How long does it take to recover broken limbs?

[mentos046]

As a result of an unfortunate series of failed attempts to remove bionics, all of my current characters limbs are now broken. Or rather they’ve been broken for almost 60 days, now. They were “mostly recovered” for about 40 of them, but never got any better.

I wasn’t going to bother anyone about this, but after an incident with a laser rifle, and a narrowly avoided forest fire, they are now back to “started recovery”, and I’m out of patience.

This character’s health averages -10 to -25, and he has Slow Healer. so how long should it take?

[tarburst98]

are you wearing splints on all of them? moving without a splint breaks them again.

[mentos046]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. They’ve all had splints the entire time.

How high does computers need to be to easily use one of the Dr. Stem Cell machines in the hospitals? In the time I spent waiting I probably could have found and taken over one. Do they still fix broken limbs?

[Coolthulhu]

10 days if you’re healthy, assuming there are no bugs.
Try turning on debug mode and waiting until you see “Limb mend healing factor:”. That’s the multiplier on healing speed. If it’s 1, you should take ~10 days to heal (from fresh break). If it’s 0.5, it should be ~20 days. And so on.
You can also check exact time (also by waiting while in debug mode) on the mending effect. Once it reaches 144000, it should heal.

The value may not be balanced. I kept it similar to what was before, which probably wasn’t balanced at all.

[Alec_White]

By the way, avoid smoking and drinking alcohol, being healthy and I think sleeping in a proper bed affects the healing speed too.

But then it has a: roll_remainder( rate_multiplier * healing_factor );

So praying to the RNGods may help too.

[Fris0uman]

And does it work the same for NPCs ? Do they need to stay inside the reality bubble ?

[Coolthulhu]

And does it work the same for NPCs ? Do they need to stay inside the reality bubble ?

Yes and maybe.
I don’t think I tested out-of-bubble mending, but looking at the code it should actually work, because it is placed in the “retroactive-capable” function - the rate_multiplier is number of five minute periods that passed since last check.

[mentos046]

Spent thirty-nine days at an Apple Orchard. Health was -13 to -19 for all of them. Nothing I did got it any better than that, and this character never smoked, or drank any alcohol. Did nothing but eat apples, drink apple cider, pop multivitamins once a day, read, and occasionally kill a zed with a laser rifle. It still never went past “Mostly Recovered” on any limb. At the end of Day 39, a Sparker showed up and shot a chain lightning that rebroke everything.

I didn’t use Debug Mode, because knowing when the limbs are going to heal feels like cheating. Sorry if that inconvenienced anyone.

I don’t think there are any bugs, but I do think it should be more lenient with healing breaks, for whatever my input is worth.

[Coolthulhu]

Looks like the “mostly recovered” lasts twice as long as the earlier phases. It’s a minor bug in description.

[ZoneWizard]

Largest problem with the healing system as is. Since we don’t heal on a 24 hour scale. Breaking a limb means you lose it for the remainder of the game in most cases.

Who the hell was it that only allowed our toons to heal during sleep anyway? >=P

…food upkeep and not taking ANY damage for 20 days usually means yer dead. I hate the healing system worse than dog diarrhea on the shag carpet >_<

[Coolthulhu]

I wanted to fix that “no damage” thing, but well…
Just see for yourself: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/21359

[ZoneWizard]

I dunno how Kevin thinks sometimes if that is intended. Good lord man. If you have a splint limb, the intent is to keep the frelling thing from moving and as such CAN’T break unless hit directly or sudden impact damage over the entire body from car crash or Brute wall tossed.(ps, not upset, just really surprised at the github argument)

I also fail to follow the logic of heal only in sleep, instead of healing slowly as real people do 24/7 non stop. I truly hope as was mentioned in other threads this gets swapped out for something we no longer instant heal via Aid items.

What would make sense is a scaled constant slow heal. Tree the traits or ailments and Aid items etc from that to change said scale. Cut? Use bandage and slow heal over a few days. Similar to maybe Unreal World? I’ll take that broken system over instant healing =/
(Except stimpack injectors…those actually could stimulate the body to “Work harder” to instant heal at the cost of needing more food/water and being tired)

[deoxy]

Actually, in the real world, people do heal noticeably faster while sleeping. And they also have a very difficult time healing if the injured area is in any way mistreated - a healing bone that is struck too hard rebreaks MUCH easier than a healed limb, stitches get pulled, torn muscles tear worse.

And in the game, I’ve healed limbs many times. It’s only death sentence if your situation is already quite dire.

[tarburst98]

the problem is it currently doesn’t matter how HARD the limb is a struck. a fly(regular size) could land on it and it breaks again. proposed change is that it will only rebreak if it takes damage. which i agree with.

[EnDSchultz]

the problem is it currently doesn’t matter how HARD the limb is a struck. a fly(regular size) could land on it and it breaks again. proposed change is that it will only rebreak if it takes damage. which i agree with.

Indeed, this is a case where I feel the quest for realism clashes with the reality of gameplay. In reality, yes, a broken limb is much more fragile than a whole one and the healing process might be disturbed if it’s struck hard enough in combat. But in gameplay terms, the bite of a flea is no different than the bite of a zombie if you have enough armor. So for simplicity’s sake, Coolthulu’s proposed (and evidently rejected) solution only makes sense.

[TheZoneWizard]

So what is going on with the mending situation? Has this been fixed to “specific limb takes damaged= re-break”?

Anything?

Everyone hates this broken limb crap except for Kevin and I feel compelled to revive this thread to talk more about it.

This is a gripe, but also a necessary topic to discuss as well.

[psyxypher]

The only experience I had with a broken limb is one two NPCs. One of them healed in three days. The other one took pretty much forever to heal, so I just set his Limb HP to full with Debug mode after a week.

Only healing during sleep makes some sense to me. I don’t think a person should heal while their doing strenuous activity, but if you’re doing something like sewing or cooking or reading, it’d make sense to heal slowly. Otherwise, the only way to heal while awake is with Fast Healer/Very Fast Healer/Regeneration.

It seems like the problem here is that when a limb breaks, it takes a long time to heal. And that when you get hit on that limb, it completely resets the healing process, no matter how far along you were in it and even if the limb itself didn’t take any damage.

Perhaps reduce the time it takes to heal a broken limb? I know if I had a broken limb and had to nurse it on my own, I wouldn’t be out fighting zombies. Perhaps a healing time of three or so days on base?