to be healing for another 10 days. On the plus side, I think it should go faster this time- I noticed that the #==== happened after I finished the arm warmers, which makes me wonder if it does have an impact. At least I won’t be short of crafting supplies with all this military gear to trade.

20

I mean, they’d still be good to trade after your arm is mended… This isn’t Rimworld where items deteriorate by staying outside in the rain (at least not yet), nor do they ever despawn… :smiley:

Based on the code I’ve checked, they don’t.

21

Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking there. In my defense, I really did think I’d cleared out that part- I was essentially ambushed by the hunter. I was eager particularly because there was an extremely expensive item I wanted to buy (a utility vest with 171 items in it, costing $2600). Incidentally, is there any way to buy only the vest and not all of the items in it? I don’t even know what I’m buying.

Ah, apologies. I reread the part of your earlier post about mending factors- I was indeed Very Thirsty much of the time, due to forgetting to drink while studying or during multi-hour crafting sessions, which explains another part. Hopefully, my arm should be able to mend in no more than two weeks now.

22

This is actually looking more and more tempting, now that my arm’s back to square one anyway. Magic Missile at the maximum of Level 15, which I’ve reached, does an average of 24 damage per hit, which is slightly (?)(don’t have the numbers) worse than an M4A1, has a range of 20, which is somewhat better than an M4A1, takes 100 movement points, or one second, to cast, which is considerably better than an M4A1, can be cast 54 times using my current mana pool of 2700 before needing to regenerate for several hours, which is probably worse than an M4A1 in the short term but considerably better in the long term, and, of course, does guaranteed damage at any range, which can in no way be reduced or evaded. In addition, I have an actual M4A1 for backup, with more than 50 rounds of ammo, a full set of military armor, and a combat knife for melee as well (although I don’t actually have any skill in rifles and no current way to train them). @Valase, @Rot Thoughts?
Edit: I have a short-range teleportation spell (Phase Door) as well, which consumes 100 mana per casting but is quite useful for getting out of melee.

23

Sadly, not that I’m aware of any. I guess it’s not possible because they’d need another bag or clothing to put in all that stuff you don’t want, and the code is still a bit wonky…

But you can take a look at what’s inside of it, if you press the / key during trading and then press the letter associated to the item. So you’d get at least that information…

Edit:
As for your edited question about the hospital: I would not risk it. Given that you’ve already taken a hit from a single Zombie hunter, combined with how overrun hospitals usually are… That does not look good.
Even if you manage to find a working autodoc and manage to get treatment, it just boosts your mending state a bit (to 50%) and does not heal you to full health.

So yeah, that’s my opinion. Just stay away from anything that wants to hit you and invest the time it takes to recover…

24

Understandable. I also got a quest from an NPC to analyze zombie blood in an autoclave, which is another reason I was considering it. I’m not quite sure why your criteria had to do with the zombie hunter, though- I spotted it at range 5 or so, and combined with its fast speed I had a hard time killing it before it got to me. How many zombies are usually in a hospital- more than a hundred? I was entertaining clearing the hospital out over multiple days.

25

Number of zombies in a hospital? A lot. I’d say well over a hundred (on normal settings with the standard game). The hospitals I’ve cleared were processed by luring as many zombies outside as possible to mow them down with a vehicle, followed by forays inside to slowly whittle away at the remaining couple of dozen (lots of rests to recover fatigue from when the buggers appeared around the corner and thus came into melee range immediately). And once you’ve cleared the hospital the zombies have probably wrecked the centrifuge, while there’s some chance they haven’t destroyed all autodocs.

26

Exactly that. What are you going to do if you meet 5 of them at the hospital, right as you round the corner?

Assuming you didn’t change around any spawn settings, yes. I’ve counted 82 89 Zombies just on the parking space alone.

Edit: Since PALU posted while I was finishing my response - and since I was at the hospital already - I’ve made a tally…: In total, there were exactly 485 Zombies, not counting all the bodies that are probably risen in your game by now (not that many)…

27

Ah. I’ll wait on the hospital for now, then- I’m currently clearing out the city with the help of two clay golems http://cdda-trunk.chezzo.com/monsters/mon_claygolem . They’re armored and can mow down the zombies, but aren’t fast enough to run me down, so I can lure them into crowds. In addition, I do it at night, so the zombies usually lose sight of me quickly. Afterwards, I circle back around, pulp the 10+ corpses and repeat. If it comes to it, I’m confident in my ability to kill the golems- armor won’t be any use against me. Honestly, they might be able to clear out most of the city by themselves. I’m making sure to stay at a distance and not let anything near me- the golem is usually the closer target, anyway. I’ve ‘killed’ ~100 zombies this way so far and am hoping to net a lot more.

Edit: I lost the golem, so I took matters into my own hands a bit and killed quite a few zombies by luring them through windows and meleeing them with my combat knife- I just got the “Centinel” achievement (kill 100 zombies). Yes, I’m taking damage on my left arm, but what can I say, I got a bit bored and I do need to stock up on some food, now that my weight’s gone from Obese to Overweight (also, I have my eye on a bookstore that should give me plenty to do while my arm heals.) I’ll let it heal once I’ve cleared out the outskirts. At any rate, nothing has been remotely threatening, except for a scare when a grappler zombie pulled me out the window.

Edit: Well, I caught the flu. Sigh. I guess I’m going to have to stay inside… at least I did manage to get some food. Hopefully my arm will still mend a bit even though my health is going to tank. (Also, I just threw up on my bed. Ick.)