Guide to TaoDamage 0.5

This is a brief guide for players.

I. What's New
II. Quick Guide or Non-Medics
III. Quick Guide or Medics

I. What's New Detail
The TaoDamage system adds several features. Most importantly, you now wear body armor, including both ceramic plate and kevlar armor. Plate can stop bullets; kevlar can stop fragmentation. Your survivability when hit center mass is now greatly increased.

There is also a new complete damage system, based on the concept of trauma and blood loss. When hit in an area unprotected by plate or when your plate fails to stop the round from penetrating, the hit body part will suffer trauma.

Hits that cause trauma will also cause bleeding. You can perform first aid on yourself or others to stop bleeding, and can do this in vehicles as well if necessary (note that you will lose control of the vehicle). If you run out of blood, you will die -- an increasing heart rate, fading screen, and blurred edges will indicate how much blood you have lost and at what rate.

Hurt players can be Examined. This will tell you how much blood they have lost and how quickly they are losing it. Use this to judge if you can carry them to cover or must provide first aid on the spot.

If you suffer too much trauma to a body part, you will be put into Agony. In the Agony state, you are forced to the ground. You can crawl slowly, but cannot aim, reload, or use anything other than your rifle with its loaded magazine. While in Agony, you will continue to bleed. Players must stabilize you by performing first aid on you, and a medic or a person carrying a Medkit must clear your Agony by providing Critical Aid. A player in agony can be dragged and carried, but not loaded into vehicles (yet).

If you are in Agony but must act immediately, you will have the option to press "R" to use Desperation. Desperation will allow your character to get up, but your blood loss will be tripled, and if you were stabilized before, your wounds will all reopen. You cannot be healed until Desperation ends after a random period of time. You will probably die -- be careful about using this, but if you've gotta make that SMAW shot or throw down the M240 for a teammate, do it. Visual effects are severe, and you will lose hearing.

There is no more 'crawler' state as this is extremely detrimental to gameplay. If your legs are broken by a fall or a bullet hit, a Medic or player with a Medkit can reset the bone, which will increase the time needed for Critical Aid.

Vehicle crashes and RPG hits may now be survivable under certain circumstances. If you are hurt in a vehicle and put into Agony, you will be able to continue operating the vehicle. When you get out, you will lay down and be healable. Be careful not to bleed out in the vehicle!

II. Quick Guide for Non-Medics
All actions are in the scroll menu under their usual names.

If you're hit and the damage isn't stopped by your armor, two things can happen. Likely, you will start bleeding. Get cover quickly and perform first aid on yourself. If driving, pull over. Alternately, you may enter Agony. Call for your battle buddy to stabilize you. If it's a serious hit, you will need to be stabilized very quickly -- crawling or being dragged to cover may not be an option! The medic can then get you back in action when possible.

When you see a player go down, stabilize him if possible, and get him to the medic when safe! That's your priority.

If you see a medic go down, note his location so that the team leader or squad leader can recover it.

II. Quick Guide for Medics
You are critical to the squad. Without you, players cannot recover from agony state, and will have to be carried as a burden to the end of the mission. After stabilizing a player by performing first aid, the Medic can clear the Agony state by healing them again -- this will take some time. Be sure to Examine players and triage when there are multiple wounded -- stabilize those who will die soonest based on their blood loss. You can also use the amount of blood pooled around a wounded player to judge how critical their state is at a glance.

If a player is hit in the leg (reported by Examine), when you provide Critical Aid to him, you will reset his bone, and it will take a bit longer. If you are triaging multiple wounded, heal stabilized soldiers with broken legs last.

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Enjoy! Post questions about the implementation or suggestions here.

P.S. I need testers for the template version before I send it to the other mission devs -- can anyone log on at about 9:30 tonight and help me out for 20-30 min? Might play some Dynamic Missions after, maybe not.

Hoping the examine function is significantly faster than any healing function, or it'll just be more efficient to skip it in most cases, rather than do it, move to someone else, do it again, move...etc.

The function of triage is to determine who best to spend resources (including time) on. Thus the sort of decision that says "this guy is gonna die no matter what, so I'm not gonna waste resources on trying to save him." and the sort of obverse "this guy has a far better chance of survival (and thus my resource use paying off) than that guy".

Guess it begs the question: Does everyone have an equal chance of being put back to the same operational status (outside of broken legs, where I already know the answer)? Is there ever a case where I say "You're gonna be useless once I stabilize you, no matter how much I do, whereas that guy is gonna be fully operational if I spend time on him instead"?

Is someone "gonna die no matter what (or be reduced to useless no matter what)"? If they're going to be useless, I'll be far less inclined (in a video game) to expose myself or waste resources on them.

What I'm saying here, for the benefit of Meatshield, is..."you get your legs broken in a bad spot, you're on your own you worthless bag of meat."

There might be a roleplay reason to go save that guy and be heroic...but my roleplay persona is already established as "I hate you all" anyway

Examine is virtually instant. Your character will crouch and it will show as text as soon as the crouch finishes (like a 1 sec delay). If it proves too slow like that, I'll make it actually instant.

As long as a guy is stabilized (which anyone, not just medics, can do) before he bleeds out, he will never die unless he gets shot again and starts bleeding again. As long as a medic is alive, no one is permanently stuck in Agony.

(An interesting feature of how I implemented this is that the AI will now execute wounded players, so try to get shot where you'll fall behind cover! lol)

I've also tuned the broken leg mechanic so that it should just be a moderate slow down for the squad and a big mobility loss for the player, not a 'useless' state like it is usually.

So long as your battle buddy/anyone can stabilize you, and a medic can get to you, no one is ever permanently 'out' unless they actually die (which is likely if they don't get fast first aid, depending on what hit them. Instant death remains extremely possible -- the ZU-23 is still a murder machine, though a lucky player might get 3-4 seconds to spot it firing and call it out before you bleed to death in Agony).

I considered forcing a certain amount of trauma to cause a character to stay alive but become a permanently worthless meatbag, but then I abruptly remembered I was trying to have fun, you know? The inevitable fate of those guys would be execution, especially without some mechanic to load them into vehicles, which I wasn't about to try to implement from scratch.

"Reduce the frequency"? So...I could still trip whilst crawling? Are the character models based on Chevy Chase or Dick Van Dyke??



The Jedi Master

9:30 pm Eastern or Central?

Let me know I will be there. I'll keep my eye on TS as well...

I was there from 9:30 to 10 Eastern. Tao, if you get to test later tonight, post here and I'll try to join you.

Sorry, I'm on now! Got delayed!

Update for TaoDamage is in the works which greatly reduces the file size (more suitable for inclusion with missions) and improves some internal code-related bits. My intent is also to add compatibility with medical tents and vehicles.

I am considering a separate addon version that would be enabled as a module for a more general release. Is there interest outside the SimHQ server community...?

Wow Tao this sounds excellent! Can't wait to try it out, great work!