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Bleeding Wounds System


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It's been pointed out to me in the suggestions forum that we're missing bleeding wounds from the game. This is a good point. It's a simple system but it was one that created memorable moments in X-Com, and there's no reason why we shouldn't include it.

I've tapped out a proposed system. It's quick and simple, but here it is for comment if people want to make suggestions:

Bleeding Wounds:

  • Every time a soldier takes 10 damage (after armour calculation etc) from enemy fire there should be a 20% chance they suffer a Bleeding wound.
  • A soldier can have multiple Bleeding Wounds, and can suffer multiple bleeding wounds from the same shot if it does a multiple of 10 damage.
  • Each bleeding wound causes the soldier to lose 2HP per turn.
  • If a soldier has a bleeding wound, it should flash up a message at the start of the turn (similar to “XXX soldier has panicked!” message) saying “XXX soldier is bleeding!”
  • A bleeding wound can be cured with a medipack. It costs 5APs to cure and consumes 5 ammo from the medipack. A bleeding wound is always cured before normal HP damage.

I'm not keen on having an overly complex injury system, to be honest, but the floor is open to comments.

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I think the main balance change that would accompany this system would be me significantly increasing the weight of medikits (up to 5-6kg), so bringing them along is actually something that would deprive you of a bunch of grenades or ammo. Essentially this would stop every soldier taking one into battle and make the medic role a bit more distinct.

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Bleeding, or serious HP loss should impare soldier ability to fight (accuracy reduction?).

That would encourage players to withdraw wounded soldiers in order to heal them.

Chris, if you want to increase the weight of medikits please also make possible to use a medikit by the soldier who is carrying it.

I also propose to introduce two types of medkits:

A: basic medkits only stops bleeding

B: advanced medkits (needs to be researched) stops bleeding and heals HP

OR, if you do not like that idea, just make a research for medkit mk2, which weights less and/or is smaller.

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So, using the proposed system, if a solider with 68 health in Jackal armour is hit by a plasma rifle and looses 50 health (after armour deduction), that's 5 bleeding checks, each at 20%, with the possibility of all five checks passing. Am I right? If I am, this kind of scenario is likely to happen a lot in the early game, as without wolf armour soliders tend to either die or get hurt really, really badly when shot.

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Bleeding, or serious HP loss should impare soldier ability to fight (accuracy reduction?).

That would encourage players to withdraw wounded soldiers in order to heal them.

Chris, if you want to increase the weight of medikits please also make possible to use a medikit by the soldier who is carrying it.

I also propose to introduce two types of medkits:

A: basic medkits only stops bleeding

B: advanced medkits (needs to be researched) stops bleeding and heals HP

OR, if you do not like that idea, just make a research for medkit mk2, which weights less and/or is smaller.

Yeah, I think something like this could be good, too. That or including stimulants/adrenaline like in X-COM, to boost their energy levels, etc.

I'm onboard with most of this. As a suggestion:

- the current medikit stays in-game, but maybe gets renamed to 'first-aid kit' or something similar. All soldiers can use it, even on themselves, but all it can do is stop bleeding. For verisimilitude purposes, I'd like to see this as a 1kg item, perhaps 2x1 or 1x2 on the equipment grid, so every man can 'fight hurt', but I'd certainly understand if gameplay balance overrides 'realism'.

- the advanced medikit has to be researched, possibly based off alien tech? (Maybe "Alien Biology" can play into that. ;)) Soldiers can't use them on themselves, but over and above fixing bleeding they can heal HP damage, restore (or even over-boost?) energy, or maybe handle other issues (to be discussed/decided). This is a 5-6kg, 2x3 item, thus encouraging players to field dedicated team medics.

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It's been pointed out to me in the suggestions forum that we're missing bleeding wounds from the game. This is a good point. It's a simple system but it was one that created memorable moments in X-Com, and there's no reason why we shouldn't include it.

I've tapped out a proposed system. It's quick and simple, but here it is for comment if people want to make suggestions:

Bleeding Wounds:

  • Every time a soldier takes 10 damage (after armour calculation etc) from enemy fire there should be a 20% chance they suffer a Bleeding wound.

  • A soldier can have multiple Bleeding Wounds, and can suffer multiple bleeding wounds from the same shot if it does a multiple of 10 damage.

  • Each bleeding wound causes the soldier to lose 2HP per turn.

  • If a soldier has a bleeding wound, it should flash up a message at the start of the turn (similar to “XXX soldier has panicked!” message) saying “XXX soldier is bleeding!”

  • A bleeding wound can be cured with a medipack. It costs 5APs to cure and consumes 5 ammo from the medipack. A bleeding wound is always cured before normal HP damage.

I'm not keen on having an overly complex injury system, to be honest, but the floor is open to comments.

This is pretty good as is, but I would love to see wound treatment of 'killed' soldiers tied in to the game. Right now I've noticed that some soldiers really die and some don't when they're 'killed' on a mission, and I'd like to see the use of a medpack within X turns of their death (or perhaps to prevent them from going too far into the negative HP range) help improve their survival chances.

So, as soldiers have 50-odd HP, a shot that takes them into the negatives is very likely to cause bleeding. Right now I understand that HP is tiered somewhere to the effect of between -1 and -20 you have a 50% chance of surviving, and lower than -20 you have nothing.

Perhaps a more gradual tier structure will encourage more rapid first aid. Assuming you took a 50 HP hit, on average that'll cause one wound under your current system. If that brings the soldier to, say, -3 HP, I've got a whopping 8 turns to treat him before he gets to -20.

However, if we put different survival tiers at Hp levels that are closer together (say, every 10 HP), that puts more immediate time pressure to tend to incapacitated soldiers, and if we stretch it out longer, then every battlefield casualty becomes worthy of attention (as opposed to the guy who you know just went to -23 damage, who is currently not worth treating).

Try these tiers on for size - the survival percentages can of course be played around with, and could be improved by advanced medkits:

0 to -10 HP: 80% survival rate.

-11 to -20: 50% survival rate.

-21 to -30: 20% survival rate.

-31 to -40: 5% survival rate.

-41 or less: Dead.

This absolutely encourages people to give their soldiers immediate first aid to prevent them from slipping into the next tier, as well as encouraging players to not give up on heavily wounded comrades as there's still a chance they could be saved.

Edit: Also, yes, the notification that your soldier is bleeding is a must.

Edited by Comassion
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I'd simply like a JA2-like approach where you can't use "first aid" to fully heal a soldier. So, for example, med-kits should only stop bleeding and maybe heal up to 50% of hp lost (or less even). Full recovery should require the base med-bay.

Diminished stats would be nice as well but if you don't want to overcomplicate... :P

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So, I'll say it again since everyone just skipped my post:

How a super hot plasma shot will cause a wound to bleed? Cause it would cauterize the wound immediately.

Also, it would be cool if we could rise the chances of a downed soldier to be revived if we use a medkit on him. And to make things worst, let's say that after he's downed, we have 5 turns to reach him, otherwise he's gone for good.

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So, I'll say it again since everyone just skipped my post:

How a super hot plasma shot will cause a wound to bleed? Cause it would cauterize the wound immediately.

While more "realistic", it'd make no sense to implement, since all alien weapons are plasma based.

Maybe it leaves an acidic residue that reopens the wounds. Maybe it's just a critical non-lethal hit to a vital spot that will kill the trooper unless addressed quickly. Doesn't really matter. :P

Also, how about making "dead" troopers "healable" with medkits? They currently have a chance to survive the mission if they don't take too much damage. Keep that system, but make the resuscitation chance drop each passing turn, until another soldier drops by the 'stabilize' them. They'd still remain out of the combat, but would add to the game, IMO. "Soldier A has collapsed!", now do you risk more guys to stabilize him right away, or clear the area first, or just leave him rot :P

Edited by Kaguya
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So, I'll say it again since everyone just skipped my post:

How a super hot plasma shot will cause a wound to bleed? Cause it would cauterize the wound immediately.

I don't know whether a plasma shot would indeed cauterize the wound, but there's a ton of secondary effects beyond direct blood loss from a serious wound that can put a severely wounded person's life in danger. Hydrostatic Shock can cause internal bleeding to other areas of the body, and wounded soldiers can die from suffering circulatory shock as a response to severe injury. The plasma blast could also have done damage directly to an internal organ (say, the lung or the diaphragm) and cause difficulties breathing such that immediate medical attention could mean the difference between life and death.

Plus, we don't know how the plasma is being generated - plasma isn't a 'thing' by itself, it's a superheated state of matter. If something is that hot, it doesn't just cool right down after it damages you. It could cause a prolonged burn (which would be an excellent case for plasma weapons causing MORE bleeding wounds).

For a comparable real-world weapon, check out white phosphorous. Even small burning fragments could cause extremely serious damage over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

So I'm fine with the general principle that when someone is hit by just about any type of weapon, it's a good idea to get them some medical attention immediately, and doing so will improve their survival chances - plus, it's easier to code.

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I don't remember grey damage in the demo. Afaik, atm, they're basically a "healing spell".

They aren't. You can't fully heal a soldier with medkits. You can keep using a medkit on a wounded soldier a million times since the game doesn't prevent that, but it won't provide any additional healing past certain threshold, which is no-where near to bringing them back to full health.

Edited by Kaguya
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Would it also be possible to have 'specialized' soldiers who are better at the use of a medkit then others? Or just a stat on the soldiers profile that reacts with the healing?

As an example i'm thinking of a Corpsman (Us army).

Just like a soldier with a high strength benefits from carrying a big weapon.

And a soldier with high to hit/actionpoints would benefit from a precision rifle/sniper rifle.

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I reckon it might be better if the damage threshold was a percentage rather than a set number for bleeding chance.

For example 15% of max rather than a flat 10 HP.

That would mean a soldier who was generally tougher (more HP) would be able to take a little more damage than a weaker (lower HP) trooper before requiring a bleed check.

I would also change their name to critical injury or something similar to prevent people getting sidetracked by the plasma/fire/cauterise issue.

Burns can be just as life threatening and debilitating as well as more likely to occur from flamethrowers or plasma etc.

Could the medipack be used to give a heal over a few turns rather than an instant burst of HP?

First you heal the critical injury then you can give them a sort of negative bleed that will restore some HP over the next few turns.

A sort of negative bleed effect.

For example 10 HP straight away then 3 a turn for 5 turns (made the numbers up).

You may need to keep them out of the fight until they had recovered.

An advanced medikit could have generally higher numbers and/or a separate (AP intensive) fire mode for instant heath recovery.

Maybe this could be the upgrade that allows you to use it on downed troops in order to stabilise them and make them more likely to survive their injuries.

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I agree with Gauddlike regarding the term "critical injury" as regards to "bleeding". I have just spent an hour reading up about 3rd and 4th degree burns and prepared quite a technical answer to Hick's question (short version: there is severe fluid loss as a consequence of the kind of burns a Xenonauts would suffer from a plasma bolt), then I read Gauddlike's post. He's dead on.

Gauddlike, your idea for healing over a few turns - does that mean that the medipack is used on turn one, then can't be used again turns 2-5? Then when that heal "phase" is over, you can use the medipack again on the wounded solider? Or do you mean the medipack is in continual use over the healing "phase" but does the gradual HP healing as you describe?

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"critical injury"doesn't really imply a damage over time effect. Not in the same way as "bleed effect" does.

Can't you technically put any DoT as "bleeding" and todays gamers will understand that it is not necessarily exsanguination or haemorrhage?

Edited by Gorlom
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i think how you name it and how a bolt of plasma gets you too bleed dont mater at all

the point being we now know of damage over time after getting shot (a chance to get it like chirs said)

i mean the original x-com had it was sort of fun to see your soldier survive 6 shots just to die from 6 fatalwounds in the next turn xD

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Some gamers would definitely understand bleed as a DoT effect, some would think it odd that a fire can cause a bleed.

A critical injury is one that will be life threatening if no intervention is made.

I know it is just terminology and doesn't mean much to some people but thought I would bring it up.

@max I think it would probably be easier to have the medipack used once for the larger heal then the heal over time continues without further input, simply because I don't think there are any other multiple turn items.

You can always use it multiple times for the bigger initial heal amount though, you would just not get multiple HoT effects afterwards.

You could burn all of your AP to bring the injured trooper up faster or let him regen while you both do something else.

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I'd simply like a JA2-like approach where you can't use "first aid" to fully heal a soldier. So, for example, med-kits should only stop bleeding and maybe heal up to 50% of hp lost (or less even). Full recovery should require the base med-bay.

I second that.

The JA2 system is arguably simpler than the proposed system.

  • Every point of damage that a soldier receives is potentially bleeding damage until bandaged.

  • Special non-bleeding damage, fire (cauterized) or maybe from a 2-story fall, is automatically applied as "already bandaged".

    It still sucks, the soldier is still wounded, but he won't bleed to death from a broken ankle.

  • Bleeding happens at the start of every round.

    If a unit has unbandaged damage, it may take bleeding damage.

    Superficial wounds might lead to losing 1 HP every 2-3 rounds. Annoying but not terminal.

    35 unbandaged damage after a rocket hit might bleed for 3-5 damage every round. Medic!

    For instance, bleeding damage / turn could be a random roll between

    Min = ( Unbandaged_Dmg / 6 ) - 3

    Max = ( Unbandaged_Dmg / 6 )

    Small wounds bleed irregularly but severe ones (24+) always bleed for a minimum of 1 damage. ( 1 - 4 )

    A mere scratch ( up to 5 damage) doesn't have to bleed at all because 5 / 6 = less than 1.

    Simple and makes sense.

It's a generic system and doesn't bother with wound locations or any distinct "critical wounds" that have to be tracked.

It's easy to display, too.

Can be integrated into the normal HP bar.

Initially the HP bar is all green.

If the soldier gets hit, the HP bar may be 70% green and 30% red.

Red is bad.

Once the soldier is fully bandaged (this can require several turns!), the HP bar displays 70% green and 30% white.

That's all the information you need. Who is hurt, how much, and which other soldiers he is next to. No special UI, windows, or notifications required.

Edited by Gazz
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The only issue I see with the system that you propose Gazz, is that (going by the current alpha) early game, every time a xenonaut gets shot they will almost always start bleeding because alien weapons do so much damage. What might be frustrating is if a xenonaut gets hit in the alien phase, goes from 60hp to 4hp from a plasma rifle shot, then bleeds out when bleeding is resolved at the start of the player phase without the player being able to do anything about it!

Edited by Max_Caine
altered hp value
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