This is a verbose collection of my personal (and now others' too) experience playing a corpsman, finally put into writing after people occasionally asking me for advice on playing medic. Some points may seem obvious, some may not.
I'm open to feedback and will update with more info!
Addittional thank you to: Ttly, MistChristmas, Phenom1250, Nunk
Last update: 11.11.2022
GENERAL
- Heal/Revive first, engage in firefights second.
- Heal/Revive away from frontlines, pull bodies away if you don't have time to revive. Watch out for a skirmish's dynamic, if everyone's being pushed back, it's better you retreat with the dead marine then heal.
- Prioritise reviving medics over others. There is a chance they are stupid and will just run off but generally they are of greater use immediately alive than other roles. Next come officers, SLs, specs/SGs, and non-rifleman roles. When overwhelmed with dead marines - prioritise dead ones over those dying. But when it's a dead marine and a critical marine, I instead go for the latter because not only will you get them back into fighting condition faster, but because you'll need more time to heal them once they are dead. At least try to pill them (tram, bica/kelo) and salve bad bleeding wounds (like chest with 100+ brute) or administer Quick Clot - it stops any type of bleeding.
- After reviving a marine don't forget about their equipment (his armour and gun). Redress them if you have time and they aren't waking up just yet. Same goes for when pulling away an unconscious/dead marine, take their gun at least.
- Loot perma-dead medics for pills, and other supplies. As pointed out by Phenom1250, this doesn't mean you shouldn't store up on medical supplies shipside, it's just an option to keep in mind.
- When pulling someone away, be it one a stretcher or just dragging, use analyser and kits with your other hand - saves time.
- When drugging someone, always check what they already have some in their bloodstream. Nothing as nasty as a critical overdose (usually above 50 units - or 4 doses of a drug)
- When helping another medic, always let them know what you're doing (like "splinting", "suturing", "CPR"). And never administer pills alongside other medics. More often than not this leads to ODs. And god forbid it's tramadol which metabolises cunningly slowly. Everything considered, you shouldn't be helping other docs in the first place, unless asked directly, or the patient is about to die (orange or flashing orange), as suggest by Phenom1250.
- Splints come off when the respective body part is attacked, keep that in mind.
- Dragging a Nanomed onto yourself instantly gives a Health Analyzer report.
On Triage
- Kits -> pill -> splint -> suture/graft. Kits are applied instantly and stop bleeding. Pills should go next to kick in as quickly as possible. Splinting/extra healing comes last while the patient is getting his wits about.
- Always finish treating each marine, unlees there are multiple dead and you're on defib spree. This includes pilling and splinting, at the very least torso parts.
- Not sure if this was around before, but now, game-mechanics-wise, burn damage is applied through one's body temperature, not by fire directly, just like in real life. This means that even after having been extinguished, one's burn damage will continue to mount. This means using burn kits immediately is inefficient.
- Actually use painkillers. They may not seem necessary (and I don't know why the fuck some medics don't use them) - one will be less slowed down and less distracted by screen blur. It also might save them if they are wounded again. Say, had they not been given painkillers, they would be critted. But thanks to tram they manage to make it out alive.
- When someone is dead, meds don't metabolise (i.e. don't work) but pills get digested (i.e. get into your bloodstream and ready to metabolise once the heart starts pumping). It makes sense to administer inaprovaline (maybe peri+dex+dylo if you suspect bad organ dmage) before reviving so they get working right away and prevent them dying again (see on the drugs' mechanics below). That is if you're not running out of time on revival.
- 300-400 damage marines can be revived. Don't abandon them. It is possible to revive someone even above 700, e.g. if it's evenly spread burn damage. Just salve and graft/suture them, inject epinephrine, and keep defibbing.
- Defibrillation will only work on someone who has less than 200 overall damage. Each attempt heals a bit, but has a 25% chance to deal 5 damage to one's heart (see point on organ damage below), so don't overdo it. Epinephrine boosts heal per defib attempt and is partially consumed, use it when a guy's royally fucked and you intend to actually revive him. A dead person has 5 minutes before becoming permanently dead, flashing orange icon means 1 minute is left. Marines with broken heart sign are revivable but have a busted heart, thus can't be revived because there is nothing to pump blood - evac those ASAP. Surgeons will quickly fix their heart and proceed to revive them
- When defibing you can freely operate with your other hand or even drop the defibrillator. So you can potentially administer pills or use kits while at it. Makes sense to employ that when one is badly damaged, so you're not getting them up after one or two defibs anyway. Salve and splint while defibing instead of simply waiting for another go.
- Bicardine overdose (above 30u) heals internal bleeding, but only when other brute damage in that body part is gone and only the one coming from IB is left. Standard ratio is 3 bica + 1 kelo (counteracts bica OD), that is 15 bica OD, which is usually enough. But monitor that particular patient, in case he needs more OD or his burns are bad.
- On oxygen, toxin and organ damage
- By and large, organs get randomly damaged upon receiving extreme brute damage, moving with unsplinted fractures, and due to armour piercing damage to respective torso part. If organ damage occurs administer peridaxon (which doesn't heal organs but stops negative effects) and dexaline (heals 4 oxy/tick) or/and dylovene (2 toxin/tick), and send the marine to a surgeon or evac them.
- Oxygen damage is caused by either a person simply being dead - it will build up until one is revived and will not come back or will stay capped at 21 after revival. Another cause is blood loss - bleeding wounds and internal bleeding. Minor one leads to the tell-tale 21 oxygen damage. Blood can be regenerated by eating or administering iron. Critical levels of blood (haven't seen these often so not sure on exact threshold - it's around 70%) will cause quick build-up of oxygen damage and even toxin damage until death. Bleeding intensity scales with wound severity, so be vigilant of chest/groin/head wounds as these can receive a lot of brute damage.
- Yet another cause is lung or heart damage. Same 21-threshold works here. Usual cause is bad chest damage or people walking without chest splints (or it coming off). Lungs will get ruptured after certain amount of damage to them and will cause lots of oxy damage in that state. Any heart damage below 10 will instantly produce 21 oxy damage. At 10 heart damage, this jumps to 50 and slowly grows. At 30 the heart ruptures rendering a person unrevivable until fixed via surgery. In this case they need to be delivered to a surgeon ASAP. Another symptom of large heart damage I noticed once is a person constantly passing out though easily awoken. They will appear standing up then instantly falling.
- Liver and kidney damage are pretty straightforward. They will cause toxin damage build-up depending on severity. Damage to them will also be caused by extreme toxin damage.
- Artificial limbs and synths are healed using cable coil (brute) and welding (burn).
- Shake freshly defibbed people if they are shakeable, it'll get them up if they are under 150 total damage. (by Ttly)
- Shake hugged people to wake them up quicker so they can go and be treated, it takes about 25 minutes for a human to burst outside of nests. (by Ttly)
- Stasis bags don't have much use now and are primarily useful for slowing larva growth, when a marine can't be promptly operated. Critical OD (4 doses of a drug - above 50u for most) is another case. You can put a marine in a bag and send him to surgery that way. But in the case of some critical ODs a stasis bag won't help much either, because the marine can still die and pop out of the bag. IB, crit-pain, and the rest don't warrant the stasis. The worst part is one falls asleep inside it, so they can't leave it when shit hits the fan, unlike any stretcher. (suggested by Ttly)
On pills, meds and other medical equipment
- I always pack one additional bottle of tram, bica and kelo. I have rarely run out of those (Only when there were 4+ hour rounds a few years ago).
- I always pack a mini-extinguisher! Alternatively, use an underbarrel version. Technically it is a better option - saves you a slot.
- Custom drugs: the most useful is ImiAlky which actually allows you to fix eye and brain damage, otherwise can only be healed via surgery. Iron is great too - regenerates blood much better than food (IronSugar isn't any more effective). N MeraBica, TriBica and KeloDerm are just better alternatives to conventional drugs, not really necessary but good to have.
- NitrogenWater (NW for short) is a great utility drug to have. It deals with tramadol overdose. Water and nitrogen together with tramadol form paracetamol in 1:1:1 ratio. Default wiki-recipe NW contains 10u of water and 10u of nitrogen. So each pill deals with 10u of tram to form 30u of paracetamil. However, tramadol and paracetamol themselves mix into toxin.
- As mentioned in the general section, Quick Clot comes useful when you need to quickly stop bleeding from wounds, e.g. when you're overwhelmed with critically wounded and you have no time to salve/suture each and everyone.
- Inaprovaline works by making it so you won't take oxy damage once you hit 150 total damage, 150 total damage is called critical state, you instantly drop unconscious and build up oxy damage until you hit 200 total, this is unrelated to lung damage (by Ttly)
- You can restock splints, kits, autoinjectors, splints in medivendors/NanoMed dispensers or any machine that has a stock of respective item - just click on them to refill it. Use this to get extra stacks of splints before drop in a DS's wall vendor. I pack at least five stacks in my belt. Defibrillators (FYI powercells cannot be restocked through vendors now only be recharged in chargers as of 15 July 2022). Same for powercells, just FYI.
- APCs now have minivendor inside containing kits, splints and "most of the common injectors" - make liberal use of those and hop in to restock them.
- Always use splints and have plenty on hand - untreated fractures deal damage or even hurt internal organs: ribs go for lungs and liver, groin - for kidneys, skull - brain and eyes. All are very nasty and will certainly require evac.
- Additional drugs: the most useful is ImiAlky which actually allows you to fix eye and brain damage, otherwise can only be healed via surgery. Iron is great too - regenerates blood much better than food. MeraBica, TriBica and KeloDerm are just better alternatives to conventional drugs, not really necessary but good to have.
- Tricordrazine is a universal drug that heals all types of damage albeit slowly. But for a field medic it is useful because it boosts bica, kelo and dylo. If you happen to have a trica injector, use it to jab those with bad damage. Same goes for Meralyne (in MeraBica) and Dermaline (in KeloDerm) but there doesn't happen to be easily accessible respective injectors.
- In March 2022, surgical line and synth-graft were added to CM as a part of regular medic's kit. These act like infinite kits that heal brute and burn damage respectively. However, they take time to apply. Good thing, they stack with kits as stated in the changelog: "Kits and sutures partly stack, kit effectiveness varying to a minimum of 50% healing on a fully-sutured limb. Same final heal amount no matter the order of mixed suture and kits". As for salving, rule of thumb is anything above 20. I always pack 2 advanced medkits for this reason.
- It makes sense to wear default equipment that doesn't have medic markings on it: these are satchels/backpacks and helmets. Medical belts also have them, but there are no way around these. Yes, xenos can try and aim for special marine roles like it's 1945 all over again.
- Let's talk guns. As a proper medic, you shouldn't be see much combat yourself. If you are, then you're a bad corpsman (alternatively, xenos are terrible that particular round). Hence ammo will not be much of a problem for you, and you should be using a shotgun, preferably with buckshots. This guide mentioned pistols before, but I, through bitter experience and others' suggestions, found them to be impractical: most of the time you'll need a gun is when scaring a lurker/runner away - shotgunful of buckshot is superior in this regard.
- General Equipment. Logistics IMP backpack used to be awesome: it has immidiate access while the size of a proper backpack. It is not available in medics' prep vendors anymore, unfortunately. But you can still grab them off perma IOs. Alternatively, use rocket backpacks, they function the same way. Use syringe cases to store your extra autoinjectors (epinephrine, trica or dex+). I also like to have a pair of binos/rangefinders about because having battlefield awarness is convenient.
BONUS
Lovely macro to pick up any gun or weapon you dropped:
Pick-up M41A-Pulse-Rifle-MK2 \nPick-up M41AE2-heavy-pulse-rifle \nPick-up M37A2-pump-shotgun \nPick-up L42A-battle-rifle \npick-up XM88-heavy-rifle \nPick-up MOU53-break-action-shotgun \npick-up mk221-tactical-shotgun \nPick-up HG-37-12-pump-shotgun \npick-up Spearhead-Rival-78 \nPick-up M240A1-incinerator-unit \nPick-up sawn-off-shotgun \nPick-up Mateba-Autorevolver \nPick-up MAR-50 Light-Machine-Gun Pick-up m12-blast-grenade \npick-up M40-HEDP-Grenade \npick-up M40-HEFA-Grenade \npick-up M40-HIDP-Incendiary-Grenade \npick-up M15-Fragmentation-Grenade \npick-up Type-5-Shrapnel-Grenade \nPick-up M42A-scoped-rifle \nPick-up M5-RPG \nPick-up M22-rocket-bags \nPick-up M4RA-battle-rifle \nPick-up M92-grenade-launcher \nPick-up clan-mask \npick-up war-glaive \npick-up chain-whip \nPick-up combi-stick-(wielded) \nPick-up clan-sword \npick-up combi-stick \npick-up double-war-scythe \nPick-up fire-axe \npick-up Lunge Mine \npick-up ceremonial-dagger