I have to give credit for this to Johnny Nuclear since its his idea and I believe its worth trying. So here we go:Item description:
Needler Pistol
You suspect this Bringham needler pistol was once used for scientific field studies. It uses small hard-plastic hypodermic darts as ammo.
HN Needler Cartridge
Ammunition. This cartridge appears to be ammo for the HN Needler Pistol. Each 'bullet' is a small hypodermic designed to inject a target with its contents upon impact.
As the ammo description says, needler pistol is basically shooting small hypodermics.
The idea is to fill these hypodermics with same content as the regular stimpak has and use the gun to deliver healing shots over long distances. With 4 APs required to shoot at 24 hexes range this could be a way how to introduce medics into the game in both PvP and PvE, since current medic=crafter and its useless character when it comes to combat (I'm not questioning his ability to deal dmg but his ability to support others with his doc/fa skills).
Modified ammunition for needler pistol should have 2 basic types. Regular stimpack ammo and superstimpak ammo. Both ammo types should heal similar amount of HPs such as the healing drugs they are made of but with some changes. Since its used in modified hypodermics, they are smaller and made to travel for long distances so the healing efficiency of healing ammo should be slightly less compared to regular simpak/superstimpak. So if wiki says that stimpak does +40hp and superstimpak +100 then stimpak ammo should heal for 30 and superstimpak ammo for 90. Also healing for 90 HPs with only 4 AP required could be kinda imbalanced so I think using superstimpak ammo should trigger healing cooldown or weakness effect. There are many ways how to make it work.
One way is to make superstimpak ammo to have 1 or 2 min CD every time the shot is fired. Its simple and easy sollution.
The other way could be to create cooldown pool (15 minutes maybe). Everytime medic shoot with superstimp ammo, he will get +3 min added to his CD pool but once he reaches 15 min (= 5 shots fired), he will have to wait untill the whole 15 min CD wears off. But if he mannages to keep his CD under 15 minutes, he will be able to shoot superstimpak shots freerly. Also cooldowns should be applied only for superstimpak ammo while regular stimpak ammo remains with no restrictions.
Crafting table5x
= 1x Metal parts, 5x
Stimpak resources or
Superstimpak resources and proper tools.
Technical FAQQ: How could one ammo type deal damage while other heals?
A: At first I believe that regular HN Needler Cartridge that we are seeing ingame already is not empty. Imho its filled with some kind of a chemical that deals the dmg not the impact itself. Anyway even if I'm wrong on this the gun itself could be modified to decrease the projectile momentum so when it comes to impact the damage to skin is minimal.
Q: How can I effectively heal someone by shooting stimpacks, if I have to bypass his armor?
A: Armors are designed to protect the largest bodyparts well but armors are often weakened at joits, legs, hands etc. So it should be no problem to aim and shoot at the bodypart that is not protected by 3 mm thick metal plates. Only overall armor that could be problem to penetrate and deliver drugs to his wearer is PA armor.
Q: Shooting at legs? Come on you need to carefully inject stimpak or you can do some serious damage to yourself!
A: I think not.Q: And the aimed shots?
A: Well there is no real need for them and hitting your eye with pretty much anything is nothing pleasant. Anyway they can be used somehow for something in future so you are free to come up with ideas.
Q: +30/+90 HP? Are you insane?! 10 HP per shot tops!
A: Its a matter of balancing how this would reflect (mainly in PvP) but if you take a look at regular combat log then you will find out that the damage goes skyhigh and suggested healing values are reasonable.
Q: What about alting, multilogs and medic abuse in combat?
A: Well when it comes to alting then the risk are the same whenether its SG sniper alt or medic so if one chooses to multilog it does not matter with what character he breaks the rules.
Q: Enough. Lol. Its not real nor fallouty!
A: Not
real? Not
fallouty?
SummarizationPros+ new element in combat (for both PvP and PvE)
+ combat could be more tactical and longer
+ adds field use for medics (right now medic=crafter)
+ potential to use it in other similar ways such as poison darts (used in Fallout Tactics), paralyzing shots...
Cons- require some work to implement and balance it (such as everything), but still it seems like something rather easy to implement
- not realistic or fallouty for some players