Holy shit it's been a while since I've played Colonial Marines, and even longer since I wrote this. This guide has barely been updated since, and while I'm sure most of the information here is still reliable, I cannot be certain, seeing as the game has updated uncountable times since.
Maybe one day I'll come back, become the master doctor/medic I once was, and rewrite this guide. Or just create a new one. That would probably be the best choice by now. Don't hold your breath on it, but take solace in the fact I don't intend to stop playing SS13 altogether (I'm just taking a very very very very long break). In the meantime, I hope this guide is still worth something, (it probably is) so go out there and make me proud.
So you want to be a doctor huh?
It doesn't matter how you became a doctor. Maybe you were forced into it? Maybe you wanted to? Regardless of how this came to be, the truth is that you're a doctor now. There is NO room for mistakes or incompetence. You'll have to do the best job you can, whether you like it or not. Thankfully I have made this guide to help you on your to becoming a professional murderer doctor.
Assessing Marine owie and boo-boo numbers
First things first. Basic medical knowledge. I do hope you already know how to do this, but I'll tell you anyway just in case. Before you go running off for supplies, you'll have to do some diagnosing first. The most basic form of diagnosing is right-clicking on your patient and selecting "examine". This won't tell you much other then what type of damage they have (say, light bruising or burns) as well as if they have any missing limbs, but beyond that you won't learn much from doing so.
The next step up is a Health Analyzer. The HA is a portable, one-hand scanner that tells you a LOT more info then simply examining. It tells you how much of what kind of damage your victim has, where it's located on the body, as well as other important things such as whether or not they have internal bleeding, brain damage, or bone fractures. This is basically all you need for diagnosing a patient, but we can still do better...
The final step is the Advanced Body Scanner. A step up in almost every way this scanner is necessary for detecting shrapnel, and bone fractures, both undetectable by the HA, as well as telling you how serious the damage to a specific organ is. Basically tells you everything about everything, the only downside being that it is stationary.
It's a good idea to use a combination of all 3 however. Examining a target as well as using a ABS will tell you if your patient has lost a limb, but the HA will not, and since you won't find an ABS outside of the Sulaco Almayer medbay, your best bet is to use the HA in combination with examining. If you are in the medbay though, combine the HA with the ABS to get a good overview of what's wrong with a patient.
One last thing before we move on. There are 4 little machine thingies in the right side of the medbay called sleepers. They're basically downgraded ABS's (no bone fracture information and stuff like that) with a green console instead of red. What they do is help detect chemicals and other icky stuff in the patients bloodstream. You won't need to use them very often, but if a patient is suffering from toxin damage (more on this later) for seemingly no reason, pop em in the machine, start a dialysis, maybe inject some dylovene, then once they are done dying horribly, take out that beaker and put it in the chemical analyzer in chemistry. Doing this will show you what kind of strange chemicals said marine was drinking so you can give em a nice slap on the wrist when they try to take a sip from your latest concoction.
Fixing holes in the Killing Machines
Autoinjectors and similar items may be complicated for you newer medics, so for now we'll focus on the two types of damage that can be easily fixed with things like gauze rolls: Brute and Burn damage.
Brute damage is perhaps the most common type of damage there is. Whether it stems from a trigger-happy marine, or a ravager that decided to leave their prey alive this time, brute damage is no joke, and can be a pain to fix depending on the extent of injuries. Luckily, marines have a very important tool at their disposal: The Advanced Trauma Kit.
The ATK is pretty much all you'll need when it comes to brute damage. Where as gauze rolls simply put a bandage over a wound, the ATK has everything needed to fix a wound. Let's say a victim has gotten his arm shredded apart by an alien. It's been left alone for awhile, so it's not bleeding as much, but it's infected, and can cause even worse injuries if left untreated. Now normally a gauze roll and ointment would be enough to fix it up, but if you have an ATK use that instead. Why? Well not only does it seal up the wound, but it also cleans the infected wound, and has regenerative membrane to heal any bruises or minor cuts that are also on the wound. Due to this effectiveness, you save supplies, and as an added bonus the wound heals faster.
Burn damage is different, but significantly less serious (for the most part), as it does not bleed or is able to get infected (at least to the extent of my knowledge), but it is still painful and needs to be fixed. Ointment is the low-tech fix for this, but as a companion to the ATK there is the Advanced Burn Kit. ABKs don't have as cool healing messages as ATKs, but they still make burn wounds heal faster and are preferable to just using ointment.
The Wonderful World of Autoinjectors
Now now, I know what you're thinking when I speak the dreaded word "autoinjector". There are half a dozen different types which can cause confusion to a helpless newbie, but don't worry. I'm here to unclutter the confusion and make you a autoinjector master. But first...
Earlier I mentioned the Healthy Analyzer can tell you how much of what kind of damage a patient has. But what kinds of damage? The first two you already know about: Brute and Burn. Brute shows up as red on the HA, Burn as orange. The third type of damage is suffocation damage. Almost always (or always) caused by oxyloss which can either be from a trivial loss of blood or the destruction of a lung. It shows up as blue. Last is Toxin damage. While it mainly occurs due to Marines thinking it's a good idea to drink from the beaker of phoron you left sitting around, it can also happen via blood rejection caused by you giving them an IV with the wrong type of blood you idiot. Shows up as green.
You already know how to treat Brute and Burn, but what about the other two? Well, that's what autoinjectors are for. Let's begin!
Dexalin Plus
When it comes to oxygen damage, the Dexalin Plus autoinjector is really all you'll need. It contains a measly 1u of Dex+, but just 1u removes ALL oxyloss on the patient. It metabolizes somewhat slowly, but you'll want to keep a few on you and use them at long intervals to ensure the patient infront of you doesn't die before he can get to the medbay, unless the doctor was kind enough to whip up some Dex+ pills for you. Do monitor the patients oxy damage for a few seconds before doing this. As I previously mentioned, oxyloss is caused by either burst lungs or low blood levels, and in the case of the latter, you really shouldn't be wasting Dex+ like that. OD at 15u, but you probably won't need that much just because of how damn good it is.
Dylovene
While it's not the Dex+ of toxin damage, it's still really useful. What is does is remove all helpful chemicals in the bloodstream while it metabolizes. Only use this when a patient is OD'ing, as you don't want to get rid of all those helpful drugs if it's not 100% necessary. Despite it's nature you CAN OD on it! I am not 100% sure on the numbers, but good 'ol Derpislav puts it at 30u. Depending on the patient's needs you probably won't be needing so much, but even if they do you shouldn't go injecting them 5 times.
Tricordrazine
Ticordrazine is a pretty cool drug. It simultaneously heals brute, burn, and toxin damage while it metabolizes. It does so at quite a slow rate, but just one injection of this is enough to fix up a marine for a while. OD at 30u.
Bicardine
Like Tricordrazine, but it only heals brute damage. Nothing much more really. OD at 30u.
Kelotane
Bicardine for burn damage, and just as boring. OD at 30u.
Oxycodone
Strongest painkiller so far. Just one shot will be enough to have you up and walking despite your seven broken bones and thirteen different bullet holes. You probably won't need to much of it anyways as Tramadol does the trick just as well, and oxy metabolizes far too fast to get very much out of. OD at 20u.
Quick Clot
If you use a HA on a patient and on the bottom it says in red letters "Internal Bleeding" it means just that. Your patient has internal bleeding. But don't panic! What Quick Clot does is "externalize" that internal bleeding. This means if a patient got beaten up badly in their right hand, using Quick Clot will cause their hand to start bleeding again, even if you already used an ATK on it. I don't know the exact OD threshold, but I believe it is 5u. Do not at all OD on this. So much as begin to overdose and you will die horribly in a matter of seconds. Be extra careful when administering it, though you can use the deadly OD to your advantage should you get captured by xenos.
Pills, Pills, and more Pills!
Like autoinjectors, but far more convenient.
Pills are exactly that: Pills. There are more types of pill than autoinjectors, but they're still pretty easy to memorize. There are also pill counterparts of some autoinjector chemicals, and a competent doctor can make a few pills out of stuff that comes in neither autoinjector or pill form, but the OD levels still stay exactly the same.
Dylovene
It's Dylovene! ...Again. Still the same as it's autoinjector counterpart, except that it commonly comes in 25u pills. Found in toxin first aid kits, medical vendors, and you may or may not find some in a Combat Lifesaver Bag depending on the needs of the previous owner.
Dexalin
"Wait wait wait, aren't you forgetting the 'Plus' to this?" Nope. Dexalin comes in two forms: Regular ol boring Dexalin, and Dexalin Plus. The abundance of Dex+ means you probably will never touch these, and it's just as well considering they only come in Internals Closets (don't quote me on this). Metabolizes much slower than Dex+, and doesn't instantly reverse oxyloss. OD at 30u instead of 15.
Kelotane
Yep, Kelotane comes in pill form too.
Inaprovaline
Inaprovaline doesn't necessary heal anything, it just simply 'freezes' the patient in place. This means they won't die of things like oxyloss (at least, not immediately), which is good in case you run out of Dex+ (which you will). Prevents pain, but nowhere near as much as Tramadol. Don't mix with Dylovene, as doing so will cause it to mix into Tricordrazine which will most likely cause a hefty OD. Comes in 30u pills. OD at 60u.
Tramadol
I've mentioned this before, but this time we're actually getting to it. Most common painkiller, and an effective one at that. Comes in 15u pills and metabolizes slowly, which means one pill will get a marine with broken legs from the Nexus to the Sulaco Almayer medbay without any need for more. OD at 30u.
Russian Red
Vendor-only radiation treatment pill. You will rarely have to use these, and it's just as well. They cause you to OD starting at 10u, but the pills come in 10u form themselves. Usually a competent doctor can whip up a few pills of Hyronalin or Arithrazine anti-radiation pills, which leaves very little use for them. Halinder once dissolved 14 of them in a cup to assassinate someone, so there's that.
Even more Pills & Ghetto Surgery
Why am I putting these two together? Because Derpislav already made guides for each of them, and you should probably just go read those instead of trusting a person like me.
Extra Murder Tools Life-Saving equipment
Unfortunately, not everything can be solved with autoinjectors and pills. There are a few more tools a doctor should be in possession of, should the worst come to worst.
Splints
While a splint doesn't fix bones altogether, it basically keeps them in a state which minimizes pain and allows the patient to move faster. Can be applied to any part of the body, but do not rely on it as a fix-all. Broken bones should still be a reason to medevac. Combine with Tramadol or similar painkiller for best effect.
Stasis Bag
The Stasis Bag is a low-tech Cryo Tube meant to stabilize patients that are either too messed up, or that you don't have the equipment to deal with. Works about the same as Inaprovaline, except it 'freezes' nearly every damaged part of a patient so they cannot die (for the most part). The only downside is that it slowly deals clone and brain damage, so you will need to use it as a last resort and make sure they can quickly get to the medbay in time. One-use only, as the second you take your patient out of it, it will be ripped apart. Also, if the person inside the bag is infected with an alien embryo, the alien will still burst out at some point.
Defibrillator
Used to revive dead patients. It is unreliable and the only real effects I have seen is when used on people that have VERY recently died. Fill them up with fixing drugs (either before or immediately after revival) and go about repairing any wounds they have sustained.
CPR
Stands for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. You should know what it is if they ever taught it to you at school, but if you somehow don't, basically all you do is bang their chest a lot and 'kiss' them to inject air into their lungs. Please do not actually try it the way I have described, as you might actually really kill someone and that would be very bad. To do this in the actual game, click on an injured person once with help intent as if to shake them up. You will then (hopefully) begin the process of CPR. Game says to repeat this every 7 seconds, although you could probably do it repeatedly with no ill effects (don't quote me on this). Only real purpose is to fix oxygen damage in the absence of Dexalin.
Medical HUD
This seemingly uninteresting little tool is absolutely VITAL when it comes to doctoring. With it, a single glance at a marine shows their current status, easily allowing you to know who's dead, who's still alive, and who is 1 minute away from death.
Roller Bed
The Roller Bed is a rather underrated piece of machinery. In short, it is a highly-portable bed which you can stick wounded marines on. Buckling them into this contraption will allow you to move them around at any speed, no matter the extent of their damage. Dragging them onto the field with you is not an extremely good idea, but you can try it if you want
Wheelchair
The Wheelchair is similar to the Roller Bed in that it allows near-death marines to move around normally, although not quite as fast. Even more underrated than the Roller Bed, but you will occasionally see it utilized by legless marines who were too slow to get to the medbay before everyone else. If you're feeling particularly ballsy you can grab a fire extinguisher and organize wheelchair races, but be wary of fun-hating admins.
Doctor's Delight
Doctor's Delight. A rather underrated drink, considering it's benefits. Combining 1 part Lime Juice, 1 part Orange Juice, 1 part Tomato Juice, 2 parts Cream, and 1 part Tricordrazine will bring you this lovely non-alchoholic drink that makes your tricordrazine supply last much longer. For the most part, you won't be able to make this drink, but if you come across a Booze-O-Mat, steal it, bring it to your FOB, and go about the following steps for a huge supply of Doctor's Delight.
Doctor's Delight, a recipe:
You will need:
1x Booze-O-Mat.
1x (or more) Inaprovaline Pill
1x (or more) Dylovene Pill.
1) Take two glasses, a can of soda water, 1 each of Lime, Orange, Tomato juice, and milk cream.
2) Pour 5 units of soda water in one glass, everything else in the other.
3) Dissolve your pills into the glass of soda water, pour resulting mixture into your second glass.
Optional: Repeat steps 2 & 3 as much as you like in order to have more Doctor's Delight than you know what to do with.
Surgery: The art of murdering people and having a good excuse too
Really all you need to know about surgery is right here: wiki/Surgery. But if that's not satisfactory enough, I do have a few tips:
-Know what the fuck you're doing. The only tip of real importance. If you don't know how to do surgery, then go back and read the linked page. If you still don't know how to, perhaps you shouldn't be a doctor.
-Only Doctors can do surgery. This is mentioned in the rules, and may seem like a no-brainer, but if you're a Field Medic, you should at least be healing the dying marines around you, not cutting them open and fishing around in their organs.
-Prioritize different surgeries. If Patient 1 is suffering from a broken chest, is struggling to breathe, and has 2 cases of Internal Bleeding, you should DEFINITELY focus on them instead of Patient 2 who is just having trouble seeing. There's no real specific way to prioritize, as patients come and go, but the general consensus is this:
Alien Embryo: [5]
Internal Bleeding: [5]
Heart/Lung Damage: [5]
Broken Chest/Skull: [4]
Shrapnel Removal: [3]
Limb Replacement: [2]
Broken Bones: [1]
Other Injured Organs: [1]
Everything Else: [0]
(Shamefully stolen from the 2-year old guide I mentioned earlier.)
Medical Theory
It's one thing to know about treating various forms of damage, but it's another to know about what causes some types of damage as well as other things like pain, organ damage, and blood loss (to name a few).
Critical Condition
The first stop on our medical theory adventure is critical condition. In short, it is the final 'health level' of sorts before death. You start at 100% health, and depending on how much damage you take, will either skip straight to critical or gradually devolve to this level. A patient in critical condition should be prioritized over all others, but be wary that critical condition is not always caused by damage...
Paincrit
Paincrit (no other names known by me) is critical condition caused by pain. Simply put, paincrit means your character is in so much pain that they appear to be in critical condition, despite a lack of life-threatening injuries (although it depends on how bad you think an injury is). The best way to fix this state is via painkillers of any type, but be careful as paincrit is not without reason, and you should save the painkillers for last when healing someone in this state.
Pain
Unlike most games that simply have a health bar or similar way of counting damage, SS13 goes a whole step further and introduces pain alongside several dozen other ways of injuring yourself. Pain is caused by a variety of things, most commonly broken bones. Pain levels vary, from small and infrequent bouts of pain coming simply from small injuries, to sending someone into paincrit via broken chest/skull bones or missing limbs.
Fractures
A fracture is a broken bone. Little more. A broken hand or leg is hardly lethal, and at most will impair your ability to grasp or move. Using splints will secure the fractured limb into a state that still allows it to function semi-normally without having to spend 2 hours waiting for the doctor to get to you. Much more dangerous however, are skull/rib fractures. These cause brain damage and organ damage respectively, which is fatal if left untreated. Skull and rib fractures cannot be splinted, and a wheelchair/roller bed is the safest possible way to transport people with injuries like this.
Missing Limbs
But unfortunately, the game doesn't stop at bone fractures. If you are unlucky enough you may find that your treasured right arm has been violently ripped off by an alien. Immediately after loosing a limb, you will experience excruciating pain and rapid blood loss. Usually a medic will be around to treat you (and if you are the medic then good luck). A healed limb stump will (at best) cause only mild inconvenience (I.E: 1-handed weapons only, having to put down pill bottles to take from them), or (at worst) completely prevent movement without a wheelchair.
Organ Damage
Organ Damage is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT. Damage to pretty much any organ (no matter if it's important like the lungs, or somewhat useless like the kidneys). Organ damage can only be healed through surgery or Peridaxon (as far as I know), and if you notice a patient having extreme trouble breathing, or extreme toxin damage with no way to seemingly stop it, then the best answer is organ damage, and they should be evacuated/treated ASAP.
Blood Loss
Blood Loss should be self-explanatory. If you have been bleeding for quite some time, your blood level will gradually drop to dangerous levels. In small amounts it will cause mild inconvenience (an example being blood donation. Giving a full bag full will leave you dizzy and will have your screen pop in and out of a fade-esque effect). In larger numbers though, the patient will start to gain oxyloss damage. Do NOT confuse this with lung damage, as doing so will probably make you waste a Dex+ Autoinjector. If you manage to loose enough blood, let's just say you won't have to worry about oxyloss anymore...
Infection
Infection is the reason you pour rubbing alcohol on a wound. Leave a wound unattended for too long and it MAY heal itself at the cost of infection. It will start off minor and only inflict a bit more pain than the actual wound, but let it fester and it will soon grow to dangerous levels, by starting to cause toxin damage, may require you to overdose the patient on antibiotics to fix it, and if you're unlucky enough to have it get to the level of sepsis, amputate the infected limb.
Congratulations, you found the hidden text!
Overdose
Think healing chems do nothing but good? Think again. Drug overdoses aren't just reserved for bums in the alley that bought too much cocaine, give your patient too much of a good thing and you will find them overdosing and gaining toxin damage. In this case, use Dylovene to remove toxin damage while waiting for the overdosing chemical to metabolize to safe levels. If a patient somehow manages to overdose on Dylovene, then may god help you.
Tips and Tricks
-Don't mix up blood types. To prevent confusion please consult this handy table:
(Also taken from the 2-year old guide which was in turn taken from wikipedia, so I guess it's okay this time.)
-Prepare accordingly. A sterile mask and latex gloves are highly recommended to prevent infecting an open wound. I say recommend because even if you don't wear either of them, the infection will still be healed when you seal them up, which happens in 90% of surgeries. Also, SCAN THEM IN THE ABS! If it's just one think like a shattered skull + brain damage you should be fine, but anything more complicated and I would recommend printing a report. Few things are worse than forgetting what you're even trying to fix.
-Use your judgement. If a patient's right arm and hand are both shattered, bleeding, infected, and nearly burned off, it's probably better to just give them a robotic limb than waste time trying to fix
-If you're the helpless marine that got injured, I actually have a tip for you too: RESPECT THE PEOPLE WHO FIX YOU UP! Pretty much every round I go doctor, I end up getting stressed as fuck due to the sheer amount of casualties that pile up in the later parts of the round. I put all my concentration into getting you, yes YOU! Into a suitable fighting state once again. That means the least you can do is not scream at us to fix you up unless you've been waiting an hour for treatment, with no sign of help. Just remember we have the ability to cut off all your limbs while you're under the knife.
-Please, for the love of god, stay still if you're injured. Get out of the immediate danger zone, but once you've called for medic, do NOT go running off in a random direction or (god forbid) back into the alien storm. Sit where you are, and if you don't see someone walking over to heal you, then that is the only acceptable time to move.
-Another tip for non-doctors: Be useful. If you have nothing better to do right now, then bring some dead bodies to cloning, or some injured people to medbay reception. If you aren't the one hurt, you aren't useless. Do your part, I'll do mine, and together we're one step closer to eradicating the alien filth.
-But what if you're an alien? Turns out I have a tip for you too! Make our lives HARD. I know I know, stress isn't a very good thing, but there's always that one round that stagnates to a point where doctors can spend half the round unneeded. There's no guarantee that trying to make our lives hard will result in this, but there's nothing better then that rush of trying to save someone with 5 different conditions at once.
More Guides
While I did my best to make sure my guide covered everything important about CM medicine, nobody ever became a master by reading one guide. For further reading, please consult the following list of guides, hand-picked by me:
Field Medic Loadout Guide by Disco Dalek
While I don't agree with the loadouts mentioned in said guide, I will admit it does a good job of explaining why you need what, and how to adequately store it, alongside misc medic tips that I'm sure will help you on your way to become a master field medic. Also, my guide is linked there, so I might as well return the favor <3
Guide to wheelchairs by Deripslav
Apparently the proper use of wheelchairs is difficult for people to comprehend. This guide will hopefully fix that.
Ghetto surgery or how to murder your patients and get away with it by Derpislav
I've already mentioned this guide higher up the page, but hell, might as well do it again. It's a useful guide.
How2chem or how I learned to stop worrying and love the cryo. by Derpislav
Also mentioned previously, but I simply can't put into words how useful this guide is for making healing chems. It's also where I got the super-easy recipe for Peridaxon (which reportedly no longer works quite as well), so go give it some love.
DOs and DONTs of your relationship with Medical by Azmodan412
Because apparently basic respect for the people saving your life is far too complex for the average marine brain to even begin to comprehend.
Field Medic & Doctor Guide by Infernus
The guide is quite outdated, but it's what got me on the path to becoming a master doctor in the first place, and also served as part of the inspiration for this guide. Also presented with lots of colors too, so go give it a nice read-through. I'm sure you'll learn something.
In Conclusion
The life of a doctor/field medic is a hard one, and can be stressful. Accidents will happen, you can't save everybody. But it can be fun to heal people, and the adrenaline rush is a good feeling. Just follow the tips I have given you, and you too can be a master doctor! [Citation Needed]
Before I send you off to murder heal people, I'm going to say I definitely fucked something up or forget something. If you find such a spot, please mention it to me so I can help you on your journey to being a professional doctor like me.
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