Medical staff

[homunculus]

btw, biologists and nanotechnologists were separated in xcom-apoc.
can you imagine how much more exciting the game was because of it?
almost not at all, i would say.

but, i would have something different in mind.
there might be alien themed toys on the market like the vampire and spiderman costumes we have in real life.
and some kids would be wearing alien costumes and wielding cheap plastic imitations of heavy particle beam cannons.
you would find out when they shoot at you.
they would either say 'bang-bang! hahaha!' or else there would be a real particle beam.

in real life, next time i see someone who looks like a vampire, can i put a stake through his heart?
he looked like a vampire after all, i was trying to do the right thing.
if i had a good lawyer, maybe i could get away with it.

continuing the same logic,  maybe we should replace medical staff with lawyers.

[TrashMan]

If medics could do some serious alterations...like making Phalanx Space Marines...the aliens would be f*****.

That would be so awesomely cool.
PURGE THE XENOS!!!!!!

Ok, that would be way over hte top modifications. But some lesser ones and lesser implant. Certanly not cybog arm and stupid stuf like that.

[Battlescared]

I like extra work.  I view it as playing a more detailed game.  I'd have liked to see an expanded role for medics, as said a few times.  Let them boost research in various areas, perform autopsies, maybe change their names to Doctors to imply an expanded role.  Maybe give  them a reason to be on missions.  Med packs are way too overpowered as they are now, and anyone can use them.  How about medics be the ones who can really use them, or use them 3x as better or something like that?  Just an idea.

If they're gone, ok, but to me it means the game is being dumbed down... harsh, yes, and I don't mean this is a "OMG HOW DARE YOU!" issue and I understand that it's an extremely minor detail they provide right now, but I just hate when I see a function in a game removed just because someone thinks it's too much work.  Moving soldiers across a battlefield one space a time instead of just having them fight for themselves is "too much work" to some.  Managing a base instead of just having it done automatically is "too much work" to some.  The more the game does for me, the less I like it.  The whole game can be thought of as work, and that's why I like games like xcom and UFO:AI, the realism of having to manage a full scale war.

So I'd prefer to see a feature expanded instead of deleted.  Just my 2C.

btw, biologists and nanotechnologists were separated in xcom-apoc.
can you imagine how much more exciting the game was because of it?
almost not at all, i would say.

Well, I would fault that on execution, not concept. 

[talon]

Dr. Gregory House: We're going to cure her.
Dr. Allison Cameron: We're going to cure death?
Dr. Gregory House: [voice like a mad scientist] Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
[normal voice]
Dr. Gregory House: Doubt it.

I want house and his team as my medics
Think of all the fun house would have with the aliens and their tech

Intergating Aliens
House: Everybody lies

[TrashMan]

Frankly, I don't see a lot of usefulness of tech implants.
External equipment can always do the same job.

Some minor genetic enhancement, maybe.

[homunculus]

Frankly, I don't see a lot of usefulness of tech implants.
External equipment can always do the same job.

Some minor genetic enhancement, maybe.

except, maybe, some eyes in the back of the head.

[Borsti67]

except, maybe, some eyes in the back of the head.

I'm not sure if our brains could stand this kond of additional information. At least not if you're not born with these...

[homunculus]

I'm not sure if our brains could stand this kond of additional information. At least not if you're not born with these...

i have read about an experiment where third and fourth eye were included by quickly flipping images to the two eyes.
however, the purpose was to experiment if it would increase the sense of depth, rather than make someone be able to see behind his back.
i have got the impression that brain seems to be surprisingly flexible for all kinds of sensory stuff.

[Edi]

It is, in the sense that it will adapt to new circumstances. The brain is essentially a pattern recognition machine, and if a pattern changes, it takes time before the new pattern is adapted.

[Borsti67]

very interesting! Do you have a link or some search terms to point me there?

Anyway, pattern recognition is not the only point. If you could see something behind you, you'd need to change the way of reaction. E.g. it would be meaningless to turn your head, which would be a normal reaction now. And you would be unable to jump there or do any other countermeasures which you have if it happens in front of you.
I'd think it would be very confusing instead of helpful...

[Prinegon]

Well, I know about an experiment, where people got googles that turn your vision upside down and had to wear them all day. After few days the brain began to adapt to the inverted vision and to invert the percept back to normal orientation. The change was so significant it took several hours to return to normal vision once the googles were gone.

Okay, turning your vision around is not putting two more eyes in your back, but it makes it reasonable, once one could find a way to connect the eyes nerves to the brain properly, the brain eventually would be able to adapt to the change.

PS: A link to one of the experiments description: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar97/858984531.Ns.r.html

[WhiteFang]

This subject is becoming funny to read.

I can see both how having Medics\Doctors can be extra work and I can also see how they can be great fun
I think that is would be like what some people have tried with X-com. If done right, they would be fun,
but if done wrong they would just bog down the game.

Everyone had hit good points. With the human body no matter how many doctors look at you. You are not going to get better any faster.
On the other hand a Scientist can do an autopsies but a biologist probably could do it faster mainly because they know organic parts better
than other fields of science.

Side thought:
Why can you put 70 scientist on an autopsy even if you have only one body.

[homunculus]

[...]
Side thought:
Why can you put 70 scientist on an autopsy even if you have only one body.

if you want to make research more tedious you should join me in the "number of scientists assigned to same research topic has diminishing returns in the sense of research speed" party.
the full name of the party is somewhat on the long side, for brevity it might be better to call it nosatsrthdritsorsp party instead.
so far the nosatsrthdritsorsp party has only one member, and even the one and only member has some doubts about the idea.

the point of the idea would be that you would get fastest total research if you spread your scientists equally over all research topics, but on the other hand you might want to research some high priority topic as fast as possible.
certainly assignment of scientists would then become a gameplay decision.
would that make the game more interesting or not, i have no idea.

[Edi]

There is also the thing about assigning more people on a given project in a context like UFO: AI, it all depends on just how deeply any given area is researched.

Autopsies are more than just cutting open the corpse. With a completely alien life form, there are tons and tons of different things to do from the pathology side to the genetics, DNA isolation, analysis, comparison and contrast, mapping which organ does what and how and the analysis of any given bit of that can be handed over to a specialist in an appropriate field.

Same thing for UFO theory. I'd expect hundreds of people to be thrown at it, especially if there were enough wrecks to study.

For Alien Origins, hundreds and hundreds of people would not be out of place given what they are studying.

Obviously you do end up with diminishing returns eventually, but those numbers don't become too relevant in the timeframes involved here.

I at least have no problem with suspension of disbelief.

[homunculus]

[...]

that is true, but also, you have the total research hours a topic takes to research in the game.
and usually, that is not a hundred scientists researching for a hundred years.

and believe me, i can easily produce research ideas that can make the research side of the game insanely complicated and research topics intertwined, and research time somewhat random, and...
...and have multiple results from researching the same alien item interrelated with other researches.
but as far as my opinion goes, this is a tactical combat game rather than a research game.
so, diminishing returns on research would just give some meaning to number of scientists assigned to a specific topic, and make it a strategic decision.

otherwise, all scientists in a base should always be working on one topic only.
i mean, without diminishing returns, it should never make sense to assign scientists to multiple topics at the same time, unless you deliberately wanted to handicap yourself.