This guide hopes to answer the questions of what do I take as a medic, and how do I use it? This guide does not set out a definitive loadout for all medics to take, but it does set out to tell you what is useful to have in your loadout and what isn't.
Stacked meds.
Stacked meds refers to gauze, ointment, splints, etc., which comes in stacks and is used up by targeting a body part (in the bottom right of the HUD) and clicking a dude with them.
Gauze.
Applies three effects only to the targeted body part.
- Stops bleeding.
- Begins healing brute damage over time.
- Prevents and cures stage 1 infections caused by untreated brute damage.
Advanced Trauma Kit.
These work the same as gauze, but they also immediately treat 12 brute damage on the affected limb. You'll want to use these on body parts that are on the verge of sustaining a bone break, which occurs when the body part has more than 20-40 brute damage on it.
Ointment.
Essentially gauze for burns, this has two effects on targeted body parts.
- Begins healing brute damage over time.
- Prevents and cures stage 1 infections caused by burn damage.
Leaving severe burns untreated for a while is gonna make 'em smell terrible and get stage 1 infected too. Use ointment for that.
Advanced Burn Kit.
Basically ointment++, this heals 12 burn damage on the targeted body part. Severe burns doesn't cause bone breaks like severe brute does, but you'll use a lot of these anyway, as burns tend to come distributed all over the body: you can get a marine out of crit into good health as fast as you can use ABKs on them.
Splints.
Like the above, splints only work on one body part. When used on a body part with a broken bone, it:
- Decreases pain caused by the bonebreak.
- Prevents movement from damaging the body part and relevant internal organs.
Splints aren't a life-or-death matter on other body parts, but still important if you want the patient combat-effective.
Your health analyzer will tell you the location of any broken body parts unless it's the groin/chest/head, in which case you'll have to find out which of them is broken by seeing which has/had more than 40 brute damage.
Autoinjectors.
Just click on a dude with these. The drugs will work instantly.
No refunds, though you can refill these by click-dragging them into whatever vendor they came out of.
Quick Clot autoinjector (3 units).
Better known as QC, it's your only way to stop internal bleeding.
You have a limited amount of these, make them count. Save expended injectors to restock them.
Dexalin Plus autoinjector (1 unit).
Damaged organs, low blood levels, and severe brute/burn damage can cause rapid oxygen damage to the patient. Dexalin plus instantly removes all oxygen damage for a short period of time - enough to prevent the patient's needless death while you fix them.
Oxycodone autoinjector (5 units).
Makes one instantly stop feeling pain for a short while. Can stop you from falling over right before you reach the safety of your brothers in arms, or get your patient up on their feet (if combined with a few help intent shake-ups). But it doesn't last very long.
Inaprovaline autoinjector (15 units).
If you need to stop someone from dying on you, but you won't be available to immediately treat them - such as if you have to treat multiple critical patients at once - you can use the inaprovaline autoinjector to keep them alive a little bit longer before they get your treatment.
Also not a bad field painkiller, jab someone who's barely in crit and they'll feel good enough to keep running.
Dylovene (Anti-Toxin) autoinjector (5 units).
Overdoses, super low blood levels, and blood type mismatches aren't common situations, but if they're rapidly life-threatening you'll want to use one of these.
Tricordrazine autoinjector (15 units).
A decent cure-all. Works slow, but it will stack with other drugs to decrease brute, burn, and toxin damage. If you really need someone important up as soon as possible, jab them with this and then give them the main pills.
Bicaridine autoinjector (5 units).
This injector doesn't really find its niche much. If someone's dying of massive brute damage, they'll need the dexalin plus or inaprovaline injector, and if they're not dying then they can certainly wait for a pill and gauze.
Kelotane autoinjector (5 units).
Like the bicaridine autoinjector, not very many uses. Inaprov/dex plus if they're dying of burns, pills and ointment if they're not.
Pill bottles.
Just click on a dude with these take the pill out of the pill bottle first, then click on a dude with it. The drugs take around ten seconds to actually appear in the patient's bloodstream, so don't expect instant relief in a life or death situation. Overdoses are common with pills due to their large size and delayed appearance on an HF2 scanner, so make sure to avoid this if you're working with another medic on a patient.
Tramadol pill bottle (14 pills, 15u).
20% actually useful, 80% stops your patients from bitching you about "muh trammy me want trammy reeeEEEE TRAMMYDOLL REEEE".
Gets those useless assholes writhing on the floor in pain back to fighting. Make sure you actually treat them first though, don't want Bobby Brokenbones running off to tear his lungs a new trachea before you're done splinting him.
Marines generally eat pills they find on the floor so if you're overwhelmed with patients just toss this on the floor and laugh as the peasants scramble for their scraps.
Kelotane pill bottle (7 pills, 15u).
Me see patient with yellow damage everywhere, me use kelotane. Doesn't really get more complicated, although as mentioned before often you'll see a guy have like 10-20 burn damage on all his limbs in which case you can get rid of 80% of the burn damage instantly with just advanced burn kits.
Bicaridine pill bottle (10, 10u)
Bread and butter pill, use on anyone with severe brute. Double it up with a tricordrazine injector if you really need the guy fully healed soon.
Dexalin pill bottle.
Somewhat useful to slow down the rate at which someone dies from oxygen loss. You won't actually remove oxygen damage with it though, it heals too slowly compared to oxygen loss caused by low blood or damaged organs.
Antibiotic pill bottle.
Cures stage 2 (and stage 3 when overdosed) infections which are nearly always a result of a surgeon not washing their hands.
Slows down the rate of growth of any parasites in the human body.
Dylovene pill bottle.
Me see green, me use dylo-veen. For overdoses, infections, and blood type mismatch. Depending on severity of damage, will outheal or slow down toxins loss caused by liver/kidney damage.
Inaprovaline pill bottle (7 pills, 30u).
Relieves less pain than tramadol, but also goes through the body slower. Bonus effect of preventing death if the patient falls into crit as a result of being overconfidence caused by the double painkillers you gave them.
Russian Red pill bottle.
This thing sucks. It cures radiation damage (which never happens) by causing some brute damage. Not a lot of brute damage either, it sucks at that too.
WYmed/chemistry/illegal pill bottles.
These are pill bottles that doctors can legally distribute if authorized to do so by the acting CO and CMO, or illegally distribute anyway when they don't get authorization. Or you can find them in WYmeds planetside that engineers hack for access.
Peridaxon pill bottle (10 pills, 10u).
Organs tend to get fucked up over time, this is the only way to fix them outside surgery. You'll know you need to use this when a patient has oxygen damage despite regular levels of blood, or random toxins damage, or the HF2 scanner says they have brain/eye damage. These are present in WYmeds you can find planetside or in the Almayer medbay.
PeriDex plus pill bottle (? pills, ?).
A chemistry-only mix of Peridaxon and Dexalin Plus. The idea here is for the Dexalin Plus to stop shredded lungs/heart from killing the patient while the peridaxon heals them.
Iron(-Sugar) pill bottle.
Chemistry-only. Iron and sugar both increase blood levels. Not a whole lot though.
Keloderm pill bottle.
Dermaline is basically kelotane++ and stacks with kelotane to create a drug mixture that's about 3x faster at curing burn damage. Often comes in larger dosages too.
Deployables.
Deployables all operate on the same principle: they have a "folded" version that you can carry in your hands or backpack, and a "deployed" version on the floor. To "re-fold" a deployed deployable, just click drag it to your sprite.
Roller bed.
Drag a patient onto the top of the deployed roller bed and click-drag them onto the roller bed sprite. Control-click the roller bed and you can now drag the patient around at full sanic speed. Usually deserves a slot in your backpack if you're near the front lines.
Stasis bag.
Freezes a dude. Drugs stop healing them, but they also stop dying of whatever's killing them. Your "fuck it" option for when, for whatever reason, you can't treat yet another patient in crit.
Any parasitic organisms present in the patient will have their metabolism slowed down and grow far slower as a result.
Body bag.
Hides a person from view. You can use this to hide SSDs so medics don't keep going over to check out the guy who's fallen on his side.
You can also hide yourself/a patient in it if you're surrounded by hostiles and/or wounded. Drop it, get in, zip it up, and hope for the best.
Miscellaneous medical items.
These are various medical support items you find in the medic vendor in prep.
Medical satchel.
If you want less space but easier accesibility.
Medical backpack.
If you want more space but less accessibility. Also makes you much more identifiable as a medic to any hostiles.
Pouches.
Generally just pick whatever you like, medical pouch is three directly accessible slots for any medical gear, medkit pouch lets you store more stuff more inconveniently, syringe pouch is pointless, magazine pouch lets you keep some ammo in quick reach. A good choice can be to not take a pouch and keep your HF2 scanner directly in your pocket, since you'll be using it a lot and more clicks are more hassle.
Emergency defibrillator.
Eight charges of ten-second defibs that removes ten burn and brute damage as well as removing all oxygen damage. If the patient's damage drops to below 200 when defibbing, the defibrillator will say it was successful, else it'll say vital signs are too damaged. Recharges in the medbay, present in hacked WYmeds too.
If someone has significantly above 200 damage of burn and brute spread across many body parts, you can use advanced trauma and burn kits on them to get the damage below 200 for defibbing.
HF2 health analyzer.
Keep one of these on you at all times and slap it on anything that's not a full green bar on your HUD. Keep a spare on you in case you get knocked over with it in hand and have to run away.
Hypospray.
30u storage capacity, 5u per injection, these are essentially six-use autoinjectors that can be directly refilled with syringes or bottles. You can take these from the medbay, risking being arrested for contraband, or from hacked WYmeds planetside.
Syringe case.
Found in various first aid kits, these contain a syringe and two bottles of assorted chemicals. These fit in belts and can fit autoinjectors in them if you need the extra space.
First-aid kit.
Ordinarily contain gauze, ointment and a scanner, but nothing's stopping you from tossing that crap out and replacing it with extra autoinjectors and pill bottles.
Advanced first-aid kit.
Your source of extra trauma/burn kits and splints. Dump the tricord autoinjectors if you care enough to replace them with something else.
Miscellaneous non-medical items.
Some odds and ends a medic might find useful strewn around the Almayer.
Fire extinguisher.
Keep one in your backpack, disable the safety, and spray down the commander while he's giving a briefing anyone on fire.
Welding tool.
Repairs brute damage to cybernetic limbs. You better have a welding goggles, mask, or peridaxon if you don't want to be Cataracts in my Eyes Johnson.
Cable coil.
Repairs burn damage to cybernetic limbs. At least you don't fuck up your eyes repairing snowflakes' cyberlimbs with these.
Flask.
These can be filled with up to sixty units of any chemicals and fit onto one's helmet. Only available in canteen vendors, though.
Food.
Other than iron sugar, is the only way to restore blood levels. Certain food types fit onto your helmet.
Weapon and attachments.
Don't use the SMG, it sucks.
Support attachments like rail lights, gyros, and underbarrel flamers are usually better for you than stuff like rail scopes or extended barrels since you shouldn't really be in combat much. But sometimes the marines are going to need another rifle more than they need another dead weight.
Conclusion.
Most autoinjectors are crap, most pill bottles should stay in a medkit in your backpack, you can never have too many trauma/burn packs and splints.
That about sums it up. Drop me any suggested changes or extra information in the comments, I'm open to modifying the guide to improve the experience.
