Miserable Medics Sharing Tips: The Thread

[Kwin_Original]

I recently learned from a medic (wish I knew the name in the forum here...) about an interesting Hypospray combo: 1u Dexaline+, 9u Quick-Clot and 20u Inaprovaline. For refill purposes there are syringe cases with 2 syringes à 15u QC and a bottle of 60u Inap). Since you can get all this QC with a syringe out of the injectors and they are refillable at the vendor, you don't run out of QC too fast. And you got a shitload of available QC without stealing all the autoinjectors and getting everyone's hate.

[Thucydides]

So, this is probably going to be a dissertation that nobody reads -- but I just went through the process of learning how to play Medic to a competent level, and these are some things that I observed/became my pet peeves about other medics. And with the summer greytide upon us, I figured I should share them in a more recent/easily findable post.

Obviously, these are just my opinions/observations, so feel free to rip me apart for being wrong. And yes, I know some of these are rehashed ideas that have been said elsewhere -- I honestly don't think that matters too much because I keep seeing them occur.


Medical tips:

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1. Just avoid autoinjectors! The quantity of pills far and away makes up for the "speed" or "ease" of bringing autoinjectors of common drugs, not to mention that extra couple seconds for pills gives you time to check your readout and make sure you're not accidentally ODing the patient over another medic's treatment with the quick injection (especially with lag -- i.e. Quick Clot). Honestly, nothing makes me more agitated as a co-medic or grunt marine than seeing a meidc start dropping bicard autos while working on someone. Don't be afraid to raid medbay for an extra med kit, empty it on the floor, then fill it with extra pill bottles of bicard/kelo/tramadol/etc. Rad medkits typically work best for this because nobody uses them.

2. Less autoinjectors also gives you more space to bring the useful injectors (QC and Dex+) which you should have stockpiled like a squirrel in November. Pack yourself with these things wherever you have room. Nothing kills someone faster than running out of a critical injector when you really need it.

3. Ease off the tricord crutch. I constantly see marines dosed up with like 30u of tricord in non-time sensitive situations, risking a future OD. It's just not efficient unless multiple types of damage are present. Yeah, it's easy to use, but you didn't sign up for a lazy round when you chose to play medic.

4. Take the time to give out Tramadol like candy, starting from the early game and ending with the late game (obviously being careful of lingering prior dosages). I've found that you can easily pack two or three bottles of Tramadol and never run out, or you can skimp on it and have a potentially less resilient fighting force. As long as you're not going to OD the guy, the extra hit of painkiller really won't hurt regardless of what happens.

5. Although it might seem like a waste, used the advanced brute and burn packs for everything. Band-aids and and ointment take up two spots in your bag, heal slower, and have limited use if shit hits the fan. Just stockpile those advanced kits at the beginning of the round in empty medkits (obviously being considerate of your other medics and doctors' needs as well). It helps save Bicard/Kelo/Derm pills for big numbered injuries, can pack in extra advanced kits into empty medpacks in bag

6. Make sure not to get too tunneled. It's easy to focus on someone's vitals and your pills, but you need to know 1) when they're a lost cause, 2) when you need to start falling back with your squad/are becoming isolated from protective support and 3) anything useful the patient can scream at you (e.g. "My arms broken, not my foot you fucking idiot." Or my favorite: "Just splint my fucking chest already you fucking fuck.").

7. Triage is not just making sure more people survive, it's also making sure you keep your squad as powerful as possible. Obviously, spend time defibbing if you only have minor injuries coming in otherwise, but don't be afraid to see lost causes and walk away. Don't bring some Baldie back from Death's door and simultaneously let Xur paincrit out of the firefight. You'll take more casualties if you have less effective fighters on the field.

8. If you see a medic who you don't know, or do know but suspect to be a Baldie (i.e. using Bicard autoinjectors), quickly check his patients with the analyzer after he treats them. I've seen all sorts of fucked up patients -- OD/Broken Chests/Internal Bleeding/no Tramadol/wrong meds/ etc. To be fair, the Medic could be bad, or he could just be out of supplies. Maybe keep a mental list of the competent medics you've seen or worked with often and think about adding something unique to your name to help recollection. For example, I personally remember "Joe 'Soft', Joe 'Broccoli', Jane 'the Bitch', etc... as being good Medics.

Combat Tips:

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1. Remember, you and your partner are (I would argue) THE most important marines in your squad. Everyone else is the horsepower, you're the mechanic. Always stay protected behind your squad OR in sight of a protector. Losing one medic drops a squad's casualty recovery by a full 1/2, and the company's by 1/8. That seems like a really obvious stat, but take a second to really consider it. Over the course of a round that number is a huge loss in healed marines for your squad, and for the ship as a whole.
So for fuck's sake, don't fucking run out to the front alone, isolate yourself, and start playing dodge the aliens. Go play a grunt if you want to be stupid with a gun. 2. That being said, don't be afraid to drop your patients and grab your gun when necessary. You're not a firepower class, but you can dissuade a marauding hunter from stealing your patients or from hopping on a "last train out" DS with you. Unarmed medics are liable to die, with their patients.

3. Think about a buckshot shotgun. It's close range, can be "gyro" attached so you can shoot offhand without accuracy mattering too much, and it will dissuade you from shooting at long range and creating FF situations while behind your lines (for example: I accidentally blew my Spec's head off with a pulse rifle round in my first game as a medic. Not much feels worse than being yelled at in LOOC during your first game). The shotty also stops you from running to the front lines (because you can't hit anything past 4-5 tiles), while making sure that aliens who try to pounce you get a nasty surprise.

TL/DR: 1) You are incredibly important, act like it, 2) Stay protected behind your squad and always in sight of a protector, 3) It's situational, but think try to consider preserving squad firepower/skill when triaging, 4) Don't bring autoinjectors (besides QC and Dex+), 5) Don't get discouraged if you fuck up.

[Melioa]

At the risk of getting something horribly wrong again:

Speaking of syringe cases, if medbay's not being helpful/can't get your hands on any tricord or hypospray, what I like to do is use a syringe case and keep a bottle of Dylovene and Inaprovaline in it, along with the syringe. It makes for easy stabilization/toxins removal/tricordrazine usage for those times when marines come in with numbers in three or four damage types.

[kooarbiter]

Never medevac alone, in fact a good idea would be tasking 2 or 3 boots with medevacing and giving one of them a few inap pills and tell them to bring the roller back afterwards

[Swagile]

A big tip for medics running out of splints, advanced brute kits and burn kits.

Brute, burn, and splints come in 5's.

You can take 1 out of the 5 to make 4, but when you put it back into the machine (Click, hold, then let go on the machine either WeylandMed or MarineMed) it makes a full 5 more.

Do this with the entire 5 stack and you now have 4 extra splints / brute / burn kits.

This way you never run out of basic meds if you do this early game a lot of times and have a hacked WeylandMed.

[WinterClould]

As a PO I already grab a medkit with Splints and advanced burn/brute kits in it and ask a doc or medic to get me a bottle of tram just so I can treat any guys the medics leave out on my ships cold floor.

I want to be able to do more for the poor lads tho so is there anything else I can do to help or things I should also bring with me? I try to radio medical when I have wounded on board but its easy to forget sometimes if I have xeno rushing in and I'm smashing the "get us off this damn planet" button in the cockpit. I always get out and drag bodies on or off if we no one else doing it so long as its safe outside. And any time I head by medbay I make sure to bring any auto injectors people left on my shuttle and restock them.

I think I already do more then enough as is but I always want to do more if I can, so any tips for a PO looking to help save marine lives while making your lives easier?

[Challenger]

Don't think ensigns know what tramadol does, or at least they aren't supposed to just have it on them willy nilly given it's a controlled substance. One thing I recommend is to NOT buckle in dead/dying guys because that just makes marines ignore them, instead of dragging them to medbay. It infuriates me to come onto a dropship that's been there for several minutes and see a guy in the corner with a red health bar who's been slowly bleeding out because some jackass buckled him into the seat and no one noticed he was dying.

[Breen]

viewtopic.php?p=149926#p149926 +1 for any self respecting Medic out there.

[Tidomann]

it's just basic math. Hypos store 30u, inject 5 at a time.
Take a bottle of inaprovaline, syringe out 5u, syringe in 3u QC, it's 55u inaprov, 3u QC which is 95% inaprov 5% QC. Pour that bottle directly into a hypo and you know that each injection of 5u will have .95 * 5 = 4.75u inaprov and 0.25u QC.

I've noticed my QC Hypo that is 1:2 sometimes doesn't heal the internal bleeding properly. Is it a weird server tick thing? Is this lower dose going to work?

[Challenger]

Needs a minimum of 15u QC in a 60U container to heal internal bleeding, anything below won't work

[sicktrigger]

PLEASE STOP TAKING THE PATIENTS OF OTHER MEDICS

THIS IS THE MOST FRUSTRATING SHIT

[WinterClould]

If a medic want's to help another medic treat a dude that's fine and all. But please for the love of god if you have anyone else you could be treating TREAT THEM instead. I don't need your help I kinda got this under control over here 99% of the time, if I don't Ill ask for help. If you are going to help anyway just don't do ANYTHING other then Advanced kits, splints, Defibing, redressing a stable defibed person, or giving out small baby pills like 5u Bicard that we are never going to accidentally OD a guy on. Giving meds to a patient another medic is working on is a pretty big no no to me, your probably going to fuck something up for me and there's far to much risk for an absolutely preventable OD.

Also medics, bring antibiotics more often, its just one inventory slot and unless your really trash at managing and minmaxing your space you can find the room for at least just one bottle. If infected people get free and start feeling sick give them three 10u pills to delay that chest bust you totally don't know is going to happen and send them up to the ship to get a cure for whatever "flu" they caught. It's as easy as that. If they show any sign of resisting let them stay and fight. Don't meta and force them to evac unless we know fully about chest busting and it's no longer meta. Once its not meta if they keep refusing break their skull, they cant refuse evac if they're too brain damaged to stand.
(Dont actually use force to make someone evac, your more likely to get your face ripped off by mass amounts of AP to your dome by the baldie, being down a medic is way worse for the team then some loser chest busting on the front lines)

[Fritigern]

I'll be honest, when I'm playing medic, I don't trust half the other medics in the field.

I've been on the receiving end of too many of you guys to trust you 100% with a specialist or squad leader being left in your care. If I see you opening and closing first aid kits over and over again I know you've got a crappy loadout, which is strike one. If you're standing over the same dude for 2-5 minutes that's strike two. If you walk away from a patient without sticking a tramadol under his tongue that's strike three.

Pain management is as important to treating marines in the field as stopping internal bleeding, and lots of medics fuck this up. Splinting and jabbing people with quick clot is not enough, especially in crunch situations. If a marine can't walk or hold his weapon then you've basically done nothing for him or anyone else around you.

And, going on a side tangent here; You're COMBAT medics. ACT LIKE YOU'RE IN COMBAT!

Runners and hunters are constantly looking to flank the marines and fuck with the support roles in the back. Specifically, you, the medic. If a runner runs into your aid station and starts slashing up your downed marines and you don't react, it's never going to stop. Drop your bandages, pull out your rifle (AND YOU BETTER HAVE A RIFLE) and chase his ass away. If you wound the xeno he'll piss off, or if he's dumb you'll just straight up kill it.

Also for the love of god carry stasis bags. I know the whole stasis bag medic meme crap about not needing them, but if you're any good at your job you will recognize their value. If you're doing your job you're going to be using a lot of medical supplies and if you packed appropriately and didn't steal everyone else's medical supplies like hoarder then you'll likely run out at some point, and lots of times incompetent chemists or stupid commanders won't give you peri for the mission anyways. So if a marine takes too much lung damage you CANNOT help them, no matter how much dex you give them. So your options are to either burn all your dex+ just to keep a guy conscious for a few extra minutes or you bag him and move on. Bagging is the right answer no matter how much the marine memes at you. Also if you're aware of chestbursting, it's a logical in-universe step to take to keep a marine from exploding on the ride home.

[Swagile]

Stasis bags have never helped me more than packing more supplies in my webbing / helmet, since the reasons to use a stasis bag are so niche that I almost never have to use them, especially with the no hugger combat update.

Maybe if hugger combat was still prevalent, but currently? Stasis bags need an actual upgrade to their versatility or its something I will never take.

[Breen]

I never ever take Stasis bags. Waste of space and makes Marines retarded. If you are competent enough you can stabilize a Marine pretty easy even under the chaos of the battle. I have never had a game where I regretted not taking stasis bags.

[CrimsonAerospace]

I rarely even play Medic and I know how shit Stasis bags are. If you're competent you can stabilize a marine enough for a ride back to the Almayer, without giving them detrimental genetic damage and possibly having all that stasis undone because some baldie opened the bag halfway up.

[Swagile]

Also there is currently a bug with all genetic damage; its almost impossible to remove at a certain point, so if your stuck in a cryo bag, you are effectively 100% crippled even if you get cryo'd to remove cryo damage or ahealed.

Don't use them,

[mazazon]

but you need to know 1) when they're a lost cause,

I'm of the opinion that almost nobody is a lost cause for a competent medic and if it's a "waste of supplies" you just didn't bring enough supplies.
I spend my supplies pretty liberally and I don't often run out before one situation or another forces me back to the ship and I can resupply anyway.
(usually someone who needs a medevac and won't survive the trip forces me to go back with them... or a full retreat)

Otherwise I pretty much agree, particularly on the not trusting other medics thing. Seeing medics declare a corpse a lost cause only to walk over and see they have
under 200 damage and just need a defib. Seeing people with oxygen damage and no Peri in them despite having a medic work on them moments ago.
The many MANY cases of fractures left unsplinted. Also, I can't count the times I've seen the second medic in my squad either miss the medic prep room entirely or not take
a medical HUD.

To add, if you're working on the same patient as another medic, you can't OD on trauma kits. Sometimes I'll bandage while the other guy handles drugs.
But yes, you really should try to find your own patient.

[kooarbiter]

I'm of the opinion that almost nobody is a lost cause for a competent medic and if it's a "waste of supplies" you just didn't bring enough supplies.
I spend my supplies pretty liberally and I don't often run out before one situation or another forces me back to the ship and I can resupply anyway.
(usually someone who needs a medevac and won't survive the trip forces me to go back with them... or a full retreat)

Otherwise I pretty much agree, particularly on the not trusting other medics thing. Seeing medics declare a corpse a lost cause only to walk over and see they have
under 200 damage and just need a defib. Seeing people with oxygen damage and no Peri in them despite having a medic work on them moments ago.
The many MANY cases of fractures left unsplinted. Also, I can't count the times I've seen the second medic in my squad either miss the medic prep room entirely or not take
a medical HUD.

To add, if you're working on the same patient as another medic, you can't OD on trauma kits. Sometimes I'll bandage while the other guy handles drugs.
But yes, you really should try to find your own patient.

Once a fellow medic had died, I checked their clb and it had the default clb stuff in it, I decided to prioritize someone else

[Tidomann]

So something interesting happened- where I put an unrevivable marine from stasis in cryo. You have to inject the patient with cyro/clonodex and then put them in. After healing the genetic damage it said he was unrevivable on the medic hud, but you could still revive him.
^
From JKincaid

This is more of a trick for doctors I guess

[Stripetail]

So something interesting happened- where I put an unrevivable marine from stasis in cryo. You have to inject the patient with cyro/clonodex and then put them in. After healing the genetic damage it said he was unrevivable on the medic hud, but you could still revive him.

This is more of a trick for doctors I guess

Told you.

[mazazon]

I apologise if this is off topic but I don't think we can't talk about medics without talking about the recent update that requires you to examine a pill bottle to read the label.

I've found it bearable, if you already played a medical profession often you probably have a regular load out and that doesn't change, you just need to remember what you used most recently and get used to shift-clicking to examine anything else.

The only major complaints I have is no labels in the vendors/smartfidge. A veteran medic can manage the vendors because the placement hasn't changed, but the smartfridge not being labelled is a real problem. Chemists give different priorities to different drugs and may not even make certain ones.

Coming to a vendor and seeing "pill bottle" is going to kill any learning medics and going to the smart fridge and seeing it is tough on veteran medics as well, since they won't know what's what until they vend it.

[Voldirs]

Marine's retardness is so meme, now they cant even read labels sticked to pill bottles.

It would be great if there was a way to recolor pill bottles

[Tidomann]

If there was a way to allow those with trained medicine to see named pill bottles it would make dispensing very easy.

Also remember that it seems memey- but Ibuprofen is also called Advil and Motrin, and that is just in the States/Canada. Other countries have even more commercial names.

Take a moment and think that- maybe Bicardine is just Weyland-Yutani brand (RS)-2-(4-(2-methylpropyl)phenyl)propanoic acid

Now can it make more sense?

[Nubs]

Pill bottles being identified only on examine is pretty awful, specially when you have 8 pill bottles and some of them are the same darn colour! but i digress.. Heres my new load out 100% original do not steal!

CAVEAT: with the upcoming removal of medbay storage to medics, this load out relies on the docs giving you syringe cases, hyposprays etc. It also relies on them letting you borrow the hand labeler when you ask for it. if not, rip this load out.



In our medical belt we have:

all our pilly bottles (note how 3 pill bottles are all almost the same colour? ughh)
3 syringe cases (3x dex+, 6x quickclot) (labeled with a hand labeler for ease of use)
2x inprov 2x dylo bottles, for mixing upto 240 units of tricord in the field
extra splints, trauma kits, and burn kits,
An emergency oxycodone injector

In satchel: (you'll want a satchel, SERIOUSLY)

2x adv first aid kits, with tricord taken out, extra splints and bicard bottle inside
1x stasis bag
1x defib


In our pockets we have the wonderful medical pouches, 1 for burns 1 for brute, (labeled with a hand labeler) heres an example of the brute one. Our health analyser goes in one of the slots of the burn pouch.



So in the 'brute' pouch, we have 1x trauma kit, 1x bicard pill bottle, and 1 x hypo filled with whatever you like
and in the 'burn' pouch we have 1x kelo/keloderm bottle, 1 x hypo, and 1 health analyser.

I love the pouches, they have exactly what you need on short notice, without having to root through your bag examining every darn pill bottle for that 1 bicard or kelo bottle. No confusing, since hopefully the nice doctor let you borrow the labeler to label your pouches.

Robust set-up, lasted a 3 hour round with it having treated 30+ dudes, and only needing to scavenge right at the end.

plz don't nerf this/medics any further