Medikits

[TrashMan]

What's the problem?
It's just a simple item.

Not that you even need it. Just standing still for a turn could re-charge some energy.

[homunculus]

|                   xxxxxxxxxx¿¿¿¿¿|

this is what my favorite health bar would look like (simplified version without stun and blood pressure).
x -- bandaged wounds
¿ -- bleeding wounds (can be bandaged)
the rest is healthy hit points.
damage turns both healthy hit points and bandaged wounds to bleeding wounds.
bleeding wounds can, naturally, be bandaged.
soldier's ability would depend on healthy hit points.
effective_stats = healthy_hit_points_% * base_stats

[Titan]

Are critical hits going to be added?

[odie]

Oooo......argggggh,

My dear folks. This is beginning to sound very RPG (my fav genre btw). But lets all be reminded that this is 4x strategy game...... lets keep the concept perhaps down to a couple of simpler terms like:

Health (Max bar).
Remaining health (green?).
Lost health (Red?).
1/2 (or a defined %) of that lost health per battle can be healed, remaining ones in hospital.
Healing in battle limited to medikits (and skill level of medic will increase / decrease tat %).

Simple enuf?

[homunculus]

Oooo......argggggh,

My dear folks. This is beginning to sound very RPG (my fav genre btw). But lets all be reminded that this is 4x strategy game...... lets keep the concept perhaps down to a couple of simpler terms like:

Health (Max bar).
Remaining health (green?).
Lost health (Red?).
1/2 (or a defined %) of that lost health per battle can be healed, remaining ones in hospital.
Healing in battle limited to medikits (and skill level of medic will increase / decrease tat %).

Simple enuf?

lol, your rpg paranoia is impressive.
believe me, it is not so easy to turn a game into a rpg.
even games that are meant to be rpg-s like the popular mmorpg-s fail at it practically all the time.

for example, i once played a mud (text-based mmorpg) and gave a dwarf his brains that i got from our previous encounter.
and people said: "oh, you can even roleplay in an rpg!"

i think that if ufo-ai wasn't overdoing the k.i.s.s. rule, this discussion would not be spammed with those "overly complicated and rpg" proposals so much.

the ai right now, once you have set up some los in the tactical field, gives all the initiative to the player to kill the aliens when the player is prepared.
what's the fun of it?
assuming that
1) ai changes in the future will make the aliens more dangerous.
2) the maps where there is so much open ground that the tactical missions become a tedious but otherwise boring logistics task, will be more rare.
there will still be people that want more challenge, and certainly not in the form of more tedious running from cover to cover under the watchful eyes of your snipers on extra large maps.

now, as masochistic it might sound, bleeding on the battlefield is a fairly simple concept that can create some more chaos.

and, as far as i remember, someone among the devs has written here in the forum that he would like the soldiers to be able to take more than one hit before they die.
but, to keep the game more challenging, what i feel is that those soldiers that got the hit that did not kill them should not be very useful for the rest of the battle.
and this is exactly the reason why i very sincerely and very humbly suggest that wounded soldiers should have really low stats or even become unconscious, nothing very mysterious about it.

as for the medikits, as far as my own personal opinion goes, if there is no bleeding, the medikits might be removed altogether.
the soldier got hit, but the soldier does not become crippled until the end of the battle and there's even no increased risk of loosing the soldier after a few rounds of medikitting.

if a mission briefing would say that "your mom is among the civilians and you might want to consider being more careful with the grenade launchers this time" then that would be rpg imo.
uhh....

[odie]

lol, your rpg paranoia is impressive.
believe me, it is not so easy to turn a game into a rpg.
even games that are meant to be rpg-s like the popular mmorpg-s fail at it practically all the time.

Haha on that point. I am an RPG HUGE fan.

the ai right now, once you have set up some los in the tactical field, gives all the initiative to the player to kill the aliens when the player is prepared.
what's the fun of it?
assuming that
1) ai changes in the future will make the aliens more dangerous.
2) the maps where there is so much open ground that the tactical missions become a tedious but otherwise boring logistics task, will be more rare.
there will still be people that want more challenge, and certainly not in the form of more tedious running from cover to cover under the watchful eyes of your snipers on extra large maps.

Hehe, actually, its very realistic..... in large fields cover, thats exactly what it is..... What we need are perhaps more trees / bushes, broken walls and stuff in fields, for cover fire.... (aka varied landscape in HUGE maps).

In FIBUA (Fighting in Built Up Areas) or otherwise known as urban warfare, it is also the case of painstakingly clearing rooms by rooms that makes FIBUA so exciting. Hehe. Been in war before? I have not in real ones, but at least in army trainings in such. Hence, i can understand how it is to be ambushed (and more often, the one ambushing with my semi-autos). I am sure the aliens understand this concept too of ambushing.... hence we should be careful. (Again, this boils down to alien AI script, which isnt really balanced and perfected yet, so lets be patient).

now, as masochistic it might sound, bleeding on the battlefield is a fairly simple concept that can create some more chaos.

and, as far as i remember, someone among the devs has written here in the forum that he would like the soldiers to be able to take more than one hit before they die.
but, to keep the game more challenging, what i feel is that those soldiers that got the hit that did not kill them should not be very useful for the rest of the battle.
and this is exactly the reason why i very sincerely and very humbly suggest that wounded soldiers should have really low stats or even become unconscious, nothing very mysterious about it.

as for the medikits, as far as my own personal opinion goes, if there is no bleeding, the medikits might be removed altogether.
the soldier got hit, but the soldier does not become crippled until the end of the battle and there's even no increased risk of loosing the soldier after a few rounds of medikitting.

Well, about reduced stats due to injury - i agree, then again, this does not equate to the dev team thinking so. This is after all a game. Yupz. A simple way to work this out might simply to tag your health to a percentage of the total multiplying across all stats.

Ie. All stats have a max and a current value (and it varies with the % multiplier of your health/max health). If that is to be adopted at all......

hence, this would make medikits very very critical and useful..... (soldier wounded can still be patched up and do suppressing / cover fire role then).

Still on medikits, i still do not like the idea of fully 'patching up' the soldier in the field. Maybe only 50% of the health that is lost can be patched this way, and i would still press my point of full recovery only possible in the hospital (perhaps couple of hrs to 2,3 days would be good, since medicare would be MUCH superior in 80 years time / PLUS, did u read in the wiki somewhere that u can actually artificialise even eyes and stuff? lol. I read all my wikis and research proposals ok.)

if a mission briefing would say that "your mom is among the civilians and you might want to consider being more careful with the grenade launchers this time" then that would be rpg imo.
uhh....

Ah, too complicated. Lol. But yes, that is EXACTLY RPG. And its not wat i would like to see, and i dun thnk the devs would like to see tat too.

And yes, after all these, i am STILL RPG fan. Lol.

[TrashMan]

IMHO, the HP of everyone - civies, alines and phalanx - should be doubled. Dying from one hit or killing an enemy easily is not really fun.

[Another Guy]

Dying in one hit adds a realistic touch and will probably be avoided with the use of better armour.

[odie]

Dying in one hit adds a realistic touch and will probably be avoided with the use of better armour.

Agreed agreed.

After all, even with today's firearms, u DO die after a hit. Lol.

And for alien's wpns, i am already surprised the civi were not vaporised (mars attack, day after tomorrow, etc, tons more sci fi).



Armor will definately and has already proven to defray this 1-hit-n-die thing.
Do some serious research.

[criusmac]

I'm willing to try to code this. It looks a ton easier to implement as opposed to visibility, which is something I want to eventually do. This is on the todo list, so it looks like people want this done. I did not see any indication that this is already being coded.

Has a decision been made on how this is to be yet? I've read every post, and there seems to be some disagreements still.

I would like to keep this system simple. As stated previously, tracking 5 different values is painfully complex.
I agree with the 1 hit kill problem.
Hopefully someday armor becomes good enough that it'll take 2 hits to kill you.
If you want medikits to return only a percentage of hp lost, a new variable will need to be saved for how much medikit hp is currently present. Is 50% what is wanted? Or 75%? Or does this need to be configurable?
Is stun going to be included?
Is bleeding going to be included?
Are we planning to give 3 turns to revive someone? I think that's rather unrealistic, but realism may not be this game's goal... Fun is, right?
Are we reducing stats based on damage?
How well can armor protect against a hit? Today we have armor that can stop most of our weapons effectively, right? Alien weapons maybe ought to kill us easily, but currently, I think our own weapons kill us easily. (Not sure on this though). Should this be changed?

And more, but you get the idea..

Basically, I'm willing to attempt coding this, but I will need a decision on how it should be implemented.

Unfortunately, the dev version I downloaded crashes every time I try to enter combat, so until this is fixed, I won't be able to test any changes I make.

In general, this looks like an easily coded change, and should not take long to implement, if it is decided what exactly medikits will do. Please let me know. (I'm just asking for horror spam, aren't I? ;

[Another Guy]

I'm willing to try to code this. It looks a ton easier to implement as opposed to visibility, which is something I want to eventually do. This is on the todo list, so it looks like people want this done. I did not see any indication that this is already being coded.

Has a decision been made on how this is to be yet? I've read every post, and there seems to be some disagreements still.

I would like to keep this system simple. As stated previously, tracking 5 different values is painfully complex.
I agree with the 1 hit kill problem.
Hopefully someday armor becomes good enough that it'll take 2 hits to kill you.
If you want medikits to return only a percentage of hp lost, a new variable will need to be saved for how much medikit hp is currently present. Is 50% what is wanted? Or 75%? Or does this need to be configurable?
Is stun going to be included?
Is bleeding going to be included?
Are we planning to give 3 turns to revive someone? I think that's rather unrealistic, but realism may not be this game's goal... Fun is, right?
Are we reducing stats based on damage?
How well can armor protect against a hit? Today we have armor that can stop most of our weapons effectively, right? Alien weapons maybe ought to kill us easily, but currently, I think our own weapons kill us easily. (Not sure on this though). Should this be changed?

And more, but you get the idea..

Basically, I'm willing to attempt coding this, but I will need a decision on how it should be implemented.

Unfortunately, the dev version I downloaded crashes every time I try to enter combat, so until this is fixed, I won't be able to test any changes I make.

In general, this looks like an easily coded change, and should not take long to implement, if it is decided what exactly medikits will do. Please let me know. (I'm just asking for horror spam, aren't I? ;

Good to have a new coder willing to join he team! Two thumbs up. 

About implementation, there are a lot of ideas on this topic, but Devs seem not to have decided anything yet (or made it public). They would have to state what they want done (and what they wouldn't mind if we want to add some feature on top of it).

Personally, I'd support the idea of a potential small stun damage on every hit on every weapon (and morale loss) and bleeding, as well as stats loss during the remaining of that mission. About the amount of HP recovery, limiting medikit to only heal bleeding (and a small portion of HP with it) would prevent medikit abuse. Maybe heal stun and morale too as separate medikit abilities.
But again, it's only my personal opinion.

About armour, I think that would be a separate discussion... Armor system is not even ready yet (see wiki armour section).

[criusmac]

Great! ^^

I wasn't clear on my actual plans of what I was going to do -- sorry about that.

I won't be changing how weapons affect people, only how medikits affect people. If weapons do not already add stun damage, they won't add stun damage after I'm done either.
I won't be affecting how damage affects people. If they do not lose stats yet, they won't lose stats when they are injured when I'm done either.
I will not be adding bleeding damage to how people are injured. If bleeding damage already exists, I will code medikits to be able to heal it, if that is wanted. Pretty sure it doesn't exist yet though.

What I am willing to add is a new variable to track how much healing a medikit has applied to someone so far, and limit how much more healing it can do based on that.
I am willing to see if stun damage exists, and if it does, medikits can heal some stun damage, if this is what is wanted. If stun damage does not exist yet, my changes will not allow medikits to heal non-existant damage. That will need to be added when stun damage is added.
I am willing to change how many hit points a person will need to recover in a hospital after a medikit has healed them.

I'm sorry about my post, most of that post does seem to suggest I would have been coding everything. I was very specifically only willing to change how medikits worked though, in my mind. >.<

[odie]

*snip*

I won't be changing how weapons affect people, only how medikits affect people. If weapons do not already add stun damage, they won't add stun damage after I'm done either.
I won't be affecting how damage affects people. If they do not lose stats yet, they won't lose stats when they are injured when I'm done either.
I will not be adding bleeding damage to how people are injured. If bleeding damage already exists, I will code medikits to be able to heal it, if that is wanted. Pretty sure it doesn't exist yet though.

What I am willing to add is a new variable to track how much healing a medikit has applied to someone so far, and limit how much more healing it can do based on that.
I am willing to see if stun damage exists, and if it does, medikits can heal some stun damage, if this is what is wanted. If stun damage does not exist yet, my changes will not allow medikits to heal non-existant damage. That will need to be added when stun damage is added.
I am willing to change how many hit points a person will need to recover in a hospital after a medikit has healed them.

I'm sorry about my post, most of that post does seem to suggest I would have been coding everything. I was very specifically only willing to change how medikits worked though, in my mind. >.<

Ah, nonetheless criusmac,

Its a good effort.

Maybe once u r done with the coding, get mattn and geever to have a look and see what they say.

I am sure BTAxis is also somewhere here, and he's a great help if u can get him to have a look too.

Toodles!

[criusmac]

Ok, here is my proposal then:

Medikits can be used to restore all the hit points of a soldier they are used on.
I will change it so that they can not restore more hit points than their maximum.
If stun damage exists, they will reduce stun damage by the same number as hit points.
If bleeding damage exists, they will reduce bleeding damage the same way as stun damage.
If stats are decreased when hit, there will be no change to them upon healing.
A new variable will be created to keep track of the number of medikit hit points restored.
Any medikit hit points on a person will be removed upon mission ending. Full recovery must be done in a hospital.
If medikit hit points exceeds maximum hit points at mission end, the soldier will be reduced to 1 hit point, and death will not occur.
If a soldier enters a mission with under full hit points, they will have no medikit hit points. They can be healed to full hit points upon use of a medikit (more than one use may be required). (This one I'm having trouble with since it would make more sense for a soldier to start with full hit points, and possibly be healed on the way, for example. I don't know how we should handle this.)

This ends my proposal...
As an alternative, to help prevent over use of medikits, I can have medikits heal only up to 50% of hit points instead, and the rest be marked as medikit hit points. (Medikit hit points would not be added to current hit points in this case, but would accrue at only 50% the proposed rate)
Under this alternative, medikit hit points would still vanish on mission end, but the soldiers would not be as badly hurt since the current hit points would be 50% higher, in general. This means getting treatment in the field would reduce hospitalization time, which it wouldn't under the original proposal.

Please let me know if you want the original proposal, or the alternative (and if a different percentage is wanted for the alternative).

[geever]

Seems to be (over)complicated.
I asked BTAxis to write the official design to the wiki^[1].

-geever