Pharmacy: Do They Really Need All That

[mintyphresh]

Pharmacy should not be as powerful as it is. Like the Chemistry lab, it features a locker with the standard six chemical precursors, an infinite supply of chemicals from the dispenser so long as there's power, a glass recycler for printing new glassware, and packaging, extraction, and heating implements. The chemistry rework did increase the differences between Chemlab and Pharmacy beyond zero by adding advanced tools like condensers, The Chem Wiggler (!!), and most importantly the barrel, which makes mass-producing chemicals a little easier for Chemistry than for Pharmacy.

I don't think the current state of chemistry-pharmacy differences goes far enough. Most jobs that have interactions with other departments or crew only get a little bit of the materials that the other department provides:

• Fabricators, especially those in Robotics and Science, need restocking if overused, either from cargo or mining (and it must be mining if the materials are advanced)
  
• The chef's supply of produce is limited both in variety and quantity, and needs restocking from Botany or Cargo (and it must be Botany if the produce is uncommon)
  
• Botany can run out of fertilizer for their plants (esp. Saltpeter) and needs to order more from Cargo/Chemistry (usually chemistry)
  
• The Bartender gets an unlimited supply of a limited spread of fruit juices, and needs Botany if they want to make rare drinks from the remaining fruits (that often have no mechanical difference to other drinks)
  
• Science often needs the help of Botany, the Chef, or the Bartender to make secret chems
  
• Food from the chef and is way better than vending machine food; same with bartender/botany juices for thirst on RP
  

However, Medbay doesn't have this type of interaction with chemistry. Sure, scientists can go to the space diner to get drink fountain drinks, or Cargo can spend some of their budget setting up their own hydroponics system, but pharmacy is there round-start. All that's needed is a quick trip to the other side of Medbay to wrench off a 500-unit water cooler tank, and you've got yourself a replacement for the chemistry department. It breaks my heart, as a scientist main, to walk into Medbay and see the ground littered with pustules and pentetic acid bottles when I haven't had any requests all shift; I don't think that making those products should be so quick that it's worth a doctor's time to do it.

I think removing the glass dispenser would be a step in the right direction-- Large beakers are pretty useful-- but I'm also working on a project to make "crummy dispensers" that delete a few reagents from their list randomly when they're spawned, that could be useful. I wouldn't be opposed to removing the pharmacy entirely, either, but that's a huge mapping challenge.

What are your guys' thoughts? Is getting Medbay to make requests to chemistry a change worth making? Are there better ways of encouraging that interaction?

[Lord_earthfire]

Just remove the pharmacy and give them a styptic/sulfazide/charcoal dispenser. Medbay starts with tons of chemicals, most of them in quantities far more than necessary for your average shift. And if that doesn't suffice, you got cargo, chemistry and botany all theoretically able to provide more.

The only chems medbay regulary runs out of are the 3 basic kinds. And this can be solved with a podwars-esque dispenser. Even calomel is there in sufficient quanities with the dialysis machine existing. And such a dispenser would make it easier on beginner doctors.

[Snowy :D]

As someone who plays doctor very frequently, I like to have the ability to do things myself. Asking another department for something can be tricky because members of that department may be absent or just flat out ignore me, so I don’t even bother most of the time.

I don’t see too many doctors utilizing the pharmacy from my experience. I usually use it to make perfluorodecalin and SR, I see some doctors using it to make synthflesh, but not much else outside of that. I believe most doctors tend to just use the chemicals from the vendors.

Personally, I think changing the pharmacy would inconvenience the people who do use it while doing very little for medbay and science’s relationship in return.

[Cleaverwolf]

Personally speaking, I've rarely had good experiences with chem-requests and the interlink as a medical doctor, like Snowy said, Chemistry is either absent or flat out ignoring requests in favor of building bombs or whatever . I highly doubt removing Pharmacy or parts of it would change much, other than further inconveniencing doctors. It's a culture problem, not a design one.
If you wanted to nerf the pharmacy anyways, I would suggest a specialized chem-machine that is very limited in what it can make, kind of like what Earthfire suggested.

[glowbold]

Medical Doctor overall has a problem of being very reactive, and as such it's harder to design shift-long term goals they can accomplish without being frustrating. Given the lack of bigger objectives to work towards, the Pharmacy will always be used as a place to spend 'free' time during a shift. Limiting the pharmacy without addressing the med-sci chem request interaction and lack of proactive goals would make medical doctor less compelling to play.

It's a culture problem, not a design one.

Agreed, but I think it's a culture problem in part because the systems in place lack encouragement and recognition for someone to actually do the job:

0. No guarantee that your request is seen; the chemical request console does not tell you how many scientists are even on shift.

1. No one in science is directly responsible for the work of making chemicals, bar the Research Director *maybe*. Because "scientist" is a free-form role, you cannot expect a full science team to have a single chemist.

2. No way to mark a chemical request "in-progress", which would at least let you know/check if someone *is* working on it.

3. No way to establish consistent rewards for finishing chemical requests, because the requests are player-created and resolved without verification.



Some ideas to address:

* Scientists can mark requests as "In progress" or "Cancelled", but only the receiver can mark "Accepted".

* Since chemical requests are ID-bound, allow, but not require, people to list how many credits they'll pay when marked "Accepted". (Yes, you can scam people with this. Feature.)

* End-game score of chemical requests "Accepted" to give chemistry recognition at end-game next to other science teams.

* Without reducing ID permissions, split the Scientist role into lab-focused sub-roles: "Chemist", "Physicist", "Archeologist", "Astrophysicist". This gives people more direct ownership over areas of science without changing the "hey help me out here" open interaction within science.

[babayetu83]

i don't think removing the pharmacy would be a net gain for anyone and just make the overall experience for doctors much worse. if i recall, the entire point of the pharmacy was to give the doctors their own little work area to make their own chems without having constantly bug/nag scientists to make xyz chem for you. if i were a doctor i wouldn't want to constantly have to go waddle down to research and hope i find a scientist willing to fulfill my request. likewise if i were a scientist i wouldn't want to be constantly bugged if i'm making bombs or researching artifacts or whatever have you. this feels as if you were taking a square peg and whittling it into a circle and having to still force it through the hole

[GreenJelly]

Some way to encourage medbay to order from science would be nice. I usually do not get requests when I am in science unless I specifically go to medbay and ask if I can make anything. Sometimes I just throw random medicine into the interlink as I am experimenting with different ratios for production.

I do like some of the suggestions Glowbold had, especially a way to mark requests as in-progress as a Scientist, or maybe a way to list how many people are currently working chemistry. Usually when I have requested things from the console my only feedback is when the finished bottle is tossed at my face.

Making the request part of the process more engaging in some way will probably go over better than "nerfing" the pharmacy, though limiting the amount of pre-cursor chemicals available at round-start or giving the pharmacy a more basic chemical dispenser, as has been suggested, could be options if it is/remains a problem.

Jelly

[Cal]

Heavily agree with them getting something cool before losing anything.

[meaow589]

I 50% agree on this idea because pharmacists is one of chemist too.
But scientists should has some different and some advantage from it (which is already have ex. Chemicomplier , Testing room , protection equipment , Barrel , Fractional condenser , mechanical dropper) all this tool are very useful and the pharmacist always ask for it also the chemistry lab also has many protection system like emergency shower , fire bot.and the very benefit from scientist from pharmacist is scientists has no responsible to cure people you can enjoy experiment even next of you are 10 people almost dying in medbey by the way scientist is one of role that quite target for antagonist like ling or vampire since they not has weapon and less people visit there.  There are so many round that I got RD role and get kill in 5 minute in the round and nobody notice it

[Lord_earthfire]

Heavily agree with them getting something cool before losing anything.

I mean, they got nice equipment like the dialysis machine and the such. With medbay it's kinda granular instead of huge swats of content.

Medbay could certainly get something that can have maintenance and finetuning to run more properly, like maybe an expansion of cryo tubes/sleepers?

With pharnacy biting the dust, a new room would open up for medbay. Would be a good opportunity to add something there.

[Spyritdragon]

I definitely think removing the pharmacy altogether, or some of its most crucial tools, would cause more frustration than we'd get gain from it. It's a good place so far for medical staff to spend some downtime in a very reactive job, as Glowbold put very well. It's also a fairly accessible place for medical-side antags to plan some mischief, which I think is good for the health of rounds.

I think the nerfs to perfluorodecalin and pentetic acid are a very good case study. Both are extremely useful apex medicines that were formerly fairly readily craftable by an experienced doctor in about 10 minutes of work, and ahve since the chem changes mostly - if not entirely, due to the availability of salicylic acid in the vendor and some workarounds for pent - been relegated to chemistry. Rather than encouraging Chemistry to make more of them, this has instead just resulted in medbay usually making do without them. I strongly feel we need better comms about requests though if any of this is ever going to lead to medical relying on chemistry more for things. A way to see requests as being worked on would be a huge game changer.

I'm a big fan of instead making some of the fancier chems be chemistry-only. Taking away the probably unintended workarounds that still let the pharmacy make pentetic acid as well as not letting them basically dispense perfluorodecalin, two of the most common 'apex' meds that can help a doctor out greatly, would add something that chemistry stands to benefit that medical can't just to themselves, without taking away the pharmacy as a fun place for medical to experiment or top up their own supply of the more basic meds. With a clearer idea of whether or not we're actually going to get something we asked for, this'd let chemistry be super useful to medical, while not ruining medical's existing fun.

[Lord_earthfire]

Rather than encouraging Chemistry to make more of them, this has instead just resulted in medbay usually making do without them. I strongly feel we need better comms about requests though if any of this is ever going to lead to medical relying on chemistry more for things. A way to see requests as being worked on would be a huge game changer.

I can talk a bit about the reasons for this. What made me, to some part, stop supplying medbay with chems IS the pharmacy.

Nothing feels more disheartening than throwing all kind of chems into the interlink to find only 1 or two bottles being used.

Or running into chemistry and finding bottles upon bottles of perf and pent already on the table.

People will only work for a department if they perceive their work as worth it. Noone likes to do every round something that nobody will ever use. I personally would rather make chems i can personally use than of chems potentionally noone uses.

[Cal]

Yeah the reason scientists don't make medical chems is because medical already has their own entire chemical station, why bother when someone already made a pent-perflou-omni-reagent mix in a third of the time it takes you to even ask.

[Maegor]

Personally, I think Chemistry being better equipped to mass produce medicines is better than removing Medbay's access, as before a pharmacy was standardized on maps, getting scientists to make stuff wasn't actually better and it was just frustating.

Today, I feel Chemistry-Medbay cooperation works the best when the main impediment isn't equipment but available time, like when there are lots of injured and I can't take the time off to synthesize Chems. If I get the request it helps, if I don't I wouldn't be able to do it myself anyway.

[Kotlol]

The reason we have pharmacy is because medbay is too important to be ignored with chem requests.

I heard stories of people dunking buckets of medicine onto people to heal them and every game science has to make these buckets of medicine.
So they changed it. The bucket dunking was removed for menders and a small supply was set in medbay, so science was free.
But this caused another problem, cause science is always too busy and thus if medbay ran out.. people were dieing.. INCLUDING THE SCIENTISTS WHO YOU NEED TO HAVE CHEMS TO HEAL FOR!
"Help I am horribly burned"
"I am out of burn medicine! What do we have? Nothing?! All pods full?! Cloning destroyed?!"

So pharmacy is a nice back up to have. And some new map designers decided to fuse Pharmacy and Chemistry together. We see this in Cog 2 mostly where Chemistry and the pharmacy are interlinked. And I do love this.

I get that people want interaction with medbay and science again but to solve this culture problem is having science to gain something from helping medbay.
I always like using the genetics gameplay loop as a design philosophy. Science has a budget, but 10/10 times it's just spend on genetics.
Why not have the budget be able to upgrade science devices to make em work faster?
Now the science budget is more then just: "Genetics's free upgrades"
And requests give pay outs.

Anyway.. if we want to change the interaction.. we have to change the pharmacy.. NOT REMOVE IT!
Why do we go to the pharmacy? To get medicine to treat us for longer periods of time.
So why not do just that?
Make the menders only able to treat people to 80% of any damage, but the last 20% has to be done with medicine from the pharmacy.
Not only will this STOP the mending only approach, but having something like a BURN OINTMENT that can heal 20% of your burns away wich menders cannot remove.. is great.

Just imagine that each damage type has 2 variants. "Short term and Long term." And the long term can only be treated with ointments and medicine. But also alternative ways of healing.. like brute damage can also be lessened by holding an ice pack against you.

Now medbay becomes less a "Go in and get healed" kinda place.. but Pharmacy will have the long term medical healing items and can produce more of it from a chemical storage. But to refill that storage is to ask science.