Medbay, Griefing, Syringe Gun

[Yisati2]

This is a subject I've wanted to tackle for a long time now and sort of just the general flaws of medbays design aswell as some of the rampant behavior that's been always present

Medbay is frustrating

Between chasmed miners to advanced revivals needed for some species, the absolute amount of O- blood users and the general culture surrounding medbay is difficult to fully express with words on how hair pulling it can be.

But you know the absolute worst part, medbay is open. Completely open to the public. Unlike every other department in the game you can just walk into medbay. Sure, the doors aren't naturally open to everyone, but any good CMO knows the set them to Emergency Access so we don't need a doctor sitting around at the entrance for the entire shift. And if they don't well people just tear down the windows to medbay, this is just regular server culture at this point and this level of vandalism is brushed aside.

Speaking of vandalism, yeah medbay is looted every single round. Explorers, Miners and Security make a beeline for the back end of medbay and either ask or break in to take their supplies. You'll even have people hacking into the med vendor fridges every single round, this is not an isolated incident this has become regular server culture. Should I be allowed to break into security as an explorer for guns? Should I be able to break into engineer 'Just incase' something breaks? No, that would be enforced if done constantly. Why not with medbay?

When I have to tell new medbay players that 'Yeah thats the clown, he's going to shove you constantly and slip you when you're dragging a patient. There's nothing we can do' it's becoming a problem

People Are Leaving Over This

I've talked to multiple players, I personally talk with multiple medbay players all the time and I've been directly told that this is affecting their motivation to play. You cannot go a single round without some sort of incident occuring. It's an open area, alot of people are in it, Doctors get openly frustrated and give reactions. It's the attention seekers hotspot and frankly it's agonizing.

People are just getting sick of trying to appease these people, you can't 'win' against them. If you do anything they'll just come back and medbay has no defenses. We can shove, we have an open door they can just walk back in. It takes a single person to turn medbay to a miserable experience for everyone. From the people trying to be healed to the doctors.

That's Great, Whats this gotta do with the Syringe Gun?

Let's actually talk about the Syringe Gun in depth. It's the CMO's offensive tool. Every single department head has one of these. From reactive armor, to brass knuckles, to the many dangerous tools of the engineers, hell even the NTR has a shock cane.

The Syringe Gun is the most powerful of these. So powerful Infact we aren't allowed to use it

Chemicals are scary, very scary. And it's come to the server culture that putting someone to sleep is essentially the same as round removing them. Even the most basic knockout chem of Ether lasts a long time. And admins bring up that a single needle essentially does secs job for them.

What is the Syringe Gun supposed to be used for then? According to many sources, it's to be used to remove the hulk mutation so security doesn't have to beat them into crit. So essentially The Syringe Gun is to be used to validhunt it is clear that the server rules only want people to shove and retreat. By the design of the Syringe gun and what SoP wants of the CMO. I must valid hunt any hulks with Mutadone. Or simply give away the syringe gun to sec. Which at that point why do I even have it.

There Are No Use Cases For The Syringe Gun

Even when it's full Lethals a go which for antags that can actually absorb chemicals leave it to the Cult and Nukies. Doesn't work on the nukies because of their hardsuit. Which leaves us with the cult, which have their own set of rules surrounding them, so we have a tool, that can only ever be used against a cult actively partaking in the ritual.

The Syringe Gun is a sirens call, it could solve all of medbays grief, it could make people genuinely think twice about looting and slipping medbay, but it gets you bwoinked if you ever use it.

Why Not Call Security For Harassment?

Because in the case of griefers swarming medbay, shoving people, getting in the way and all around being a nuisance. Calling security allows for them to escalate things. Their crimes don't carry on to the next round, you've done nothing but make yourself more of a target to mess with.

Antags should be dealt by security and this post isn't about medbays ability to deal with an Antag, it just adds to the issue with how open medbay and how much of a sitting duck we are not to mention getting harassed all round only to have an Antag attack later on is why you see 'Validbay' because at that point we're tired and cranky

And then when actually trying to get the harasser arrested, that's always an entire process of first sec coming in and requesting they leave, then we gotta wait for the second time to happen which will then have them messing with sec of just standing in our entrance saying they aren't technically inside. It's just a hassle and we're playing a game of deja vu every single round it happens.

What Can We Do About This?

There are a few solutions I've come up, and I'd love for people to add some more. But first off I think we need medbay to be treated like any other department. If I went into any other department stole things that I 'needed' every single round, that'd be self antagging or even power gaming in some cases.

Suggestion 1: Door Health Scanners

Simply put, doors that along with their regular access also open if someone is below a certain amount of health. This would make sure only injured people are getting into medbay and make medbay less hectic by barring out the people who are just there to 'prank' us

The CMO could have a device that adjusts the amount of health, so if people are just injuring themselves to get in we could just put it even lower

Suggestion 2: Remove Syringe Gun, Give Defensive Tool

While this could be controversial. I just don't think the CMOs Syringe Gun belongs on Paradise. No one wants it to be used between the admins and the players

Medbay needs SOMETHING to actually keep people out and not just be the stations punching bag. Just literally anything the CMO could use that would give us time to drag someone out of the medbay. The telescopic baton isn't enough, just something like the shock cane or a Taser would do the job. People escalating against medbay always ends us going full saws on them, because we have nothing else but that and shoving.

If the CMO has a good way to get people out of the medbay we could then remove Emergency Access and wait until they get bored, or start to vandalize the windows, which could then lead to a much higher arrest which would discourage such behavior or atleast get them out of hair for a while

Suggestion 3: Reinforce Medbay

Reinforced walls, windows, doors with reinforced metal over the wires etc. Just so it's not easy to tide into medbay, I'd also recommend adding more sets of doors so the front area and the area we treat patients can be seperate. That way we can actually isolate ourselves if things are getting bad

Add more front door buttons to medbay aswell and give medbay personnel some sort of PDA device or item that lets us check the medbay cameras. That way we don't have to sit at the front door to let people in and have multiple locations around medbay to open the door for actual patients

Suggestion. 4: Med-Fu

While Id count this as the least appetizing suggestion, it may be something to look into. Much like the chef's own martial arts. Medbay could realistically have a minor version of it.

Medbay is undefended, open to all, and is a genuine target for a majority of antags who want to mess up the station. Just some minor stamina damage on shoves while in medbay or something so we don't have an unlimited shoving match against someone we want out. I think it's the worst suggestion but I want to spitball what I can

Conclusion

Medbay is pain, server culture around it sucks. Space law doesn't protect us, Syringe guns attract bwoinks and is controversial to use. Medbay mains are getting tired.

We just need a way to restore order or atleast make us not an easy target for attention seekers. I think action needs to be taken, if not one of my suggestions then SOMETHING and I'd like to hear people's thoughts while starting an actual conversation about these issues.

Edited June 23 by Yisati2

[Spacemanspark]

Greytiding into places for supplies/to do the job of another department because you're 0.02 seconds too slow for their liking has always been an issue with paradise. While medical certainly draws in a ton of this behavior, it's far from the only department experiencing it. I can tell you that robotics also faces similar issues--I've had people who are meant to be community role models break into robotics while I'm doing something and attempt to hijack my job, and when I raised the issue in discord later everyone instantly knew who I was talking about and said "Oh yeah that's X, haha funny guy them". The player in question didn't give a damn either, and merely brushed me off. 

It's definitely one of the things that's pushed me away from paradise yet again, alongside other issues such as rampant hostilities in the discord over minor disagreements and the like. 

Unfortunately I don't see a manner of really fixing this issue without being even more 'strict' with the server rules. If people are determined to be a problem, they'll find a way to be so regardless of how many ways you attempt to hinder them. And more than likely you'll face OOC backlash for it as well. 

[Yisati2]

Yeah Roboticist has always been out brothers and sisters across the hall should've mentioned you guys aswell

That's sort of the wild part of all of this, this level of tiding/Griefing is just the norm at this point when it comes to the sort of healing departments. Well known Blueshields taking 3 medkits, explorers stealing every patch etc. And as I said you just gotta give it over, or you get escalated on every single round. Not to mention trying to deal with the miner who really wants his goddamn voice of God to make his spin around hoohee the funny let me drop saving 5 crew members to do that for ya bud.

I think the worst I've been experiencing is people will ignore every single doctor and come to me personally because they know I'm the most skilled. That pisses me off to no end honestly and if you've come into my medbay and left with an infected wound, take the hint.

And you're right, I fully expect to get some OOC flak for this entire post. But I'm just getting frustrated at this point, more so for the other people like yourself who are being encouraged to leave the server because of this behavior. It's absolutely wild the other nitpicks that aren't allowed but breaking down medbay and Griefing is as we're trying to revive is ok

[Abaddonius]

Felt like I should comment this as I've played medical sometimes and have experienced this.

When it comes to people targeting medical because of something you did last round, like calling security on them, that's the point you should probably talk to an admin and let them know. 

If someone steals supplies, you can alert an officer you know about what they did (trespass and petty theft), and provide witnesses that saw them do this. If someone is harassing you for something senseless repeatedly and you've asked them in LOOC to stop (such as demanding spaceacillin for a nonexistent tumor), I think you can ahelp, especially if they're hampering revivals by blocking hallways.

If the HOS or Blueshield are taking a lot of meds without at the very least buying a nanomed resupply or asking first, and then refusing to return the meds if you ask, you can probably make a fax seeing as hampering medical via taking enough supplies to have a negative impact probably isn't the best. Maybe the blueshield could get a nanomed like the paramedic does on some maps, though, 

I don't think we need significant changes to help with this. It's just about handling it right. Though I do wish to see Constable revived, maybe I could make a new discussion thread for a replacement for it and work on some clothing sprites for the job.

Edited June 24 by Abaddonius
Constable probably wouldn't get approved.

[TheSeren]

I agree 100% that medbay does need something, ANYTHING to fend off tiders with. So many people just waltz in while being at full health and that never fails to annoy me. I wish we had circuits for the door health scanners. I'm going to start playing CMO and lock down medical like crazy. (and watch people get upset at me for protecting my department.) 

[Yisati2]

I do agree that it can be a matter of just handling the situation correctly. The problem is when the situation is arising every single round. A while I'd be inclined to ahelp the repetitive nature of it makes me not want to. It's not a problem of player behavior, it's a problem of server culture and how it's been enabled. There's also the 'Do I want to dance with this issue for half a round' I send a fax to central, sure I can write up a detailed letter get the captain to send it wait for a response play out the response get questioned by central. But medbay is stressful and busy. I do not want to play out that process every single round. Even calling security can be a hassle, because now you have even more people in medbay blocking the halls until they make the actual arrest, and during these times where I need people out of medbay is usually during a time of crisis. You really gonna get some seccies to come down and evict someone from medbay during a biohazard? It just won't happen.

As for Seren there are rounds where I do lock down medbay. But it just screws me over equally so because now I have to sit there and be a glorified 'AI open door' so the internal bleeding miner doesn't lose even more blood just standing there. I do think the medical scanner door would be amazing to have and would make the cases of people coming in purely to pester medbay wayyy more clear-cut if they began to self harm to get in. And yeah, CMO needs a defensive tool that doesn't get us banned, remove the syringe gun it's clear it's not wanted and then just give sec mutadone filled tech darts to fulfill the syringe guns supposed use of subduing hulks.

[Spacemanspark]

52 minutes ago, Yisati2 said:

if they began to self harm to get in

Frankly that kind of behavior should be bwoinkable, as it's just LRP nonsense. 

 

But I'm also the guy who thinks paradise should remove the suicide function so take that opinion with a grain of salt I suppose 

[Yisati2]

Absolutely agree. That's why I think the med scanner doors would be great as it solves the problem twofold of not having to keep medbay EA at all times, and to make instances of just wanting to pester medbay way more clear cut

And yeah I completely agree the suicide verb is pretty lowRP is general (Even if I love the whole turning into a medical wrench one) I think even worse is the Russian Revolver (As it's this weird middle ground of suicide and not suicide) not to mention that it's a pain to give someone two entire bloodbags for them to do it again 10 minutes later. I just DNR them at this point anyways.