Autopsy Table

[Gennadios]

Doing things a frontier colony would do takes away from the idea of it being a frontier?

Again, that's the kind of realism you're aiming for. People practicing in order to get better at something.

It's also another very important lesson to consider: many realistic things are boring. That's why we're playing on a space colony.

Frontiers didn't really have shepherds digging through corpses to increase medical skill. It was gained in two ways, mending wounds as they came up, or in the case of really successful towns, trained doctors would arrive to set up a practice.

Practicing on cadavers was something done in centers of learning of established empires. In frontiers, when corpses pile up you bury or burn them before the wild animals get there.

The recent arguments seem to focus on the democratizing skills, I don't see any issues with leaving viable skills in the hands of RNGesus, this game is all about managing limited resources or not getting them in the first place, some skills can very well be more valuable than others. If anything, more skills should have critical failures. Low mining having a chance of cave-in with every block dug, or stonecutting having a chance to crush toes or legs.

It's undemocratic that only colony fighters run a chance of losing limbs or vital organs, we should spread the pain. Make every action a potential disaster!

[Mathenaut]

Frontiers didn't really have shepherds digging through corpses to increase medical skill.

Early medical practice was, quite literally, defiling the dead. This didn't begin with centers of learning or larger communities, they only managed/codified it because errant gravedigging for other reasons was bad enough.

The more you rely on RNGesus, the less you allow for player agency. If you're arguing in the context of roguelikes, understand that RNG primarily determines content generation, not the actions of the player.

Walking across the street isn't a matter of catastrophic risk. I don't know the polite way to say that this is a horrible way to design something.

[Cazakatari]

I can buy the argument that some skills (such as doctoring) you just won't get much of unless the person already knows it.

As for RNG, in rimworld a little in the right places adds flavor/excitement.  Too much in the wrong places makes it feel like you have to win the lottery to live.  Not so fun.

[Gennadios]

Frontiers didn't really have shepherds digging through corpses to increase medical skill.

Early medical practice was, quite literally, defiling the dead. This didn't begin with centers of learning or larger communities, they only managed/codified it because errant gravedigging for other reasons was bad enough.

Wall of text incoming.

Early medical practice came in two forms.

For immediate, clearly identifiable injuries such as sprains, cuts and burns, suturing (army ant heads), oiling, and splinting were developed relatively early. Common factor was that you had a living patient to see if the treatment was working or not.

Diseases and things you couldn't clearly identify were dealt with by either praying to or chasing away evil sprits. To this day developing countries have witch doctors/spiritual healer industries to deal with the really scary stuff that you can't observe with the naked eye (ebola/aids.)


Anatomy itself was of limited use. It helped sculpting, and gave us some dubious 'advancements' such as the 5 humors, chi, and drilling holes in skulls.

Modern medicine didnt come around until microscopes (observing cells) and radiology (seeing the anatomy of a living subject in play)

In the end, if you're looking at the medicine skill from a modern medicine perspective, it has to be gained off world and off screen. If you're looking at it from a frontier medicine perspective, it has to be done on living subjects.

[b0rsuk]

Why not try to tackle the problem naturally, by giving more opportunities to heal ? Why invent Tibia-style pull-a-switch-monster-jumps-out-you-kill-it-for-xp-repeat rooms instead ?

Lost members of friendly factions could be generated, coming to your settlement with injuries or contagious diseases. You could reject them and suffer relation penalty, or take them in and risk spreading the disease. When it spreads, you would have even more opportunities to practice medicine ! Yaay !

When another faction visits you, they could have some wounded among them. You could offer to heal them.

Crafting herbal medicine could practice Medicine skill.

As for target practices, target practice stars don't become great soldiers. It takes a lot more, for example situational awareness, a calm head, camouflage, tactics, use of cover. Practice targets are predictable, don't shoot back, don't work in team, don't beg for mercy, don't try to put their intestines back into belly.

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

[Mathenaut]

Target practice starts don't become great soldiers, they become great shooters. As the skill is a measure of your ability to shoot, it's quite relevant. Directly applicable.

Tactics isn't a measure of numbers on a sheet, it's in how you control your pawns in response to a threat.

People who practice perform better in their field than people who don't. That isn't a theory.

[b0rsuk]

And shooting at smart, moving, armed targets is the best shooting practice.