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My take on the "Autodoc"

sabredog

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I'm sure at some point somebody has already posted something like this but here's my take on the technology and how I use it in my for a long time now. It used to be more complicated, but I've tried to make it as "player-friendly" as possible without also making it into some miracle cure for players who get blasted by a fusion gun or something. Feedback, as always is welcome.

This is a CT kind of thing - since that's all I have the rules for and play, so please show some mercy (at least sharpen the knives) if similar rules have been published elsewhere in Traveller - but to my knowledge the game for some reason always stayed away from this sort of tech. maybe it was too Star Wars/ Star trek?

Still, since I rarely have had the luxury of a diverse and large player group that can absorb casualties that get laid up for weeks at a time whenever they get into another bar fight and burn down the local Starbucks, I figured I'd better have something to keep them on their feet more often.



Autodoc TL-12+

Autodocs are semi to fully autonomous medical service systems that provide a wide array of services including first aid, surgery, trauma stabilization, and healing routines. Beginning at TL-12 they become increasingly advanced over the TL range by being able to add more patient modules and improvements in the expert systems can handle increasingly complicated procedures and treatments. They are quite handy for use onboard starships to supplement medical facilities on warships, or provide treatment for those crews without access to a doctor in a timely fashion.

At TL-12 and 14 patients can be treated with minimal monitoring by a doctor with at least Medical-2 skill in case emergency intervention is required. At TL-14 Medical-1 is required at a minimum for operation. At TL-15 the unit requires nothing more than occasional monitoring, often by using common remote medical pocket computers and no specific medical expertise is required to use one at this TL. As a safety measure if there are any complications developed during treatment (at all Tech Levels this feature is present) the system cannot handle – and there are no medically qualified personnel to intervene, the system will automatically induce cold sleep and function as an emergency low berth until medical help can intervene.

The base unit can treat one patient enclosed in a treatment capsule. The base and capsule require 2 tons of space for the complete unit. At each tech level above 12 another capsule can be added up to a maximum of 3, thus at TL-15 a fully equipped autodoc can treat 4 patients (base unit + 3 capsules) at once.

The materials used for treatment need to be replenished from time to time. The autodoc heals one point of damage for 1 point of medical supplies. The base unit has 50 points worth of medical supplies in the support unit. The rate of healing is 3 points per day per attribute worked on if the attribute is not at zero, 1 point per day per attribute if the attribute was at zero. Healing is prioritized by attribute in the following order: Endurance is healed up to full level first, then Dexterity, and then Strength. Autodocs cannot bring the dead back to life, but since they can double as a low berth with medical life support to keep the body functioning possible reanimation may be achieved at a facility capable of it depending on the extent of the injuries or disease involved.


Base Unit: .550 MCr

Additional Capsule: .250 MCr

Medical Supplies: 2,000 Cr per healing point of supplies
 
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Looks good. I have always used a Automed device, as someone protected by an antibiotic form and allowing robot within to perform needed healing. The miracle as call it comes from drugs. It is no replacement for a full-blown hospital but will stabilize a patient until help can come. It is sort of like the Medical Evac in Vietnam. Those helicopters could be fired upon gave great advantage to the American combatants. But, in of itself, is not enough.
 
One of the changes I'd do to the system as desribed by ... is to put the healing rate in multiples of natural healing, not in points/day, as it is different according to the degree of the wounds. It's not the same for a lightly wounded person than a criticaly wounden one. As the healing rules give different times depending on the graveness of the wounds, so should (IMO) the autodoc, and in no instance should it be faster than a full fledged hospital of the same TL.

Also I think it should be more useful for treating trauma (incluiding combat) wounds than diseases, as trauma is more predictable, while treating diseases is more intuitive.

The same way it would be better for surgery than for medicine, for mostly the same reasons. Medicine is quite more intuitive (it's treating 'software'), while surgery is more mechanical/delicate (it's treating 'hardware'), and so robotics are more usable.
 
I agree with the wounds vs. disease points, but as I said I eventually simplified it to make it as player-friendly as possible. Not that players are stupid, but too much book-keeping and complications (realistic though they may be) just slowed things down too much.

As for the wound treatment times: well, referee fiat always takes precedent. but I also am working from the direction that hospitals will use this same sort of technology since it will be available so there probably wouldn't be that much difference between how fast you heal up in a high-tech hospital's medical machine as you would in the same machine you purchased for your own use.

But, that said there isn't any reason why you couldn't augment the time it takes to heal - or slow it down - based on severity. If I have a player character who is down two attributes and most of his third he isn't going to be popping out of any autodocs in anything less than a couple of weeks. Even that might be too soon, but if you use this as a baseline then it can easily be adapted to the circumstances.

Just toss the wounded guy in and when the 'doc comes up with a treatment plan and diagnosis that says he'll be in there for two weeks and you have a doctor with Med-2+ available then maybe it could take less time. Conversely, just as with any serious injuries there isn't any reason why the player should expect that after having most of his hit points shot away by an automatic shotgun that it would be unreasonable that he maybe loses a couple points permanently. And if a doctor doesn't attend the machine while it's trying to stitch him back together he might lose even more.

As for natural healing time - well, I figure that in a sci-fi universe one of the reasons why something like this would even exist is so it could also help you heal faster - otherwise it probably wouldn't be all that profitable. Like anagathics - who'd want to live forever if you also ended up looking like you were 300 years old? SO I figure the faster healing time (but not necessarily the complete healing ability - some things just might never be the same - and believe me, from personal experience I know) would be an important factor in the machine's development.
 
Even at higher TLs, body needs some time to heal itself. To rejoin a broken arm will take about 2-3 weeks, as this is the rate at wich ostheocytes work. Same applies to any other injuries.

Of course that can be hastened by potent 'slow' drugs. One such drug that ages you a month in a day (30-1 factor) can heal this broken arm in one day or even less, but dangers are there...

If you are to live 30 days in one, your body needs the nutrients it will consume in those 30 days in 24 hours, and that can only be given IV. The ame aplies to the kidney funcion, etc... Your character would need some IV catheters, a blader catheter, oxigen supplements, etc, and I guess that would need a doctor caring even at TL 15.

As an example, if you heal a bone in hours, it will ltake the needed calcium from where it can, and so levels in your blood will diminish to dangerous levels, or it will take away from your tooth, nearly destoying them... If you repose it IV, you must carefully monitor the calcium levels or it will raise above the dangerous threshold... and so on

I don't mean players/referees should beware all medical details (they're probably not doctors nor nurses), just there would be some dangers involved, more so as more haste is put on healing...

As I used
to play MT, I'd make some tasks with time spans given for the level of the wounds, allowing tehm to be reduced as hasty tasks or raised as cautious tasks (in this case not requiring determination task, as it's only giving the autodoc computer the caurious program button).

I always assume medical tasks are done as caurious tasks whenever at all possible, as consequences of failed tasks (and more so of mishaps), as it's said, are covered with earth...
 
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But what if those "ingredients" for reconstruction are being supplied by an outside source? The supplies would include drugs such as anabolics, antigens, inhibitors for tissue rejection and compatibility, serums, etc. Plus artificial replacements to rebuild bone and tissues. It might shorten the time I would think.

There's no reason to expect that the body would have to provide all the resources itself or else you're right - the body would burn itself out stealing from one organ to repair another at an enhanced rate.

I would argue though, that some tissues just couldn't be replaced or repaired unless some radical procedure was done - serious nerve tissue damage would be right out, as would some organs probably unless there was cloning available ...but then I do have organ-leggers available in my game for that sort of thing if you just gotta have a new body and can't afford to wait for a regrown one. Perfected artificial organs could be implanted by the system to keep you going...or the cold sleep option used (as induced comas are used today for similar reasons) until whatever it is that just can't be realistically accelerated if ready for use.
 
But what if those "ingredients" for reconstruction are being supplied by an outside source? The supplies would include drugs such as anabolics, antigens, inhibitors for tissue rejection and compatibility, serums, etc. Plus artificial replacements to rebuild bone and tissues. It might shorten the time I would think.

There's no reason to expect that the body would have to provide all the resources itself or else you're right - the body would burn itself out stealing from one organ to repair another at an enhanced rate.

That's what I meant, they must be supplied from outside, with intravenous catheters (IV), but at very precise levels. To keep with calcium example, a human body needs aproximately 500 mg of calcium/day. If you must give it 15 gr in 24 hours, you must be very careful and precise, as 15 gr of IV calcium is a lethal dose (of course, for the patient it will be in 30 days of subjective time, that's the marvel of such 'slow' drugs).

I would argue though, that some tissues just couldn't be replaced or repaired unless some radical procedure was done - serious nerve tissue damage would be right out, as would some organs probably unless there was cloning available ...but then I do have organ-leggers available in my game for that sort of thing if you just gotta have a new body and can't afford to wait for a regrown one. Perfected artificial organs could be implanted by the system to keep you going...or the cold sleep option used (as induced comas are used today for similar reasons) until whatever it is that just can't be realistically accelerated if ready for use.

Here enter strem cells. They are expected to be able to replace those tisues long before we achieve TL15... hopefully we'l be able to replace nerve tisue, thooth (one of the main uses I foresee, even if one of the less commented), and even organs we now need to trasplant, if the body can survive for as long as it's needed to grow up them...

Another side effect from this kind of healing would be muscular atrophy. If 30 days in coma have passed subjectively for the patient, we can explect his/her muscles to be quite atrophied when recovers, needing some time of training to recover (I'll put his temporary strengh and dexterity to 1-2 and ned some days to build it up by training)

And we cannot forget the patient would have aged 1 month in 24 hours, so subjective age and cronologic age will disocciate even more (if you're conting it, as cold sleep, slow combat drugs, etc also affect that).
 
Now you see why I simplified it so that it would be simple for players. I'm just a humble cop and I don't even play a doctor on TV let alone in a game. Most of my medical expertise is limited to either first response training or pointing out to my partner which cute paramedic I want to make sure he has work on me if I get shot.

So, you just buy the widget and so long as you can afford to buy the supplies to make it work the players are happy. And I have less headaches with trying to explain to guys used to playing D&D why they can't just regrown the six feet of intestine they left on the street after yet another gun fight.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing with you in a negative sense - I totally agree, its just that I've been there and done that and nowadays I'd rather just simplify the process and spend more time on the story than all the grognardy, gearheady fun stuff that just leads to me beating the players over the head with a spiky clue-bat after they point out for the 50th time "...but in Empire Strikes BAck Luke was floating in that...". AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

Now when we play Call of Cthulhu that's different...but usually only because they just all go insane, die horribly, or shoot themselves anyway and save me the trouble. :rofl:
 
Now you see why I simplified it so that it would be simple for players. I'm just a humble cop and I don't even play a doctor on TV let alone in a game. Most of my medical expertise is limited to either first response training or pointing out to my partner which cute paramedic I want to make sure he has work on me if I get shot.

And that's why I tried to give you an explanation if how to represent it on MT (of course you can adapt it to any other Travellr version you play). Much tha same as cop procedures are siplified on a few admin/legal/law levels rolls just for e, humble nurses, to be able to play them...

So, you just buy the widget and so long as you can afford to buy the supplies to make it work the players are happy. And I have less headaches with trying to explain to guys used to playing D&D why they can't just regrown the six feet of intestine they left on the street after yet another gun fight.

Just tell them their cleric is not of high level enough to cast the 'regenerate' spell (7th level, IIRC, last time I played AD&D it was first edition...)

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing with you in a negative sense - I totally agree, its just that I've been there and done that and nowadays I'd rather just simplify the process and spend more time on the story than all the grognardy, gearheady fun stuff that just leads to me beating the players over the head with a spiky clue-bat after they point out for the 50th time "...but in Empire Strikes BAck Luke was floating in that...". AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

I don't get you wrong, nor do I take as negative the arguing. I just try to give you the rationale I see below the tasks I suggest. Once playing, just giving the tasks is needed, all the other stuff is just explictive and can be forgotten if it gives you headache (I guess your autodoc can treat that hedache, though...:devil: )
 
Excellent idea! I'll go punch up some valium and a vicodin chaser right now and go watch Firelfy to sooth my nerves.

I recall there was a really excellent article in one of the JTAS issues on medical care - trauma and otherwise, but it went over like a lead zeppelin when I implemented it. Some groups I've had would have loved that sort of thing, but I've noticed that as players have become less "wargamey" (or at least less interested in the fun grognardy stuff that fleshes out a game and can make it more like an RPG than a dice-fest) over time they don't seem to want to role-play as much as just "get stuff" and indulge in at least semi-munchkinism.

You'll have to excuse me now so I can go get some cheese to go with the whine and chemical escapism. ( I had my neck broken and back busted up when a lady parked her minivan in my lap while driving my patrol car a few years ago so I occasionally have to indulge in narcotic bliss to use my arm...one of these days I gotta go get some serious surgery done to fix it and then I'll have some new rules to torment players with and I'll be able to argue real experience instead of just referee fiat!)
 
Ah yes, JTAS #11 ....that has a great article with rules for patching up characters and trauma medicine.
 
The Paranoia Press* booklet Merchants and Merchandise (Jan. 1981) has an AutoDoc (TL13), along with lots of other gadgets.

Basically, it is a fully-enclosed bed, with automated surgical/life support equipment, etc.

weight: 600kg
length: 2.8m
width: 2.5m
height: 1m
purchase price 100,000cr
resupply cost 10,000cr

No Med skill needed; basic success 7+ for operation & diagnosis; incorrect operation & diagnosis on 4-; +1 per level of Med skill.

The autodoc will diagnose and suggest treatment, as well as provide basic life-support (respiration & circulation assistance, temperature regulation, and IV nutrient supply).

The autodoc can perform first aid and minor operations (dental work, suturing, appendectomies, etc), and diagnose unusual diseases/conditions (a separate throw of 5+ is needed). New programs for special environments or species cost 750cr.

The autodoc can treat 10 patients (on average) before resupply is needed (available at "A" starports of TL10+), which includes equipment servicing and recalibration by a tech with computer & electronics skills.

The autodoc can act as an low berth to stabilize critical patients for transport to a medical facility.




* waiting for incoming complaints of "non-canon source". :rolleyes:
 
It seems kind of small for something to treat 10 people...it must not be built more like a low berth like my concept is.

BTW: I have long wished I bought the Paranoia Press stuff. Not to mention the Judges Guild materials (other than my old ref shield - which is in tatters and stained with many a spilled Coke) and whoever it was that wrote those "sky Raiders" (sp?) adventures.

Besides, as far as I'm concerned all the canon I need is spelled out in LBB3 on page 48.
 
As I understood it, the autodoc can only treat one patient at a time, but that after treating an average of 10 people it has run out of consumables.
 
I'd make th resupplies available to worlds with TL enough, not by starport type... Even an A starport planet with TL 10 is unlikely (IMO) to have th drugs a TL 15 aurodoc needs, while a TL 15 planet could have this supplies, even if its starport was C (rare instance, I know).
 
OK, how about this for a change: each attribute worked on is done one at a time. Once ST is fixed, then work starts on the next one needed, and so on. That way it will better simulate the natural healing as it is enhanced by the accelerated (or at least really good) autodoc work.

Waddya'll think?

McPerth?
 
OK, how about this for a change: each attribute worked on is done one at a time. Once ST is fixed, then work starts on the next one needed, and so on. That way it will better simulate the natural healing as it is enhanced by the accelerated (or at least really good) autodoc work.

Waddya'll think?

McPerth?

The idea has merit.

If used, I'd suggest to begin always with End, then Dex, and finally St. Usually the first thing a patient recovers is its immune system, capacity to breath better and to resist pain, etc (IMO represented by End), then he/she recovers his manyal hability, capacity to stand, equilibrium, and so (Dex), but usually stays weak until the end of the recovery. That's why I'd use this order.
 
Works for me, I've had personal experience with that so it make sense. I'll add that in to the "official" write-up, then. Thanks!
 
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