Goonhub
Yesterday, 12:18 AM
What's good everyone,
I have a few notes from actually trialing out Pharmacist.
While it is nice to create some intra-departmental reliance by giving us the interaction oppurtunity, this PR feels rushed to all hell. I suspect it was done this way to address something major, but I have no insight as to what that might be. Conjecture aside, here are some notes:
The Pharmacy itself has very few of the tools needed to reliably produce chems. A condenser, for example, is not only very useful but actually necessary since the chem rework for phenol/acetone production. Given that you cannot reliably produce the industrial quantities of oil that Science can, this makes it sooooo wasteful and time consuming that its rarely worth it and instead mass-produce common and easy mixes that are maybe no more than two steps in a chain, such as sulfuric acid which can be produced easily in small quantities. But alas, producing larger amounts of chems requiring sulfuric acid or even cyanide is non-sensical because the offgassing turns the Pharmacists' closet into an area denial weapon at best or a coffin at worst. Why? Because there's no beaker lids supplied either. So the Pharmacy needs some basic chemistry apparatus to function, obviously being blocked from barrels will stop the worst of the industrial scaling that can happen in Chemistry but keeping the Pharmacy at least functionable should be considered a TOP priority to making this role viable if it can become viable. I've also noticed on certain maps that not all the chemistry-related buildings are not in the Pharmacy, such as the reagent extractor, removing one of the functional roles of actually processing medicines for distribution that the Pharmacy should really be able to do on a timely manner. What is particularly egregious is the seperation of the Reagent Extractor from the Chemmaster on Donut 3 which is a really "just why?" moment for Medical Doctors who might have white weed but now must find an empty container to put the omnizine itself in for hypospray refills or whatever.
Which leads me to infrastructure. The Pharmacy really is a coffin, lacking intercoms, phones, disposal and delivery chutes (most maps will have one or the other with the exception of Cog1, Cog2, and Clarion which have neither), hell even a Chemical Request console would be nice. Space might be lacking to fit a lot of the bulkier items in lovingly, especially with the Chemistry related buildings, but why even bother with the PR altogether if the Pharmacy is only ever going to be as effective as a wet tissue in putting out a fire? I can understand why MD mains might be unhappy with the restricted access, because a Pharmacist on their own isn't an effective role as it stands right now, while restricting some of the things that MD mains might want to do during their downtime- not even touching on the Antag nerf (which isn't itself a dealbreaker, but might limit some of the more devious things an Antag Doctor could do). Overall, it just feels- half-assed, for lack of a better term, which is a shame because I do like some aspects of Pharmacy gameplay and the idea overall. If nothing is changed, it will become the weakest role in Medical, and probably the station overall.
In saying all that, here are some ideas, just thrown out into the void and not at all connected to eachother, for your consideration:
- The Pharmacy should have ALL the basic chemistry gear. Bunsen burners, condensers, those neat flasks with the configurable drip setting, beaker lids, everything except for barrels. The rooms also need their own basic infrastructure- intercoms, maybe two (one for chemistry, one for medical). Phones. Dispoal and Delivery chutes. The works.
- The Pharmacy Chemical Dispenser should be limited in dispenses, if the goal is to deepen inter and intra-departmental reliance. This should also go for the Bar Chemical dispenser as well. I just know some of y'all would absolutely loathe this idea, but the idea here is to make Chemistry the only Chemistry in town. It is probably by design that Civilians get access to a Chemical Dispenser, but then why not move it to Botany who have so much more use for it and basically have a Chemistry setup on their side already. Since Chemistry already has its gameplay tendrils spread about the station, why not either lean into it or curtail it altogether, as this PR almost certainly seems out to do?
- A complete gameplay overhaul for the Pharmacy, instead of having it be just Chemistry-but-shit. Consider what Hospital Pharmacies do in real life- they distribute medicines and track inventory of those medicines, as well as research new ones in some cases. Why not bring back the same type of gameplay pathology offers, but for medicine instead? This is by far my favourite of the ideas.
- A very divisive idea, but one that could work: The Chemist as its own station role, eliminating the Pharmacy and Pharmacist altogether, restricting access to regular Scientists and incentivising Chemists to actually do their job in fufilling requests station-wide (one idea is to tie Chemistry-output to fufillment of requests. Genetics has done this well with their budget allocation being able to purchase more raw materials, maybe Chemistry should be similar?). Scientists be dammed (says the Scientist main), they already have an absurd amount of gameplay options and a lot of slots, and this is probably why no one sits in Chemistry all-shift: there's too much to see and do, and so much access to go with it. Split Science into 2 main subdepartments: Researchers, and Chemists, who both lack access for eachother while RD rules them all. Artifacts research is content heavy, toxins is provides interesting avenues for station improvement or traitor gameplay (yes, even outside of bombs), and telescience researchers often vanish into portals with large groups of followers never to be seen again. Do they really need Chemistry access, or is it a vast ego trip for an antag free-for-all (or even the common crimer, as Science is want to produce frequently)?
Obviously there's more than a handful of ideas floating around out there, but ultimately what it boils down to is whether or not the Pharmacist is a viable, effective, but most importantly, fun role to play. Right now its none of those, and it seems like it is difficult to toe the line between making it more effective without crushing the need for Chemistry or just merging the two roles together. But we would do well to remember that there are other potential oppurtunities for gameplay expansion without the necessarily common solution of just merging the two.
I have a few notes from actually trialing out Pharmacist.
While it is nice to create some intra-departmental reliance by giving us the interaction oppurtunity, this PR feels rushed to all hell. I suspect it was done this way to address something major, but I have no insight as to what that might be. Conjecture aside, here are some notes:
The Pharmacy itself has very few of the tools needed to reliably produce chems. A condenser, for example, is not only very useful but actually necessary since the chem rework for phenol/acetone production. Given that you cannot reliably produce the industrial quantities of oil that Science can, this makes it sooooo wasteful and time consuming that its rarely worth it and instead mass-produce common and easy mixes that are maybe no more than two steps in a chain, such as sulfuric acid which can be produced easily in small quantities. But alas, producing larger amounts of chems requiring sulfuric acid or even cyanide is non-sensical because the offgassing turns the Pharmacists' closet into an area denial weapon at best or a coffin at worst. Why? Because there's no beaker lids supplied either. So the Pharmacy needs some basic chemistry apparatus to function, obviously being blocked from barrels will stop the worst of the industrial scaling that can happen in Chemistry but keeping the Pharmacy at least functionable should be considered a TOP priority to making this role viable if it can become viable. I've also noticed on certain maps that not all the chemistry-related buildings are not in the Pharmacy, such as the reagent extractor, removing one of the functional roles of actually processing medicines for distribution that the Pharmacy should really be able to do on a timely manner. What is particularly egregious is the seperation of the Reagent Extractor from the Chemmaster on Donut 3 which is a really "just why?" moment for Medical Doctors who might have white weed but now must find an empty container to put the omnizine itself in for hypospray refills or whatever.
Which leads me to infrastructure. The Pharmacy really is a coffin, lacking intercoms, phones, disposal and delivery chutes (most maps will have one or the other with the exception of Cog1, Cog2, and Clarion which have neither), hell even a Chemical Request console would be nice. Space might be lacking to fit a lot of the bulkier items in lovingly, especially with the Chemistry related buildings, but why even bother with the PR altogether if the Pharmacy is only ever going to be as effective as a wet tissue in putting out a fire? I can understand why MD mains might be unhappy with the restricted access, because a Pharmacist on their own isn't an effective role as it stands right now, while restricting some of the things that MD mains might want to do during their downtime- not even touching on the Antag nerf (which isn't itself a dealbreaker, but might limit some of the more devious things an Antag Doctor could do). Overall, it just feels- half-assed, for lack of a better term, which is a shame because I do like some aspects of Pharmacy gameplay and the idea overall. If nothing is changed, it will become the weakest role in Medical, and probably the station overall.
In saying all that, here are some ideas, just thrown out into the void and not at all connected to eachother, for your consideration:
- The Pharmacy should have ALL the basic chemistry gear. Bunsen burners, condensers, those neat flasks with the configurable drip setting, beaker lids, everything except for barrels. The rooms also need their own basic infrastructure- intercoms, maybe two (one for chemistry, one for medical). Phones. Dispoal and Delivery chutes. The works.
- The Pharmacy Chemical Dispenser should be limited in dispenses, if the goal is to deepen inter and intra-departmental reliance. This should also go for the Bar Chemical dispenser as well. I just know some of y'all would absolutely loathe this idea, but the idea here is to make Chemistry the only Chemistry in town. It is probably by design that Civilians get access to a Chemical Dispenser, but then why not move it to Botany who have so much more use for it and basically have a Chemistry setup on their side already. Since Chemistry already has its gameplay tendrils spread about the station, why not either lean into it or curtail it altogether, as this PR almost certainly seems out to do?
- A complete gameplay overhaul for the Pharmacy, instead of having it be just Chemistry-but-shit. Consider what Hospital Pharmacies do in real life- they distribute medicines and track inventory of those medicines, as well as research new ones in some cases. Why not bring back the same type of gameplay pathology offers, but for medicine instead? This is by far my favourite of the ideas.
- A very divisive idea, but one that could work: The Chemist as its own station role, eliminating the Pharmacy and Pharmacist altogether, restricting access to regular Scientists and incentivising Chemists to actually do their job in fufilling requests station-wide (one idea is to tie Chemistry-output to fufillment of requests. Genetics has done this well with their budget allocation being able to purchase more raw materials, maybe Chemistry should be similar?). Scientists be dammed (says the Scientist main), they already have an absurd amount of gameplay options and a lot of slots, and this is probably why no one sits in Chemistry all-shift: there's too much to see and do, and so much access to go with it. Split Science into 2 main subdepartments: Researchers, and Chemists, who both lack access for eachother while RD rules them all. Artifacts research is content heavy, toxins is provides interesting avenues for station improvement or traitor gameplay (yes, even outside of bombs), and telescience researchers often vanish into portals with large groups of followers never to be seen again. Do they really need Chemistry access, or is it a vast ego trip for an antag free-for-all (or even the common crimer, as Science is want to produce frequently)?
Obviously there's more than a handful of ideas floating around out there, but ultimately what it boils down to is whether or not the Pharmacist is a viable, effective, but most importantly, fun role to play. Right now its none of those, and it seems like it is difficult to toe the line between making it more effective without crushing the need for Chemistry or just merging the two roles together. But we would do well to remember that there are other potential oppurtunities for gameplay expansion without the necessarily common solution of just merging the two.