Bug/screw up -- medkits

[CheeseshireCat]

Who needs hospitals when medkits heal all the damage, permanently, and aren't even expendable?

I mean... I have a soldier down to 30 HP... If I keep him in a hospital, off-duty, he'd heal in about a month and a half. If I take him on a mission, all it takes is someone using a medkit on him two, tops three, times, and he's at 100% health -- even after mission ends.

Short-term/long-term damage anyone? Come on, it was even in the very first UFO

[H-Hour]

Have a go on the search button? Come on, it's in every forum system 

[CheeseshireCat]

Yep. Zero results on both "medkit" and "medikit".

[geever]

Yep. Zero results on both "medkit" and "medikit".

Search function of SMF seems to be relative to the actual position. If you start search in "UFO:Alien Invasion > Technical support > Bugs in latest stable version (2.3.1)" it only searches in that group. Click on the first level ("UFO:Alien Invasion"), then do a search.

-geever

[CheeseshireCat]

Hm. Why not all the web? I mean, what's the logic in searching all the forums if it's a bug in the latest stable version and I want to check whether it's already reported?

[geever]

Hm. Why not all the web? I mean, what's the logic in searching all the forums if it's a bug in the latest stable version and I want to check whether it's already reported?

At least if it is, not a bug in ufoai.

-geever

[CheeseshireCat]

That's why I wrote it as "bug/screw up" in the title... I just recall it being different in the last version I had, and it really makes no sense as it is now...

Whether something messed up that isn't just a mistake in programming a bug or not is another question

[Lew Yard]

Design issue.  What's in 2.3.1 isn't particularly realistic and it has the odd issue you've noted, but it's working as designed.  The problem is to come up with a practical, plausible alternative that is also fun.

From a consistency point of view, the medikits should be able to counter the effects of stunning weapons -- that's mentioned in the documentation for either the electrolaser or the stun rod, IIRC.

From a plausibility point of view, it would make sense to change the damage functionality so that seriously wounded entities risk death by bleeding out, and the medikits' role becomes that of stabilizing them and avoiding additional damage.  This would require additional stats and tuning (how the mechanics would actually work -- e.g. base number of turns required to stabilize based on the damage and the medic's stats, in what way?), and may affect balance because it alters the present asymmetry (perhaps one could change medium armor to be considered to have a built-in medikit of some efficiency, if we don't want to figure out how to make the AI have medikits and choose when to use 'em, and to add some coordination within its team to make usage actually possible).

[CheeseshireCat]

From what I recall about original X-COM and company, the medkits were much less efficient in treating damage, and could amost only be used to cure stun/wounds.

In After*, there were two main types of damage -- temporary (healable by medkits) and "permanent" (requiring long-term healing at a base).

Neither sounds like a too complex solution.

As for aliens healing, yeah, shamans were the most annoying <bleep> in Afterlight (Most *annoying*, mind, not anywhere like most dangerous Not that the balance would actually suffer a lot by them not having the ability to cure *wounds* if that's implemented (big deal if one would die from the wounds once in a great while, not finished by getting shot at), if health drain would be relatively slow, but what currently is... Is *totally* off. Long as a soldier isn't killed right away, he's at full health in two turns tops. Aliens certainly don't have such a luxury

[JPierre]

Easy solution to the current problem:

* Medkits only give Temporary HP, which will only last until the end of the mission.
* If your health gets to 1HP you can indeed heal back to full health, but when the mission is over you get back to 1HP.
* You can only get one Temporary HP for each lost HP. That prevents soldiers from taking damage, healing, taking damage again and healing again, endlessly.
* If you want to complexify it you can make the Temp HP wear off with time, like pain medicine losing its effect.

Explanation:

Field medicine is not brain surgery, it involves cutting a bleeding and avoiding the victim from passing out. It's basically bandages, plus morphine/adrenaline or such. So, a medkit should never heal the way the hospital and time does.
When a unit gets injured, you can treat a wound so it won't bother for the next hour (but will have to be treated in the long term), and you can treat his nervous system so he doesn't feel pain, and/or gets stimulated (but pain will come back in the long term, as well as fatigue).
If you are wounded, treated with a medkit (treated, not healed), and then get wounded again, the chances you can get effective treatment are abysmally lower, since you are adding new damage to previous wounds.

[CheeseshireCat]

Or, even make medkits able to heal up only 1/2 of the long-term damage during combat (again, wearing off after).

Also... Why not make medkits usable on yourself? I mean, if you're still conscious... Make it cost 30TUs if anything...