UPDATE: Xenochemistry (Roguelike chems + phrase building based chemistry)

[Frank_Stein]

Chem starts with a box of chems with randomized names and apperances. Included would be a manifest of what the chems could be, and table of characteristics they have.

The chems can be identified by running a series of tests on them using tools and experiments. Many chems would have similar characteristics, meaning identifying them is a process of narrowing them down with multiple tests

Examples of tests:

• It's pH level
  
• It's radioactivity
  
• Does it react with certain materials like maxuite or synth rubber
  
• Does it react with certain chems
  
• Is it toxic
  

Identified chems could be then safely combined with certain other existing chems, as they would all have very volatile reactions with a few other existing known chems.

It's my recommendation that this system exist alongside the current system, and that the randomized chems and the things you can make with them are unique creations rather than replacing other existing chems, at least until feedback is received.

[cyberTripping]

i hate to be the person who derails the thread instantly but i had a thought:

if this were implemented and people thought it worked well, rebalance whats a "secret chem" and what isnt, and then put those behind the randomised chems somehow. Getting the best chems would require proper experimentation and be a bit of a fun timesink rather than the tedium of complex chemistry mixes, and it also would get rid of the weird power dynamic between turbo chemnerds and other folk. ALSO means that leaks wouldn't result in recipes being shuffled, preventing them from getting any more random and unintuitive.

[Haprenti]

That sounds good.
With this you could generate some special property tags for random chems, with each chem having some chance to get one or more special properties, and mixing chemicals with specific properties in the right (approximate) amounts could give rise to new properties through some synergy, or some properties could prevent others from appearing, so if you want property C that you can get by mixing the right proportions of chems with properties A and B, but you only have some chem with properties B and D, with D preventing property C from taking effect. It makes it more complex, you'd either need to find a new random chemical with B, or find another chem with a property counteracting D, or maybe property D only takes effect in some temperature range and heating the solution could enable property C to appear, that is until the solution cools down. Or maybe property C was needed to make the two first chems react into a new one.

There's a lot of possibilities, but you have to think about a lot of things so that the whole system is actually viable and not just fully randomized trash with which you either can't consistantly make anything out of, or have getting any "high end stuff" too easily depending on luck.

So basically : property tags; "continuous" properties like temperature, concentration of the chemical, pH, etc.

But I guess that'd be its own new thing, I have no idea how it would interact with regular chemistry, maybe through some new "regular" chems that would recquire whatever set of properties that you'd have to get through random chem chemistry ?

There's a lot of potential for a system like this, but I get the feeling it's need to have its own room separate from (but close to) chemistry.
Maybe call that xenochemistry, which for whatever reason (plasma involved) works differently. This also explains the random names, and why humans don't know yet about them.

[Frank_Stein]

i hate to be the person who derails the thread instantly but i had a thought:

if this were implemented and people thought it worked well, rebalance whats a "secret chem" and what isnt, and then put those behind the randomised chems somehow. Getting the best chems would require proper experimentation and be a bit of a fun timesink rather than the tedium of complex chemistry mixes, and it also would get rid of the weird power dynamic between turbo chemnerds and other folk. ALSO means that leaks wouldn't result in recipes being shuffled, preventing them from getting any more random and unintuitive.

That's what I had in mind, but figured people should have a chance to ease into it to see if they like it.

That's why I think it's important to have new chems to fiddle with, to increase people trying it out and to not mess with established methods

Chemical property tags is a great idea. What I would love to see with the new chems is them essentially representing an idea, and the things you mix with them modifying that idea

An example could be that there's a "Health" chem, and you could add a "Damage" chem to it to make a poison, but you could also add a "Restore" chem to it to make a health tonic. So you have a base and build off of it when doing mixes

I definitely agree that this is works best as some sort of sci-fi chem stuff without a real world basis

[Frank_Stein]

Some ideas regarding the "Xenochems" and their idea to make them idea/phrase based.

Below are some possibilities of what ideas are embedded into the new xenochems. Their actual ingame names, appearance, and physical properties would be randomized each round. The effects they would have and the things you could make when mixing them with each other would be consistent across rounds. Each round would also give you a manifest that tells you what chems you might have and what their traits are, but doesn't connect them with the random name and apperance.

Adjective class chems:

• Large
  
• Small
  
• Slow
  
• Fast
  
• Multiple
  
• Explosive
  
• Delayed
  
• Invisible
  

Noun class chems:

• Health
  
• Stamina
  
• Explosion
  
• Fire
  
• Toxin
  
• Voice
  
• Vision
  
• Movement
  
• Size
  
• Fart
  
• Power
  

Verb Class chems

• Increase
  
• Decrease
  
• Restore
  
• Damage
  
• Explode
  
• Disable
  
• Burn
  
• Freeze
  

Trigger class chems

• On ingestion
  
• On touch
  
• When heated
  
• When chilled
  
• Now
  

And that's a few of them. Creating a logical phrase from mixing the xenochems results a chem that has an effect that matches the phrase. For instance "Large+Health+Increase+On ingestion" Makes a chem that increases your total health on ingestion

Creating a bad phrase could have a few negative consequences as simple as wasting the chems to creating an explosion.

[cyberTripping]

explosive+explosion+explode+now

[Frank_Stein]

explosive+explosion+explode+now

*scream

[Mageziya]

Didn't this technically used to exist? At least, in a vaguely similar way.

That said, it's ancient goon that I never personally witnessed. Back in the earliest days of chem, there was a super chem that every round that's recipe was randomized every single round. If I recall correctly, it was essentially a potion of super-strength, turning whoever could manufacture it into a robust god born from nightmares itself. It's applications were incredibly rare, but of note whenever someone could manage to make this chem.

[Frank_Stein]

Sounds like something from before my time.

With this, the recipes wouldn't change, it's the identifiable characteristics other than it's effect that change. With trial and error, you could figure out what xenochems you have and start work making mixes