Bump; been really busy lately, and haven't gotten to respond at all.
Jonny wrote:What would be required would be to move the bleed system over into python, and then change how a field dressing and medic bag acts. The aim should be to have field dressings ONLY stopping the bleeding, and medic bags ONLY healing.
Well, IMO, I think the medic bag should be treated seperately, as it is a metaphor for treating the wound (gauze included), so it can have an entirely independant heal-rate, so that field dressings aren't 'wasted' to heal others.
Of course, it can be treated in the way you describe, and it may even work better that way; if the medic bag healed faster for those who were patched up and prepared for medical treatment, the medic/corpsman would probably have an easier time treating and redressing the wound (dirt and dust in the wound, as well as blood seeping and making it hard to address the wound are issues.)
It would probably be more of personal preference/'realism' rather than a real gameplay changer, so I'd support either one.
snooggums wrote:In practice the bandage already works as you are intending. When you are bleeding out you apply a bandage to slow down the bleed out process giving you a little time to get to a medic. The only time the bandage lets you get back into the fight is when you receive a minor wound (ie one that did do a little damage like scraping a knee).
The only difference is the current system shows you have the wound by adding the sound effects (coughs and groans), visual cues (b/w screen and blood effects) until you are healed past the bleeding effect.
Well, no, the difference of the current system is that there is no context to it; field dressings will always heal X%, no matter whether you're sitting next to a crate with nearly full health, etc etc.
Jonny wrote:Incorrect.
There is no reason the effects cannot stay. The effects and the damage are 2 seperate and independant things.
Exactly. In fact, while bleeding the effect could even render a player completely ineffective in combat, both fighting and survivability-wise (losing blood and immense pain is nothing to scoff at, trying to fire back under that condition could prove more hurt than help).
A player could have a pure-red screen if he was bleeding. He'd be completely useless to everyone, he'd be slowly bleeding, and he'd have to try to get out his field dressing and patch himself up before he turns into a fountain.
Now, he's applied the patch. He's still got a audio/visual cue that he's bleeding (a lighter version of the current bleed, maybe); he's still combat effective, but he's not top-notch with a hole in his stomach. He's no longer losing blood, though, which means that he can actually tag along with his squad for much longer periods before he needs to be healed, which means he can still be in combat after he addresses his wound, and still move with the squad out of an ambush, but he'll still be bleeding and in pain, therefore making him less effective than he is when fully healed.
Finding a nice balance will prove effective; it could be made that Health under 15% bleeds over a field-dressing. Health under 40% causes the field dressing to become ineffective after 5 minutes. Health under 80% allows the dressing to be effective for a full duration. ETC, ETC, ETC; it could be made more complex or more concise, to fit what is wanted.
Jonny wrote:The time limit would obviously be quite long...
You would be able to walk around for several (tens of?) minutes, trying desperately to find a medic, rather than the current 6 min 15 secs (ish) maximum. It could easily triple that time, with no possibility of healing by using just field dressings and no getting away from the bleed effect. This will have a MASSIVE effect on more serious injuries. People will no longer die quickly, but slowly and painfully. If that doesn't make your enemy more cautious and medics more nessesary then nothing will.
With a python based system though, the effects can be far more interesting.
The bandage might only stop the bleeding if you are above a certain threshold, below which it will simply slow it.
Sudden changes of velocity could cause damage, crashing your car might kill you for example.
Only certain kinds of explosions might cause bleeding to start at all, so no more bleeding after falling down a small hill (this might not actually be possible, it depends on python knowing about the creation of explosive objects).
Pressure waves from large bombs could cause damage, but not bleeding.
A nearby grenade could cause faster bleeding than a bullet doing the same instantaneous damage, due to having more shrapnel bits.
Being in deep water could cause 'bleeding' only while you are in the water, stopping after you get out regardless of how hurt you are and then letting you slowly recover the 'lost' health (if you can find out about when someone is swimming via python, and tell the difference beteen drowning and being shot in the water).
There is a lot more to it than simply a slightly different wayof bleeding out.
I think this is pretty amazing; if we had this kind of contextual-damage system, I would be very impressed.
Even just this field dressing change means that being wounded is now not a horribly detrimental thing (yeah, it hurts, you'll die quicker, but you can patch up and keep fighting even if it's just going to result in you getting gunned down shortly after), and you can carry on for the sake of the squad until you can be healed up properly.
It adds a whole different dynamic to the system, not just changing a code segment from "X+1=Y" to "1+X=Y"; it's more like adding in a bunch of other variables, that allow each experience unique depending on what happened
I think that the velocity/grenade/pressure wave things would be pretty interesting to see...
Maybe add shift-boost to vehicles (Jeeps in particular) that would be break-neck speeds, used only in emergencies, and hitting an object could cause severe damage to everyone in the vehicle (note the 'break-neck' part)... Would allow for really quick driving through the cities on certain areas (like speeding through Basrah to get to the area of choice) making you a lot less of a target, but making sure not to land yourselves into a wall for more than one reason (One being the dieing from the crash, Two being the tons of insurgents that will finish you off afterwards).
Pressure Wave would probably make the JDAM pretty awesome, I think... wave initiates a specialized effect that causes a ton of damage but no bleed, and a shell shock like effect which makes everyone in effect disorientated from the blast.
