Goonhub
07-21-2013, 08:57 PM
<RANT WARNING>
Okay, so SS13's Chemistry has been reworked to start using real life chemicals with similar properties to whatever they replaced. Personally, I like this change: it's beginning to feel more like Chemistry work and less like mashing reagents together to brew up whatever obscure and fictional compounds the developers threw in for the hell of it. Good on you for the switch.
...Unfortunately, due to the obvious issues of games trying (and failing) to mimic reality, I have a gripe or two with it that I'd like to get off my chest - without spouting it off into the in-game chat or IRC where it'll just annoy everyone, hence why I put it here. Make of the following what you will.
The big problem with real-life chemicals being introduced into the game is that there should be a whole plethora of ways to create them. The Chemistry Lab is fitted with pretty much every single thing you need to make any chemical in the game, as is its purpose, but it gets a little irritating when the process you read up on that should work with 100% certainty... just doesn't work. My example here is Sulfuric (Sulphuric) Acid: the Wikipedia entry on it alone lists at least ten or so different ways that Sulfuric Acid can form, a large number of which can realistically be done in SS13 with what is available... and it ends up that the way to make it in-game is simply to dumb plain chemicals into a beaker.
Sure, this is a superior method since it's arguably the fastest, but anyone not aware of how the game mechanics handle it and are instead trying to use a conventional method is going to end up well and truly confused. Not all chemicals in real life or in SS13 use the "just put together its molecular components" system, nor do they all use the same method, and in the end the process turns into a tedious endeavor to discover the two or possibly one working methods out of however many there are in reality of creating the desired reagent. It honestly comes across as an intentional attempt to confuse people, and anyone with an actual real life degree in chemistry (I'm sure someone like this plays this game) won't be amused.
None of this is helped by and I'm sorry to point this out since it's probably been maligned by many people since the game was made, myself included, but I still feel it's relevant this unspoken vow of complete and absolute secrecy that everyone seems to have about chemistry recipes. Now, for the hoards of frothing newbies and metagaming griefers that routinely plague SS13, this is totally understandable and acceptable. But say the person trying to make the reagent in question is a regular, cool player who is merely confused as to why his/her potential hours upon hours of trial and error still haven't yielded the desired result. In this case it's not so much "blargharghargh how do I make flaming death pill bombs durrrp" and instead a case of knowing how a certain reagent can and should be made, but simply doesn't work due to how it's coded into the game; in this case, the inevitable request for help only garnering a resounding reply of "Nope." is really needlessly frustrating and disheartening. It was already an issue when Goonstation had all those fantastical recipes, but this is going to become even more prevalent with real chemicals in the game.
I'll say it again, just in case it was forgetten in the rant: I like the new Chemistry system, I think the inclusion of real chemicals is a big step in the right direction for SS13, and the measures taken to prevent blatant overuse and griefing are all okay. But the simple fact is that a lot of new players tend to underthink or overthink things about the game mechanics, especially when it involves Chemistry, and I believe there needs to be an easier way for them to figure out new things without wasting hours or perhaps even days trying out methods that just aren't going to work.
Okay, so SS13's Chemistry has been reworked to start using real life chemicals with similar properties to whatever they replaced. Personally, I like this change: it's beginning to feel more like Chemistry work and less like mashing reagents together to brew up whatever obscure and fictional compounds the developers threw in for the hell of it. Good on you for the switch.
...Unfortunately, due to the obvious issues of games trying (and failing) to mimic reality, I have a gripe or two with it that I'd like to get off my chest - without spouting it off into the in-game chat or IRC where it'll just annoy everyone, hence why I put it here. Make of the following what you will.
The big problem with real-life chemicals being introduced into the game is that there should be a whole plethora of ways to create them. The Chemistry Lab is fitted with pretty much every single thing you need to make any chemical in the game, as is its purpose, but it gets a little irritating when the process you read up on that should work with 100% certainty... just doesn't work. My example here is Sulfuric (Sulphuric) Acid: the Wikipedia entry on it alone lists at least ten or so different ways that Sulfuric Acid can form, a large number of which can realistically be done in SS13 with what is available... and it ends up that the way to make it in-game is simply to dumb plain chemicals into a beaker.
Sure, this is a superior method since it's arguably the fastest, but anyone not aware of how the game mechanics handle it and are instead trying to use a conventional method is going to end up well and truly confused. Not all chemicals in real life or in SS13 use the "just put together its molecular components" system, nor do they all use the same method, and in the end the process turns into a tedious endeavor to discover the two or possibly one working methods out of however many there are in reality of creating the desired reagent. It honestly comes across as an intentional attempt to confuse people, and anyone with an actual real life degree in chemistry (I'm sure someone like this plays this game) won't be amused.
None of this is helped by and I'm sorry to point this out since it's probably been maligned by many people since the game was made, myself included, but I still feel it's relevant this unspoken vow of complete and absolute secrecy that everyone seems to have about chemistry recipes. Now, for the hoards of frothing newbies and metagaming griefers that routinely plague SS13, this is totally understandable and acceptable. But say the person trying to make the reagent in question is a regular, cool player who is merely confused as to why his/her potential hours upon hours of trial and error still haven't yielded the desired result. In this case it's not so much "blargharghargh how do I make flaming death pill bombs durrrp" and instead a case of knowing how a certain reagent can and should be made, but simply doesn't work due to how it's coded into the game; in this case, the inevitable request for help only garnering a resounding reply of "Nope." is really needlessly frustrating and disheartening. It was already an issue when Goonstation had all those fantastical recipes, but this is going to become even more prevalent with real chemicals in the game.
I'll say it again, just in case it was forgetten in the rant: I like the new Chemistry system, I think the inclusion of real chemicals is a big step in the right direction for SS13, and the measures taken to prevent blatant overuse and griefing are all okay. But the simple fact is that a lot of new players tend to underthink or overthink things about the game mechanics, especially when it involves Chemistry, and I believe there needs to be an easier way for them to figure out new things without wasting hours or perhaps even days trying out methods that just aren't going to work.
