Sanity check of requirements to make Antiseptic soaked rags and antiseptic soaked cotton balls

[Proxiehunter]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Requiring First Aid 1 in order to put antiseptic onto rags or cotton balls to apply it without wasting antiseptic by dumping it all over the place seems excessive. Maybe I'm considering this more common knowledge than it really is because I was raised by a professional nurse but is this really something that requires training, even as low as skill level 1, or is this actually something any idiot should know how to do?

Maybe there's a strong gameplay argument that the player should spend a point during character gen to get First Aid 2 or read the manual that comes with every First Aid kit until they hit First Aid 1 in order to gain the skill required to conserve limited supplies of antiseptic but I'm not convinced just letting people put antiseptic on rags or cotton balls at First Aid 0 would be game breaking.

To be fair I wouldn't call requiring First Aid 1 to make these items gamebreaking either, which is why I'm filing this as a feature request not a bug, but it is a bit immersion breaking to think something so simple and obvious to me requires training a skill and dropping the requirement to First Aid 0 saves the player either a point during character creation or the time (and if you can't find a First Aid kit or other low level First Aid book resources) required to train First Aid to 1.

Describe the solution you'd like

Antiseptic soaked rags and cottonballs require First Aid skill 0.

Additional context

No response

[RoyalFox2140]

I don't know what Viss was doing last time he touched this stuff, but these specific items keeps becoming a repeat issue.

[ZChris13]

There's a reason the first aid kit comes with a book and you basically always have at least one in the starting shelter. And no, you should never underestimate the depths of human stupidity.

[Zireael07]

You'd be surprised how easy it is to waste antiseptic/hydrogen peroxide in such a way. FAid 1 seems an okay requirement for 'you need a bit of training to know how not to pour stuff all over yourself/random stuff'

[Proxiehunter]

You'd be surprised how easy it is to waste antiseptic/hydrogen peroxide in such a way. FAid 1 seems an okay requirement for 'you need a bit of training to know how not to pour stuff all over yourself/random stuff'

I think everyone has just dumped rubbing alcohol or peroxide over a cut because they were in a hurry or lazy or didn't have a cotton ball handy and didn't want to grab some toilet paper to put it on. Has anyone done so because they didn't know how to put it on a cotton ball or because they didn't know that was possible to do?

As I said my main problem here is that I find it immersion breaking that the character doesn't know how to put antiseptic on cotton balls without training in how to do so.

[RoyalFox2140]

I really have no opinion on this because I use stuff like medigel from 2200 and even beforehand antispetic was never rare enough for the recipe to matter in general, but I really wish we'd stop changing how antiseptic works every couple of months. Last I recall it would give dirty items that were useless until it was changed to our current system.

I furthermore don't see a reason to use soaked rags and cotton balls on an injury at all, given it should be inferior disinfecting quality but a way to make your resource go farther. It would save resources since you're using less but I see no reason why using less would mean more quality and higher bite curing chance. I'm tempted to delete these recipes until someone decides to make antiseptic rare enough to make use of them.

[Proxiehunter]

I furthermore don't see a reason to use soaked rags and cotton balls on an injury at all, given it should be inferior disinfecting quality but a way to make your resource go farther. It would save resources since you're using less but I see no reason why using less would mean more quality and higher bite curing chance.

Last I was aware they were coded to have a lower chance not a higher one, although from a realism standpoint I'm not sure that's actually how it should work.

In real life when you dump from the bottle over a cut I'm like 90% sure you're not disinfecting it more you're just wasting peroxide or rubbing alcohol as it spills all over parts of your body that aren't open wounds and runs off into the tub or sink. Putting a small amount on a cotton ball or q-tip or a bit of toilet paper to apply to the cut lets you use a more correct amount applied directly to the wound being treated and provides the same (not better and not worse) disinfecting quality as just dumping the bottle.

It might be different if you're actually trying to remove physical debris, which in real life would be better done with running water but water safe to do that with is hard to come by in the cataclysm, but most use cases are simply making sure bacteria in a relatively clean cut or scrape are killed.

As for the rags and cotton balls not being dirty after I think that's still a bug not the recipe working as intended. I'm just glad it's not using up extra rags and cotton balls anymore.

[RoyalFox2140]

In real life when you dump from the bottle over a cut I'm like 90% sure you're not disinfecting it more you're just wasting peroxide or rubbing alcohol as it spills all over parts of your body that aren't open wounds and runs off into the tub or sink. Putting a small amount on a cotton ball or q-tip or a bit of toilet paper to apply to the cut lets you use a more correct amount applied directly to the wound being treated and provides the same (not better and not worse) disinfecting quality as just dumping the bottle.

That is what the medical skill is for. Proper application of any amount of medical supplies. You wouldn't only dump it on your cut, unless of course we simulate that at medical 0, in which case that applies to both.

[ZChris13]

the big issue with attempting to add realism is that you don't want to add button presses for nothing

[blot-runner]

My five cents on it. IMO "first aid 0" doesn't mean "no clue AT ALL", I mean, you cannot live your life without at least some exposure to treating cuts, abrasions etc. What it does mean, is "whatever knowledge you have on the first aid comes from the general osmosis, as opposed to the specific medical sources (even as basic as 1st aid booklet)". Like movies and books. Now, let's consider the run-off-the-mill treatment a hero is getting in an action movie. The bandage will be some random piece of fabric, probably from the female lead clothes, disinfection will be performed by pouring half a whiskey bottle into a wound (the other half being used internally prior to this as the painkiller), a bullet will be removed by poking the wound with a combat knife etc. etc.
So, yeah, pouring antiseptic into a wound instead of using cotton balls/tissue for careful application simply because they don't know any better is exactly what I'd expect from a character with zero in the first aid skill.

[Proxiehunter]

My five cents on it. IMO "first aid 0" doesn't mean "no clue AT ALL", I mean, you cannot live your life without at least some exposure to treating cuts, abrasions etc. What it does mean, is "whatever knowledge you have on the first aid comes from the general osmosis, as opposed to the specific medical sources (even as basic as 1st aid booklet)". Like movies and books. Now, let's consider the run-off-the-mill treatment a hero is getting in an action movie. The bandage will be some random piece of fabric, probably from the female lead clothes, disinfection will be performed by pouring half a whiskey bottle into a wound (the other half being used internally prior to this as the painkiller), a bullet will be removed by poking the wound with a combat knife etc. etc. So, yeah, pouring antiseptic into a wound instead of using cotton balls/tissue for careful application simply because they don't know any better is exactly what I'd expect from a character with zero in the first aid skill.

Depends on the movies you're watching. There are a lot where the female lead tenderly dabs at the heroes cuts and abrasions with an antiseptic soaked cotton ball in some cases scolding them for being a baby if they let out more than a stoic hiss at the sting of the antiseptic. Not to mention the direct experience of having ones own wounds treated by adults growing up. Did most of you really grow up getting the bottle dumped over your cuts and scrapes? As I said my mother was a nurse but I still find the idea that most people don't know about using a cotton ball or bit of tissue to more carefully apply the antiseptic.

[blot-runner]

Depends on the movies you're watching. There are a lot where the female lead tenderly dabs at the heroes cuts and abrasions with an antiseptic soaked cotton ball in some cases scolding them for being a baby if they let out more than a stoic hiss at the sting of the antiseptic. Not to mention the direct experience of having ones own wounds treated by adults growing up. Did most of you really grow up getting the bottle dumped over your cuts and scrapes? As I said my mother was a nurse but I still find the idea that most people don't know about using a cotton ball or bit of tissue to more carefully apply the antiseptic.

You'd probably be surprised, but (at least where I originally come from) some non-irritant antiseptics do come in bottles with a special nozzle to (apparently) facilitate exactly that. Maybe it's because they are meant to irrigate the wound as well as disinfect it, though. Also, I agree hat most people would probably not dump a whole bottle of the antiseptic on a scratch - but I don't think that the wounds that cost the character hit points are just minor scratches. And if we're talking deep cuts, lacerations etc.. well, the mentality of "bigger wound needs more stuff" looks like a plausible fallacy. But, frankly, it's not the hill I'm prepared to die on.

What bothers me more is the fact that right now:

1. Antiseptic-soaked rags have better disinfecting quality than antiseptic-soaked cotton balls.
2. Both recipes are vastly inferior to the antiseptic as it is.
   This doesn't seem to be a good thing balance-wise - there is exactly zero reason to bother with either recipe unless you're extremely short on the antiseptic, and if you are, crafting the one with the more abundant components also nets you a better quality result.

As I said, I'm not really invested in this topic, but if I was, I'd probably suggest leaving the skill requirement as it is, but changing the disinfecting quality of the stuff ("good" for cotton balls, to match the antiseptic, and "average" for the rags, to compensate for the abundance of the component).

[ZChris13]

blot-runner I think that making the change your advocating for would be extremely detrimental to the game. This is a bad change, it adds extra tedium to help add "realism". Let cotton balls be a trade-off between tedium and consumable use.

[blot-runner]

blot-runner I think that making the change your advocating for would be extremely detrimental to the game. This is a bad change, it adds extra tedium to help add "realism". Let cotton balls be a trade-off between tedium and consumable use.

Consider my interest officially piqued. From my experience with the game, as well as from what I was able to pick from other players' testimonies, first, antiseptic is rarely in such a short supply that you have to stretch it by crafting soaked rags/cotton balls and, second, to obtain cotton balls without at the same time obtaining rags in much greater quantity, you have to actively try for this exact situation. So, right now we have one nigh-useless recipe in the crafting list and one downright useless one, both cluttering already bloated crafting list.
I suggest to buff both the recipes without touching how the antiseptic itself works. So, for those who don't see any point in this, exactly nothing changes. Those, who do, will be able to stretch their supply of antiseptic (if they need it) at the expense of foraging for an additional ingredient, having a choice between using a somewhat rarer one for a better result, or literally common as dirt one for a slightly inferior one. This is detrimental... how, exactly?

Also, please note that nothing in my thoughts is concerned with realism. I've nothing against increasing the immersion, but here it's not the point. It's a game-balancing suggestion, and whether you love it or hate it, please assess it as such.

[ZChris13]

maybe it would be better to just remove cotton balls entirely and remove the useless antiseptic coated rag recipe

[blot-runner]

maybe it would be better to just remove cotton balls entirely and remove the useless antiseptic coated rag recipe

That certainly is an option (however, just for the record - it's the antiseptic soaked cotton balls you might want to remove, plain cotton balls have other important uses, notably production of the smokeless gunpowder), if the only thing we are worried about is the craft menu clatter. However, I, personally, don't see a problem with having lots of recipes, what I dislike is useless ones. As in, both not providing anything gameplay-wise, and not really great for the RP (SOME suboptimality for the purposes of roleplaying is ok, but decreasing the disinfection quality from good to poor...)

That said, I sure am not planning to suggest a PR changing this either way anytime soon, so, I guess, the actual solution will depend on the views of the people actually willing to do something on the topic)