OK here we go, here are some starting tips I gathered playing as my medic characters. I thought I'd draft this due to the apparent lack of Medic characters out there.
Start as an Artisan
- Might sound strange, but you might want to consider starting the game as an Artisan. You will get a Generic Crafting Station, and two survey tools which are quite helpful to aspiring Medics.
- At the Planet Selection Screen, make sure to migrate your stats to where you want them to be (stat migration at the Planet Selection screen is without time penalties).
- Medics need high Mind pools, and if you go along my route, you will also need a large Action pool. Specifically, you need high stat values of Stamina and Willpower, which control the regeneration speed of your Action and Mind pool, respectively.
Gathering Resources
- This is the most laborous of the Medics duties at the moment. Without a working Bazaar system, resources must be obtained person to person, or Medics must go out and forage their own.
However, even when the Bazaar system is working, gathering your own resources is cheaper, more reliable, and not very hard past the initial grind. A lot of starting medics like to get their resources by picking up Novice Scout and /harvesting corpses, but I find that Artisan Survey/Sample is jsut as effective. Also, Suvey/Sample gives you greater control on the resources you collect and provides resources needed for higher level packs (metal, chemical, water, etc.)
- Read Kebernet's post on Crafting to get an idea on how to survey/sample efficiently. You will want to look for organic materials (Flora Survey tool) that are high in Potency, Potential Energy, and Overall Quality (these stats can be viewed by selecting 'Examine' from the resource's radial menu).
- If you want to be self-reliant in the resources field (this becomes very important once you start making higher level medpacks) you will want to get a hold of harvesters as quickly as possible.
- Find an Engineer (or climb the tree yourself if you want, you need Engineering III and IV in the Artisan tree to make the neccessary harvesters) who is willing to make you a harvester. A diehard medic will need harvesters for Flora, Chemical, and Mineral (metal) in that order of importance.
Some Preliminary Grind
- Starting medics can only craft Stimpack As. These can heal damage only, and while useful, are not the most important medpacks out there. To obtain the ability to heal wounds, you must train in the skill of Organic Chemistry I.
- To obtain OCI, you must have 500 points of Medical Crafting XP. Crafting XP is received every time you use up a medpack (not when it's made). Thankfully, crafting XP can be received regardless of who the patient is.
- I would advise any starting Medic to obtain OCI and gather a large base of organics before heading to the hospital for their residency.
- To obtain OCI quickly, follow this simple 20-30 minute program. Using the survey/sample tips from Kebernet's post, find yourself a nice spot for an organic material. While sampling the resource, open up your crafting station and start making Stimpack As with the material you are gathering. As you sample, you will lose Action points. Use the Stimpacks to heal those damages. Stimpack As come in groups of 3, after each group is used you will receive 30 points of Medical Crafting XP (getting crafting XP is not announced, open the Ctrl-S menu or watch your XP Monitor).
Continue with this routine until you can't survey anymore resources in that area. Pick up, and move about 75-80 meters away from your original spot. This should be far enough away to start sampling again. Repeat the process. Go back to your orginal sampling spot when you can sample no more at your current spot. You will need to craft and use 17 Stimpack A groupings before OCI is obtained.
- As soon as you get enough Crafting XP and resources, head off to the hospital to heal those waiting patients.
Healing Wounds
- As soon as you train in OCI, you will gain the ability to craft Action and Health Medpack As. The quickest way to heal patients (and gain Medical XP) is to craft and heal as you go along.
- Make some Macros. It is important that you have a section of your Toolbars devoted to hospital/medical use. Set up macros that use the command /healwound . You can make a seperate Macro for Action wounds and Health wounds. This allows you to heal a targeted character without having to use the radial menu (this is helpful if you need to heal someone in the middle of crafting an item, or if the hospital is laggy). You can also put your Crafting Station in a Hotkey spot.
- Start making Medpacks with the Organic resources you harvested. As soon as you use a Medpack on a patient, start crafting another one during the waiting time. This heal/craft cycle offers the best efficiency for a starting Medic.
- Be sure to ask regularly for Organics from other players. Most people obtain resources (such as Hides, Bones, Meat, Corn, Oats, etc.) that they are not using. They will gladly donate these in return for healing. You will want to forgo on these donations once you start crafting higher level medpacks.
Skill Progression
- First off, I would advise all strating Medics to not go past OCI until they are ready to accomodate the schematic revocation. In general terms, I would advance to OCII and OCIII after you have harvesters, or a reliable source of all the neccessary resources needed for the higher level packs.
- As for the other skills, I find that Diagnostics and Pharmacology are the most important. Diagnostics increases the speed at which you heal (effectively decreaseing the time inbetween heals) and allows you to make better medpacks. Pharmacology increases your use of medicine, allowing you to squeeze more wounds healed out of those medpacks. You will also need this skill branch to use higher level medpacks.
Making Medpacks
This section is for more advanced medics using higher level medpacks
- At this level in your medic career, you need to be more discerning with the materials you use. Better materials lead to stronger medpacks. Make sure you have harvesters set up, or have a reliable source of resources available, you will need lots.
- Higher level medics MUST experiment on their packs to make them worthwhile. Experimentation can mean the difference between a B pack that heals 50 and has 3 uses and a B pack that heals 90 and has 4-5 uses.
- You will want to experiment during all the phases of the crafting procedure (one for each component, and one for the final product). Increasing 'expcharges' will increase the amount of charges you get. Increasing 'effectiveness' will increase the healing rate.
- For best medpack crafting, you have to progress through the Doctor skill tree. You will gain additional bonuses to crafting and experimentation there.
=> OK, that's all I can think of for now, but I think that should get any starting Medic up and running
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