Skills, and their removal

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:15 am #430125

Right all this is assuming we don't toss this out/this doesn't end as a "one off meme".
I was going to tear out all skilllocks but people have pointed out to me that there's good reasons for somethings
such as, dropships only being usable by some people.
So here's a discussion channel before I start the PR to remove skills/whatever.

Post by **Arianya** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:38 am #430148

While skills are v. dumb, they are currently keeping several very light-weight roles "relevant"

(The most obvious one being the pilot)

So I think removing skills is fine, but that things like the shuttle controls/Quartermaster machines/etc should be ID-locked if they're not already. Pilot goes and gets his ass nommed? Better hope you grabbed his ID.

factoryman942 · Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:51 am

The only skill-required thing that seems remotely reasonable to keep would be the "Run Flight Optimisation" on dropships, which reduces transport shuttles' flight times, and even that could probably just become a time-consuming action (or maybe something from a skillbook?)

leibniz · Post by **leibniz** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:53 am #430161

I think this depends on what our goal here is, if we want tg style lrp then there is no point, but if we cant to recreate CM style MRP then they are good, representing that different people are trained in different things, not everyone can use a smartgun, etc.

Qustinnus · Post by **Qustinnus** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 9:42 am #430166

Unlike regular bay; skills have a good gameplay purpose on CM although they are a bit weird on occassions (pill bottles). I think the removal of skilllocks on things such as on piloting is bad but I also think a remake of skills that fits TG better would be the most preferable. removal sounds like a bad idea though

Tlaltecuhtli · Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:56 am

if aliens can use magic to move the shuttle why cant marines do it

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 11:02 am #430182

Only queen can move the shuttle, removing some of the restrictions is probably beneficial. But not all of them.

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 11:04 am #430183

For example, allowing everyone to perform xeno removal surgery would lead to doctor role being useless, right now they're a massive priority for aliens to kill and for marines to defend. This is good for the game.

Removing pill bottle restrictions is okay.

Davidchan · Post by **Davidchan** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 11:57 am #430185

Qustinnus wrote:Unlike regular bay; skills have a good gameplay purpose on CM although they are a bit weird on occassions (pill bottles). I think the removal of skilllocks on things such as on piloting is bad but I also think a remake of skills that fits TG better would be the most preferable. removal sounds like a bad idea though

Tank crew that doesn't know how to make field repairs to their own fucking tank? No. CM restrictions are largely asinine. Only things like the dropship make the faintest amount of sense, though thats more of an argument to just remove the dumb fucking Z level transitions as they only serve to extend rounds and throttle the fun.

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 12:07 pm #430186

Davidchan wrote:
Qustinnus wrote:Unlike regular bay; skills have a good gameplay purpose on CM although they are a bit weird on occassions (pill bottles). I think the removal of skilllocks on things such as on piloting is bad but I also think a remake of skills that fits TG better would be the most preferable. removal sounds like a bad idea though
Tank crew that doesn't know how to make field repairs to their own fucking tank? No. CM restrictions are largely asinine. Only things like the dropship make the faintest amount of sense, though thats more of an argument to just remove the dumb fucking Z level transitions as they only serve to extend rounds and throttle the fun.

We will be reevaluating where the skillocks make sense and where they do not.

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 3:31 pm #430206

>You might as well remove special roles and give everyone a race to the toolbelt on the table RPG launcher.

god please no

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 3:37 pm #430207

The RP and mechanical restrictions are really the only thing that makes CM interesting and slightly more than a shitty deathmatch in a bad game engine. Throwing all of this away for a lightrp playstyle will end up poorly.

Pretty funny how we as a codebase constantly struggle with how to make playing a doctor relevant and interesting, get our hands on code that does this, and then immediately try to gut it out

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:31 pm #430217

The bad:
if your medics or doctors are dead/AFK, you're fucked, you can't use any of their equipment, not even their health HUD

This is entirely by design. Can you imagine someone arguing that everyone should get a medigun in team fortress 2 because its not fair if the other team kills your medic and you cant heal?

Things all not being entirely within your control is part of why CM is interesting. If we just turn this into /tg/ code what will stop it from being any better than an admin pressing summon guns and the xeno button five times

EDIT: To be clear some things like not knowing how to open a pill bottle are pretty obvious dumb and reviled, but removing the gameplay niches for a bunch of the jobs because its too hard defeats the purpose of even using this code in the first place

Aloraydrel · Post by **Aloraydrel** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:35 pm #430219

The smoking detective guy above is correct

MrAlphonzo · Post by **MrAlphonzo** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:58 pm #430226

I think skill restrictions can be knocked down to just access based restrictions. If nobody queues up for medic, someones gotta fill in.
I'm not particularly worried about MUHREENS OOH-RAHing their way through surgery, as surgery equipment comes in limited supply. In the unlikely event that somehow makes it impossible for xenos to win, the incubation speed for larva could just get beefed up.

On normal /tg/code, anyone can do what a medical doctor/chemist can do, but as we have all seen, people still play the roles and have plenty of work to do. Additionally, on our own smaller version of xenos, everyone and their mother can do surgery but that hasn't stopped xenos from mopping the floor with the crew.

Of course, these are two very different codebases being compared, but you get the idea. The best way to find a healthy balance, is to do some testing until we find our footing.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:14 pm #430235

I realize the medic thing was a bit of a false equivalency but i still think the point stands. Some of my most interesting CM rounds have been due to trying to circumnavigate a critical injury because there was no time to get healed or person to do it, and the time it takes to heal/refit a marine at base or risk your doctors in the field is a part of the play/counterplay and balance. I am also pretty sure that the majority of our doctor based discussions and complaints are about them having nothing to do besides slap people in a sleeper/cryo. We now have a system with more nuance than this and it seems like we are gearing up to throw it away which is pretty epic.

Honestly I am probably just going to wash my hands of this anyways, it is clear which way it is gonna go and CM is still gonna be around to play on, but I have a prediction. This new repo will either fizzle out when people get bored, or else it will be streamlined to all hell for ease of play, probably at the request of players, which will be followed by people complaining the gameplay is boring. Call it a hunch

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:47 pm #430245

Really? You have never fought xenos after getting a broken wrist using only your sidearm, or had a buddy push you in a wheelchair back the the FOB while you fire your pulse rifle at the xenos that are trying to kill you?

Obviously these are not more common than the times where you just die or get maimed, but that is what makes them special

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:24 pm #430254

I mean yeah you only have your one magazine unless you are lucky enough to have a friend to load it for you, but some times it is just enough fire to make the xenos duck their heads down long enough for you to run off, or keep them off of your retreating squad medic before you are overrun or whatever else.

My point is that any old shitter being able to run up with a box of bruisepacks and slap you back to zero consequences is mind numbingly boring and there are more than a few people who hate that about out own medical system, given how we still have threads to re-vamp it pretty frequently that never amount to anything

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:36 pm #430258

Powergaming is tradition on tg, but maybe this once. We can all agree it would be garbage for this project.

People who want to do anything as assistant should probably just stay on main server.

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:03 am #430352

Shezza's right.
Screepcap my words.

kevinz000 · Post by **kevinz000** » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:20 am #430356

idlocks seem like fine substitutions though, even with how I usually absolutely loathe hard idlocks.

EDIT: Okay after actually thinking about this I think we should ID lock things using ""soft"" ID locks. Say, there's <thing> that requires <access>. Instead of just doing an allowed() check (for you non coders, it's checking the ID for access), it's instead put behind a door, or it's made to be hackable with the right OOC knowledge and equipment (AND NO DO NOT REQUIRE EMAGS OR OTHERWISE NEARLY UNAQUIRABLE ITEMS). That way if you try hard enough you can still use everything, but it isn't by default a free-for-all. Kinda like how most machines in the game are in locked rooms instead of y'know, being hard idlocked themselves.

bman · Post by **bman** » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:27 am #430358

keep skill restrictions for obvious shit like pilot, doctor, only queens having enough intelligence to move a shuttle etc. they make the game more interesting rather than you being able to do literally anything at maximum efficiency which means the other jobs are irrelevant most of the time. feel free to remove pillbottle shit ooga booga me marine no know how to use?? unga bunga

wyzagg :DDDD ebin wrote:Pretty funny how we as a codebase constantly struggle with how to make playing a doctor relevant and interesting, get our hands on code that does this, and then immediately try to gut it out

VERY correct statement, this thread is bad kevinz...

bman · Post by **bman** » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:32 am #430359

also id locks just mean that you're making the equipment people spawn roundstart with valuable not the people themselves, and it's kind of a cop out dont you think. if you REALLY want to make it a free-for-all for everyone just have it so that if you dont have the appropriate skill you can do the job but in a shitty/time consuming way, sort of how in lifeweb you can smith shit but it'll be low quality unlike the blacksmith's craft

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:34 am #430360

I agree, the skill system serves a purpose and to gut it out would be antithetical to the design of the game.

If low player count is an issue, why not emulate a system for skills the same we do for skeleton access in our own game? A skeleton skill system if you will.
If the player count is too low, it should be fine to raise the skill level of a few areas (medical/engineering) without breaking the balance over our knee. How far it gets adjusted may need some fine-tuning though.

WarbossLincoln · Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:00 pm

From what it sounds like some skill gates could be removed and still be reasonable. Think about what makes sense for an average educated person to be able to figure out. I couldn't figure out how to pilot a ship just by fooling with controls, but I could figure out a smart gun or something. I couldn't successfully do surgery on someone, but I could make a pretty reasonable attempt to splint a broken leg and bandage bleeding wounds up.

Post by **ninjanomnom** » Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:10 pm #430843

For now let's avoid wholesale removing the skill system. Obvious silly cases can be removed or replaced by id when appropriate.

Rustledjimm · Post by **Rustledjimm** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:47 am #430981

I think the best idea I heard so far was to implement a kind of RPG like system. Not having a skill wouldn't entirely stop you from doing a certain thing, however not having it will give you a good chance of failing and completing said task much more slowly.

An easy example is perhaps medical. A regular, untrained Marine and splint a leg in a minute and has a chance to fail.

A trained medic/doctor can come along and splint that leg in 20 seconds and has a good chance of succeeding.

If this was somehow able to be implemented it would change it from a skill lock to a skill gap.

Lumbermancer · Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:19 pm

Without medical training you can't identify pills and medicine in bottles.

Rustledjimm · Post by **Rustledjimm** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:53 pm #431011

Lumbermancer wrote:Without medical training you can't identify pills and medicine in bottles.

I think we can probably add labels to the bottles to resolve that.

MrAlphonzo · Post by **MrAlphonzo** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 6:22 pm #431018

In the current CM system, anyone who is not a doctor, researcher, CMO or CO is completely incapable of doing surgery. If you're not trained for it, the game won't even allow you to try. Non-medical marines can treat their wounds with bandages and ointment, but trying to use advanced trauma or burn kits has like a 90% chance of failing and even if you do succeed, it won't be very effective. Splints also have a high chance of failure if you do not have any medical training.

To reiterate what I've said before, we already allow powergaming and that has not left our medbay players without work to do, nor has everyone being able to do surgery stopped xenos from wiping the floor with the crew.

I think access restrictions are the way to go, MPs can just kick the shit out greyshirts that are fucking about in other departments without a good reason.

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 6:52 pm #431023

MrAlphonzo wrote:In the current CM system, anyone who is not a doctor, researcher, CMO or CO is completely incapable of doing surgery.

Good.

MrAlphonzo wrote:Non-medical marines can treat their wounds with bandages and ointment, but trying to use advanced trauma or burn kits has like a 90% chance of failing and even if you do succeed, it won't be very effective. Splints also have a high chance of failure if you do not have any medical training.

Buff marines with first aid training, enough to make medics and doctors to still do majority of the work.

Jzoid · Post by **Jzoid** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 10:01 am #431145

Skills play such a crucial part in CM ensuring that each role has a duty and certain level of importance that removing them will greatly hinder the flow and diversity of the marine sides. It'd be like giving the Charger Caste the ability to play Resin walls; that's not his job, it's someone elses job, he has a job to do he should stick to that. If you want player interactivity with eachother, I'd suggest leaving them alone.

Iatots · Post by **Iatots** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:35 pm #431166

MrAlphonzo wrote: On normal /tg/code, anyone can do what a medical doctor/chemist can do, but as we have all seen, people still play the roles and have plenty of work to do.

Wyzack wrote:I am also pretty sure that the majority of our doctor based discussions and complaints are about them having nothing to do besides slap people in a sleeper/cryo. We now have a system with more nuance than this and it seems like we are gearing up to throw it away which is pretty epic.

MrAlphonzo wrote: To reiterate what I've said before, we already allow powergaming and that has not left our medbay players without work to do, nor has everyone being able to do surgery stopped xenos from wiping the floor with the crew.

Either play on the same server or acknowledge what the other is writing.
This discussion is not very useful in its current form. I think it would be much more productive to make a list of all the instances of in-game skill requirements and run it point by point, in different threads even.

Rustledjimm · Post by **Rustledjimm** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 2:26 pm #431170

We will be running things very like CM to begin with, due to obviously not making massive code changes. Things will slowly drift as we do what Iatots mentioned and look at everything one by one and go "does this improve the gameplay?" etc. This likely won't be a fast process and will require input from the community on the way.

Davidchan · Post by **Davidchan** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:22 pm #431313

Rather than gating things behind skill restrictions that flatly refuse to allow people to do a task they would probably be otherwise capable of, it'd be better if skills actually meant something so a Doctor has a very high chance of surgery success where as a medic would be much sloppier and likely to injure their patient during complicated surgeries (like larva removal) and regular marines can attempt things like bone repair but even with the best tools are going to perform worse than a proper doctor with a full ghetto set and reinforced table.

Doctors and highly skilled but specialized roles still have their uses but incase of emergency marines can still attempt the checks on the front line if its life or death, just make sure everyone is aware that someone who'se not properly trained in task is likely to make things worse rather than better if they botch the skill roll (such as a marine fucking up with a defib to destroy the machine or even make the defib patient too damaged to revive)

Lumbermancer · Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:32 pm

Davidchan wrote:Rather than gating things behind skill restrictions that flatly refuse to allow people to do a task they would probably be otherwise capable of

Which would those skill be? When I think skills in CM, I can think of medical skills, weapon skills and piloting. Maybe Engineering, but I never played those jobs.

So piloting seems logical, you need a lot of training to pilot a dropship. Medical also seems reasonable, your grunts can still do first aid, bandage, apply trico shots (splints too I think). Medics can identify medicine, and use defibs and such. Doctors on the ship can do surgery. Actually I think medics can do some surgery too, technically, but it's against the rules, afair.

So that leaves us with weapons, most debatable. You could argue that some more high tech stuff like Smartguns would require proper training, you could also argue Sadar is just a bazooka so any competent solider would be at least capable of firing one (though even that is debatable still).

Davidchan · Post by **Davidchan** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:02 pm #431339

Engineering and Tank repair are the two big ones that come to my mind, though the outright inability for most marines to be unable to use autoinjectors, things literally designed to be so simple a 5 year old can use them, is mildly infuriating at best. A non-engineer making a barricade might end up resulting in a shotty barricade that has no firing slot, or attempts to hack a door just shocking the marine or damaging equipment.

Giving regular marines the ability to gunner for the tank would also be nice, or add a 3rd or even 4th seat to the tank which pintle weapon mounts (or for god sake just give us an APC already)

Lumbermancer · Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:36 pm

>tanks
I guess I haven't played CM in a while.

CosmicScientist wrote:Wait, marines can't use autoinjectors? But muh medical pouch!

Well back in my day they could, but now there are tanks apparently, so I don't know anything anymore.

Iatots · Post by **Iatots** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 9:23 pm #431369

Grunts could only use tricord autoinjectors for the longest time, if it's different now it must have been a change from the new regime.
Restocking autoinjectors, advanced kits, bandages and ointment is very much deliberate, and a cornerstone of good medicine. You can run out of bullets though.

Davidchan · Post by **Davidchan** » Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:18 am #431477

Only SL and Medics (and Doctors) can use named injectors like Tricord, Dexalin and Oxy. Everyone else gets "first aid" and "pain stop" that have Tricord and tram in them. I keep getting conflicting reports of quick clot being broader use or not. If a marine picks up a Tricord injector which medics can get from vendors and medbay the game refuses to let them use it

Iatots · Post by **Iatots** » Mon Aug 06, 2018 5:32 pm #431556

Ah, correction: autoinjectors only have been needing the medical skills since the 13th of february of this year; About 6 months of the 2+ years of CM history.
This and the safety caps on pill bottles came to nerf medical after the introduction of the autosurgeon.

Pizzatiger · Post by **Pizzatiger** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:39 pm #431776

These problems are super simple to solve and we kinda touched on it with our discussion of medical and surgeries. If someone is super inexperienced at something give them a chance to fail or increase the time it takes to do simple tasks.

Example on guns-

Sure a untrained person can figure out a gun but they might forget to turn the safety on/off at crucial moments such as when an xeno is charging at them or when they are holstering/running with their gun.They could lose control of the gun and have the knock back result in the gun slamming into their face/dislocating a shoulder. Guns with high fire rates should have the chance to fall out of their hands and bounce around while still firing. Bazookas/RPG'S should have the option to fire behind you/explode. Ammo should take forever to add to a gun during reloading and should have a chance to fail.

This will give us systems that instead of telling the player YOU CAN'T DO THIS, It instead tells them "You can do this but.....do you REALLY want to?"

These systems will create moments where that shitty medical doctor who has no medical training and is currently being charged by a xeno somehow manages to pick up the RPG dropped by his dead/dying companion and ACTUALLY manages to shoot the xeno without blowing himself up. This will allows for the cool moments that CM has that the Detective man wants while also giving some cool moments that are TG only when something goes horribly wrong.

My final argument for this system is it creates a difference between the Xeno's and the humans. Humans are flexible but have a chance to fail even when they are really good at something while a xeno is stuck in its evolution path/specialty but can never fail

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Wed Aug 08, 2018 6:50 pm #431927

Simplify the skill list.
Piloting, Powerloaders and Tank Operation can be merged into Vehicles.
All the non-specialist weapon skills can be merged together into firearms whilst smartguns/bazookas/etc can be put under the heavy weapons flag.
Merge medical and surgery into just medical.
Merge CQC and melee into just melee.
Merge engineering and construction into just engineering.
Leadership can remain as is.
Policing can go, their gear isn't *that* unique to warrant an entire skill

This will reduce the skill list from 18 to 7 and will be less of a pain in the ass to manage.

leibniz · Post by **leibniz** » Wed Aug 08, 2018 6:58 pm #431933

I dont see anything wrong with the existing skill system on CM.

Shezza · Post by **Shezza** » Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:19 am #432011

Anonmare wrote:Simplify the skill list.
Piloting, Powerloaders and Tank Operation can be merged into Vehicles.
All the non-specialist weapon skills can be merged together into firearms whilst smartguns/bazookas/etc can be put under the heavy weapons flag.
Merge medical and surgery into just medical.
Merge CQC and melee into just melee.
Merge engineering and construction into just engineering.
Leadership can remain as is.
Policing can go, their gear isn't *that* unique to warrant an entire skill

This will reduce the skill list from 18 to 7 and will be less of a pain in the ass to manage.

Against merging everything into vehicle skill, its already easy to manage.
Engineering and construction should probably be merged.
Surgery and medical probably not.
CQC and melee, yeah merge that shit.
Policing is a skill just made it so people can't steal MP gear.

factoryman942 · Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:31 pm

From what I can see, all "medical" skill requirements are simply "is their skill level medic or above".
Other than that, all I can see affected by it is the timer for feeding pills to people here here.
Medics have the skill at 2, doctors at 3, and CMO at 4, so medic/doctor shouldn't affect this timer either as the timer will be 10 whichever you are

WarbossLincoln · Thu Aug 09, 2018 5:07 pm

Pizzatiger wrote: Sure a untrained person can figure out a gun but they might forget to turn the safety on/off at crucial moments such as when an xeno is charging at them or when they are holstering/running with their gun.They could lose control of the gun and have the knock back result in the gun slamming into their face/dislocating a shoulder. Guns with high fire rates should have the chance to fall out of their hands and bounce around while still firing. Bazookas/RPG'S should have the option to fire behind you/explode. Ammo should take forever to add to a gun during reloading and should have a chance to fail.

guns aren't that complicated though. Any reasonably intelligent adult could figure out how to shoot, manipulate a safety if the gun has one, and reload it in a couple minutes of fiddling with it. Having a big accuracy penalty would be a lot more reasonable than "oops I put the mag in backwards with the bullets pointing towards me"

Edit: I could see somehow having a class of guns marked as "complex" and put bigger penalties like that on it. Like an open bolt machine gun with a belt like an M249 or something. I shoot a lot and am fairly knowledgeable with guns but if you handed me an M249 I would have to spend some time to figure out how to rig up the belt and shoot it.

ShrimpMantis · Sat Aug 11, 2018 5:22 am

CosmicScientist wrote:Tanks are from earlier this year and come in flavours of boom stun, gatling fun, fire denial and bloodied treads but usually have an aftertaste of useless on prison or dead if the marines are bad. Unless something changed within the week of the leak, you can use autoinjectors on yourself without medical skill.

And because I learned something new today I might as well share, autoinjectors can be restocked by dragging them onto vendors and collecting a new one. Effectively you're restocking the item because the machine accepts the object and presumably deletes it/creates a new one on vending. I can't tell if this is an exploit or feature because it's not intuitive even by SS13 standards.

Y'know the tank dispenser? If you insert an empty tank into the machine, it will spawn a 100% default tank of the selected variety. In Baystation, items inserted are spawned in the exact same condition they were in prior to the insertion. Certain items have restrictions for the restock mechanic however. Such as gun magazines or pill bottles.

Rohesie · Post by **Rohesie** » Sat Aug 11, 2018 5:42 pm #432455

Okay, so there's realism, there's fun and there's balance to consider. To me the priority is from last to first.

I'm removing every hard skill lock minus the pilot flight optimization because it's not really essential and gives the PO another tool that makes them invaluable.

In where the skills were acting like IDs, I added ID checks. Such as for marines to enter the tank or try to use the pilot computers.

With weapons it's easy: we'll keep soft skill limitations. Meaning you can fire a smartgun, but your screen will shake like mad and your accuracy and spread will suffer. You can still kill something, but not as reliably as with any other weapon you are proficient with.

With the rest of the skills we have 3 options:
1) Failure chance in where you have to repeat the action if you don't succeed. Lebensraum uses this for surgery. It's kind of really annoying to have to spam click until it works.
2) Failure chance in where you fuck up and cause damage. Surgery already has this, and if the chance is just a little high it's the same as if you cannot perform the surgery. Because high infection chance means you'll never get rid of necrosis, and high damage chance means you'll never fix broken bones. It's frustrating both for the surgeon player as for the player forever stuck in crit or death, and we'd be better served by hard locks than this.
3) Timed fumbling. Not the best solution possible, but it's much better and less frustrating to fumble around before you have a guarantee that you can actually perform the action like you would normally. I'll be going with this in most cases, fumbling times varying depending on how much we want to restrict the actions. Building a plasteel cade as a PFC takes a long time, making barbed wire much less, and trying to load the OB much, much longer. You will usually prefer for a specialized person to do it, but will have an option other than to roll and die if they are unavailable.

Among the skills, the least realistic for everyone to know is surgery. But running around in an open incision because chucklefuck surgeon wouldn't fix (and now nobody can use trauma kits on you) you is not fun, and it would be nice to leave stranded marines or the likes with options. There currently exist a lot of mechanical restrictions on the ability to do surgery. You will only reliably avoid failing steps by knocking your patient down, so painkiller-based surgery is no longer a thing. An operating table with anesthesia will guarantee you no fail chances, and a medical mask and clean hands will guarantee you no infections. If you want to ghetto it, spray cleaner will keep you clean, and a rolling bed will keep failure chances low enough for you to operate reliably. Without these tools you cannot effectively perform surgery. Perhaps adding a surgery apron to the mix might be interesting, so the surgeons are forced not to be wearing armor (and be vulnerable should they choose to operate in the frontlines).

All that said, PFCs will be able to perform surgeries but at an oppressively slow pace. Good luck if you are in a rush not to burst a larva, and good luck if you miss a step. Doctors will eventually do surgery faster than they do now to bring a little challenge to the role (instead of the click-wait-click-wait-click-wait-game surgery is currently like), like in the golden old days in where they could operate several infected patients at the same time to deal with the medbay flood of patients like pros. Less trained personnel won't be able to do that, of course.

At first it will be really similar with the current system, plus ID locks and fumbling times when unskilled (like the handheld medical scanner right now). Later on I want to make the really skilled people faster and better at construction, healing, surgery, shooting and whatnot, to give them an even higher edge and making them even more relevant.

Thoughts?

WarbossLincoln · Mon Aug 13, 2018 5:52 pm

I like those ideas for the most part. ID locks instead of skill locks for being able to simply open something is a much better idea.

I think you could definitely give more people medical/surgery skills and it would still be reasonable for gameplay and realism to an extent. It make total sense for every single person, including the clown, to have basic first aid training. These are space ships and colonies and whatnot, it's dangerous. Everyone would be trained in stuff like CPR and basic trauma care(bandaging wounds, splints, ect). Then you go up from there. Privates would know a little more, medics would know a lot for trauma first aid, up to doctors who can do everything well.