Broken Limbs and Treatment

[yessaul robinovich 42]

 

 

Some of the preview trailers for the standalone clearly showed a person limping about. I thought of this for a bit and decided to write up a very basic outline of options for revised treatment of broken limbs. To start with, gunshots do not currently seem to be causing fractured limbs the way they did in the mod. I do not recall there having been broken arms, but having a shot take out your leg was a fairly commonplace thing. Such functionality is still needed in that it presents a less-lethal way of stopping an adversary without necessarily having to kill them. As it stands, the only way to stop someone who is running away is to kill them or be lucky enough to knock them unconscious with your shot. Having to adapt to an injury without that injury being certain death provides for an experience that is more immersive and memorable. It also creates more demand for the services of a medic or someone ready to treat injuries of such type.

 

And so, it goes a little something like this:

• Solid hit in the arm carries a chance of fracture, depending upon weapon used and shock inflicted. Regardless of which arm is hit, it is assumed that the off-hand arm is broken. 
• Only one arm can be broken. Shooting the other will not actually break it. 
• Affected character is immediately notified via 'It hurts too much to move my arm" and a "Broken Arm" status. 
• Unable to equip any two-handed weapon. If holding a two-handed weapon at the time of sustaining the broken arm, the weapon is dropped on the ground (can be picked up to shouldered position, but no 'take into hands' option given
• Still able to equip side-arms or one-handed melee weapons such as knives, etc. Still able to interact with/use items.

once you've got a fractured arm, a splint can be applied to immediately regain normal use of the arm with a significant penalty to accuracy/dispersion for two-handed weapons and 50% damage penalty for melee weapons. the 'broken arm' status remains in effect until 45 (approx same as restoring blood) minutes after using morphine.

 

now, moving on to the legs.

 

• Solid hit in the leg carries a more significant chance of broken leg.
• Regardless of which leg is hit, only one 'legfracture' status can be sustained at a time. 
• Affected character is immediately notified via "It hurts too much to move my leg" and a "Broken Leg" Status and falls to the ground.
• Unable to walk, restricted to crawling. 

applying either a crafted improvised splint or a proper kind has the same result. the character is able to walk with a limp and crouch-walk at a reasonably brisk pace, but unable to sprint and walk normally until 45 minutes after using morphine. 

 

in both cases, simply using morphine is ineffective. a splint must always be used to recover from a fracture.

 

 

Conformable Roll Splint.

 

A cut-to-length, fiberglass splinting material packaged in an easy-to-use, easy-to-seal system. The splinting material is made of layered fiberglass and is pre-padded with water-repellent felt. Occupies 4 inventory slots, 5 uses to craft splint. Can be crafted into either arm or leg splint. Reduced chance of infection compared to the wooden sort but obviously a premium item.

Edited January 25, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Guest]

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Edited September 13, 2022 by Guest

[whothehellishe 81]

Not gonna ready that but yesterday was the 3rd time i got shot in the leg, would be nice if i was limping...but im not. Same should go with hands, basically fallout. Just saying, still looking for a new pants :D

[Nanoha 37]

In general I like the idea. So far the only thing that has broken my leg was a chair...

[yessaul robinovich 42]

Roshi, could I get some input on this from a representative of the medical profession? I am but a lowly medical interpreter. ;/

I'm trying to find a decent middle ground between abstraction and realism without creating too much abuse potential (someone with two broken arms who is unable to manipulate objects, etc)

Edited January 29, 2014 by yessaul robinovich

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Yeah - I think something like this would work. Broken bones would be difficult to implement from the point of view of healing times (unless sleep when logged off or some kind of time compression is added). I'm not sure about the whole if one limb is broken then the other can't be from an authenticity point of view but probably you would have to go that way to make it work. Could just have it that if you break both arms then survival would be curtailed pretty rapidly (as would be the case!). If your broken limbs were from gunshot wounds you'd probably just bleed out anyway.

[yessaul robinovich 42]

again, struggling with abstraction issues. I really liked your regeneration of blood over time during the logoff idea depending upon the qualities of rest area. this could actually couple together with a proper log-off mechanic (the same way it did in Ultima Online originally, back in 97..) Repair of broken bones over logoff time same as regeneration of blood is a very good addition to this, with restored limited usability with penalties (limping/dispersion) via splint and full usability regained *temporarily* via morphine until proper rest w/ splint can be had for such and such amount of time (cumulative, so as to not discourage people from playing if they have a currently-fractured limb)

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

I wouldn't go so far as to return full use with analgesia. Depends how pain gets implemented - if there was some cool post-processing effects (not a computer guy so correct me if this isn't right) then pain relief might influence that but you'd still be pretty non-functional.

I'm starting to suspect that the devs are going for a more simplistic/'gamey' medical system though (given recent updates).

[yessaul robinovich 42]

I wouldn't go so far as to return full use with analgesia. Depends how pain gets implemented - if there was some cool post-processing effects (not a computer guy so correct me if this isn't right) then pain relief might influence that but you'd still be pretty non-functional.

I'm starting to suspect that the devs are going for a more simplistic/'gamey' medical system though (given recent updates).

 

My problem with post-processing as a way of simulating pain/etc is that it is easily disabled client-side, so i'm trying to go for solutions that are both abstracted enough to be playable, yet nuanced enough to have gravity to the conditions and sense to their treatment. Also periods of limited ability that are worth surviving through as opposed to just a respawning fresh. But the mechanic of both the disability and treating these things must be such, even if it affects someone over time, that it doesn't encourage straight-up logging off to recuperate. IE: scenario you do not wish to see is someone getting a broken limb at the start of their session and pretty much being forced to end it.. So splinting ends the 'crawl on the ground' and analgesics control the shock/tremor/blurred vision? That sounds pretty doable.

 

I haven't noticed any changes to the medical system in the recent updates. Which is to say that the medical system in the game right now is a placeholder/not indicative of what we may have eventually. There are many items that do not currently do anything or simply have a placeholder status. Other items implemented that imply more detail to the medical system at a later point, but that looks like something that may have had assets in the client despite not really having taken shape yet.

 

Are you seeing some kind of actual changes from build to build implying a further simplification/gamification of the already-rudimentary medical system? I guess, as opposed to getting jaded at this early point, I feel our best bet is to create a compelling, solid presentation and get dean to read it. He has been very uncompromising with the game and would probably want to see something like this in. My guess is that it just hasn't been built despite much thought already dedicated to the subject.