Howdy!
Yet another medbay rework post.
Abstract
Medbay’s future has been a hot topic for quite some time now. Many ideas has been thrown around but not much has happened. This post will go through my background, what I believe the problem is and what might a solution.
My Round
Today I tried out plumbing for a second time. This time with the goal to make Oxandrocyclic Acid, a combination of Salicyclic Acid and Oxandrolone. However, despite starting about 20 minutes into the shift with assistance of the CMO. I was met with the horrible fact that I had just spent about 1.5 hours making something which doesn’t even do anything. Got so frustrated that I wanted to blow up what I had spent 1.5 hours on for nothing. CMO denied it…
This frustration got me reading up about plumbing in a related semi-old post. I soon realized that my slightly preferred role appear to be overall disliked.
The CMO early into the round went as far as to say chemistry is only good for one or two chemicals and that is it. I have over 285 hours on chemistry and love making medicine for everyone. Making grenades for others to use is also fun, can’t go wrong with a big boom. I like helping people in this game! The round before I tried to be ass effective as possible. Made atropine, eye-ear medicine and synthflesh about 20 minutes into the round. Followed up with putting bottles of synthflesh and clonexadone in clear view by the cloner, cryoxadone by the cryos and atropine by the techfab. Was any of it used? Don’t think so. Atropine perhaps, that’s about it. Even filled the interior fridge and moved it to medbay central so any doctor can just stretch as if they are yawning to grab any medicine that might be in there. Full with labels with OD limits, effects and such.
Problem
A lot of complains seem to be directed that Medical Doctors are made useless by the chemist. And I don’t think pointing at the chemist and saying it is the problem child is fair. Right now, I often feel like my role is ignored and made irrelevant due to the… lack of acknowledgement? A lot of people never check the fridge, only directly go to to me and ask for what’s already in the fridge. I make things like atropine, eye-ear medicine and synthflesh 15 minutes into the round which is never used unless someone husked get into medbay. All three are explicitly requested for over the radio channel despite being in the fridge.
After 200+ hours I think I’ve made a bit of reputation with myself, people come to understand that I make a lot of chemicals to help them and do check the fridge. However, I still think medicine is too over powered but at the same time under powered.
I’ve even attempted making custom Superior First Aid Kits involving an ABSOLUTELY TON OF WORK! Full list of all medicine included in the original post.
Medical Doctors and chemists are already more often than not made irrelevant. Plastic and synthflesh can be bought. The rest medbay already has. Ear and eye damages heal by themselves usually, a good mid-game virus makes this faster and more reliable unless you weld your eyes shut. All non-destroyed organs are also fixed by a good virus. Missing limbs or organs? Yeah, just chuck 'em in the cloner. Even if they are alive.
I’ve met people who seem to be very comfortable and competent in the game but don’t know anything about chemistry or its effects on the both other than “Tricordrazine, good”. Just like in real life you’d need to know how medicine works on the body, unless you’re a surgeon but then you’re just a surgeon.
Fix - Chemistry
I think pills should never have entire labels on them other than “Pill”, same with patches but “Patches” instead. How can you fit half an instruction manual on a single pill or patch? Instead I think bottles should be easier to produce, get and use. The Chem Master should be able to print filled up pill bottles itself with whatever medicine you add to it, with or without any resource requirement. Pill bottles should be able to have their custom label like medicine have now to assist with the usage of the pills or patches.
Additionally, I think there should be fewer chemical combinations. Instead each chemical should have its own effects to the body, both positive and negative. For example, to make mannitol you might not have that specific chemical but hydrogen, sugar and water would target the injury in the brain specifically to restore it. Replace hydrogen with Fluorosulfuric Acid and it might fry the brain instead. Each chemical would do a certain job inside the body. In this case sugar could be a carrier taking the chemicals to the brain, water is the activator letting the chemicals go to the brain and Fluorosulfuric Acid what acts on the brain. This would make taking multiple medicines have… unpredictable effects. Take potassium iodine and mannitol. The sugar takes it to the brain, the hydrogen is about to act on the brain, however, then the water react together with the potassium and blow the brain up! This is a system I just recently thought of and would require a lot of work and thinking for it to be properly implemented. I believe though that it’d make chemistry a lot more difficult, a lot more creative and a lot more useful. Could perhaps takes inspiration from real life? What do our bodies do with a chemical if they are injected, digested and so on? This would prevent medicine from being taken without a professional opinion on it. Can I take mannitol and potassium iodine together? Probably not, wait with it. To assist in determining when someone can take a second dose, there should be a timer for when they are estimated to have processed a certain chemical in their system. Only has to be a rought estimate.
Finally, as a cheery on top. I’d like a way to organize custom medkits. Could be a cardboard box I’ve used so far but with a blue plus on top to signify it is a medkit and isn’t full of just empty pill bottles. I suggest this previously as an additional machine which would take a bunch of pills, patches and some cardboard and arrange them according to a given “blue print” box.
Fix - Medical Doctors
Currently, I think medical doctors have a decent role. If all other subdepartments are filled they tend to help expand medbay. Add one or two more life stasis beds (usually found in maints), remove a wall or two to grand additional space and keep an eye on people, perhaps do some fun surgery on them. Late game they will be a lot more busy with keeping whatever few Security Officers alive. Patching them up and giving them a kiss on the cheek before sending them straight out to immediately die again from whatever antag, griefer or antag-griefer is out there. It gets stressful. It is the major reason I don’t play CMO because then I don’t have anyone to take care of the minor damages. With a chemist who has made Oxandrocyclic Acid or any similar medicine can heal up anyone alive easily. But death with 100+ damage? Bit more difficult. Missing limbs? Bit more difficult.
If the changes to chemistry does happen I’d also suggest adding the ability to scan a pill with the health scanner to see the chemical contents of it, in the case if a doctor is unsure what it contains.
Example round
Station is almost full on all sides. Two Medical Doctors, a Virologist, a Geneticist, a Chemist, and a Chief of Medical Officer.
The Medical Doctors being searching through maints for additional medbay supplies and set up a temporary table for various basic medkits. The Virologist runs through maints picking up mice, used syringes and all kinds of STDs or what not. The Geneticist starts their shift in Genetics and usually leave it to mess around once all genes are found and a few has been printed to play around with. The Chemist start out making plastic, followed by other basic medicine which are placed into bottles, labelled and placed in the fridge.
13 minutes in a Sec Officer comes by and picks up a bottle of eye-ear medicine to take a pill and then place back the bottle of 6 pills into the fridge. Maints has now been wiped by the Medbay 101 Maints Army. Extra Life Stasis beds (if found) are beinging to be set up. At this point there might be someone injured which is quickly patched up using the basic first aid kits.
About 25 minutes in Synthflesh or some other kind of healing medicine has been made and is available at the chemistry fridge. Additionally, other medicines might also be available.
Now more than 30 minutes, antags start workin’ loudly. Bodies might come in, a poor janitor killed and later found in maints, a Security Officer comes in afterwards and a severely wounded but still alive Assistant comes in. The two Medical Doctors get workin’ on the two bodies brought in while the assistant talk to the chemist who tells the Assistant what chemical is safe for them to consume. Within a minute or two they are back on their feet and ready to die again. The other two Medical Doctors are still busy with the two bodies as Science hasn’t researched better tools yet.
From here on out the round has started and is going. Bodies will keep comin’ in assuming all of Security don’t die at the same time by some borderline but still valid blood thirsty antag, griefer or antag-griefer. Medical Doctors will be busy taking care for the bodies, fetching bodies or hanging around waiting for bodies. The chemist will be busy continuously making more and more medicine in addition to making more unique and specialized medicine. If the Medical Doctor isn’t busy they might hang around the front and assist anyone who is still breathing with the medicine provided in the fridge.
Conclusion
I like and dislike the current medbay dynamic. I’d like to see major changes so to enable each subdepartment to shine and assist each other. Such as chemistry be able to produce more complex chemical combinations based on how each individual chemical effects the body rather than predetermined effects, making doctors also vital for knowing how each chemical effects a person.
Finally, I am sorry if my ideas are extreme or even revolting. Please don’t tell me to code it myself, I am asking here because I want to hear from you!
Please let me know what you think! I appreciate any and every comment I read!
