Prototype medibeam

[Cyiko]

an R&D medical item that is for all intents and purposes just the ERT medibeam with or without the bone healing effect. Handy for paramedics, doctors in a crisis and the brig physician!

 

Basically this is just a suggestion to add the medibeam gun, nerfed or otherwise to the protolathe

Other potential ideas are mounting this to a turret for an automatic healing turret or a new medibot similar in size to an ed209 for medical purposes. Ody mounted medibeam, mediborgs upgraded with the medibeam... The list goes on! This item is so handy and interesting but rarely ever seen because of the few events it's restricted to. Given a high cost in materials, a nerf to the bone mending as an alternate version of the medigun, I think it'd make an excellent addition to normal round play, provided R&D has the tech and mats to build it

Edited May 3, 2017 by Cyiko

[EvadableMoxie]

The problem is once science starts making these you might as well tell all the Doctors to go to Cryo because their job is now pointless. At least with the ERT beams they are rare and not so easy to get your hands on.  If they are an R&D item, you could print 30 of them and give them to every department and close down Medbay. 

[Sothangel]

Handy in a crisis indeed, but also pretty useful outside. In fact, this would basically be a portable cryotube if it didn't fix bones. If it did, it's a portable medical. I'm not a fan.

[Purpose2]

@Sothangel Entirely agreed.

This shouldn't be a thing. People want to make medical harder and this is a total step backwards.

[MarsMond]

I don't think you can really make a good balanced medbeam gun that makes it still worth to have that gun. Some sort of beam that breaks if either moves, and heals at the speed of saline glucose would be okay, does not make medbay really much easier, could have just used patches and the like, but who would want to use that? If you keep the healing power, but make it mobile, i see it coming that not medbay gets the beam, but rather security, to make them shrug of attacks more easily.

As nice as the medbeam is, there is a reason only nukies and gamma ERT have it.

[Valkuma]

3 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

The problem is once science starts making these you might as well tell all the Doctors to go to Cryo because their job is now pointless. At least with the ERT beams they are rare and not so easy to get your hands on.  If they are an R&D item, you could print 30 of them and give them to every department and close down Medbay. 

Negative, the doctors job is already pointless if Chems is working and the fridge is stocked, or the sleepers are upgraded, or the cryotubes work. Anyone that can enter medbay or is let into medbay heals themself anyway.

 

The point of a doctor is that they need to specialize in fixing oddball problems (infections/genetic disorders) and surgery. A mounted medi-beam that heals basic damages wont change a doctors purpose. Its just a better-medbot. A medbeam wont bring back the dead, it wont cleanse toxins from your body (nerfed version), it wont de-blind you or heal organs or bones... it just performs what synthflesh/pentetic/saline already do.

 

Ideally it'd be tuned to require uranium to produce as well, limiting it to only 3-4 are produced and attached to bots or healing turrets or given to paramedics.

 

This is a fantastic idea really. Lets the doctors focus on getting better at surgery (now with the infection PR, surgery is even more labor intensive and annoying which has only made shadowlings and tspiders stronger than ever..)

 

If youre worried about sec powergaming it, make it take up both hand slots or function as a backpack sprayer, and have a range of 1 tile unless its turret-mounted.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Valkuma

[Landerlow]

I am against this idea. It would make doctors obsolete.

[FlattestGuitar]

The glorious medbeam fixes 2 brute and 2 burn per second, as well as having a tiny chance of fixing bones.
It does not fix toxin damage, suffocation damage, internal bleeding, organ damage, brain damage nor clone damage.
It has no feelings and is incredibly cold in its approach to the patient.
It cannot be seduced.

I feel like people are overestimating how useful these things are. Slapping a patch on someone is way faster than bothering with the beam, and patches take up far less space in your inventory than the gun would.

I do feel that it's an unnecessary gimmick that will make Science even more self-sustainable, leading to players being even more segregated, but you guys are thinking too highly of the gun.

[EvadableMoxie]

52 minutes ago, Valkuma said:

Negative, the doctors job is already pointless if Chems is working and the fridge is stocked, or the sleepers are upgraded, or the cryotubes work. Anyone that can enter medbay or is let into medbay heals themself anyway.

 

I disagree.  In my experience playing MD this is simply untrue. Not everyone has medical access to get into the fridge, and not everyone knows what every drug does, nor do people have medical scanners to determine exactly what is wrong with them and which drugs they need and how much. 

But even if we agreed you're right, this only means it makes Chemistry pointless instead of MD, which is still a solid argument against it's implementation.

 

52 minutes ago, Valkuma said:

This is a fantastic idea really. Lets the doctors focus on getting better at surgery (now with the infection PR, surgery is even more labor intensive and annoying which has only made shadowlings and tspiders stronger than ever..)

The changes didn't make surgery any more difficult.  The steps have not changed. You just have to inject 5u of Spacecillin into your patients after surgery more often than you had to before. That, and you have an actual excuse for yelling at people to get the hell out of your OR while you're doing surgery, which is nice.

They certainly didn't buff any antags.  I'm not risking a shadowling getting lose or someone exploding with spiders in order to prevent a mild infection treatable with 5u on spaceacillin. I'm just going to do the surgery and then give them 5u of spaceacillin after. 

We have 5 doctor slots (Plus the CMO who is basically an MD most of the time) and 2 ORs. It isn't realistic for surgery to be the major part of every doctor's job.

I kind of feel this is getting off-topic though.  I will say in general I think medicine should be harder than it is, and therefore I'm pretty much against more magical solutions that anyone without medical training can use and have no downside.  Even if it's limited to two damage types. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by EvadableMoxie

[ZN23X]

1 hour ago, Valkuma said:

Anyone that can enter medbay or is let into medbay heals themself anyway.

The point of a doctor is that they need to specialize in fixing oddball problems (infections/genetic disorders) and surgery.

THIS mindset is a powergaming mindset in general. Doctors SHOULD be healing people. Slow down and tell a doctor you are hurt, tell them what happened to you, allow them to fix you. Don't be in such a hurry. Just gave me an idea for a new suggestion.

[Cyiko]

Even if R&D can't create it, if the brig physician was changed to no longer be a karma job and also function as an actual police medic instead of brig babysitter, having him spawn with a nerfed medibeam and having it be an antag target to steal might be a bit of fun

[ZN23X]

48 minutes ago, Cyiko said:

if the brig physician was changed to no longer be a karma job and also function as an actual police medic instead of brig babysitter

I've been a field medic plenty of times as a the brig doc. Just take some first aid kits or a few pill bottles with patches in an. Especially exciting in blob rounds.

[Wheatley29]

I feel like to a degree this is such a powercreep for science, as those who wish to work as a team as antags can very easily get their hands on single slot free healing chems. Overall the concept of a medibeam is only good because they are limited and rare, and thus their power is somewhat justified. 

[Da Dman234]

Pretty sure Science is already capable of making these, although it requires an obscenely high level of research that is only obtainable by deconstructing one in the first place. I could just be talking out of my ass though, or it may have been changed.

[Wheatley29]

2 minutes ago, Da Dman234 said:

Pretty sure Science is already capable of making these, although it requires an obscenely high level of research that is only obtainable by deconstructing one in the first place. I could just be talking out of my ass though, or it may have been changed.

Not possible, according to the wiki

[Da Dman234]

On 5/5/2017 at 4:06 PM, Wheatley29 said:

Not possible, according to the wiki

The wiki is not known to frequently be right, and often times lags up to months behind in regard to science. That being said, I'm definitely not 100% sure on this and could very well be wrong. I haven't been playing science as much lately.

[GunDOS]

In my personal opinion, medical should be made harder not easier. Currently (assuming you have a decent staff) you will have healing chems (synthflesh, etc) and the cloner stocked within ten minutes. At around the half hour mark you will have Strange Reagent which granted is not as useful as before it's nerf, it still allows almost instant revival assuming you have some synthflesh and a cryo pod on hand. At around 40-60 minutes viro will have produced and started distributing a healing virus, making your job effectively obsolete already. Apart from reviving and treating broken bones and damaged organs. Medical does not need anything to make the job even quicker and easier.

On 3/5/2017 at 9:18 PM, FlattestGuitar said:

The glorious medbeam fixes 2 brute and 2 burn per second, as well as having a tiny chance of fixing bones.
It does not fix toxin damage, suffocation damage, internal bleeding, organ damage, brain damage nor clone damage.
It has no feelings and is incredibly cold in its approach to the patient.
It cannot be seduced.

I feel like people are overestimating how useful these things are. Slapping a patch on someone is way faster than bothering with the beam, and patches take up far less space in your inventory than the gun would.

I do feel that it's an unnecessary gimmick that will make Science even more self-sustainable, leading to players being even more segregated, but you guys are thinking too highly of the gun.

Yes, but at least with chems there is still required the cost of making said chems. And the fact that they are in limited supply. Giving medical the gun is just free Mobile healing. You may as well add a portable sleeper.

[Cyiko]

On 5/7/2017 at 10:30 AM, Saul Argon said:

In my personal opinion, medical should be made harder not easier. Currently (assuming you have a decent staff) you will have healing chems (synthflesh, etc) and the cloner stocked within ten minutes. At around the half hour mark you will have Strange Reagent which granted is not as useful as before it's nerf, it still allows almost instant revival assuming you have some synthflesh and a cryo pod on hand. At around 40-60 minutes viro will have produced and started distributing a healing virus, making your job effectively obsolete already. Apart from reviving and treating broken bones and damaged organs. Medical does not need anything to make the job even quicker and easier.

Yes, but at least with chems there is still required the cost of making said chems. And the fact that they are in limited supply. Giving medical the gun is just free Mobile healing. You may as well add a portable sleeper.

The chem dispensers regenerate over time at a pretty decent rate, plus many people who know chemistry get the recipe for styptic and SS burnt into their memory like... Things that shouldn't be seen....

The medibeam takes quite a bit of time, I'd rather just be shoved in a sleeper, maxed out with styptic/ss given 30u of omnizine then kicked out rather than have to sit in line of the blue tickle beam for quite some time

[GunDOS]

@Cyiko it still requires effort to make chems, a medigun is one click heal bones and damage.

Think of another scenario, you could have medigun and a spray bottle of mito. GG you have just made surgery obsolete. 

Medical does not need any more labor saving devices. In my opinion, it's only when say... the cloners break or we don't get any chems due to a traitor chemist, that's when medical gets really fun. You have to think to save your patient, using all the tools you have available. And not doing something your average monkey can do.

[Cyiko]

43 minutes ago, Saul Argon said:

@Cyiko it still requires effort to make chems, a medigun is one click heal bones and damage.

Think of another scenario, you could have medigun and a spray bottle of mito. GG you have just made surgery obsolete. 

Medical does not need any more labor saving devices. In my opinion, it's only when say... the cloners break or we don't get any chems due to a traitor chemist, that's when medical gets really fun. You have to think to save your patient, using all the tools you have available. And not doing something your average monkey can do.

Making styptic/ss takes about as much effort as clicking someone with a medigun and heals much faster, I've also stated I wouldn't want this medigun fixing bones.

[GunDOS]

Making those two chems requires a decent chemist, also why make Stypic or silver when you can make synthflesh? So much simpler granted not to make.

Anyways, it's my opinion that this makes it a little too easy. Chems need to be made, and you require a little skill to make those chems in good doses fast. 

[Cyiko]

11 hours ago, Saul Argon said:

Making those two chems requires a decent chemist, also why make Stypic or silver when you can make synthflesh? So much simpler granted not to make.

Anyways, it's my opinion that this makes it a little too easy. Chems need to be made, and you require a little skill to make those chems in good doses fast. 

Don't oversell chemistry. It's just memorizing recipes and anyone who plays chemistry more than three times will have the recipe burned into their skull, I can make them without even thinking. Sleepers do the same thing and when upgraded will do it far better for much longer, as does cryo. Even botany can do it with kelotane and bicaridine pills that are fire and forget, the only thing going for the medibeam is that it's portable healing made from potentially expensive materials instead of carrying pill bottles of patches which would do the job faster.

Brute and burn damage is extremely easy to treat, medibots do it with their saline glucose, sleepers do it, cryo does it, genetics can do it, virology can do it. The medibeam will not make it any easier or harder, it's just another way to do it in a slightly more portable form, I'd still be fine with the prototype medibeam having to be worn as a backpack, but like flattest said, it is not an amazing holy grail of healing that people make it out to be. I'd have to sit there shooting someone with a beam for quite some time to bring them back up to max health and slapping a patch on someone will always be better

Edited May 9, 2017 by Cyiko

[whiskeyfur]

On ‎5‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 7:50 AM, Saul Argon said:

@Cyiko it still requires effort to make chems, a medigun is one click heal bones and damage.

Think of another scenario, you could have medigun and a spray bottle of mito. GG you have just made surgery obsolete. 

Medical does not need any more labor saving devices. In my opinion, it's only when say... the cloners break or we don't get any chems due to a traitor chemist, that's when medical gets really fun. You have to think to save your patient, using all the tools you have available. And not doing something your average monkey can do.

Or when someone bombs medical so you have no chemist, no cryovats, everything was spaced and the only way to work is to build a new medbay somewhere else... and only by some miracle Engineering was able to rebuild the cloner, then either you sink or swim. What do you do then?

That was one of my rounds as CMO. Fun until the clowns started dicking around again. (FYI: I have yet to see a clown with any common sense at all.)

But all that aside.. I had the opportunity to use a medibeam on someone as I was dragging them around due to the lack of wheelchairs (CLOWNS AGAIN), even with fractures and you know what? That medibeam saved his life. It didn't fix his bones, but honestly?

I don't care if they would be next up on science's research after they get all the sleepers and stuff upgraded, it's WORTH it, especially in rounds where you have 10+ antags and so much chaos going on and a pile of corpses in front of the cloner about 10 deep as they wait their turn. (if you think I'm exaggerating the numbers here.. you would be sadly mistaken.)

The only reason I see not to use medibeams is when the workload isn't so heavy. But as it stands right now? If admins want to keep throwing antag aftar antag into the round, give medical the means to at least keep up with that red tide of wounds and blood you'll be making. It's not fun being forced to sit the round out as a ghost because medical is backed up.. and creating more antags to give the ghosts something to do, is not the right answer.. you only make it harder for medical then in an already impossible situation.

[EvadableMoxie]

15 minutes ago, whiskeyfur said:

Or when someone bombs medical so you have no chemist, no cryovats, everything was spaced and the only way to work is to build a new medbay somewhere else... and only by some miracle Engineering was able to rebuild the cloner, then either you sink or swim. What do you do then?
 

You face the consequences.   

Actions have consequences.  If an Antag manages to destroy Medbay, doing so should have a massive impact on the round. Everyone should be screwed.  The response to Medbay being destroyed should be panic and terror not. It should be a massive problem that the crew must correct.  If there is a way around it, that won't be the case.

 

15 minutes ago, whiskeyfur said:

The only reason I see not to use medibeams is when the workload isn't so heavy. But as it stands right now? If admins want to keep throwing antag aftar antag into the round, give medical the means to at least keep up with that red tide of wounds and blood you'll be making. It's not fun being forced to sit the round out as a ghost because medical is backed up.. and creating more antags to give the ghosts something to do, is not the right answer.. you only make it harder for medical then in an already impossible situation.

We shouldn't balance around Adminbus rounds, and if we are then the Admins can spawn them, it doesn't need to be something players can make on every round because some rounds might be Adminbussed. 

Edited May 16, 2017 by EvadableMoxie

[whiskeyfur]

I had a long reply ready to go but I'm just going to say this instead.

I want to see those who think medical should be harder, to die in game, forced to stay in their corpse for most of the round because of that back log, and THEN ask them how they feel about it OOC wise. And if they bitch about it? ICA ICC: In character  action, in character consequences. Deal with it. Maybe you shouldn't have died then. That's the results of making medical harder.