Keeping Doctors Active

[ONI-FAN]

So I find there to be little use for Doctors.  I propose a health system that would keep doctors busy (if you chose to)

Dupes visit a doctor for a checkup and they get 105% of their ability attributes for, say, the day.  They then drop to 100% over the next four days.  They stay at 100% for a few days then they start to fall down a bit, say, 90% over the next ten days.  (i would suggest this is where they would stay though perhaps this could be adjusted for difficulty)  Want to get them back to 105%?  Just assign them to a proper chair in the medical room.

There can be a slider on the chair, like there is for damage, i.e. you can't go on the chair until you drop to 95% efficiency for example.

Thoughts?

[AndreyKl]

Diseases were at some point lethal but then stopped being lethal, if I remember correctly, due to being too hard early for new players, or something like that.

Since player is now separated from some asteroids, it will make sense to add back lethal diseases to some distant asteroids, may be even add some critters with lethal toxins (chance to bite when attacked or during attempt to tame). A single dupe catching a disease won't doom whole game, just a single asteroid at most unless player does something like transporting a bunch of infected dupes and materials. This will add some uses for doctors and might add asteroids that require somewhat different procedure to conquer.

Imagine an asteroid almost entirely covered in a collection of lethal diseases that you need to somehow handle before even attempting to send rockets or materials back to home colony. A nice change of pace)

[The Plum Gate]

Having a doctor in the game is almost no different from having a chef until later in the game.

[TheKilltech]

Yeah, the whole medical system is currently very lacluster in all aspects.

see here:

 

[ONI-FAN]

19 hours ago, AndreyKl said:

Diseases were at some point lethal but then stopped being lethal, if I remember correctly, due to being too hard early for new players, or something like that.

Since player is now separated from some asteroids, it will make sense to add back lethal diseases to some distant asteroids, may be even add some critters with lethal toxins (chance to bite when attacked or during attempt to tame). A single dupe catching a disease won't doom whole game, just a single asteroid at most unless player does something like transporting a bunch of infected dupes and materials. This will add some uses for doctors and might add asteroids that require somewhat different procedure to conquer.

Imagine an asteroid almost entirely covered in a collection of lethal diseases that you need to somehow handle before even attempting to send rockets or materials back to home colony. A nice change of pace)

I did not know they were lethal before, that would be interesting.  I always wonder about this, it seems I never really have to care about germs, even on survival mode, sure the Dupes get a little queezy, nothing a good morale boost doesnt fix.

I love a lethal asteroid.  That would be fun.  Especially if it is perhaps one of the more needed asteroids, with rare goodies and geyser.  Say, geysers could be a good germ source too, needing a doctor if you are using the freebies of a geyser/volcano would be a neat way to offset their free-ness.

18 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Having a doctor in the game is almost no different from having a chef until later in the game.

Right now I make triage cots near hot areas and just send in the Dupes.  Any ol' dupe saves my fallen dupes and anyone can treat them.  Aside from an apothecary, why have docs at all?  This is why it needs fixing.  Good call.

[AndreyKl]

3 hours ago, ONI-FAN said:

I did not know they were lethal before, that would be interesting.  I always wonder about this, it seems I never really have to care about germs, even on survival mode, sure the Dupes get a little queezy, nothing a good morale boost doesnt fix.

It was changed in Game Update 326232.

Slimelang behaved roughly as it does now (and food poisoning probably did to), but there was a cooldown timer 'till dupe dies' and cooldown time till recovery (if I remember it correctly). Death was closer than recovery, so you had to treat dupe on a medical bed to pause death timer. I remember having whole colony on medical beds with slimelung, being treated. Fortunately I avoided deaths (had enough stored food to last through disease), but the experience of frantic countermeasures was fun.

[JaxckLl]

22 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Having a doctor in the game is almost no different from having a chef until later in the game.

Nonsense. Chef is the most important skill after Mining & Ranching in the early game since they allow you to convert Power to Calories directly. 

Disease is an interesting proposition right now. There's the potential to create some quite challenging scenarios on the outer asteroids. However a return to the "everyone's in beds" situation common when the mechanic was introduced I do not believe is in order. I really like your suggestion of having a "Regular Checkup" buff, here's the points as I seem them

• Hospital provides a flat morale penalty to ALL dupes once they reach a certain skill level. At three skill points, a dupe suffers a -2 morale penalty if a Hospital doesn't exist. This only applies if the Hospital doesn't exist for a cycle or more. This encourages building a hospital as an early room, enabling it as a reactive measure for mid game challenges.
• Because every player should now have a hospital built around the same time they can cut through Abyssalite, biomes surrounded by Abyssalite can now have much more intense diseases. Easily renewable Oil needs to be moved off the second asteroid to encourage space exploration, my suggestion would be to replace the existing biome with "Toxic Oilsands". This biome would have small pockets of liquid Oil & Natural Gas, be quite cold, and have Zombie Spores EVERYWHERE. Additionally small numbers of Slicksters would exist that have a good chance of turning into Longhair Slicksters if left alone. The biome is materially made of Sedimentary Rock & Sand, plus the new mineral "Oil Sand". Oil Sand can be placed into Sludge Press to produce Crude & Sand, but if melted turns into Bitumen. This biome is designed to enable early game Metal Refining & Plastic Pressing, without enabling an easy Petrol Boiler. Natural Gas & Sour Gas Vents can both spawn in this biome, as can a second Liquid Sulphur Geyser. This can serve as useful sources of heat, although the overwhelming chill of the biome would cause an Nat Gas or Sour Gas to quickly liquify.
• The player is strongly encouraged to cut into this biome early, so as to prevent Slicksters from transforming into Longhair. They're enabled to do so by the guaranteed existence of a Hospital, a building which will no doubt get use thanks to the existence of Zombie Spores. The spread of Spores can be prevented by using Oxygen Masks & Chlorine disinfectant rooms. Oil is abundant, but difficult to be made truly renewable (since your only long term source is Slicksters). Oil Sand will often be infected with Spores, but require dupe handling to get at the valuable liquid Oil. The Sour Gas Vent teaches new players the second half of the Petrol Boiling process, as well as providing a trickle of Sulphur (having multiple renewable sources of Sulphur will allow for some nerfs to the frankly ludicrous output of the current Sulphur Geyser).
• There's now a new room which can be attached to a Hospital & Massage Parlour, the "Checkup Room". A Checkup Room allows a Doctor to provide checkups to other dupes, giving them a slight morale/stress boost while also accelerating their healing. The "Recent Checkup" buff would also increase a dupe's disease immunity. The Checkup Room can become part of the quarantine space of a Hospital & Massage Parlour if all three share doors, with Doctors able to freely enter & exit the quarantine if uninfected.
• Medicine can now only be given out in a Checkup Room by a doctor. Dupes who are under quarantine but need medicine can go into the Checkup Room to acquire it themselves but get the stress-providing "Ransacked Doctor's Office" debuff. Medicine lasts longer on dupes with the "Recent Checkup" buff, effectively improving the effect of medicine more generally.
• New Medicines which suppress particularly annoying dupe traits, such as Flatulence ("Bubbly Normalizer") or Loud Sleeper ("Nose Hooks"). New medicine which suppresses the stress reaction for rocket pilots while their rocket is away from its home asteroid ("Captain's Courage").

[Sasza22]

3 hours ago, AndreyKl said:

Slimelang behaved roughly as it does now (and food poisoning probably did to)

Food poisoning caused vomitting which was pretty terrible if they happened to vomit into your clean water tank. The main difference was how dupes got sick. Instead of the exposure system which is rng based the dupes would accumulate the germs they consumed inside them and remove them using their immunity systems, as it happened their immunity meter went down and when it reached 0 they got the symptoms. With proper play you could avoid disease completely but when it got out of control it was really hard to fight it. Basically brutal for newbies but a non issue for veterans.

Now you can randomly get slimelung out of a tiny pocket of germs in the corner which was impossible before but to compensate it`s nerfed heavily, probably too heavily.

[AndreyKl]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

The main difference was how dupes got sick.

Yes, thanks for the reminder. They also were far more contagious in comparison to new system (ex: the mentioned water poisoning), I haven't had any 'outbreaks' since that update despite not isolating dupes and despite food poisoning sometimes getting into food (mostly due to lack of care on my part).

 

[ONI-FAN]

48 minutes ago, AndreyKl said:

despite not isolating dupes and despite food poisoning sometimes getting into food (mostly due to lack of care on my part).

 

Since I've started back before Spaced out, I have yet to care about Slimelung or Food Poisoning or any germs other than Zombie Spores (due to needing those stupid special eggs for treatment and they sounded scary) But really the dupes just walk around a bit green in face and they operate more slowly.  Whatever, eventually they magically cure themselves.  I still don't know why the ore cleaner even exists (well, I mean before this thread....)

So yeah, I can see how nasty it used to be and how it would hurt early players but not veterans... These new ideas could certainly help for needing doctoring skills.

[The Plum Gate]

4 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

Chef is the most important skill after Mining & Ranching in the early game since they allow you to convert Power to Calories directly. 

I made no assertions to the contrary - they are both equally important roles. However the early game roles both involve operating a machine and this trend continues through all the hoops. they both make things dupes use to survive. In my opinion the chef is working on his patrons all day every day even as they're sick and so on, lol.

[ONI-FAN]

4 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

Nonsense. Chef is the most important skill after Mining & Ranching in the early game since they allow you to convert Power to Calories directly. 

Disease is an interesting proposition right now. There's the potential to create some quite challenging scenarios on the outer asteroids. However a return to the "everyone's in beds" situation common when the mechanic was introduced I do not believe is in order. I really like your suggestion of having a "Regular Checkup" buff

Hospital provides a flat morale penalty to ALL dupes once they reach a certain skill level.

New Medicines which suppress particularly annoying dupe traits, such as Flatulence ("Bubbly Normalizer") or Loud Sleeper ("Nose Hooks"). New medicine which suppresses the stress reaction for rocket pilots while their rocket is away from its home asteroid ("Captain's Courage").

I do love the chef, if for nothing else than to watch them "dance" at the grill, while cooking the food...

You are really rocking out a solution here, as I didn't know how bad germs were early on I am a bit ill equipped to make the call on re-introducing the diseases vector into gameplay.  I do like the buff being called "recent checkup"

I would make the suggested morale penalty for hospitals take effect once a dupe gets sick... then they all get a penalty as the reality washes over their existence.

Also, the apothecary and doctors,  making tons of pills to protect against stuff and it must be taken daily... make it so the doc makes the meds, but then dispenses it too, but have it last longer this way.  This certainly would work for dupe debuffs as well.  I like it.  Thanks.

4 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

I made no assertions to the contrary - they are both equally important roles. However the early game roles both involve operating a machine and this trend continues through all the hoops. they both make things dupes use to survive. In my opinion the chef is working on his patrons all day every day even as they're sick and so on, lol.

To your point - The chefs benefits are in play every day while the doctors benefits are trivial at best and worthless at worst.  I suppose we can think of the chef as providing a boost to morale on a daily basis, so to the doctor could provide general daily stat boosts  

[babba]

...Also the Hospital Room could look more like a real hospital in the game !

Dr. Fred approves this message