Stims, Healing, and Mortal Wounds

Summary

The player carries one of two stims in the INJECTOR equipment slot: Medicae Stim (fast burst, cleanses debuffs, splashes allies, 2 starting charges) or Stim-shot (slow HoT, adds a sustained contested-health fill that saturates your full contested bar over ~18.5s). Either stim can clear accumulated mortal wounds, but only if the heal drives your real (base) HP past 100% - this is the "overheal" mechanic. The trigger whitelists exactly two heal-source tags: INJECTOR (Medicae Stim) and STIMSHOT (Stim-shot). No other healing source in the game resets the incap counter.

• The Medicae Stim is the actual wound-clearing tool - its 35% burst plus contested-to-HP conversion easily crosses 100% from almost any deficit.

• The Stim-shot is a strong HP-restoration tool, but not a reliable wound-clearer on its own: its 10% Healign over Time (HoT) only crosses 100% when triggerd above 90% real HP, its contested fill adds contested (not real HP) so it can't drive the threshold directly, and by the time you'd execute to cash in contested (~18.5s later) the 8.5s direct HoT has long ended, so no STIMSHOT-source tick is active to be the crossing event. Effective Stim-shot wound-clearing requires either starting above 90% real HP, or a second INJECTOR/STIMSHOT heal during the contested window (e.g. a Medicae follow-up).

Mortal Wounds

Each incapacitation increments a counter on the player's damagableincapmodule. If you're incapped with the counter already at incapLimit, the next down is a real death (no revive possible). Revive from incap restores healthOnFinishRevivePercent = 35 and the bleed-out timer is 60s.

Per-difficulty incapLimit from difficulty_presets_library.sso:

useUndyingInIncap = True prevents you from being killed during the bleed-out animation - you always get the full timer for a teammate to revive you.

Medicae Stim vs Stim-shot

Both stims occupy the INJECTOR slot, so you carry one or the other and cannot have both simultaneously. Internal UIDs and UI names are confirmed via ui_abilities_library.sso and cross-checked against the PveEngineerMedicaeStimmsHealBoost perk, which modifies MAX_REGEN_HEALTH_FROM_HEALING_INJECTOR - so the in-game "Medicae Stimms" maps to the equipment_healing_injector internal ID.

Medicae Stim (equipment_healing_injector, UI UI_ABILITY_HEALING_INJECTOR_NAME)

The burst-heal stim most classes unlock as their mastery stim via SpawnWithHealingInjector (Soldier, Sniper, Support, Raider mastery perks).

Stim-shot (equipment_healing_stim, UI UI_ABILITY_STIMSHOT_NAME)

The default starter stim, slow HoT with a built-in contested health buffer.

Side-by-side

Clearing Mortal Wounds

When a heal tick applies, the game checks whether:

1. The heal's healSource is in the whitelist, AND

2. The tick drives the player's real (base) HP past 100% of current max

If both, the incap counter is fully reset to zero (not decremented by one) - all accumulated mortal wounds are cleared at once.

Which healing sources can trigger

Only two are whitelisted: INJECTOR and STIMSHOT. Every other heal source in the game is locked out. From damagable_health_restoring_library_pve.sso:

How contested health affects the trigger

The threshold is on real HP crossing 100%, not on "live health" (base + contested). Contested is a separate buffer and has to be converted to real HP before it contributes. The conversion behavior is controlled per-heal by the healthTrailAsExtraHealing parameter:

• Medicae Stim uses the default 100. The 35% heal pulls contested into real HP as part of its effect. Any contested you'd built up from melee gets cashed in for free, on top of the 35%. This makes Medicae a very reliable wound-clearer from almost any realistic deficit.

• Stim-shot explicitly overrides to 0. The 10% direct heal is added to base HP only, and existing contested is left as contested. So the only thing pushing real HP toward 100% is the flat 10% HoT.

Overheal thresholds by stim

• Medicae Stim: Crossing 100% is reliable. 35% burst plus contested cash-in means from 65% real HP or lower, any contested you have buffers the deficit and the heal overshoots. Even from ~80% with no contested, the heal lands at 115% cleanly.

• Stim-shot alone (just the 10% HoT): The direct HoT ignores existing contested (healthTrailAsExtraHealing=0), so the only thing raising real HP from the stim's own effect is the flat 10%. You need base HP > 90% when you use it for the HoT alone to cross 100%. This is the narrow range where a Stim-shot clears a wound without help.

• Stim-shot + Medicae combo: This is the real multi-stim wound-clear workflow. Pop the Stim-shot first so the contested-fill status (25s) is active. Let contested fill, take whatever fights you need to, then pop a Medicae while the contested is still on your bar. The Medicae's healthTrailAsExtraHealing=100 converts the full contested into real HP and adds its 35% burst on top, easily crossing 100% via INJECTOR source. The Stim-shot's contribution here is front-loading a large contested pool for the Medicae to cash in.

• Why "Stim-shot → execute" alone doesn't clear a wound: The 10% direct HoT ends at 8.5s. By the time contested fills to a useful amount (~18s+), no STIMSHOT-source heal is actively raising real HP. An execute cashes in your contested, but the crossing event is the finisher's heal source, which is not in the healSourcesToResetIncapCounter whitelist (INJECTOR, STIMSHOT only). The execute may overheal you to full, but the wound counter does not reset. This was an error in earlier drafts of this writeup.

• Stim-shot + melee/ranged damage with the HoT still ticking: If you're actively fighting during the 8.5s HoT window, melee and ranged hits are converting contested to real HP in parallel with the stim's direct ticks. A Stim-shot HoT tick that lands while real HP is marginally below 100% can be the crossing event. This works opportunistically from mid-HP starting points but is unreliable - you need the Stim-shot tick timing to coincide with you being just below 100%, and melee healing on Lethal/Absolute is nerfed by the HEALTH_TRAIL_MAX_RESTORE_PER_DAMAGE -50% difficulty penalty.

Class Perks That Scale Stim Healing

These perks directly modify the MAX_REGEN_HEALTH_FROM_HEALING_INJECTOR modifier, which scales the Medicae Stim's total heal. Identical numeric effect across the three classes that get it.

No class perk currently modifies the Stim-shot's HealingStim heal percent directly - it heals 10% flat for every class and loadout.

Adjacent perks worth knowing for healing workflow

• PveSupportRestoreFullHealthWhenRevived (and ...ForTeam variant): INCAP_HEAL_ON_REVIVE +1000% PERCENT_SUM. When revived, restore to 100% HP instead of the default 35%. Does not clear wounds (revive isn't INJECTOR/STIMSHOT), but significantly reduces the need to stim-clear after being picked up.

Game Files

Client pak ({GAME_FILES_ROOT_CLIENT})

• ssl\abilities\ui\ui_abilities_library.sso - UI name to internal UID mapping

• ssl\abilities\view_library\ability_view_library_category_equipment.sso - VFX, camera shake, force feedback hookups

Server pak ({GAME_FILES_ROOT_SERVER})

• ssl\abilities\ability_library.sso - Equipment ability definitions, slot, charges, controller types

• ssl\abilities\factory\ability_factory_category_equipment.sso - Server ability logic for both stims (what modules run and in what order)

• ssl\abilities\module_logics\ability_module_logic_health_restoring.sso - Default healing module (healthTrailAsExtraHealing=100)

• ssl\damage\damagable\damage_points_restoring\damagable_health_restoring_library_pve.sso - PvE healing values (healingInjector, HealingStim, HealingStimContested)

• ssl\damage\damagable\damage_points_restoring\damagable_health_restoring_library_pvp.sso - PvP healing values

• ssl\characters\player\marine\pc_marine_pve_server.cls - Player PvE base stats (max HP 30, 4 armor segments)

• ssl\game_mode\rules\server\game_mode_rule_incap.sso - Incap module, mortal wound mechanic, incapCounterResetThresholdPercent, healSourcesToResetIncapCounter

• ssl\game_mode\difficulty_system\difficulty_presets_library.sso - Per-difficulty incapLimit

• ssl\status_effects\status_effect_descriptions\status_effects.sso - HealStimAddContestedHealth, HealingInjector, HealingScreenEffect

• ssl\status_effects\factories\status_effect_logic_factory.sso - Logic wiring for stim status effects

• ssl\player\perks\perk_server_factory.sso - All perks that scale stim healing or armor restore on stim

• ssl\main\user\mastery\mastery_skills_library.sso - Class mastery progression including which classes spawn with Medicae Injector via SpawnWithHealingInjector