Neo has just released significant updates to the mechanics behind metabolism and Medkits! Here’s his notice about the changes, along with a few comments and clarifications:
There are a lot of changes I want to make to the HUD, I could only squeeze some of these in without re-coding the entire HUD from scratch. Food and Medkits are getting a gigantic boost in terms of utility and game mechanics.
Metabolism has been completely reworked:
You will no longer take damage from Starvation.
The cost of metabolizing while not doing anything has been cut down to 1/5th of what it was; you can idle with the HUD on for five times as long as you could before. I hope more people RP with the HUD on. :)
Since “1/5 of what it was” and “five times as long” may be a little vague to those who haven’t paid close attention to the rate of food depletion, I idled at full health to see the changes: at 2:08pm, my food was at 77% – and at 3:08pm, it was at 74%.
The cost of metabolizing food into health has been doubled from the old rates. Even so, this is still the most efficient way to heal.
Starvation has been changed into three different categories. If you begin to become low on food, several different things can happen:
Less than 30% Food: Hungry
Overall health is reduced to 90% of Maximum.
Less than 15% Food: Starving
Overall health is reduced to 70% of Maximum.
No Food at all: Emaciated
Overall health is reduced to 40% of Maximum.
As long as you’re not Hungry (or worse) whenever a DoT ticks, there is a 5% chance a single DoT will typically be healed; but a stack of the same type of DoTs will have it’s duration reduced.
Before we go on to the Medkit portion of the update, there’s something important to clear up regarding the hunger conditions.
The HUD’s hovertext will show the word Hungry, Starving, or Emaciated if you’re in the corresponding condition, so you will know that your health is affected.
However, unless you take damage while in one of these three hunger conditions, you will still see your HUD showing 100%. This is not a bug: it indicates that you have 100% of the maximum possible health for a person in that condition, even if it’s not the maximum possible health overall.
The HUD does not calculate health in terms of specific numerical Hit Points. But, purely for the sake of example, let’s say that someone who’s fully fed and in full health has 100 HP. If you have less than 30% food, your maximum HP will go down to 90 instead of 100. But since the HUD displays your health as a percentage, it will still show 100%, because you have 90 out of a possible 90 HP.
Let’s also say there’s a weapon that deals 30 points of damage on any hit. Again, this isn’t how health or damage actually works, but it’s just an example. If you’re hit by that weapon while fully fed and in full health, you’ll go to 70 out of 100 HP, and your HUD will drop from 100% to 70%. But if you’re Emaciated, your maximum is only 40, so taking 30 damage will reduce you to 10 out of 40 HP, and your HUD will drop from 100% to 25%. Your opponent didn’t hit any harder than usual; you didn’t take any more damage than usual. Because of your condition, that same amount of damage brings you much closer to collapse.
Due to the memory limitations of the current version of the HUD, this is the most efficient and intuitive way to portray these conditions.
Moving on to the rest of the announcement!
Medkits:
Medkits still heal you immediately.
Medkits no longer heal DoTs, or provide bonus metabolism healing.
Medkits now also provide 5% food immediately. <
Using a Medkit while not in combat will produce a cool down timer of 10 seconds, and flag you for combat. If you are already in combat and use a Medkit again, the cool down timer will be 30 seconds.
Medkits also now provide 10% direct damage resistance for for the duration of the cool down timer. There’s no resistance for DoT Damage or Falling.While the cool down timer is active, it will double the chances of whenever a DoT ticks that it will be auto healed. (to 10%)
These changes might be revisited and altered again in the future.
-Neo
In other words, Medkits treat damage, not DoTs. If you’ve been hit by someone with The Rattlesnake and have a Poison DoT, using a Medkit will return some of the health you’ve lost – but it will no longer stop or mitigate the DoT itself: that DoT will continue doing its usual amount of damage per “tick” until it stops.
However, as long as you’re not in a Hunger condition, every “tick” of a DoT brings a 5% chance that the DoT will stop itself on that tick instead of running its full course – and, for the duration of the cooldown after you use a Medkit, that doubles to a 10% chance on every tick.
Medkits also give you 10% resistance to physical damage in combat: You can use a Medkit, then get hit by The Rattlesnake for regular non-DoT physical damage, and take 10% less damage from it – and from any other physical hit you take during the cooldown.
But you can’t use a Medkit, then get hit by The Rattlesnake while you’re in the cooldown window, and have a 10% chance of preventing that hit from ever giving you a Poison DoT, or make each tick of the DoT it gives deal 10% less damage.
This damage resistance only applies to the physical damage you take in combat, though: you can’t use a Medkit, jump off a roof, and take 10% less damage from hitting the ground.
If anyone has questions about these updates, they can get in touch with Neo by any of the usual means: IMs, email, or Discord.