Staff Ideas - New Animations, traits, skills etc

[Calisthenix]

Hi there,
I stumbled over this great piece of software yesterday. So I played it a bit and took a look at the forum. Last night I had some ideas (some similar ones were already mentioned) and couldn't sleep at all! If I don't write this down my head might explode....


--------------------------------------------------SPRITES--------------------------------------------------

The idea of different doctors struck me, too. Just a bit larger, even female doctors! And of course (rare) male nurses and (rare too) male receptionists.

--------------------------------------------------RECEPTIONISTS--------------------------------------------------

Receptionists should definitely have a soul and play at least SOME role! Otherwise you could completely remove them or replace them with a time clock or something.
They should have at least ONE skill to master ... will think of some that might matter.

I thought about some new skills for doctors and nurses, too.

--------------------------------------------------DOCTOR SKILLS--------------------------------------------------

New doctor skill: Naturopath / Naturopathy

Practices alternative medicine and treatments (asian medicine, homeopathy etc.) [even on some existing diseases]
Icon: Ying-Yang-like symbol, or a leaf?
Room: some gym like physiotherapy room with a gymnastic mat and ball (to use with a nurse) and a masage bench where the doc practices. Decoration would be a acupuncture poster, a bonsai and an incense holder.
Special: If a doctor is skilled at psychiatry it may improve his treatments.

--------------------------------------------------NURSE SKILLS--------------------------------------------------

Nurses should have different proficiencies / skills, like doctors:
Treatment: Basic nurse skill (doesn't mean that every nurse has it). Indicates how good a nurse works in treatment facilities such as pharmacy.
Icon: a pill
Specials: If a nurse hasn't completely mastered the skill, she (or he) can still treat patients but there is a chance that the medication will fail AND make the patients condition worse (next part of the skull) without killing him! The more a nurse lacks this skill, the higher the chance! E.g. Nurse has 80% Treatment skill (so still in training) there is a 20% chance that the above-mentioned will occur! The patient would have to go through the treatment again - if he or she has enough time left.

Diagnostic: Second nurse skill. Indicates how good a nurse can make diagnoses.
Icon: ... none yet... maybe a magnifier?
Specials: If a nurse hasn't completely mastered the skill, she (or he) can still make a diagnosis on patients (station, blood analysis etc.) but there is a chance that the diagnosis goes wrong and makes it worse! The more a nurse lacks this skill, the higher the reductione! E.g. Nurse has 80% Diagnostic skill (so still in training), she or he lacks 20% at this. If her of his diagnosis fails 10% of the patients diagnosis is reduced.
furthermore, the diagnosis may never be better than percentage of skill the nurse has. e.g a patient with a diagnosis of 67% is sent to the station to a 80% skilled nurse - this patients diagnosis will never rise above 80% at that station.

Technical assistance: Third nurse skill. Indicates how good a nurse can operate machines and assist at operations (i believe that the operating theater should include a nurse!).
Icon: gear-wheel like the one in the machine repair screen
Specials: If a nurse hasn't completely mastered the skill, she (or he) can still use machines on patients (fracture clinic, operating theater) but there is a one-third of a chance that the treatment may be completely USELESS! The more a nurse lacks this skill, the higher the chance! E.g. Nurse has 80% Technical assistance skill (so still in training), she or he lacks 20% at this, so there is a 7% % chance that the above-mentioned will occur.

All penalties are calculated AFTER the nurses general experience or the experience of doctors in the room or the machines / the medicaments / the treatments efficiency has been considered!
Some room could require one or more skills from a nurse, like the fracture clinic: Treatment and Technical assistance. Then Skills have prorities 1. skill (treatment) then 2. (dianostics) and then 3. (technical assistance)!!!
e.g.: Nurse has skill 3 mastered but lacks a little at skill 1. Skill 1 is checked and fails, so the patients condition gets worse without check of skill 3 (which would have been a success). Otherwise if the experience is reversed and skill 1 is checked it passes without the penalty of skill 3 - this way it is asured that not every treatment or diagnostic will fail beause of ONE lack!

Nurses improve their skill with every successful treatment or diagnostic where they needed a certain skill - or maybe they could be trained at the training room. But could also improve a little through "talking" with other nurses or doctors.

More resposibility for nurses, especially in diagnostic facilities!

--------------------------------------------------LEVELS and AGE--------------------------------------------------
5 LEVELS for Doctors and Nurses. Improves games mechanics

Doctors: Medical Student / Freshman, Scrub / Assistant, Doctor, Specialist, Chief Physician
Nurses: [Placeholder], [Placeholder], Nurse, [Placeholder], Matron

4th level only throu proper training, 5th level only through experience by doing
1st Level = age of 18-20, 5th Level age of 50

--------------------------------------------------ACTIONS--------------------------------------------------

New interaction: talk
By placing doctors and /or nurses next to each other in the staff room, they might start talking and this way exchange a little of their knowledge. but never that much or fast as in the training room and only at ONE SKILL at one interaction!

--------------------------------------------------TRAITS--------------------------------------------------

New staff trait: social competence / charisma
Each staff member has bar (like the one for fatigue) that indicates how "nice" a staff member behaves to others (patients or colleagues). The bar starts half-full and gets better if the employee feels good, heals a patient and doesn't overwork. It gets worse if they overwork, kill a patient and don't feel good (payment and stuff).
The higher the bar, the better the chances colleagues will talk to others and share knowledge.

New patients trait: hunger
Self-explanatory

--------------------------------------------------STUFF--------------------------------------------------

New stuff:
Table: In the Staff Room, where colleagues meet and talk
Wending Machine: sells food (mentioned in some thread)
--------------------------------------------------END--------------------------------------------------

THIS IS IT - FOR NOW. I will start by extracting doctors, making sprite sheets and editing them. Like seen here
No need for that, seems like the game has way better artists already and goes more like 3D now!

We should make some stick threads and collect ideas by group - like done with diseases.
Groups like: new rooms, new skills, new stuff, new actions etc.

[BenVenn]

I love this- although some ideas would need tweaking and refining, I think some of your points are very good. Thanks for linking us to some of the relevant threads, it's given me a huge insight into just how good this port could be.

Of course, it's not up to me. But as part of the community, you have a thumbs up from me!

[Calisthenix]

Thanks,
I linked to some threads, because I don't want to take credit for ideas I did not had first.

One question:
How comes that the game is able to work with the original files and display the graphics, but no one is able to extract these? Isn't it necessary to understand the compression AND where AND how the graphics are stored to display them? I'm rally not that much of a coder, so I might not see the point why the one is possible and the other one not...
I'm just having a hard time extracting each and every image and frame from screenshots of the game... Non of the found tools is helpful at grpahics extraction - or maybe I'm just too simple minded to find a solution!
Thanks for any help or hint
CU

PS: Thanks for making the thread a sticky... even though it wasn't meant to be one ^^ I wanted to create a real sticky thread and collect ALL ideas THERE! But again, thank you very much.

[Calisthenix]

Oh, I can hear you all: "Not him again!", "What idea has he got today?" ^^
Sorry, I have to let ideas out.

Well, CorsixTh is becoming modern and so should the elements of the game.
On the other thread, different ideas and worries were expressed and I agree with them:

The new fax fullscreen window would then of course be a computer screen instead.

While there's work on cutscenes already, I'm thinking about changing the information screen - the one where you got a fax with detailed descriptions. And the Idea of an email by Lego3 is very good!
Replacing any animation or image would be a good step away from rights issues and giving a modern feel everyone is aproaching here.

... it was strange how the letter appeared one letter at a time as if it was being typed in front of you.  (Almost like a teleprinter)

While it would have been odd to receive a promotion or a firm job offer via email, there should be no problem receiving a status message via it! And no funny "email being typed" or printed animation at all.
As the fax in the original game is shown complete, so could be a mail - it doesn't even have to be a big cutscene, just a new image (easy work for Joe.w)!

The idea of changing the in-game fax machine to a computer is a nice idea, it brings the game into the 21st century. Would it just be as simple as changing the image background? The computers keyboard could then be used to enter the games cheats, as it used to be with the fax machine.

The old cheat input menu was in the fax screen, so the cheat menu in the new system should be hidden there. Clicking each and every letter on the keyboard is tiresome.
I've an idea where to hide the cheats menu on the (maybe coming) email screen... but of course I keep it a secret here, or else new players would find it easily!
CU

PS: Isn't it about time to create a new "child board" for Graphics as there is certainly work going on at that "department", right now? And maybe moving relevant topics there, too?

[MarkL]

PS: Isn't it about time to create a new "child board" for Graphics as there is certainly work going on at that "department", right now? And maybe moving relevant topics there, too?

I looked into doing that last week, but could not see an option.  It maybe that it needs Edvin to do such things, in which case wait a few weeks and I am  sure he will sort it out.  For now there is one topic in research I think that I have made "sticky" for animations stuff.

[Joe.w]

PS: Isn't it about time to create a new "child board" for Graphics as there is certainly work going on at that "department", right now? And maybe moving relevant topics there, too?

I looked into doing that last week, but could not see an option.  It maybe that it needs Edvin to do such things, in which case wait a few weeks and I am  sure he will sort it out.  For now there is one topic in research I think that I have made "sticky" for animations stuff.

Any news on this? I'd like to make a forum post for a new notification screen in the graphics board.

[Lego3]

I have created a new board now as a child to Research Department. Mark, you can move relevant topics there if you'd like. I'm sending in my graduation application this week, so after that I will most likely have more time again. :-)

And I've started working as a programmer now... ;-)

[Joe.w]

Awesome, Thanks!
I'll post some links to graphics related topics if you like.

and good luck to you, Lego3!

Edit:

All the topics you provided links for have  now been moved to the Graphics board

[tobylane]

Here's an idea for a staff trait - probably only for the doctors until the sexism is gone or switched off.

Instead of asking for a wage rise doctors can threaten to unionise/do something as part of an existing union. They could make demands like a plant in every GPs office, warmth felt throughout, a better staff room. If you paid off or fired the ringleader then the request might go away. If you leave it too long, ignoring too many of their requests they'll strike outside an outside door. Maybe it should only be junior doctors, only for a week in easy. In hard mode and later levels it could be all doctors for several months. Striking, holding signs, would be the only new graphics needed and a chance for some new humour.