Content Suggestion Chemical residue in blood samples

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GameRush_cz

Well-known Member
Dec 25, 2024
21
6
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What does this suggestion change/add/remove:

When you take a blood sample from a fellow human and take it to a microscope, if the person has recently taken a chemical, another part will show up below the blood (like having multiple chemicals inside 1 container).

////////////////////////////////////
// Human blood - x ml //
///////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////
// Chemical residue //
// chem 1 //
// chem 2 //
//////////////////////////////////
This part will be labeled Chemical residue and will include all of the chemicals the person has ingested or has been injected with.
These listed chemicals would be INOBTAINABLE from the blood, so no sampling someone who drank, lets say potent duloxetine, to get more.
Alongside this, there would be an amount listed. There would be no specific number; instead, a general approximation signalled by a word would be shown.
These could be something like:

  • Very high - 1L+
  • High - 1L - 500ml
  • Moderate - 500ml - 250ml
  • Low - 250ml - 100 ml
  • Very low - <100ml
(these numbers don't have to be final, it's just something that can be used to show it off)

So if someone drank 1,5L of potent duloxetine, 400ml of tylenol, and got a 50ml dose of chlorphenamine, it would show:
Potent duloxetine - very high
Tylenol - moderate
Chlorphenamine - very low

All of the chemicals would also have "decay" timers. If you drink a chemical, a timer would start, and once it's done, the chemical will go down one step. (very high > high, low > very low etc.)
This is mainly to simulate the person's body dealing with the chemical and to reduce the amount of data needed to be stored for each person, because if you drank 100mls of potent an hour ago, it's not really that important.
Chemicals such as potent would have short timers, while more RP substantial chemicals like amnestics would have long timers or not have one at all for high grade amnestics such as Class-D and above (this could also be changed, but I think Class-D+ is used rarely so it shouldnt be much of an issue, we can also do this as the chems will reset on death).

If we continue the example from above, and give potent a timer of X, tylenol 2X, and chlorphenamine X/2, and assume the person did not drink any chemicals, if we did a test after X, it would show:
Potent duloxetine - high
Tylenol - moderate
(Chlorphenamine wouldnt even show up)

But of all the chemicals, I believe 2 should be separate and have a special interaction with the system.
Amnestics and SCP samples.
For both of these, a special interaction should be made. To tell what amnestic or SCP sample is in the person's blood, you would need to mix the blood with another chemical. This chemical can either be an already existing one or a newly made one entirely.

Once the chemical is mixed with the blood, it CANNOT BE USED AGAIN, including if there were no SCP samples/Amnestics found. This is to encourage doing some actual roleplay instead of Poof, chemical go brrrrr. Of course, it should still be a possibility, but now it's at a cost, and with the chance of a waste if you just do it without any prior roleplay.

For amnestics, the chemical should be expensive to make (not like Class-X level expensive, but somewhere around the NHU or so range, but that could be changed to a more expensive chem or making the recipe more expensive if it is a new chem). If this chemical is not used, the amnestic would not show up at all.
This is to encourage doing roleplay to try and figure out if the person has been amnesticated. You can ask questions, like what the person has been doing, what they remember, etc., to figure out if they have been amnesticated or not. This would also bring a new life to cover stories, so if you amnesticate someone, you can actually make a believable story that the person can use, and now it won't be nullified by /me checks for amnestics. Unless, of course, a certain chemical is used, but at a cost of around the same effort as NHU needs, that won't always be worth it.

For SCP samples, the chemical should be somewhat cheap, the only requirement that I can think of being it can't be made from only surface chems. This is only to prevent infobreaches from surface medics checking someone's blood and finding SCP-457 carbon or something. If this chemical isn't used, SCP samples would show up as Unknown chemical.
But yeah, this is just mainly so surface jobs cant know about SCP samples, a decent amount of which are just SCP-number sample. Just a small stopping barrier that should not be an obstacle for Foundation, CI, and GOC.

Lastly, the chemical residue should reset on death.
While there are certain positives and negatives in having it stay, I think that dying should reset it.

If a chemical is used in some long-term roleplay, like sleeper agents and such, it can still be roleplayed out like we need to do currently, via /it you find whatever.
And I think that is better than having to defuse a situation where someone found Class-F in your blood because you got kidnapped by CI and helped with a raid 90 minutes ago, died 7 times in between, and now you pretty much forgot what you even did in that raid.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Not that I am aware of.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
Better medical roleplay
Now there is an actual point to blood tests, excluding checking people for 0-. Now there is actually something to find. This can also be expanded onto other RP scenarios, such as getting rid of addiction for certain chems, decently improving evaluations, especially after the person went missing and does not remember anything, OR they have a cover story. Now you will need to use your brain to figure out if its certain they have been amnesticated, if it's worth using the expensive chemical, or if the story they are saying is true.
It could also improve the relations with injuries, as if you see someone with low amounts of 457 in their blood, you can give them first aid for burns and whatnot.

Improved ISD convictions (could also apply to regiments)
Now, chemical theft, in the sense of someone drinking your chemical, can be solved in character by ISD. Just rally up the people on the job (or a specific person if the identity is known) and check their blood. And if it comes out positive, they can either pay for it and/or go to jail.
It can also improve investigations, mainly the small ones. If the culprit was on like ventanyl, you can check people for ventanyl and narrow down the number of potential suspects/find the suspect outright.

This can also improve the interactions with the semi-mingy techies and such, since if a techie was reported on 106 and you rally up all the techies after, with the current system, you need the other person to tell you. Yea, that guy is not telling you, so you are essentially powerless.
It could also allow for regiments to punish certain people if needed, the same way ISD does it.
Removes the semi-powergaming around amnestics and makes cover stories that much important
That thing has been somewhat bs this whole time. If you see anyone leave a GOIs base outside of the people that own the base, you can be sure that they have been amnesticated, and even if the person that made the cover story is a 5 times New York best-selling author, all you need to do is get a syringe, take a sample, go to a microscope and all of that story wrighting is now down the drain because you can smell the amnestics. All at the cost of 10 pounds (or however much the syringe costs). That is a really imbalanced interaction.
Now that there is an actual cost, it opens this place for thinking and debating if it's even worth it to waste money on the guy. As I mentioned above in medical RP, you need to ask yourself: Is the story real?, Am I sure he has been amnesticated?, I am unsure, should I use this chemical to check, or should I ask another person for their opinion?, His story checks out, do I believe that he has not been amnesticated?, which is good from the current Sample, check, ???, profit.

Allows for roleplay with blood samples without relying on the patient
Right now, with the current use of /it for finding chemicals, there is 1 big issue. It's entirely dependent on the patient telling you the truth.
There are many reasons why the patient would lie, it can be something innocent like forgetting about it, which is especially true if it happened a while back with some hectic stuff in between, or the person just would not want you to find out.
The worst part is that there is nothing you can do against that. Unless you have a witness who has seen his keycard or cuffed him in the act, you would need to metagame the name above his head, and having to solve someone not RPing with a rule-break is not a good way to handle stuff.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Dev time

Yeah, there is no other mechanic like this, so it would have to be made pretty much from the ground up. The only thing close that I can think of is 0- blood, but that is steam-ID based, so once you get it, you have it.
Possibly lag
You need to store the data somewhere, including the timers. That might cause lag, but don't quote me on that, the only knowledge I have about the source engine code is from shounic's TF2 videos.
Could be underutilized for the costs of the previous 2 downsides
The downside of new things being added is that people need to get used to them. Even then, it might not be used all the time, which, for the 2 downsides above, might be a big ask. However, if the lag is not an issue, I feel like the use of this would be worth the dev time. Also, there is the possibility that the blood samples are underused currently because the lack of an actual system makes it suck, and with the addition of a system, it could be used once again.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
Overall, I feel like this suggestion would help to improve Medical roleplay from any faction (including civies), ranging from evaluations, blood samples, even could help with the rangers and their drug policy (that Ive never seen enforced), would help ISD to do their job (same could apply to punishments in regiments like CI or GOC), it would remove the whole drama around detecting amnestics by adding an actual cost to it, be it from having to do roleplay or costing a decent amount of money, it would also allow for cover stories to have higher credibility due to the new cost, meaning making one could be worth it, and maybe most importnatly, it would get rid of the whole /it charade where you need to ask the patient, and then you need to hope the guy tells the truth, which is more unlikely if they know that the truth would get them in trouble. For long-term chemical uses, such as the previously mentioned sleeper agents, /it can still be used.
The chemicals also reset on death and decay over time, which are the only ways to get rid of them. This is mainly due to death being a soft RP reset for that person, and it's better to have false negatives, which can be solved via /it, than false positives, which need to be defused thru /looc, and means that as certain chems become less important in the view of the sample, they don't show up.
As for the negatives, the major one being the possibility of lag, I can see that if that's the case, this suggestion will be denied. The UK server already runs like shit, and you can be lucky if it doesn't kick you for no reason or doesn't crash, so even a bit more lag is probably going to make the server implode. But if lag is not an issue, I can see this being worth the dev time. (again, I can't really estimate how long it would take since I'm not a source dev)
 
+Support, if this is even possible

The only part I don't like very much is:
But of all the chemicals, I believe 2 should be separate and have a special interaction with the system.
Amnestics and SCP samples.
Seems overly complicated for a chem system that most folks can't even be bothered to deal with in the first place. Would be neat tho
 
Seems overly complicated for a chem system that most folks can't even be bothered to deal with in the first place. Would be neat tho
Yea for these 2, there is like one main issue for both.
SCP samples are something civies shouldnt know nothing about, so having a surface medic see Immortal flesh, Decaying matter and SCP-008 sample in someones blood would be...weird. It could also lead to a major infobreach, since it would take like a day at best to see "Yo guys what is SCP-457 carbon" in O-comms.
As for amnestics, this:
Removes the semi-powergaming around amnestics and makes cover stories that much important
That thing has been somewhat bs this whole time. If you see anyone leave a GOIs base outside of the people that own the base, you can be sure that they have been amnesticated, and even if the person that made the cover story is a 5 times New York best-selling author, all you need to do is get a syringe, take a sample, go to a microscope and all of that story wrighting is now down the drain because you can smell the amnestics. All at the cost of 10 pounds (or however much the syringe costs). That is a really imbalanced interaction.
Now that there is an actual cost, it opens this place for thinking and debating if it's even worth it to waste money on the guy. As I mentioned above in medical RP, you need to ask yourself: Is the story real?, Am I sure he has been amnesticated?, I am unsure, should I use this chemical to check, or should I ask another person for their opinion?, His story checks out, do I believe that he has not been amnesticated?, which is good from the current Sample, check, ???, profit.
But that is all for the special interactions, since the others either dont or even cant cause any of these issues.
Also I would not say most, chemicals became so rooted in the server that almost everyone uses or at least knows about the standard combat and RP chems. Its not ideal, but its just something that is a thing.
 
This is really well-written, and I do like the suggestion a lot.

To integrate medical even further into this, perhaps the probability of successful analysis can be tied to whoever is performing the analysis. For example, a Medical Trainee would basically have analytical skills on par with other non-medical personnel, so they would have a low chance of finding anything: on the other hand, consultants would be almost guaranteed to find traces of every chemical in the bloodwork. This adds another facet to tribunals as well; Consultants can act as expert witnesses, whereas the defense could poke holes in a testimony from a Medical Trainee.
 
To integrate medical even further into this, perhaps the probability of successful analysis can be tied to whoever is performing the analysis. For example, a Medical Trainee would basically have analytical skills on par with other non-medical personnel, so they would have a low chance of finding anything: on the other hand, consultants would be almost guaranteed to find traces of every chemical in the bloodwork. This adds another facet to tribunals as well; Consultants can act as expert witnesses, whereas the defense could poke holes in a testimony from a Medical Trainee.
There are a few issues with that.
-how would non-medics work with this system (Would it just not work? I mean a GENSEC can use a microscope to figure out what is anima and what is Class-E, so why cant he see if you drank potent?)
-how would GOI and surface medics play into this? (Would they be on a consultant level or on a trainee level? They can only have 1 medic level due to having only 1 medic job.)
-could discourage new medics from even interacting with the system (All it would take is one scenario along the lines of: „Check his blood.“ Nothing found.Yo this other guy checked his blood as well and found CHEMICAL, you lied to me, you are now going to jail.“ in order for the trainee to think: I did everything right, yet I got punished. This shit sucks. and either stop playing medic or not check blood ever again. Or it will go the opposite way of people not even wanting low level medics to test blood because they will know they get shit results, only going to CL3+.)

I remember there being a suggestion along these lines but for R&D for like chemical yields, but that got denied afaik.
I think that if this was added it would add this hard coded Fuck you for not having lvl 20 support and Medical license which could lead to the player being either completely cut out of RP or being punished for something out of their control.
Even if something like the [UK] Clearance Level Knowledge was ported over to this system, you still have rp interactions where you can learn about chems above your base clearance, which you cant really code.

Overall I would keep this to the players as you cant code if the medical trainee learned about 106 liquid from a CL2 or not. This would work especially well in the tribunals you mentioned, as there people would actually roleplay with the knowledge they should have IC. While it is not the best that a CL1 could see like Class-F, I think that, modified quote: The knowledge of a Chemical name is not an info-breach. Yelling "AMN-F762-R", for example, is not an info-breach, but saying what it does is. The only exception to this quote would be SCP samples on surface, as some have SCP in their name, and SCP in of itself is an info-breach, but I already covered that in the original suggestion.
 
I like the idea of this deeply, but I think it wouldn't cover all of the different parts of RP and chemical drinking RP that a /me can.

Some examples of things a change like this would likely not cover / couldn't cover:

- Unrelated Deaths, if a character dies what occurs to the chemicals in their blood? Does it reset entirely or stay? Either way it won't properly account for non-NLR deaths or deaths involving entirely different situations. If I am Class-E'd to forget something in-character and then die to an entirely different situation then that Class-E and forgetting of that knowledge should still exist IC. There is simply no good way to account for this beyond /me.

- Player Interpretation of Character blood, Sometimes even though something didn't occur in-character during RP it still did occur to a character. Sometimes a characters blood will have X chemical in it (say Class-F if the lore of your character was that they were Class-F'd for their position) but that won't be able to show through this method.

- Chemicals that should slow/shouldn't, people will always disagree with timers but this goes for the same of the above two. Sometimes chemicals will be there that shouldn't really be (if timers aren't very good) or will be missing when they are crucial to a situation turning into further RP.

All of those above are my ideas, that although I think this is a fun and interesting idea - it would deeply fall and fail to just doing normal /me. Sadly, the main and only thing I think this would be useful for would be people with no intent to RP lying about their blood.
 
There are a few issues with that.
-how would non-medics work with this system (Would it just not work? I mean a GENSEC can use a microscope to figure out what is anima and what is Class-E, so why cant he see if you drank potent?)
-how would GOI and surface medics play into this? (Would they be on a consultant level or on a trainee level? They can only have 1 medic level due to having only 1 medic job.)
-could discourage new medics from even interacting with the system (All it would take is one scenario along the lines of: „Check his blood.“ Nothing found.Yo this other guy checked his blood as well and found CHEMICAL, you lied to me, you are now going to jail.“ in order for the trainee to think: I did everything right, yet I got punished. This shit sucks. and either stop playing medic or not check blood ever again. Or it will go the opposite way of people not even wanting low level medics to test blood because they will know they get shit results, only going to CL3+.)

I remember there being a suggestion along these lines but for R&D for like chemical yields, but that got denied afaik.
I think that if this was added it would add this hard coded Fuck you for not having lvl 20 support and Medical license which could lead to the player being either completely cut out of RP or being punished for something out of their control.
Even if something like the [UK] Clearance Level Knowledge was ported over to this system, you still have rp interactions where you can learn about chems above your base clearance, which you cant really code.

Overall I would keep this to the players as you cant code if the medical trainee learned about 106 liquid from a CL2 or not. This would work especially well in the tribunals you mentioned, as there people would actually roleplay with the knowledge they should have IC. While it is not the best that a CL1 could see like Class-F, I think that, modified quote: The knowledge of a Chemical name is not an info-breach. Yelling "AMN-F762-R", for example, is not an info-breach, but saying what it does is. The only exception to this quote would be SCP samples on surface, as some have SCP in their name, and SCP in of itself is an info-breach, but I already covered that in the original suggestion.
1. It would really be a medical/research focused addition in my mind. These departments lack a lot of leverage to create meaningful roleplay with other departments right now, and are two of the most roleplay-dependent. Does it really make sense that a GENSEC Cadet would be able to see anything in the bloodwork? They would still be able to see the blood itself, just nothing about the residue, as that ability doesn't align with their role.
2. I believe there to be some additional room if both R&D and medics are considered. I would put R&D above medics, with perhaps R&D on par with a consultant's skill level, and medics with a senior doctor's. Civilian medics would be senior-doctor level.
3. If you think about it more, this is exactly the way the system would be forced to work. Consultants/high-level researchers would almost always be used to testify because they have a very high chance of being correct, but staff with lower expertise can also corroborate their testimony. The intention behind the probability function is that the Consultant may not be able to find something that the Trainee can, which makes single-witness testimonies slightly unreliable. This incentivizes consultants to bring in multiple lower-level staff to support their analysis. Plus, there is counter-play; if both sides find different things, they can base their arguments on that result.
You argue that a false/incomplete analysis would get a trainee punished; in reality, it can be chalked up to an oversight, and under the impression that the expert witness acted completely honestly (unless they were bribed, even more opportunity for roleplay!), they aren't normally sanctioned. If they were ever to be punished, it would have to be for gross negligence or bribery, both of which are really only relegated to Consultants as they have the most to lose.

As for concerns about finding out infobreaching chemical names based on microscope results, I believe its been ruled that you cannot find new information out in this way. For the sake of roleplay, if somebody finds residue of a chemical unknown to them, they can simply ask higher-expertise personnel.
 
1. It would really be a medical/research focused addition in my mind. These departments lack a lot of leverage to create meaningful roleplay with other departments right now, and are two of the most roleplay-dependent. Does it really make sense that a GENSEC Cadet would be able to see anything
I get that. At the time it just felt wierd that Checking chemicals? Works for everyone. and Blood? Sorry pal, medic only. But now that I think about it for a bit, the chemical thing is probably a thing just because if it was medic and R&D specific, it would not encourage any more RP, instead just leading to forced swaping of jobs just to check a few vials, only to switch back a while later. Fair point, I agree now.
2. I believe there to be some additional room if both R&D and medics are considered. I would put R&D above medics, with perhaps R&D on par with a consultant's skill level, and medics with a senior doctor's. Civilian medics would be senior-doctor level.
Eeeh I feel like it should still be a medical thing mainly, R&D would still be better then your average joe but not on the same level as a skilled medic who is trained to look for those.
The civie level seems fair, for CI and GOC it could be rank based similary to keycards, but that is even more development in an already packed mechanic...
3. If you think about it more, this is exactly the way the system would be forced to work. Consultants/high-level researchers would almost always be used to testify because they have a very high chance of being correct, but staff with lower expertise can also corroborate their testimony. The intention behind the probability function is that the Consultant may not be able to find something that the Trainee can, which makes single-witness testimonies slightly unreliable. This incentivizes consultants to bring in multiple lower-level staff to support their analysis. Plus, there is counter-play; if both sides find different things, they can base their arguments on that result.
You argue that a false/incomplete analysis would get a trainee punished; in reality, it can be chalked up to an oversight, and under the impression that the expert witness acted completely honestly (unless they were bribed, even more opportunity for roleplay!), they aren't normally sanctioned. If they were ever to be punished, it would have to be for gross negligence or bribery, both of which are really only relegated to Consultants as they have the most to lose.
Now yeah, that makes sense for tribunals, and maybe some higher importance arrests. Of course there higher ranking members will be trusted more and a group of lower ranking members can also get an idea together. I can also see where you are coming from, as lower ranking, and therefor less skilled (not literally, like in RP if you were a decent medic you would not be a trainee) witnesses should have a less weighted testimony then a more expirienced medic.
My issue with this is that players choose the easiest path. And if the easier path is waiting a while for a CL3 then having to go through the opinion of 2 or more CL1s or a CL1 and a higher level, but at that point why even bother with the first guy? You know you have a better chance at better results elsewhere, so if that is easier, people will do that.
My second issue was the punishment, and imma be real, I somewhat overinflated the issue. The high majority, like 97% of ISD, are mostly chill. Yes, some are stricter then others, but most are fine. The issue is that if the low level, who does not have much expirience with the majority as he is clearly new (no one plays trainee when you have a higher level outside meming around), meets the 3% he will be discouraged for something outside of his control for the rest of his time playing medic.

Lastly, the remark about the R&D chem yield was just to show that similar mechanics have been rejected in the past.
But honestly, you conviced me enough to consider this being a posiblity, but I would need to see this playtested to see if it would work or if it would be just a detrimental chance of the system not working. And again, it adds devtime to an already new mechanic.