Bleeding wounds

[DarkRain]

Well, guess that I could do both, start with a very basic implementation and then add more features as needed.

[ShipIt]

Wait what? Hold on! You want me to create a patch? But... but...

Didn't the last one to make a patch about this just suddenly disappear without trace?

...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I don't want to disappear without trace!!!!!

...

...

Ok, maybe that was exaggerated.
Hmmm... I need to fix one little problem, and test it some more, and then I might have a patch to show (If I don't disappear in the process )

There is only one answer to this. Listen.

[DarkRain]

Guess what, I haven't disappeared yet (OK, enough of that joke)

After some git problems I present "Very basic bleeding wounds" v1.3, now with more tweaks, more comments and a bugfix:

• Getting shoot in combat can result in getting wounded (just keeps track of the number of wounds for now)
• Wounds will bleed each turn until healed with a medikit (or death, and wounds only exist in battlescape)
• Soldiers with no wounds won't recover HP (you can still use the medikit to reduce stun and increase morale)
• Medikit converted to a 5 ammo oneshot item and its effectivness greatly reduced
• Small icon added to physdat window when soldier has bleeding wounds (but the number of wounds for each soldier is passed to cvars with the rest of their status, if you wanted to show this in the HUD)
• Also includes a fix for bug #3322633 (which affects all oneshot items with ammo -like the stunrod-)
• Because I needed it to make the new medikit (with limited ammo) work in skirmish.

Warning: Only tested in 2.5 skirmish and briefly in a mid-game 2.4 campaign (which is where it started) no idea how will this mix with the new 2.5 weapon balance in a campaign game (I'm specially concerned about early game)

Now if I'll continue to add features to this I'd like t ask some questions, which I forget, its getting late, maybe I'll ask tomorrow, in he mean time:

• Phase 1: Basic bleeding wounds [done]
  
  • Wounds that bleed [check]
  • Stop medikit overuse [check]
  • Making hospitals actually necessary [should]
    
• Phase 2: Penalties (and localized wounds?) OR Wounds carry to geoscape (and further missions)
  
  • TBA
  • TBA
• Phase 3: <The one that does not get implemented above>
  
  • TBA
  • TBA
• Phase 4: Make them scriptable

The idea being that each Phase is fully functional when finished, in case I disappear (OK, seriously enough of that disappearing stuff)

Feedback welcome.

Note: the attached patch was made from three local commits squashed together.

PPE: Ugh, do you know how hard is to type while sleepy? Please excuse any typos, weird grammar, etc

[ShipIt]

Thats really great news. 

[Mattn]

great - i've added it to the patch tracker: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3520253&group_id=157793&atid=805244

[Mattn]

fix for bug #3322633 is now in master and ufoai_2.4 branch

[DarkRain]

Been thinking, the official design for the health system call for randomly localized wounds, will this info (wounded body part) be shown to the player? I'd say don't because I can totally see a complaint in these lines:

My guy just was shoot by an alien with a plasma pistol, from a lower level, throughout a window, while he was crouched (ie, he could only have been headshot) and he was wounded in the foot! err... I mean the legs! How come?

On the other hand showing the player the penalties caused by the wounds might be necessary, so instead of having head wounds, arm wounds, torso wounds and leg wounds we could have sight impairing wounds, grasp impairing wounds, reaction impairing wounds and movement impairing wounds, what do you think?

[H-Hour]

Personally, I think localized wounds would be a very interesting addition to the battlescape, but they need to be done correctly to avoid exactly the kind of situation you describe (when a soldier is injured somewhere they shouldn't be). There is also the issue of properly displaying this to the player.

However, I think neither problem is surmountable assuming the wounds are implemented correctly. And it would allow for opportunities in the future for things like you mention: localized wounds leading to localized problems. A leg injury could increase TU cost of movement. An arm would could reduce accuracy.

[homunculus]

Personally, I think localized wounds would be a very interesting addition to the battlescape [...]

that's sad, i feel it might shift the focus of the game to a hospital/first-aid tycoon type of game.

and, as far as i remember that current spec, there will be some harassment to the player, like maybe the soldier lost his arm and leg, and got bitten by a mosquito.
as far as i understand, there is a case where the mosquito bite would have to be be treated first.

and not only that, but what if the first priority is that the soldier just needs to shoot accurately, or else maybe the first priority is that the soldier needs to move somewhere.
if the treatment of the wounds depends on the order the wounds were inflicted, the player cannot make the choice.

and isn't it so that the location of the wound is chosen randomly, regardless of where the soldier actually got hit?
if that is the case, why not be honest and show things the way they really are?
and avoid the rolleyes like 'the soldier only had head visible but got shot in the legs'.

not only does this look too much (imho) like a first-aid tycoon, but also it seems largely broken, at least the way it is speced now (the way i remember), and also defeats the purpose of 'interesting' to a considerable extent by not really enabling any tactical decisions.

i wonder what it would end up like, when fully specified without those (and probably some more) problems, and what the gui would be like (recently someone complained about having to click 13 times to use a medkit).
looks bit scary/discouraging to me, while on the other hand sometimes less can be more.

i think so far no one has really tried to explain why localized wounds would be a good thing and what it would add to the game, compared to generic wounds.
maybe someone could make a start, and hopefully the whole thing would get clarified in the process?

[Mattn]

we are doing traces to determine a hit or no hit - these traces can also be used to determine the location of the hit - if the face is not visible, the face can't get hit (because the trace doesn't hit)

[ShipIt]

Personally, I think localized wounds would be a very interesting addition to the battlescape, but they need to be done correctly to avoid exactly the kind of situation you describe (when a soldier is injured somewhere they shouldn't be). There is also the issue of properly displaying this to the player.

However, I think neither problem is surmountable assuming the wounds are implemented correctly. And it would allow for opportunities in the future for things like you mention: localized wounds leading to localized problems. A leg injury could increase TU cost of movement. An arm would could reduce accuracy.

I remember a game using a system like that. Of course in this game it is also possible to aim at a certain body part. Sick, but lot of fun.

For UFO AI, if localized wounds are implemented, it should be like H-Hour said. Of course it would be needed to visualize this for the player. Not only for his own squad, but also for visible enemies.

[DarkRain]

I decided that for now I will stick with the official design (which is here just for reference) as much as possible, so random body parts wounded it is -- at least for now --, if I manage to implement all (or most) that is planned I'll see what improvements can be done afterwards.

So first question, what does people (devs) say:
a) Wounds with flat penalties and bleeding rate, regardless of the severity of the hit that caused the wound or
b) Wounds have different severities depending on the severity of the hit that caused the wound with penalties and bleeding rate varying accordingly.

Second: What does this mean?

Wounds on the torso increase the amount of TUs needed for reaction fire.

a) More TUs spent for each reaction fire shoot
b) Enemy needs to use more TUs before soldier can make a reaction fire shoot
c) Both?

Also, since project just switched to C++
linkedList_t or C++ containers?
struct or class?
(in case I need to store more info on the wounds and/or a list of them)


Seems my previous question stirred things more than I intended...

as far as i remember that current spec, there will be some harassment to the player, like maybe the soldier lost his arm and leg, and got bitten by a mosquito.
as far as i understand, there is a case where the mosquito bite would have to be be treated first.

Assuming wounds differ from each other in severity, what if all of them have the same bleeding rate, losing an arm could be as threatening as a mosquito bite, the spec says nothing about this.

what if the first priority is that the soldier just needs to shoot accurately, or else maybe the first priority is that the soldier needs to move somewhere.
if the treatment of the wounds depends on the order the wounds were inflicted, the player cannot make the choice.

No, first priority is survival of the patient, so worst wound gets treated first (assuming wounds have different degrees of severity), no choice to make here.
Problem is, the current system has people used to think "oh my soldier almost dies from that shoot, I'll just patch him up so he can keep fighting as if nothing happened", when in fact they should be in dire risk of dying, and unable of shooting accurately, moving freely, seeing clearly and/or reacting quickly.
^{*unless all wounds have the same severity, then you would probably be right}

(recently someone complained about having to click 13 times to use a medkit).

I remember this one, he got his count wrong, you need up to 11 clicks only, count them in his very example, but note that using a sidearm requires the same number of clicks, and using a grenade requires up to 8, problem is in the UI in general not just the medikit.

[homunculus]

my highest priority question: "what is to be gained by individual bodypart wounds over generic wounds?" seems to be answered almost not at all (the only relevant statement was that the bodypart that gets hit must at least be visible to the shooter, and maybe it could be understood as the shooting visual also matches where the wound will be).

I sort of hoped that this question would not be considered as my personal perverted interest in such things, but rather as a question that the coders and designers might want to have a clear answer to, before deciding this way or that.

sadly, it seems i was wrong, and the decision seems to be made without.

that being said, i am not going to start a holy war about it, it would only do more harm rather than benefit.

[...]Seems my previous question stirred things more than I intended[...]

no need to panic, that is just the way i post.
I see some arguments against bodypart wounds, and i just listed what came to mind at that moment.
no more, no less.

anyway, there is something else:
the more severe the bleeding, the less damaging the initial hit can be without compromising firepower too much.
afaik, it is desired that there should be less 1-hit kills.
i read people posting about 1-3 health points bleeding damage, i don't think that would be enough for this insta-kill reduction effect.

[DarkRain]

my highest priority question: "what is to be gained by individual bodypart wounds over generic wounds?" seems to be answered almost not at all

Well since I'm not a game designer I expect to gain the answer to that once I'm done with the implementation

[...]Seems my previous question stirred things more than I intended[...]

no need to panic, that is just the way i post.
I see some arguments against bodypart wounds, and i just listed what came to mind at that moment.
no more, no less.

I didn't say that only because of your post mind you, the fact that I only replied to your post is because I managed to accidentally delete a good part of my post while typing, and wasn't in the mood to write everything again.

we are doing traces to determine a hit or no hit - these traces can also be used to determine the location of the hit - if the face is not visible, the face can't get hit (because the trace doesn't hit)

I knew about the traces, but I don't feel like implementing localized hits at this time (just as I don't feel like implementing the visibility system, just for the visibility penalty specified for head wounds), maybe after I finish the current spec I can take a look at those traces...
Also that won't help with AOE attacks (spldmg)

I remember a game using a system like that. Of course in this game it is also possible to aim at a certain body part. Sick, but lot of fun.

Well IIRC it was decided that in UFOAI there will be no aiming at body parts.

Of course it would be needed to visualize this for the player. Not only for his own squad, but also for visible enemies.

I think showing this info for enemies would be too much problem for little gain, add to that I'm not very good with UIs and....

[homunculus]

I remember a game using a system like that. Of course in this game it is also possible to aim at a certain body part. Sick, but lot of fun.[...]

[...]Well IIRC it was decided that in UFOAI there will be no aiming at body parts.[...]

i think that there might have been a misunderstanding here.
ShipIt wrote 'a certain body part', not 'bodyparts', and i don't think this would necessarily mean the same thing.
afaik, some aliens don't even have that bodypart, afaik specifically ortnoks are castrated, so there would certainly be a problem with that in ufo:ai.

(and i wonder if there will be any opinions by anyone on the severity of bleeding?)