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Whyherro123

Blood and Diseases

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So, it is rather obvious that the medical system of Day Z has been all-but ignored over the last couple of months/patches, to the point where if you are anywhere near competent, surviving wounds is rather trivial.  Everything from a superficial scratch on the skin (from players and "zombies") to full-on internal bleeding (from stabs and bullet wounds) is instantly and permanently fixed with the application of a dirty rag.

 

Also, wounds/bleeding/infections are insignificant to the point where players can run for kilometers across the map while bleeding. I personally have never developed an infection in the game, nor ever really got sick without deliberately trying to catch the disease for shits n' giggles. For Day Z to be even slightly "authentic", that has to change.

 

I propose the following systems:

 

  • Infection and disease:
    • Firstly, ask anyone trained in Wilderness Survival and they will tell you that infections are all but a given in an actual survival situation. Between sweat and dirt, to lack of proper restful sleep and cold ( leading to depressed immune systems), to actual infectious matter being introduced to wounds via clothing, the weapon, or the environment, eventually a wound will get infected. It is only a matter of time.
    • Secondly, cleanliness, personal hygiene and sterility. There is reason medical dressings get packaged the way they do, and are supposed to be disposed of if the package gets damaged. Same thing with clothing and your body. Even in a survival situation, you are "supposed to" keep your clothing and body as clean as possible, not just to lower the chance for sickness/infection, but also to keep warmer. Dirty clothing and skin have decreased insulation properties compared to clean. Asides from that, first aid practices call for external wounds and such to be washed with soap and water to clean them. I carry a small "hotel" bar of soap and some alcohol pads and gel for that exact purpose in my survival kit.
      • Believe me or not, but it is actually relatively simple to keep clean and to make dressing sterile in a situation. If you have a fire and a container to boil water, you can both sterilize medical dressings and clean your body and clothing with relative ease. With soap, it is even easier.
    • Thirdly, treating infections/disease. Right now, treating the few diseases and infections you can develop are relatively trivial: take some antibiotics/ charcoal tabs, and wait a little bit. So long as you have a relatively decent supply of food and water, survival is essentially all-but guaranteed.  Preposterous. 1) Antibiotics and other medications should not be 100% effective and/or they should take an appreciable length of time to work, as the medication must build up in the system. 2) Disease should be much more prevalent. Up until about 100 years ago, the highest cause of mortality for humans was disease. Not warfare, not murder, but drinking bad water, eating improperly cooked/contaminated food, living in poor conditions, and not cleaning/treating wounds properly. 3) Diseases should be much more lethal. Drinking bad water can kill you in hours from dehydration due to diarrhea and vomiting. Same thing with food poisoning. Living in dirty conditions (which we are basically doing in-game) leads to depressed immune systems and weaker responses to infection and disease. Infections make you weaker, lowers reaction time, etc, before killing you.
  • Bleeding
    • Right now, no matter the severity of the bleeding nor the injury, all wounds in the game are "fixed" by the application of a piece of dirty rag. Bullet to the gut? Dirty rag! Knife to the arm? Dirty rag! Infected gash on the shoulder? Dirty rag! Idiocy.
    • In "real life", there are three "types" of bleeding: Capillary, Venous, and Arterial.
      • Capillary bleeding is the type you get when you get scratched or cut at the skins surface. While it can range from slow oozing to relatively-frightening rapid bleeding ( long shallow cuts), most Capillary bleeding is minor, and most of the damage comes from infection chance
      • Venous bleeding is when a vein (duh) gets damaged. The blood is dark red/brownish in color, seeps from the wound in a steady flood and can be quite severe
      • Arterial bleeding is when an artery  (again, duh) gets damaged. The blood tends to be bright redish in color, sprays/spurts from the wound and is very dangerous due to the high chance for drastic loss of blood pressure.
        • While there is a great deal of leeway in real life" with how to stop bleeding, the three "main" methods involve direct pressure, pressure points, and tourniquets.  More advanced techniques include sutures and hemostats.
          • Direct pressure: apply a dressing straight to the wound, then tie a bandage around the dressing to hold it in place and apply pressure. For Capillary bleeding
          • Pressure point: At certain points in the body, there are places where there are arteries and veins close to the skin. By applying pressure to these points, you can slow down blood flow through the vessel. For Venous bleeding*
          • Tourniquet: A tightly tied band that straps around a limb to greatly restrict blood flow. Done properly, a tourniquet can essentially stop all blood flow through a limb. For Arterial bleeding*
          • Sutures and hemostats. These are tools (sutures are already in-game) that are used to directly close up a wound, whether muscle and skin to directly sewing up a blood vessel. Sutures are "permanent", while hemostats are temporary, for use during surgery.
            • * With venous and arterial bleeding, you usually have to use sutures to close up the blood vessel before removing pressure/removing the tourniquet. If you do so without closing the damaged vessel, the patient will just start bleeding again.

 

-gasps for air-

 

So, what am I proposing with the above novel?

 

  1. All wounds have a chance to get infected, from scratches to stabs to bullet wounds
    1. This can be alleviated with proper first aid procedures and long-term care. From washing a cut with warm water and soap and applying a sterile dressing, to the administration of antibiotics, to just ensuring your hands are clean before helping someone (soap + water or hand sanitizer / alcohol pads)
  2. The sterility of dressings is tied to the "condition" of the item, and directly affects the "infection chance"
    1. All dressings are "sterile" so long as they are Pristine . As dressing condition decreases, so does sterility. This is represented by the packaging of prepackaged dressings getting damaged/compromised, and "rags" just being torn from a nasty-ass piece of cloth.
  3. All dressings can be made sterile by exposure to alcohol, or through boiling
  4. All bleeding does not stop as soon as the dressing is applied. Time is needed to stop bleeding, depending on the severity. Capillary bleeding stops on its own after a while, but applying a bandage will make this time trivial. Venous or Arterial bleeding will not stop on its own, requires treatment in the form of suturing + dressing.
    1. As an aside, I am proposing 3 main "bleeding severities".
      1. Minor: Capillary bleeding. Keep clean and apply a dressing, no big deal asides from infection chance ( cuts, scratches, punches, etc)
      2. Major: Venous and Arterial: Apply pressure point/tourniquet and use sutures to stop bleeding. Chance dressings to keep clean (slashes/stabs from axes/knives/etc to limbs,  bullets to limbs, falls)
      3. Internal: Nope, say goodbye to friends and family. Essentially no way to stop this outside a modern hospital, which coincidentally don't exist anymore. Even asides from that, have extremely high chances for developing life-threatening infections in regions of the body which are difficult to keep sterile in the best of cases. This is what the "suicide animation" is for. (bullets/arrows/melee weapons to torso)
  5. All dressings get dirty over time due to exposure to the wound, and require regular changing to lessen infection risk
    1. As Venous/Arterial wounds are likely to -ahem- "seep", even after closure, dressing exposed to this "seepage" will become unsterile over time. Regular changing of these bandages ensures the wound remains as clean as possible.
  6. Drinking from an untreated water source will make you sick, regardless of health/condition. Giardia is a bitch, and will make you cry "uncle" as you shit your life away.
  7. 99% of the wells on the map are damaged/have missing parts. These wells can be repaired if the parts are found.
    1. As a result of the above, you should either boil/filter your drinking water, or use the currently-useless purification tabs.
  8. Diseases and infections require highly-increased food and water intake, as a result of the metabolism kicking up in order to mount a proper immune response.
  9. Medications will not make it guaranteed you will fight off a disease, just make it highly likely. Plus, you would have to take the medication over time, to allow the medication to build up in your system.
    1. The region we play in underwent a civil war AND a major disease outbreak before society shat the bed. Medicine should be like gold.
  10. Interactions between sick players and healthy players should/could lead to disease transmission, depending on the immune systems of the players.
    1. Shit, I just found a rationale behind KoS . That actually makes sense and that I would accept wholeheartedly! Awesome.

 

Anything I forgot?

Edited by Whyherro123
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Wow! This is extremely thought out, man! Fantastic ideas! I love the depth that you put into the realism of bandaging and such.

 

I don't think it's listed, but. . What do you think about the idea of Removing Bandages that are on you (Provided they become attached to the character model as a viewable item both physically and in inventory) - and being able to Reuse the Bandage?

 

Of course by reusing a used bandage, the condition of it would have to appear as Bloody - But this would allow players to boil their old bandages back to a Damaged state at least.

 

To add even more dependence on Bandages rather than Rags, Rags could only be listed as Damaged (when first gathered).

 

This would really only work if, as you said, medicine and medical supplies were like gold.

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Wow! This is extremely thought out, man! Fantastic ideas! I love the depth that you put into the realism of bandaging and such.

 

I don't think it's listed, but. . What do you think about the idea of Removing Bandages that are on you (Provided they become attached to the character model as a viewable item both physically and in inventory) - and being able to Reuse the Bandage?

 

Of course by reusing a used bandage, the condition of it would have to appear as Bloody - But this would allow players to boil their old bandages back to a Damaged state at least.

 

To add even more dependence on Bandages rather than Rags, Rags could only be listed as Damaged (when first gathered).

 

This would really only work if, as you said, medicine and medical supplies were like gold.

Removing dressings and cleaning them is the whole point. Leaving them on would be actively harmful.

 

And, boiling rags and dressings should return them to a Pristine state, not Damaged or anything like that. Pristine is sterile (which everything is after being submerged in 212 degree F water), anything less than Pristine is various stages of "dirty"

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Removing dressings and cleaning them is the whole point. Leaving them on would be actively harmful.

 

And, boiling rags and dressings should return them to a Pristine state, not Damaged or anything like that. Pristine is sterile (which everything is after being submerged in 212 degree F water), anything less than Pristine is various stages of "dirty"

 

Gotcha. I just think of the durability of a bandage being used many times. . Wouldn't it degrade, even if sterile?

 

Just a tidbit! I enjoy all of this business and hope to see it uploaded into the game. More variables to need to take care of is important!

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Well give a gold shovel award for this post but I got to admit. It's easier to find military grade weapons in this game than a cooking pot and matches to boil some water. But let's wonder why is KoS so rampant. (not that I should cast any stones)

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