More injuries and more ways to treat them

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

So, after being annoyed with not having the supplies to handle infected bites, I suggested cauterizing wounds with a heated up knife or other bit of metal. Seems that made it in to 0.4, cool enough.

But then I got to thinking that First Aid skill is only really useful if you find and want to install some CBMs, and that the infected bites were a game changer in terms of when I felt ready to engage zombies. So, why not have more of that?

First up is bleeding wounds, which already exist but are fairly uncommon, treatable by a rag or a bandage as it is (and of course cauterizing it) How about something similar, open gashes, which might become infected like an infected bite, or might cause you to bleed once in awhile, plus, do you want that thing leaving a huge scar? Well, of course you do because you’ll look like a badass, but still.
The fix would be to sew it shut with your sewing kit or bone needles, or superglue it closed like Sabu.

Broken limbs could be splinted with 2x4s and rope or string until they heal, perhaps some sort of sci fi spray-on cast that you find in drugstores and is usable with less First Aid skill.

Getting shot by soldiers or bandits or aggressive survivors might occasionally leave you with a Bullet Wound which would require you to pull out the bullet with something, and then turns into an Open Gash (Perhaps this is taking it too far)

Getting stung by giant bees might leave their stingers in your flesh which would cause pain and possibly do more damage unless you remove the stinger similar to my suggestion for Bullet Wound.

And finally, when you walk over broken glass, rubble, and metal wreckage with no shoes on, you could occasionally contract the Hurt Feet disease which slows you down until you have time to sit down and pull shards of glass out of your feet a la Die Hard.

Thoughts?

2

Burns.

more than 1 point of damage from fire = degree of burn.

1st degree (less than 10% HP lost to fire) = constant pain, does not stop naturally until healed. Needs stronger than average painkillers constantly.
2nd degree (less than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 1st degree + need to change periodically bandages, failure to do so = high risk of infection.
3rd degree (more than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 2nd degree, -1 dex per wound and once “healed” turns to open gash wound that needs further treatment.

3

I think this could be a nice addition to the game, and it kind of opens up new things.

You really don’t have to stop at bullet wounds, might as well add stuff like

Internal bleeding - can be only stopped with the help of an NPC, only occurs in rare cases, say, when you fail to heal a bullet wound or something.
Concussions - Your character is in so much pain or something that your character falls to sleep for some number of turns.
Dislocated bones after receiving a hard punch, because zombies probably hurt, would require to snap them back into place. While they aren’t in place - receive penalties to some of the stats.
Some extreme cases of limb loss, say, losing an arm due to surgery/infection/epic katana slice and not being able to wield 2 hand weapons and such.

While those are just my ideas and shouldn’t be taken as much into account as yours, I honestly fully support your ideas. =]

4

For those familiar with C++, everything you are talking about would be added to disease.cpp, and I think game.cpp or player.cpp would be the file that would call it.

[quote=“DeepEnd, post:2, topic:755”]Burns.

more than 1 point of damage from fire = degree of burn.

1st degree (less than 10% HP lost to fire) = constant pain, does not stop naturally until healed. Needs stronger than average painkillers constantly.
2nd degree (less than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 1st degree + need to change periodically bandages, failure to do so = high risk of infection.
3rd degree (more than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 2nd degree, -1 dex per wound and once “healed” turns to open gash wound that needs further treatment. [/quote]

Something like this is already in the game, but not really tested. Not many people get burns. At the moment, the player will get blisters if he is too close to fire with too little protection. Different effects for different body parts. Hands for example will lose dexterity, cause pain, and a chance to lower max health. As far as I can tell, lost max health gets regained once the blisters are gone.

[quote=“Squirrel, post:3, topic:755”]Concussions - Your character is in so much pain or something that your character falls to sleep for some number of turns.
Dislocated bones after receiving a hard punch, because zombies probably hurt, would require to snap them back into place. While they aren’t in place - receive penalties to some of the stats.[/quote]

The idea of dislocated bones could easily be implemented too. If a player gets hit with a high enough bash damage, you add the disease “dislocated bone” ; you could even have one disease for each limb, depending where you are hit. And instead of dislocating the skull, you get a concussion.

Someone who wants to brave the code could easily implement this. Devs in the IRC would be more than happy to help and get you set up with github for sharing.

5

If this was implemented, I’d like a seperate menu called the “medical menu” or something for treating of wounds, since this would make it a lot more complex.

6

“Medical menu” sounds like system that has been implemented in roguelike called “Unreal Worlds”, also survival themed RPG.

7

Anyone who’s played Metal Gear Solid 3 will be familiar with the type of medical system I want for Cata.

8

IRL 3rd degree burns are unbelievably serious and result in maiming or death.
Sleeping when concussed can result in a coma = game over.
Bullet impacts and falls and sledgehammer hits and the like can cause hydro-static shock which can permanently nuke the brain. (That’s right, getting grazed in the buttocks by a high enough velocity projectile can cause irreversible brain damage).

9

Yeah, which is why realism will take a back seat to gameplay. Let’s just say that in the future everyone mumblemumble and mgnfhgn so injuries are much less lethal.

10

If we’re taking a leaf out of MGS…

Nanites.

NANITES.

NANITESNANITESNANITES

11

Uh, I thought CBMs had that handled already, in Deus Ex fashion. And there are the Medical nanobots, in any event–but those aren’t nearly up to Vamp specs.

12

[quote=“DeepEnd, post:2, topic:755”][spoiler]
Burns.

more than 1 point of damage from fire = degree of burn.

1st degree (less than 10% HP lost to fire) = constant pain, does not stop naturally until healed. Needs stronger than average painkillers constantly.
2nd degree (less than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 1st degree + need to change periodically bandages, failure to do so = high risk of infection.
3rd degree (more than 20% HP lost to fire) = as 2nd degree, -1 dex per wound and once “healed” turns to open gash wound that needs further treatment.[/spoiler][/quote]

Healable by commercial burn ointments (rarely spawned in house bathrooms, and more commonly in pharmacies and hospitals) honey/royal jelly, or an herbal poultice of some kind (buildable by rags and plant fiber or wild veggies perhaps, needs survival skill?) up to the third degree level which would need hospital machines.
Very cool, I never thought of burn wounds before this.

[quote=“Squirrel, post:3, topic:755”][spoiler]
I think this could be a nice addition to the game, and it kind of opens up new things.

You really don’t have to stop at bullet wounds, might as well add stuff like

Internal bleeding - can be only stopped with the help of an NPC, only occurs in rare cases, say, when you fail to heal a bullet wound or something.
Concussions - Your character is in so much pain or something that your character falls to sleep for some number of turns.
Dislocated bones after receiving a hard punch, because zombies probably hurt, would require to snap them back into place. While they aren’t in place - receive penalties to some of the stats.
Some extreme cases of limb loss, say, losing an arm due to surgery/infection/epic katana slice and not being able to wield 2 hand weapons and such.

While those are just my ideas and shouldn’t be taken as much into account as yours, I honestly fully support your ideas. =][/spoiler][/quote]
That’s not really how concussions work IRL, which is that it’s a minor brain injury, like imagine your grey matter has been bonked on the inside of your skull. They say not to sleep immediately after a blow to the head in case you’ve gotten a concussion, I’m not sure the reason why but I suspect it’s because you might stop breathing or something. Someone putting a few minutes into google could probably find out for sure. An actual concussion disease would probably happen when you take a certain amount of blunt damage to the head, and reduce your eyesight/hearing radius sporadically or rarely give you a few turns of hallucination.

Not shooting you down, those are good suggestions too, I just wonder if some of these aren’t already abstracted by the pain mechanics.

YES. YES FUCKING YES. That is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I was thinking about expanding medicine, except perhaps with more long term effects. Every time Snake gets shot, though, he pulls out the bullet with his knife and then he’s pretty much set to go, not really slowed down much. Maybe getting leeches (Or giant horrific mutant leeches) as a disease could be added, and you need salt, turpentine, or a lit cigarette to get them off of you. Maybe not turpentine, as that’s not an item yet and I’m not sure how many other uses for it we can come up with. Bleach as a placeholder?

Pardon if I spoilered your post and didn’t spoiler someone else’s, I just spoilered the longer ones, honest.

13

[quote=“Goober, post:8, topic:755”]IRL 3rd degree burns are unbelievably serious and result in maiming or death.
Sleeping when concussed can result in a coma = game over.
Bullet impacts and falls and sledgehammer hits and the like can cause hydro-static shock which can permanently nuke the brain. (That’s right, getting grazed in the buttocks by a high enough velocity projectile can cause irreversible brain damage).[/quote]
…Yeah but…[quote=“The Darkling Wolf, post:9, topic:755”]Yeah, which is why realism will take a back seat to gameplay. Let’s just say that in the future everyone mumblemumble and mgnfhgn so injuries are much less lethal.[/quote]
This. We also don’t heal from near fatal wounds by getting one good night’s sleep, but adding too much realism sometimes makes the game less fun. I’m just a fan of roguelikes with various horrifying and graphic diseases and negative effects.

Speaking of, drugs aren’t nearly as bad as they should be, but I should probably start a new thread for that.