Mechanics of scars

[AKA13]

Please explain the mechanics of scars. Do they appear as a result of poor or long treatment? Or does a scar immediately appear at the moment of injury?

[VitaKaninen]

The wiki says:

The chance of scarring depends on damage type and the part being damaged. The eyes are particularly vulnerable to scars. Brain damage will always scar, and therefore always be permanent.

Scars appear after a wound has healed. If you want to know the exact mechanics, you might have to go look at the game files to see how the chances of getting a scar are calculated.

You can remove scars with Luciferium, Healer Mech Serums, Biosculpter pods, scarless genes, Modded Psycasts such as healing, remove scars, health swap, Other mods, or by replacing the body part with an artificial one.

[The Blind One]

There's a small chance of scars happening every time you are hit. Some body parts have increased scarring chance like the eyes x15 and spine x5.

For the most part scarring depends on how big the damage from an attack is, meaning bigger damage has a higher chance of scarring. Each time a body part takes damage it has a separate chance of scarring so keep that in mind. Tending is also a factor that comes into play separately after receiving damage, the better tended a wound is, the less chance of a scar remaining.

Don't hold me to these numbers, it's been a while since I looked into the code but I think it's something like 2% base chance of scarring but this is modified by the body part damage received and tending quality. (damage type may also play a factor iirc)

For example, you have the torso which has 40 hp, if it then receives an 11 damage gunshot hit then that means there's 11 / 40 * base (2%) chance of a scar occurring, which is only 0,55% chance of a scar happening from that gunshot damage. Now factor in tending, and multiply the scar chance by how well the wound is tended (0 to 100%). In this example if the doctor tended the wound for 80% quality, then there would be a multiplier of (1-0.8) = 0.2 for scarring for the effective scarring chance to only be 0,11%

This is why your pawns can absolutely be blown apart multiple times over with their limbs barely hanging on and all they have are a few small scars after 10 years of brutal survival on the rim. You can basically get to zero percent chance of getting a scar as long as you have a good doctor and this is why good doctors are so incredibly important and why glitter medicine can be incredibly useful in preventing scars since they can practically guarantee that the average doctor will hit their 100% tend quality and prevent any scarring.

Another example;

Eyes have only 10 hp so a gunshot of 11 damage would destroy it if it weren't for another mechanic that states that if a body part is hit, than it needs a certain % of overkill damage to outright destroy it, if that isn't the case, the damage received will cap out at the last hp of the eye. So the eye will end up with 1/10 hitpoints and remain in tact. The chance to scar is then 9/10 * base chance of 2% * 15 (extra scarring factor as stated previously) = 27%. Multiply that number by the tend quality, lets assume you have an average doctor that tends at 60%. Thus 27% x (1-0.6) = 10,8% chance of scarring.

Now I might actually be wrong on that last on specifically, it might be that the game remembers the total damage received rather than the remaining hp on a wound after a hit. So it could be 11/10 * base chance instead of 9/10. Just so you know ... basically the bigger the hit, the more chance of scarring.

[Bosh]

Scars also cause your pawns to have a reduced opinion of the scarred individual, as they're considered disfigured. If you don't want this try this mod.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1543094280