Alter damage mechanics a bit regarding lethality and decap

[Midaychi]

 

Preface: I have no in depth coding knowledge of ss13, and am working off observation. The 'Pain system' I'm referring to is that 'fake damage' that puts people in crit and writhing in pain despite being say, 36% healthy, or what makes them feel 100% if they take tramadol, or why people feel like shit after being stunned.

 

I have played a bit with pneumatic cannons in my spare time, and found the most lethal ways to prepare and utilize them. Instakilling targets with it by doing 200+ brute damage in one shot is pretty neat.

It made me realise how silly spacemen 13 is though in its damage system. 200+ brute damage to say, the hand or the foot will kill and not decapitate or maim.

 

So I propose a general change: Make brute and burn damage only lethal to the chest and head areas (and subareas).

Damage to limbs can be represented instead in the Pain system. Divide the damage and then add that to pain. Obviously enough pain damage and they'll still pass out like normal, but the actual lethal ways to brute or burn kill a person would be head or torso or bloodloss related. Targeting limbs would just cripple and maim them and put them in serious pain.

 

Add a few threshold values to the 'joints', ie: If you do x amount of brute damage to a limb in one hit, then there's a chance it will sever. If you do y amount of total damage to a limb in a small window of time, there's a chance it'll sever. Sharp objects would get a bonus reduction to the threshold. Same for burn damage, but 'burnt to a crisp' instead. Severing would cause bleeding stumps that would need to be bandaged or cauterized. Cauterizing with a welding tool is obviously painful.

 

This would apply to the head as well, but obviously it would be instantly lethal decapitation.

 

Also: robotic limbs/prosthetics. There should be a way to use say, a screwdriver or something to disable the pain sensors. It would malfunction a lot more often, due to not having feedback from the limb to tell if you're touching or handling something properly, and a chance for using things to fumble like old clown disease, but not contribute pain. You'd also have no way to tell if its damaged unless you look at it.

 

Finally, make the groin slot not get decapitated. That's just silly; it should be a nonlethal but very pain-susceptible part of the torso.

 

[Midaychi]

A side effect of this change would be that using lethal weaponry could still be used to take down people alive. You'd just have to get them to the medbay after you've taken them down so they don't bleed to death.

[HereticChurch]

 

I actually really like this idea. I donno if damage thresholds for the limbs coming off would trigger for some weapons, like stun batons. Perhaps for blunt weapons, the limb can be permanently crippled, and it would need surgery for it to be repaired, or even simply removed and replaced. The damage thresholds for limb removal could stay for the sharp weapons, like butcher's knives and eswords.

 

However great an idea this is, it does sound like it could be difficult to impliment, but then, I don't do coding, so I wouldn't know.

 

[Midaychi]

You're right about the limb getting smashed up with some lower thresholds using blunt weapons.. but.. I thought the damage mechanics did that already with broken bones and internal bleeding?