What's up with chemistry

[Superlagg]

Lot of talk lately about changing up chemistry to make it less crazygonuts.

Sounds great! To help this whole shitshow song, and cus I'm kind of a dope, we should get together here and nail down what's in need of change, as well as what it is and how it works right now from our perspective. Ya know, for finding out why it is we're clamoring for changes.

[Roomba]

When you sift through the clamor for chemistry changes, it boils down to the same three or four people making the same request they've always made - 'remove the bits of chemistry that cause me to lose fights.'

Nothing can be done about chemistry itself that will ever actually satisfy this crowd because what they want is to not lose fights.

V case in point

[babayetu83]

my issue with chemistry is that it's just a crutch that rewards unskilled play

[Vitatroll]

Only real problems I had with chem were ez-pz floor melting and chem stacking for rapid damage. Maybe the way smoke distributes chems too but the occasional owl/moustache/flip/pizza/birb-smoke wins me over.

[Frank_Stein]

I'm the one that's been making all the chemistry idea threads lately.

It's mostly me brainstorming about the system. People say they wanna see change so I've just been thinking about it. I don't necessarily think it absolutely needs to be changed, I'm just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.

 In game I hardly mess with it beyond making basic stuff I might need in a moment. I don't have the desire to spend multiple rounds trying to find the powerful secret stuff. Seems like a waste of time, since I'd only really get to use it when I'm an antag or if I spent my rounds valid hunting.

What I'd like to see from it is something that doesn't require multiple rounds dedicated to just finding one thing.
Ideally something that doesn't require as much memorization or outside reference. At the same time I'd love more ways to tinker with what's there, since from what I understand the real meat of chemistry is thinking up clever mixes that have good synergy, like pills that use the bodies conversation of one chem into another to generate the other ingredients in a mix

Basically I guess I'd like it to be a bit more intuitive without simplifying it.

[Cyfarfod]

My two cents.

The only thing I personally hate about chemistry is the secret chems system. I get the history, I THINK- the formulas used to be a bit more intuitive, but because of the code leak they had to be shuffled and unfortunately (to me) now they're a bit more random.

To me it feels like it's just gated against newer players, though. For a long time I was afraid to even ask, "in character" (like, co-scientists in round, I mean) for advice because I wasn't sure if I'd be violating a rule. I don't really have any good ideas HOW to change this, I don't even know if it SHOULD be changed, but it's super frustrating to me. *shrug* I don't want to have to spend a dozen rounds dumping random stuff into an artbeaker just on the off chance I get something interesting.

Maybe I'm just bad at the mindset for chemistry, I've considered that possibility.

[Superlagg]

I think chemistry is a bit too predictable. All these hellish deathchems are dangerous pretty much only to the victim, which while effective is kinda boring and makes them feel less like chemical weapons of mass destruction and more like you-lose drugs.

These chems shouldn't be deadly just on mixing and application, but on transport and storage and ambient temperature and in some cases sheer luck. Deadly, annoying, inconvenient, or even beneficial!

Nitroglycerin is a step in the right direction, though its instability makes it next to useless in most cases.

[Bologna Prime]

Not exactly what the clamor is for, but if anything peeves me about chemistry, it's the fact that secrecy is kept based on how interesting a chem can be, rather than how dangerous it is. One can fill the escape shuttle with burning, acidic, radioactive, toxic, explosive foam entirely off the wiki, but if someone wants to become old or turn into a skeleton that's a bit too exciting to leave open. Sure, stuff like anima is best kept tucked away where it's hard to find, but the idea that a bang snap chem must be guarded behind the generally unintuitive system that is pouring everything that vaguely fits a chem's bill until something happens is a bit lame. I'm well aware that this notion will likely be met with the point that things need to be kept from running into the ground, but I find never seeing stuff used to be a worse fate than being ran into the ground.

[amaranthineApocalypse]

Not exactly what the clamor is for, but if anything peeves me about chemistry, it's the fact that secrecy is kept based on how interesting a chem can be, rather than how dangerous it is. One can fill the escape shuttle with burning, acidic, radioactive, toxic, explosive foam entirely off the wiki, but if someone wants to become old or turn into a skeleton that's a bit too exciting to leave open. Sure, stuff like anima is best kept tucked away where it's hard to find, but the idea that a bang snap chem must be guarded behind the generally unintuitive system that is pouring everything that vaguely fits a chem's bill until something happens is a bit lame. I'm well aware that this notion will likely be met with the point that things need to be kept from running into the ground, but I find never seeing stuff used to be a worse fate than being ran into the ground.

This, although for the silver fulminate example its only secret because it has a precursor for another secret chem in it. Personally I'm of the mind that that chem shouldn't even be secret.

[Drago156]

From what I can gather here, it seems it is less a problem with actual chemistry itself and more the vagueness and difficulty of secret chems, or how easy it is to make deadly chems.

To these I have some output on, I'm going to start with the easiness of dangerous chems, sure they're easy to make, the problem is application of the chemicals to your target, and knowing which ones to use. Along with this, most chems are on the wiki, but smoke powder IS NOT. So if some new nerd is making a bunch of deadly chems, you could hold off on telling them that recipe.

Now as for the secret chems, some of them are completely vague and should at least give some kind of hint more than what it can do... Chems like voltagen and energy drink are super good hints but don't give the recipe away, Dbreath does less so, but with some looking over the wiki you could pretty much piece it together. As for Freeze and Mutiny, these 2 I've heard from someone who knows the recipe that have both have chems that don't make sense with the recipe, and I'd have to agree seeing as to how
I have spent LOTS of rounds attempting these chems getting mixes of over 25-35 chemicals that could even remotely be related to the recipe. These are however some newer chems.

As for my opinion on the whole situation, I honestly say there's not much problem with the actual machines and how chems works, but with the secret chems, I'd say make all the listed secret chems given hints and actually put under the secret chems section, but only the Admins can really do that, and they've tested all the chems and have gone through the long process of making sure they aren't super easy.

Also, if you're afraid of deadly chems but you want secret chems to be easier to figure out, you need to sit down and re-consider, especially since normal deadly chems affect people generally only once and that's on application, secret chems are generally hostile mob creator chems, gib you dead poisons, and just general BLOW YOU THE FUCK UP AND THE ENTIRE ROOM AROUND YOU chems.

[Bologna Prime]

To these I have some output on, I'm going to start with the easiness of dangerous chems, sure they're easy to make, the problem is application of the chemicals to your target, and knowing which ones to use. Along with this, most chems are on the wiki, but smoke powder IS NOT. So if some new nerd is making a bunch of deadly chems, you could hold off on telling them that recipe.

Just checking now I can say smoke powder and fluorosurfactant are both listed on the wiki.

Also, if you're afraid of deadly chems but you want secret chems to be easier to figure out, you need to sit down and re-consider, especially since normal deadly chems affect people generally only once and that's on application, secret chems are generally hostile mob creator chems, gib you dead poisons, and just general BLOW YOU THE FUCK UP AND THE ENTIRE ROOM AROUND YOU chems.

While I can't speak for anyone else, my own post had nothing to do with deadly secret chems. It was about the waste that is keeping chems such as reversium, rotting, ageinium, and others secret. While lumen existed its claim to fame was glowing, yet was for some reason a secret. This strange policy on things just makes it so that these otherwise fun things are rarely if ever seen.

[Maegor]

I know the recipe both for silver fulminate and the other secret chem and it does not make it easier to find this other chem.