-=BRAINPORT=- Street Doctors

[Mingerroo]

I have decided to post this idea I have had for some time, as a result of Q's threads.

The implanter should not just be an implanter, there should be more to it than that.

I suggest the addition of a new sub-skill, "medic". I don't really mind which statistic this goes under, as long as it is accessible in high levels to those who can poke at high level (so probably intelligence).

When poking, there should be a chance of failure based on how close the implant TL is to the poking ability of the poker; A normal failure should just cause damage, but a critical failure should add a stack to the target labelled "infection".

This "infection" deals poison and generic damage like a normal poison stack, but does not tick down like a poison stack. Instead, it should be able to kill a character who is not healing in about 15 minutes.

Infections can also be contracted from mutants stabbing you and such (but very rarely).

The only way to cure an infection is to visit a street medic. Now a street medic has many tools available to them, all reliant on the "medic" subskill and it's respective stat.

Antibiotic Administration Unit: Clears infection, and heals the target. If it fails, the target is temporarily poisoned as well as infected... On a critical fail they get another infection stack.
Medical Kit: Gives health and psi, as well as a heal. The strength of all of which depends on the level of the street doctor. A fail does the opposite (takes health and psi, poisons target), and a critical fail infects them.

Now imagine fighting in the wastes and after three to four days of solid fighting contracting an infection. It would be strong enough to hinder you while fighting, but not kill you whilst travelling... So you'd head to town to visit a street doctor. The doctor could heal you, but he could also make you worse.

The main reason for this idea is to make pokers more of a class than an option that people all have, as I'd be much more inclined to visit a high level poker, and even more inclined to visit one who can cure me of infections and such.

As a final note, cheap poke tools that come as "bad" quality should have a greater chance of infection than those that cost more and come at "good" quality. :)

Steve

[Ransom]

hmm, but make it an option not to use implant disinfection gel, to increase the risks. TBH I don't think this should be a frequent occurance, perhaps if an implnter didn't have enough skill i.e. "Sure I can give you a complete brain transplant, but I only have 20 points in the skill, still want to do it?"

[Mingerroo]

Yeah, infection is definitely a real rarity, the same skill-TL/failure rate as construction for example.

Steve

[naimex]

could add more reality to the game.. so yes.. lets try that

[Psyco Groupie]

Im not feeling this one .. mainly cos dmg to imps could grow too much

[J. Folsom]

15 minutes seems a bit too fast to me still, it's better then your original suggestion of 10 minutes, but still...

Sure, there's nearly no consequence to dieing, but it's a bit annoying (as an extreme example) to lose more implants then you got poked in the first place everytime you die.

To be honest, this change would pass the point that realism is fun and come to the point that realism is incredibly annoying.

EDIT: Besides, it's not particularly realistic, no one dies of an infection in around 2 hours (Which is 15 minutes converted into Neocron time), even the infection is in the area of the brain.

[Forget My Name]

There can be no disease in Neocron. Genreps make getting sick impossible. A healthy record of your past self is always kept in Genreps. Hence why the world is full of radiation, yet no one cares and just wanders out into the 'wastelands' anyway.

Got cancer? Got Gangreen? Just die and generep yourself. Problem fixed.

I like your idea, I am just stating that we don't need something like disease in this game. Medic idea cool, disease idea bad.

[Mingerroo]

Originally posted by Forget My Name
There can be no disease in Neocron. Genreps make getting sick impossible. A healthy record of your past self is always kept in Genreps. Hence why the world is full of radiation, yet no one cares and just wanders out into the 'wastelands' anyway.

Got cancer? Got Gangreen? Just die and generep yourself. Problem fixed.

I like your idea, I am just stating that we don't need something like disease in this game. Medic idea cool, disease idea bad.

Good point :), no disease then, but there definitely needs to be more to poking than just getting a number > TL and clicking, such as having more abilities. We also need a non-PPU healer type character... Seen as medicare NPCs are everywhere yet there are no medicare-type players.

Steve

[Carinth]

It's my opinion that spies should be the tech equivalant of psi monks. The exact effect of each tech should differ from the associated psi, but the idea should be the same. There should be a spy version of the ppu. This would mean you could have a choice, it wouldn't always be you need a ppu to fight. A ppu spy could do aswell. This would be a big boost to neocron, since way to much is placed on a single class. Spread it around some and the game is better balanced. The medic would work as the ppu equivalant for a spy. He could be like a combat medic, have devices to heal you, devices to enhance your abilities (like how they use drugs in real life), and other similar skills. Keep in mind tho each class should be unique, ppu's should have abilities medic's don't have, and vice versa. Also the exact effect should not be identical. For instance a ppu shelter protects mainly against energy, a medic shelter might protect best against xray or maybe fire.

This would also give us a chance to split the ppu in two. The true ppu's do not have offensive spells, they are specialized in protecting a team, in saving lives. Not in weakening or killing. The other type of ppu is a mix, some defensive abilities, but also has offensive weakning spells. In effect he becomes what the apu was supposed to be. Offensive support : ) The spy equivalant would be really cool imo, an Engineer. They'd be the master of building devices like turrets. The turrets would weaken incoming enemies in various ways, giving your team the advantage. Manual turrets coudl also be built by engineers and then manned by a Tank. The engineer has so many cool features to enhance op wars. Another line of devices could be grenades, emp grenades, concussion grenades, gas grenades, etc. Toss an emp to take out turrets temporarily. Toss a gas grenade into the comp room to force the defending team to come out of their hiding places.

[Nash_Brigham]

A chop shop might be good in neocron, but I would suggest, using anything outside of other players, because we don't want ot remove players as the best method, would always cause item quality loss. So if say, you go to a chop shop in plaza 1 to have your advanced nerves 3 put in, you would lose about 10 to 15 points of it's condition, since most chop shops are jsut that, they chop and do it in a rush, and most of them don't have the skill or precision of like a player skilled in such tasks would. Makes wanting to go to players seem better for the implanters as a whole, while at the same time, giving ppl an alternative when they don't want to spawm for a poker at plaza 1 or 2 for very long.

[Carinth]

Originally posted by Nash_Brigham
A chop shop might be good in neocron, but I would suggest, using anything outside of other players, because we don't want ot remove players as the best method, would always cause item quality loss. So if say, you go to a chop shop in plaza 1 to have your advanced nerves 3 put in, you would lose about 10 to 15 points of it's condition, since most chop shops are jsut that, they chop and do it in a rush, and most of them don't have the skill or precision of like a player skilled in such tasks would. Makes wanting to go to players seem better for the implanters as a whole, while at the same time, giving ppl an alternative when they don't want to spawm for a poker at plaza 1 or 2 for very long.

That's a different problem actualy. Tradeskillers are not around much because tradeskillers are *not* a viable specialization. They are certainly not any fun to do soly. Currently tradeskillers are alt chars, which are only online when their masters need something done. Combat is what Neocron is all about, any class which is penalized in combat for doing their profession, is not going to make it very far.

[Nash_Brigham]

Neocron is both. Combat is one aspect, and a large one at that, but without tradeskillers in Neocron, no one would have their high powered libbies, or holy lightnings, or any of that shit. And as it goes, probably the most important tradeskilleer to Neocron, as they see probably the most use out of any tradeskill is the implanter. Placing a shop in Neocron that would just do somethign that you could get from a player, would one, remove a large aspect fo the community and turn a specific skill in the game into something no one would bother about if all they gotta do is pay like 1,000 creds to an NPC. This is something that destroyed the community of UO as far as I am concerned, when teh need to rely on other players was removed. Grant it, it can be partially done in Neocron, but not on the extent UO can do it.

Trust me, you do not want to kill the part that gives community that actual feel.

[sanityislost]

atm i think the sub skills are streched as far as they should be, however this could be something in the woc skill

[Carinth]

Originally posted by Nash_Brigham
Neocron is both. Combat is one aspect, and a large one at that, but without tradeskillers in Neocron, no one would have their high powered libbies, or holy lightnings, or any of that shit. And as it goes, probably the most important tradeskilleer to Neocron, as they see probably the most use out of any tradeskill is the implanter. Placing a shop in Neocron that would just do somethign that you could get from a player, would one, remove a large aspect fo the community and turn a specific skill in the game into something no one would bother about if all they gotta do is pay like 1,000 creds to an NPC. This is something that destroyed the community of UO as far as I am concerned, when teh need to rely on other players was removed. Grant it, it can be partially done in Neocron, but not on the extent UO can do it.

Trust me, you do not want to kill the part that gives community that actual feel.

Do you play Neocron? Tradeskillers are just a means to an end. People make alt chars to be tradeskillers so they can get back to combat. The ratio of primary combat characters to primary tradeskillers would be something like 1:100. The Neocron you are describing existed a long time ago before LoM's were given a pentalty, even better before specialization was so rigidly enforced. Back then plenty of people played tradeskilers as their primary, because they could switch to combat when they wanted too. They could work their jobs, and then go play with combat. As a pure tradeskiller, it's all work. There is very little fun in being a tradeskiller. If you disagree then you have not been a tradeskiller for very long, or you are not a tradeskiller primary.

Let's look at the different tradeskills:

Constructor: Very tedious, mostly just involved drag/drop/click/watch bar/repeat. There is a cap on skill afterwhich your skill does not really matter. Slots are random nomatter what you do above that point. Slots are the only source of pleasure for a constructor. That you can produce a 3slotter or even a 5slotter marks you as a good constructor, but it not really something you can control. Substance is expensive in bulk.

Researcher: Very Very Very tedious, only involves drag/drop/click/watch bar/repeat. There is a cap in skill which means above a certain point your speed does not improve. Psi booster3s will always take 6 seconds for a tl 150 resser or a tl 200 resser. You can never have enough research skill, you need over 200 to do high tl items, and even then you fail. Ideal would prolly be 250 or even 300 maybe. For the most part you create blueprints, which may have different colors, but are all the same! You don't produce anything tangible, just a step along the way to the constructor. Researcher's only source of pleasure is in identifying the rare part that your customer wanted. The identity of each rare part is decided when it drops from a mob. So again it's out of the researcher's hands. Substance is expensive in bulk.

Implant: One of the few reasonably fun tradeskills. It has a low enough skill inventment that you can manage to do combat aswell. Though if you are a monk, even that much invested in poke will cripple you. Despite this though, all you do really is point and click people. Not exactly the most thrilling thing to do. Big positive though is that you don't need to worry about substance, only your customers do. You are highly valued though, since it's one of two tradeskills needed when a player dies.

Barter: Also a reasonably fun tradeskill. It requires a large investment in skill to get a decent discount rate. Upsides tho are that you need no substance. You are loved by everyone, saving money is good. You also receive generous tips, more so then any other tradeskill. People can tip you 50-100k and still end up saving quite a lot of money. But.. all you're doing is navigating the vendor list, selecting how many, and buying them. Not very exciting.

Repair: Possibly gimps your ability to run or drive, dependin on your class. It's needed along with pokes when players die, so they are in demand. But they don't really do anything positive. They repair somthing so it's useable again, but they also damage it inthe process. Having things repaired is always depressing because you know it's that much closer to falling apart completely. Substance is expensive in bulk.

Recycle: Really really realy easy tradeskill. You need barely any investment of skill. It has the big bonus of keeping you out hunting mobs, since you can make new ammo rather then having to return to gogo/shop. Downsides are, junk to clone is way heavier then the item it turns into. So enough junk to overburden you could only turn into 10 boosters or 50packs of ammo. The items you can recycle also seem rather odd. There is "old" junk which drops on older mobs which you can't recycle. That makes certain hunting areas render recycle worthless. Also the often ignored alternate use of recycle, aside from cloning, is to actualy recycle. 4 chittin can be recycled to make 1 pack of solantium. The process of gatherin enough junk to make chems from is prohibitive of this being used much. Plus the forumlas have to be found out by asking other players, nothing ingame to suggest them.

Hacking is the only other tradeskill, but that's not in the same class as these. Hacking is done during/after combat, and is not the kind of thing you sit in p1 offering your abilities for. In many ways though, this makes Hacking the only fun tradeskill. Sure you have to gimp your combat to be good, but you can get away with not too big a gimp. Despite that you're still on the battle field and apart of combat as much as anyone else.

Until the tradeskills themselves are fun enough to make it worthwhile to give up combat, then tradeskilers will never be a viable specialization.

[Nash_Brigham]

Yes I play Neocron, and I play to fight, but not everyone does. Some ppl here just can't get it through their heads on that issue, but tradeskillin is quite viable option in this game. Yeah, you can't sit there and cap a character in a few weeks time like you could a combat character, because the system is so messed up right now, IMO anyways, but either way, you can have fun. I know when i had implanting, I had alot of fun being mr. popular.

[Carinth]

Implanting is more fun then the others, but what exactly is fun about it? You point and click. This isn't exactly rocket science, or is entertaining. Hacking has a minigame, which makes you active in the outcome of the tradeskill. No other tradeskill has anything like that, you can watch tv and do your work. What's fun about it is the social aspect, which really has nothing to do with the tradeskill. It's fun to chat with people while you work for them. You get a sense of community. But I could stand in p1 and do that without tradeskilling.

[ZoneVortex]

then maybe have like...

a drug you can take to make ALL your pokes cause this virus poison thing

or maybe a different poke tool, a rare one, or a glove or something

so you can run around in battles as a street doctor "poking" them and actually poiisoning them hehe

[LordError]

---- part 1 of post
Make remote pokeing a mini game like hacking. It should be very quick and if you screw up. yea, you get a desease/infection. This is a nice way to take revenge if your poker got ganked in aggie cellars. Do bad and give him a nasty infection next time.

Success system should be like hacking. High TL requiers high poke skill or it will be hard as hell, if not impossible.


---- part 2 of post
As stated earlier in this thread, the spy version of a ppu realy applies to me. I Like that idea a lot.

A spy healer/ppu could have something like nano bots, or similar. And then doing similar tasks as the ppu.
In stead of the ppu spells it can have have a sort of nanobot launcher. Thus they can cover some distance like the ppu spells do. here are some of my ideas

"Harden skin" (spy deflcetor):
the the spy version of deflector but slightly diffrent. Mainly improves pirceing and force maybe a little fire.

"Titanium skin" (spy shelter):
The spy version of shelter but very diffrent. Protects mainly fire and x-ray and some poison. This should be very effcient and maybe give a slight agility penalty, say - 5-10%

"Nano Heal" (spy heal):
Works the same way basic heal does but lightly weaker. Maybe 10-15% less efficient.

"Improved Nano Heal" (spy blessed heal):
Works the same way as blessed heal but again a bit weaker than the ppu ones.

"Enhanced Nano Heal" (spy holy heal):
Yes you guessed it, a bit less efficient than holy heal.

"Reflex Enhancer" (spy only):
Improves WPL, melee and agility or athletics

"Speed Enhancer" (spy only):
Improves run speed for a short peiod of time. Maybe 10-20 secs or something. This even works for capped run speed. Makes the runner move faster, can either be used to run away, or to improve combat.

"Filter Bots" (spy only, rare?):
Works as a filter, cleaning blod from impureities. Mainly removeing poison, and giveing x-ray resist.

Maybe even sevral levels of it. The first gives a resist (+25 poison, +5 x-ray?), second removes one stack and gives resist (+30 posion, +10 x-ray?), the last removes 8 stacks and gives a good resist boost (+45 poison, +15 x-ray?). Apu Poison spells should be boosted to keep up a bit, but not insanely much.

This spy ability should maybe be a new main skill or be one or sevral skills in int. This is so that you will get gimped by useing it. (So we wont have spy hybrids kicking to much ass, maybe even WPL and R-C/P-C/T-C penalty)

If there was radiaton hot spots in the game, we could even have a spy (spell/nano whatever) for that. And/or desease/infection removal. (this should not be to high level so that you wont get to gimped by it, maybe rare?)

Someone might say that useing Nano stuff does not fit in the world of neocron. To you i have only one thing to say. It does not have to be nano suff. this was just to illustrate how these spells might work, since psi spells are out of the question.

Well, this is only a rough idea, but lots of credit to the orginal poster of this idea. I have a lot of other ideas for this as well. Maybe the orginal poster of this idea would like to PM me so we can work out a good one?

[amfest]

I don't see a problem with infection .. but instead of actual death just have it ever so often drop your max health . .. till finally after so much time it'll drop to 10 health or something less. You can't heal up pass the infection health drop . . . only way to cure is by a medic (no ppu).

As for the spy ppu idea ... make another post ..lol .. it's starting to get a tad bit off topic there . and more people might see it with the idea in the topic of a thread

[Mingerroo]

I really like LordError's suggestions, and amfest, that's an awesome way to implement an infection with it killing you. Every so often it increases a negative to your body health stat... Lowering your max hp. :D

Steve

[LordError]

A little edit to my post further up.

Edit 1: When i write (spy only) on some of the spells/nano thingies. What i mean is that it is spy nano-ppu only spells. It can be casted on anyone but only the spy nano-ppu can cast it.

Edit 2: there should also be severe psi penalties for this. So we wont get the psi/nano hybrid uber runners.

Guess thats about it.