As it is each marine can choose whether or not to take medical supplies and that happens at the cost of space in their gear. What if each marine was given a standard issue IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) with all the supplies they could need on the ground while not undermining the role of corps man? What if we could increase both the survivability and combat effectiveness of marines at the same time?
That is possible with the addition of an IFAK pouch.
My idea of its contents is as follows:
*First of all the standard EZ autoinjectors contained in the medical pouch at every marine prep. Being in a pouch they can be accessible as easily as they ever were for the marine.
*Bandages, ointment and splints. Basic injury treatment even if no corpsman is nearby. Can’t have a marine limping as the queen is pushing.
*1 pill of IA. Because IA needs to be produced by medbay and that is up to the corpsman’s request. Just one of these pills at the hand of every marine would prevent the need for surgery should it arises (it will)
freeing up workload for any FOB docs and allowing them to focus on the more gravely injured marines. If giving them IA is too much it may as well just be an Imidazoline pill just so the marine can see where the hell they are going
*Speaking of surgery, 2 pills of Peridaxon. 2 to ensure the marine can make it even with a popped lung far enough to be rescued. Reduces the amount of casualties by internal damage.
*1 pill of NW. Because tram OD can just happen.
*1 Meal from the MRE. Like the one cryo self defence kits have to treat blood loss should no food be available.(This would have been an Iron pill but from what I hear they are pretty bad compared to simply eating. I am not quite sure how that works so maybe add the iron pill)
Keep in mind this IFAK won’t only help a marine in standard conditions of combat but also in case they are alone and injured. Just long enough to be rescued. I kept in mind every possible thing that could be added in an IFAK while not undermining the corpsman role as they will still need to get you fixed when gravely injured and they can do it faster and better. It will just make their lives easier.
Personally, I would rather increase marine reliance on Corpsman, not decrease it.
I do appreciate the idea of developing a standardize medical pouch/IFAK for Marines to take however and slightly boosting the standard pouch? Perhaps we can also add pouches that are designed for Marines to help others? Like a life-saver IFAK that carriers innaprov.
Remove all autoinjectors aside from the emergency one from regular marine use, only Corpsman and above can access them and have the skills to use them
4 packs of Pills are now standard issue, but only a tricord one, but they are able to be refilled by a Corpsman and above.
Marines (except Corpsman) can only make usage of bandages, ointment, splints, tricord pills and the emergency autoinjector. Anything else requires the intervention of a Corpsman.
Restrict or remove the easy access of UNGA.
Then, we can buff the medical pouch to an IFAK and make it carry all these standard supplies, plus at least one MRE.
I think the marines are fine where they are in terms of reliance on medics. On one hand, I understand the desire to increase the reliance on medics; it incentivises teamwork and discourages marines from just deathballing on their own. However, I think we should be careful to not just straight up make Corpsmen effectively the only source of healing, as this could easily lead to corpsmen getting overwhelmed after a runner manages to slash a few people once. Moreover, there are a variety of situations where a corpsman might not be available, and when these happen, I don’t think a marine should be automatically fucked.
Replace this with the basic medical items spawning in the backpack, no Medbay meds, add a cocktail of Peri / Dex / Dylo (postpones ODs and some organ failure without magically fixing them for free).
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day … teach a man how to make a fishing pole …
Made sprites based upon this idea out of pretty much sheer boredom, each color for each squad or lack thereof
Can fit 5 items, starts with the following, and probably only whitelisted items;
Knife
bandages
ointment
health analyzer (so-so on this) OR a tourniquet for IB that deals increasing pain crit that tramadol cant outheal
splints
Can fit in a bag as a large sized item or a pouch slot for quick equipping the knife, if youre into that
Ideally this would be a loadout buy item, something like a 30 point buy for rifleman that decreases by 5 point each subsequent rank (25 for LCPL, 20 for CPL, 15 for SGT+)
While I do agree that marines should be relying on team work more often, being able to at the very least, tend to yourself or a downed teammate at a basic level should be a basic requirement
I think some of OPs suggestions are a bit extreme though, your standard grunt wouldnt exactly know what IA or NW is but in a gameplay standpoint, id say it would be a bit too much
My suggestion only tackles the problem of inventory storage by adding a pouch that you can put in your satchel or the arguably useless G8 bag post-inventory nerf
I wont be PRing anything yet thats for certain though
Well I think the squad specific IFAK is not necessary. It’s one for everyone. I also think that if this was to be added it should be a standard issue pouch that contains everything a marine will need. That includes the meds in the autoinjector pouch or maybe the first aid and painkiller ones in the vendors at medbay. Complex chems may be too much it seems so I’d at least want some basic chem treatment in that kit if no medic is around. I’d say it’s a good idea to get rid of all the excess pouches with pills, bandages ointment and splints that nobody uses. This won’t only be practical in terms of usefulness and what the devs have in mind for the game, but also realistic as IFAKs exist in every modern soldier’s kit.
The first three are trivially easy to carry, put the bandages and ointment (why would you bring ointment?) in your helmet, and there’s literally a knife in every pair of boots, tourniquet is pretty much a Ideaguys idea on it’s own, health analyzer and splints are something I always bring with so I might just be biased on those but the splints seem like a very easy addition to a loadout.
I do agree, the knife part was mainly just for aesthetic purposes or for the rare person using a holdout or D8 pistol.
Its mainly for those that want essentially a mini-medkit inside of their bags as a storage solution (or to put on their pouch slot for the knife) if they got no place else for their meds hence why my suggestion only aims to solve the storage problem of OPs post.
OPs post to begin with is a pretty far-fetched take, really.
As for ointment, it is pretty useless, 5 burn regen per tick/lifeloop/whatever is really not that great, Id honestly rather have trico in there but its what I put in my suggestions for uniformity.
Oh yeah I 100% agree that if it were to exist and have a bandage it should also have ointment, I just wanted to point out that if you want another item in your helmet instead (like me) you can easily cut out the ointment.
