First aid?

[btfx]

I agree with the old XCom style - fatal wounds and all. However if this is to be implemented, there was one terrible limitation - in Xcom you cannot send injured soldiers out onto missions. IMHO this should really be avoided as risk management should be left to the player.

[Psawhn]

I like the X-COM system, too. Also, wounded soldiers had a handicap to their abilities. Of course, it's up to the developers if they want to be 'inspired' by the system, or try to use their own system that works.

Me, I think it makes sense that soldiers would not be allowed on missions until the doctors clear them. I'd sometimes accidentally bring a trooper along who had only a dozen hitpoints, and I'd wonder "Why did anybody even allow him on the plane? He must be limping and have to change his bandages every day."

Of course, in X-Com, because hospital time was based on number of HP lost, my more experienced soldiers were bedridden a lot longer than rookies were (assuming they survived). I think percentage of HP lost would be a better algorithm.

Oh, one addition to the hospital screen should be a countdown to when the soldier would be fully healed.

[Surrealistik]

I prefer the X-Com system as well. You should only be able to heal mortal wounds with the medikit (and if we're not implimenting mortal wounds, up to a % of the soldier's health). There is seriously no reason to build and equip comparatively expensive hospital facilities when you can near insta-heal your soldiers on the field.

I also agree that risk management should be left to the player. Being deprived of the use of your soldier while he recouperates is needlessly annoying.

[btfx]

I also agree that risk management should be left to the player. Being deprived of the use of your soldier while he recouperates is needlessly annoying.

Sometimes a 2 HP soldier is all you need to keep the aliens busy "sniping" while you flank them.

Edit: Oh, and more importantly the soldiers aren't just a waste of quarters.

[Artanis]

An idea for balancing Medikits without deviating too much from the current system:

Keep track of two health values, one for in-mission, one for after-mission.  When a soldier gets hurt, both go down.  When a medikit is used, it has its current effect on in-mission health, but only, say, half as much for after-mission health.  When the soldier gets back to base, he's treated as though he has the after-mission health (with a minimum of 1, if he survived the mission but wound up with 0 or less after-mission hp remaining).


As an example to illustrate what i mean:

1) Shooty McSoldier goes into a mission with 100 health.
2) At one point in that mission, he takes a Plasma blast for 60 damage.  Both in-mission and after-mission scores are reduced to (100-60=) 40.
3) A buddy uses a Medikit on Shooty McSoldier, restoring 50 health.  The game shows him as being at (40+50=) 90 health for the purpose of the mission, but records him as being at only (40+25=) 65 for after-mission.
4) Shooty McSoldier finishes the mission without further healing or injury.
5) When he gets back to base, Shooty McSoldier is treated for the purpose of healing and future mission hp as though he were wounded down to 65, requiring 35 damage worth of hospital time to come back to his full 100.


The in-mission vs. after-mission health could be demonstrated on the interface in a number of ways.  The after-mission health could just be hidden (AFAIK requiring no actual change to the interface).  Another way would be to have the after-mission health in one color, with the rest of the in-mission health in a slightly different color: e.g. in the example above, Shooty McSoldier's hp bar could be red in the 1-65 part of the block and red-orange in the 66-90 part.

The fraction healed could also easily be changed from 1/2, since I mostly just used that for an example.  The medikit could very well do nothing to after-mission health, for example.

A good thing to add to this would be to not allow a medikit to heal a soldier beyond what he started the mission with.  So if Shooty McSoldier goes on a mission immediately, he'd be shown has having 65 health (both in-mission and after-mission), but the medikit would do nothing if used right away.  If he gets shot again, a medikit would not bring his in-mission health above 65.  In other words, that 35 damage remaining from his first mission could only be healed in the Hospital.



Just a thought.  I love the game, and think the developers are doing a great job, so I'm just trying to help a little bit when I see something that could use a little tweaking 




Edit: Geez, now I find a similar suggestion in another forum.  I look for an hour, and only find it after I've made the post 

[btfx]

This is in reply to the above post (didn't want to quote that huge block).

Ok, so now we can say Shooty has 65/90 HP. The question is, what happens when Shooty gets another 60 damage hit? Does he have 30/5 HP? Is he dead? What happens if he then gets another 20 hit? If he's not dead then, is it just for the mission? Does he go to 0 HP?

[Artanis]

This is in reply to the above post (didn't want to quote that huge block).

Ok, so now we can say Shooty has 65/90 HP. The question is, what happens when Shooty gets another 60 damage hit? Does he have 30/5 HP? Is he dead? What happens if he then gets another 20 hit? If he's not dead then, is it just for the mission? Does he go to 0 HP?

If his in-mission hp goes to 0, he'd be dead.  So if Shooty takes another 60-damage hit, he'd be down to 30 in-mission and 5 post-mission.  If he takes another 20 beyond that, he'd be at 10 in-mission and -15 after-mission.

Part of my suggestion was that, if something like this were to happen, the soldier would be treated as though he had 1hp left when he got back to base and began making the Medics earn their pay.  I figure that if a field-portable medikit can keep him alive and in combat shape, then they'd probably have the means to keep him alive long enough to get him somewhere that he can be stabilized and then shipped back to HQ 

That's just one way to handle it, of course

[btfx]

Yes, that's how I would imagine it too. But what about multiple heals? could a soldier have 100 in-Mission HP and -372 post-mission HP. I think not.

Also, I think soldiers with post-mission HP less than 0 should have a chance of dying after the mission, proportional to the absolute value of their post mission HP and the amount of time it takes to get back to base (perhaps give them a chance of death every 5 seconds?)

[Captain Bipto]

I Like the idea that Medipacks heal temporary (That is to say from a realistic view not a player view, lol), But I think Hospitals need either improved to work a little faster or Faster with more Doctors, Or a way to research faster healing techiques and Tech's (Ala Nano-technology and Cloned organs lol). But yeah the Temporary healing sounds more balanced for medi-packs.

I like the idea of medipacks providing temporary hitpoints that go away at the end of the missing (perhaps not a 100% reduction though).  In x-com the medpack was used to keep people from bleeding to death and curing stun damage.  The fact that both in UFO:AI and X-com the medipack is a very important piece of equipment that can keep your guys together is a sign the developers know what they are doing.  Another issue regarding balancing med packs is that remember, in x-com you started with***DRUM ROLL*** snazzy looking jumpsuits as your uniform (not armor) while in UFO:AI you can get battle armor, which is better than nothing.  On the normal difficulty my guys, if lucky can survive two hits, that is...before getting healed. 

Another way to balance medipacks would just to give them a limited number of charges! Give them 4 charges or something.

[shevegen]

Altough i quite liked the ability to revive dead soldiers in ufo:aftershock 

hehe i dont like this idea for "normal" soldiers, but maybe one day we have massive amounts of implants, and then
it would just be a matter of repairing those implants, rather than healing the guy in question ...

[Doctor J]

I also agree that risk management should be left to the player. Being deprived of the use of your soldier while he recouperates is needlessly annoying.

Sure, but the soldier's name should be in a different color or something to let the player know that the soldier in not up to snuff.  When i was a new player i lost a few guys when i shipped them back out not knowing they were still injured.  Perhaps the default behavior should be to remove injured soldiers from the dropship, and post a warning when injured soldiers are put back on the plane.

[Doctor J]

Do doctors currently have any function?

You've probably already sorted this out, but for the benefit of future forum visitors:

Doctors accomplish nothing outside of a hospital, and the hospital accomplishes nothing without a doctor in it.  My personal feeling is that he should then live in the hospital and free up vital living quarters...  As to questions of how long the healing takes, outside the hospital seems to be limited to one HP per day.  In the hospital allows more.  I may not be reading the code right, but it looks like the daily healing rate in hospital = 1 + [Strength/10].

[Captain Bipto]

You've probably already sorted this out, but for the benefit of future forum visitors:

Doctors accomplish nothing outside of a hospital, and the hospital accomplishes nothing without a doctor in it.  My personal feeling is that he should then live in the hospital and free up vital living quarters...  As to questions of how long the healing takes, outside the hospital seems to be limited to one HP per day.  In the hospital allows more.  I may not be reading the code right, but it looks like the daily healing rate in hospital = 1 + [Strength/10].

Thats not a bad idea Doctor J.

[rolpete08]

A medicaid or hmo sort of rate for the first aid kit? How is it then and what would be the better one for handling those first aid kit? and one thing more, what is hmo?


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[criusmac]

I think this conversation was moved to http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=2216.0 a while ago. Somehow. Maybe.