I did a form search and it turned up no real hit. So I hope this hasn't been discussed to death before. Please don't flame me if is was mentioned before.
I am at a stage in the game where almost every hit means a serious wound for my soldiers, often death.
I personally find the death rate too high and I quit the game quite often after another frustrating loss of one of my really good guys. I started as the type of player who accepted losses but at that stage of the game I can't win with newbies and I simply don't want to lose my "almost skill 60" soldiers any more.
This is my
proposal:
I would like to have a status between "standing and able to fight" and "lying on the ground, dead": the "
state of being incapacitated but alive". This status would mean that the injured soldier is on the ground, unable to move, unconscious but not dead yet.
Reason1: Human beings are quite hard to kill in reality and combat wounds, if properly (and quickly) looked after, are often not lethal at once, if intensive aftercare is applied fast. It is astonishing what kind of damage the human body can take without stopping to work, if there is a fast reaction. Since we are a few years in the future, medical capabilities could have increased, too.
Reason2: Death rates later in the game are becoming increasingly frustrating in my personal opinion
An incapacitated soldier he has the
following options:
> if
untreated:
die (e.g. bleed out, losing hitpoints per round)
> if
stabilized by a medic with medical equipment:
remain stable (or just deteriorate slower, e.g. lose less HP per round)
> if looked after while the fight continues (check vital signs, stabilise again, etc) the chances should be quite good to survive.
> an incapacitated person
can never get back into the fight in which he was incapacitated.
> he/she
can be killed by taking further damage.
The
consequences for survivors:
> soldier should take a very long time to heal in the base hospital. (closer to months than weeks, in my opinion).
Advatages:
> more realism: If you find a wounded person as a soldier, you don't often know what is wrong. It is not visible whether somebody is dead, unconscious, etc... . So you check (=> "check patient" option in the medipack?). It would be a realistic turn to check fallen comrades whether they are still alive. It would add tension to the game.
> the race against the clock: Imagine a soldier is shot early in the mission. He is stabilized but the mission lasts longer and longer. You might find yourself in a situation in which you want to abort the mission and take the wounded back home (=> not implemented yet, but I guess one time you will be able to extract your soldiers). Another consequence could be that you take more risks to speed up the mission, which can be quite tense, too.
> base design: If you have to take the stabilized wounded back to your base, it would make sense to put hospitals in every base, so that the distances are short. I'm not yet sure whether the ability to die during transport wouldn't be doing more harm to motivation than the next option: just assume that soldiers - after the mission has ended - are transported to the next local facility and later are transferred back to Phallanx hospitals. So no further damage is counted after the mission ends.
> progression of field medical skills/equipment: There could be a progression in mediacl equipment as well, like we can see it in weapons' technology. Medikits could be developed to counter the new types of inflicted wounds after a new weapon was discovered. I would like to have some research on this "front", too.
Okay, that's it. I'm curious what you think.
Andreas
