Goonhub
11-16-2013, 03:11 AM
Chemistry should be less about finding the correct recipe for devastating one-shot chemicals. And more about experimenting with combinations, temperatures and side effects of chemicals.
Right now, there is little reason to stick to chemistry once you have completed your recipe worksheet.
The easier chemicals are also the stonger. You can do extreme damage with napalm smoke; but try smoking itching powder (harder to make and with a low yield), and the scratching will last maybe a minute.
Few chemicals intereact with each other. ClF3 and firefighting foam explode on contact, and there are ways to control when the reaction happens and turn that into a weapon.
There should be more reactions like that, and built-in ways to trigger them.
For instance, mixing certain reagents could also create some byproduct that would complete another reagent in the same container, and trigger a reaction.
The crank explosion, or the fumes from some poisons are other cool reactions that can be weaponized.
Pyrosium is unreliable for anything other than setting somebody on fire. Even with stabilizing agent, controlling its heating rate is impossible.
It would be more useful if it started eating when inside a mob, or if it heated suddenly when in contact with water (like the mixtures in self-heating cans).
The changes to smoke do not allow many reagents to transfer to mobs, preventing many reactions to happen inside them.
It has killed a lot of neat tricks, and taken away another reason to experiment for new combinations of chemicals.
Special note on sarin, which is being used a lot to take out traitors and wizards.
It should get the same change that black powder did, and require some reagent that can only be obteined outside of chemistry; not something impossible, but time consuming.
Right now, there is little reason to stick to chemistry once you have completed your recipe worksheet.
The easier chemicals are also the stonger. You can do extreme damage with napalm smoke; but try smoking itching powder (harder to make and with a low yield), and the scratching will last maybe a minute.
Few chemicals intereact with each other. ClF3 and firefighting foam explode on contact, and there are ways to control when the reaction happens and turn that into a weapon.
There should be more reactions like that, and built-in ways to trigger them.
For instance, mixing certain reagents could also create some byproduct that would complete another reagent in the same container, and trigger a reaction.
The crank explosion, or the fumes from some poisons are other cool reactions that can be weaponized.
Pyrosium is unreliable for anything other than setting somebody on fire. Even with stabilizing agent, controlling its heating rate is impossible.
It would be more useful if it started eating when inside a mob, or if it heated suddenly when in contact with water (like the mixtures in self-heating cans).
The changes to smoke do not allow many reagents to transfer to mobs, preventing many reactions to happen inside them.
It has killed a lot of neat tricks, and taken away another reason to experiment for new combinations of chemicals.
Special note on sarin, which is being used a lot to take out traitors and wizards.
It should get the same change that black powder did, and require some reagent that can only be obteined outside of chemistry; not something impossible, but time consuming.