Declassifying older secrets

[Tarmunora]

There was some discussion on the discord regarding older/less secret secret chems (anything unchanged from the 2016 release + mutini, basically), any whether it would be better to move to a spoiler tag policy as opposed to bannable secrecy.



Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

[LizzyDamska]

Yeah hi I'm in the screenshot, I like this a lot because it opens up the fun secret chems to the public while leaving room for dumb idiots like me who wanna hunt them to hunt them, definitely a big +1 from me. Plus like, for stuff that's unchanged from the 2016 code it's essentially already an open secret exactly like how spoiler tagging it would make it an open secret.

[moistgrandmas42]

I agree. Make anything on the 2016 leak that's unchanged public. It'd make things more accessible when they're practically public info already. +1 from Ants

[Drago156]

So as a sol nerd and semi-knowledgeable secret chemnerd, I have to say that some of the secrets could probably be undone like silver fulminate and such that are purely gimmick and do not affect someone's actual abilities in any way. However, any secrets that do affect one's ability should remain secret, because most of the secret chems are secret because of how easily they can ruin someone's round. Not to say other chems can't do that, but secret chems tend to be more immediate and permanent. But stuff like Rotting or Feather Fluid should be secret because Rotting removes the ability to be cloned normally and then Feather Fluid makes you a bird which also complicates resuscitation.

[UrsulaMejor]

Anything that is too powerful to be made non-secret shouldn't be that powerful imo. it just leads to peeps collecting chems that they can't use for fear of them being changed/removed. this isn't good for the person earning the chem and it isn't good for the other players.

I think that secrets, in general, should slowly fade from total secrecy into spoiler tagged secrecy at whatever rate feels natural. There's a lot of secret content to digest before you get to interact with the stuff that's actively being developed, and the mood is a lot like playing an MMO with 4 expansions where you're playing alone on expansion 2 when all your friends are already doing the latest content without you

[cyberTripping]

So as a sol nerd and semi-knowledgeable secret chemnerd, I have to say that some of the secrets could probably be undone like silver fulminate and such that are purely gimmick and do not affect someone's actual abilities in any way. However, any secrets that do affect one's ability should remain secret, because most of the secret chems are secret because of how easily they can ruin someone's round. Not to say other chems can't do that, but secret chems tend to be more immediate and permanent. But stuff like Rotting or Feather Fluid should be secret because Rotting removes the ability to be cloned normally and then Feather Fluid makes you a bird which also complicates resuscitation.

i'm pretty sure silver fulminate isn't actually a secret chem in and of itself, but is just secret because one of its ingredients is one of those unlisted secret ingredients that go into actual secrets. ie, SF is secret to hide the secret ingredient, not to protect against it's own use.

Only listed secrets that I think could easily be classified as "totally harmless" are ageinium, bubsium maybe (never seen it but i have a hunch), lumen maybe (almost definitely secret for light update lag reasons) and reversium maybe (if people don't think the effect is too disruptive). Spiders and Silver Fulminate too, although they're secret for different reasons.

[UrsulaMejor]

for the record, I think that a poll on this front is relatively meaningless. the only people with anything to really lose are the people who already know the secrets, a very very very small minority. there is little chance of this poll being fair.

[Tewf]

For what its worth, I voted for spoiler tagging, and I know a majority of secrets. It just feels wrong. Hunting for them can be really fun. But never being able to use them for fear of change, or being extra cautious around chem to make sure other people don't just get the recipe can be very unfun. With spoilers it maintains the secret aspect for those of us that do want to hunt them for fun. But removes the fear of breaking a rule if you do share, or hint too much.

If the worry is people abusing them I would like to note most of the more deadly secrets not only have hidden recipes but for the most part are incredibly difficult to make, or mass produce. That makes it just as fair as any other round ender in my eyes, sayings its too deadly/powerful so make it secret isn't fair to anyone. A good engineer can make a gibbing PTL in the same time it takes me to make QGP or initro. A good mechanic can make a loafer trap or crusher trap in half the time it takes to make some of these chems. The balancing shows there. Deadly things take time. And should.

And just step up the self antaging with chem punishments. If you use a secret chem as a non-antag you accept full responsibility for all collateral damage or casualties and should be punished accordingly.

[phyvo]

I know I've gone on the record as saying secret chems are my least favorite part of the game, but I do get what they're trying to do. If every mechanic is spelled out, if every aspect of the game is on the wiki somewhere, you don't feel like there's anything left to explore. There is a real power behind there being parts of the game that are not understood, behind mechanics that aren't fully explained, behind a fog that can only be lifted by experience, and it's a major part of SS13's appeal to new players. Even now I still play scientist a lot because frankly there is so much to test and explore with flamethrowers and poisons.

But secret chems are the most annoying kind of riddle. I worked on feather fluid for a full week. In retrospect I can see that I was always so close but even with good guessing I was so far. I never would have gotten it without three separate hints I got from other people. It just seems inane that secret chems expect you to get by on a wiki hint and random chemistry guesswork, as if that's a fun way to explore, while in practice people end up sharing hints to try to make it more bearable.

However, I feel kind of eh about making secret chems spoiler tagged. There is in fact a real danger to making the recipes publicly accessible. Would anyone really try to take on a challenge like strychnine spoilerless if every chem antag could sling it everywhere because they had just looked it up on the wiki? And I admit, my Doctor Birb gimmick would be much less interesting to me if every round there were other people turning themselves into birds. I complained about how elitist secret chems felt when I started out and now, at least with feather fluid, I am one of those elites. It feels rather weird.

I think the secret chem experience could be improved a lot more with, say, secret labs you could explore and find chunks of recipes until you could assemble the whole thing. Maybe even some forgotten pieces of paper on the station somewhere for some of the easy ones or secret ingredients. And a note on the wiki about how you might find these lost pieces in the debris field or meatstation or sold by a trader or whatever. Then you have the secret chems engaging with other parts of the game in ways that aren't simply assembling the materials. I know minor hints may exist for some of the chems but most of them have nothing and currently there is nothing that tells you that hints lie in the trench or wherever.

The unchanged public release secret chems should just be put on the wiki for sure.

[moistgrandmas42]

Anything that is too powerful to be made non-secret shouldn't be that powerful imo. it just leads to peeps collecting chems that they can't use for fear of them being changed/removed. this isn't good for the person earning the chem and it isn't good for the other players.

I think that secrets, in general, should slowly fade from total secrecy into spoiler tagged secrecy at whatever rate feels natural. There's a lot of secret content to digest before you get to interact with the stuff that's actively being developed, and the mood is a lot like playing an MMO with 4 expansions where you're playing alone on expansion 2 when all your friends are already doing the latest content without you

I don't agree with this. There should be powerful mysteries to solve. If you weaken chems like initro or any of the deadlier secret chems, you'd have to change the recipe to make it a bit easier as they're quite the time commitment to make. Why would anyone ever spend the 15 - 20 minutes whipping up a batch of initro during a round if it isn't super deadly? Other basic chems that are much simpler, and can be made at the chem dispenser would just be used over them.

[UrsulaMejor]

Anything that is too powerful to be made non-secret shouldn't be that powerful imo. it just leads to peeps collecting chems that they can't use for fear of them being changed/removed. this isn't good for the person earning the chem and it isn't good for the other players.

I think that secrets, in general, should slowly fade from total secrecy into spoiler tagged secrecy at whatever rate feels natural. There's a lot of secret content to digest before you get to interact with the stuff that's actively being developed, and the mood is a lot like playing an MMO with 4 expansions where you're playing alone on expansion 2 when all your friends are already doing the latest content without you

I don't agree with this. There should be powerful mysteries to solve. If you weaken chems like initro or any of the deadlier secret chems, you'd have to change the recipe to make it a bit easier as they're quite the time commitment to make. Why would anyone ever spend the 15 - 20 minutes whipping up a batch of initro during a round if it isn't super deadly? Other basic chems that are much simpler, and can be made at the chem dispenser would just be used over them.

Nitro and initro are bad examples because they aren't the powerful chem's I'm talking about. they're fine to be non secret imo because they're hell to make and aren't all that strong compared to the basic chems.

Personally, I don't actually know of any chems that are "too powerful to be made non secret", but if there are any, they shouldn't be that powerful.

people dramatically overstate the power level of things. look at botany unleashed; peeps were insistent that it was going to lead to botanical terrorism overdose, but it didn't. I think we're actually in the same situation here with chemistry.

and I don't disagree that there should be powerful mysteries to solve; I just don't think chemistry as it stands is a healthy gameplay mechanic, and I think that the fun in chemistry has always been in discovering the emergent behavior of how chems interact with each other and not in the actual brainless 8 hour grind to discover the chemical.

a puzzle is something you have all the pieces for that you put together with a known goal in mind. chemistry isn't a puzzle in that sense. it's one of those joke torture puzzles with all blank pieces and several of the pieces aren't even in the box because there's a huge number of Chems whose very existence is secret, cause they're not on the wiki.

as I said in my original post, these secrets can stay secret at launch to provide whatever fun that they can to the people that want to do them, but once those peeps find them they should feel free to share them (or not share them) as they wish with proper spoiler tagging. there's no need to artificially keep these things secret into perpetuity. there's always gonna be more secret content being added for us to discover, so we should be comfortable letting go of the secrets of the past

[Sundance]

As a non-chem nerd, I never bothered with secret chemistry as it's something that is tedious to me. So right off the bat you can take my view with a pinch of salt.

Urs is on the money... it's the mixture of death chems that create absolute havoc, not individual secret chems. And the puzzle aspect is apt too.. it's a slog to figure out things. But I don't think declassifying chemistry would be the best way to go about it. There just needs to be more in game hints that follows a logical path rather than trial and error.

The Chemaster 3000 analysis readouts could be buffed significantly to give better analysis and perhaps even reverse engineer secret chems by providing a massive hint in terms of their synthesis. 

But that seems like a pain in the hole to code as you'd have to go over each chem. Honestly I see both sides here, this is a tricky subject.

[Lady Birb]

90% of secret chem difficulty comes from the fact that there are a shitton of "precursor" chems not listed on the wiki that the hints give barely indication that they even exist. If (most of) the precursors were made non-secret, or if there was at least a better indication that they actually existed instead of a few vague mentions of them, then figuring out secret chems would actually feel like a puzzle instead of mindless trial and error.

[KikiMofo]

Before the code leak I knew most of the secret chems that were around(excluding vamp and werewolf) and then all the recipes I knew were changed and it was all made secret and I had to come back and feel like a new player knowing nothing again. The secret recipes didn't make me feel like some amazing thing to find now it just made me not care about the secrets anymore. They ain't worth it, not at all.

[Drago156]

I think I really like the reoccurring idea of there being places you can find hints for secret chems at, and I feel it would also allow for more exploration from the science department other than the occassional telescience adventure.

In terms of the secret chems and spoiler tagging, I don't think some of the absolute deadliest or destructive chems should be publicly available or nerfed. QGP, Strychnine, Initro and its sibling chems, Raija,fermid , and Sarin should absolutely stay secret and unchanged because they have such a destructive presence with a special added twist that most standard chemicals have, and making these public would lead to a rise in grief IMO, and nerfing these chems takes the point out of ever using them. And I think something being overlooked here is the fact that you can still chemsmoke almost all of the secret chems. However I am completely in favor of unsecreting studf like Kerosene and Reversium and what not, just maybe add a way to counter Reversium and some of the other gimmick secrets with side effects.

TL;DR: dangerous secrets stay the same, but areas with hints be added. Gimmick secrets be made public with ways to counteract them/their side effects.