Survivor First Aid Kit

[Zourin2]

Just another idea; I really think there's a place for a 'grab and go' first aid solution that players can craft for day-to-day use. A lot of times you can end up with an adventure turning south and needing medical supplies that invariably ended up left at the base medical stockpile. Deep bites, bleeding injuries, or otherwise ludicrous amounts of pain are par for the course in the apocalypse, most of these requiring immediate attention.

It's not unreasonable that a survivor would have an assortment items on hand to deal with these problems and have a need for a portable triage kit tailored to the challenges of living in the apocalypse. "Survivor tech" is about innovating solutions to the current environment rather than recycling old ones. Everything inside the S-FAK meant to be consumed at once, with the containers themselves being disposable.

The S-FAK I'm thinking of would cover the essentials of field triage jam-packed into a tin.
2-3 boiled bandages
4-6 cattail jelly (in a small plastic bottle)
4-6 aspirin pills (I have no idea how strong these are. I've taken fistfulls and still had severe pain, but they're common enough for regular use)
All packed tightly into a tin. (Vacuum sealing them was another option, but nobody likes tearing open plastic bags.)
A short string to help compress the bundle for insertion into said can if you want to avoid a craft-loop, but I'm thinking 'stuffing things in a can' is survival 0 territory, and the jelly is already survival 1-2.

The only issue I see is that the small bottle and individual bandages are each .25L, and the can itself is also .25L. Larger tins would be a bit more cumbersome, but passable. I could see using a small cardboard box, but the general idea is that it's made out of things a survivor can craft themselves (and you can't craft boxes).

Thoughts, ideas, comments?

[Zupercharged]

I can, certainly relate to the whole 'left it all at home' issue. Be it a car or something more permanent the point is its not where i need it. My biggest issue with current First Aid Kits is that once theyre open you cannot repackage it despite only needing a few drops of the disinfectant or something, they are already quite large and carry much more than what I actually need so taking them with me is out of the question really.

With the issue of volume, if all the pills were wrapped in the bandages and stuffed in the can and the bottle itself as an individual container was taped (duct tape being a survivor favourite) to the outside of the can it would result in a package of about .50L which is still a massive improvement over the FAKs 1.25L, in addition to being repackagable.

The other issue I would raise is that the recipe should accept a variety of equivalent items, if you have actual bandages you would probably take them over improvised ones and the same would be true of the antiseptic.

[Amoebka]

Why does this need to be an item? You can carry individual meds instead, the ability to use them separately is too important to give up even if the kit is smaller volume than ingredients.
The stockpile argument is something else, too. If you intentionally left your meds at base and then went into uncharted territory and got badly wounded your character deserves to die. Medical supplies take up virtually no space as is, there's never any reason not to carry them on person.

[shadowsapex]

just always carry antiseptic, bandages, and painkiller there's no excuse

[Zupercharged]

My understanding is that it was a quality of life thing. Of course you keep some essentials on hand and the amount you need is negligible but its something to be constantly managed because that negligible amount you want to keep mixes with medical supplies you loot and needs to be separated out every time to keep the loadout slim.

I would agree that this isnt a necessary feature but it does target a necessary but repetitive process for most players and attempts to simplify it. As has been said, everyone should just always carry antiseptic, bandages, and painkiller or you're character deserves to die. But I don't think that was the issue here.

[ghost]

This would have a use as an alternative to finding normal first aid kits for the one quest in refugee center to find five.

[Zourin2]

Why does this need to be an item? You can carry individual meds instead, the ability to use them separately is too important to give up even if the kit is smaller volume than ingredients.

the idea is that it's ONLY a small supply of critical recovery items for a full body dose. You're expected to crack the can open, treat the most serious wounds/bleeds, cover the other scrapes in an easily renewable antiseptic, and smash a hospital-grade dose of painkillers so you aren't taking huge pain penalties. It's triage. The normal first aid kit is both huge to carry and total overkill. You don't need antibiotics for a deep bite, you don't need an instrution manual, and you don't need an entire bottle of aspirin.

This is intended to be the self-made "MRE" of apocalypse first aid. Unpack, consume entirely, and consider your next steps. We can't make our own MRE-type meals yet, not without vehicular refridgeration, and the recipes for it with the current json setup would be mind boggling. This, however is doable.

Medical supplies take up virtually no space as is, there's never any reason not to carry them on person.

Makeshift bandages/boiled bandages are surprisingly bulky. Plus, in a fight and throwing down your pack, stopping to reorganize a pile of scattered meds wastes a lot of time you could be using to engage at range, as opposed to grabbing 1 item and being good-to-go

[ghost]

How about adding holster type item (and changing normal first aid kit to one as well) and respective new flags for meds? I did similar thing for toolboxes for personal use, updated drop list accordingly and I'm quite happy with the results, tho ideally one would want combined volume limit for multi holsters to go with this, but since this has very limited exploitability (well, at least for toolboxes) and weight calculation is still a thing - not that big of a deal.
Oh, could even make it wearable like a leg pouch, and since comestibles should be accessible from the container - no extra fiddling required to use.

[mrkybe]

This seems like it would best served by actually having containers that can contain things, instead of the current system of packs just adding liters to your storage arbitrarily.

[mkikt4743]

just carry medicine lol, no one is gonna waste time and spare materials crafting this

[kevingranade]

A makeshift first aid kit would not be a standin for the pre-cataclysm first aid kit.

[ThomasLinkin]

About aspirin,you can use 3 pills at a time since it takes time to work

[Zourin2]

A makeshift first aid kit would not be a standin for the pre-cataclysm first aid kit.

a 'single use' makeshift triage kit doesn't need an instruction manual, medical tape, antibiotics, saline solution, enough bandages/gauze and painkiller for 3-4 people, and enough antiseptic to lather up 2-3 whole people.

the survivor/makeshift kit bears more resemblance to an army IFAK, only smaller, hodgepodge, and specific to injuries sustained from surviving zombie hordes.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions. Please do not 'bump' or comment on this issue unless you are actively working on it. Stale issues, and stale issues that are closed are still considered.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically closed due to lack of activity. This does not mean that we do not value the issue. Feel free to request that it be re-opened if you are going to actively work on it