[DISCUSSION] Medical Pharmacy vs. Chemistry

[Lord_earthfire]

Its clear people want it to be its own role, and thus the question is what department it belongs to. If you place it in science as a "Chemist" then they aren't under the authority of the Medical Director, who is the main person that will want to order them to make X chems, and they'll be more detached from medical and their needs. Placing them in medical as a "pharmacist" role more accurately describes their role (make medicine) while positioning them among the people they will be making chemicals for. Though this comes with the downside of medical interaction for chems not going to another department, but it still goes to another player so this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

You are aware that MD's are the most prolific self-serving personel in the pharmacy since years?

Edit: to elaborate, it makes sense, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. In the rounds that made me wish the most that the pharmacy is gone, the person standing in the pharmacy and doing ny job was the MD.

[Vulwin_Gilran]

I do like this change

But it feels like most medical mains aren't willing to play ball with the idea at all, given nearly all the rounds i've played recently involved the pharmacy either being bolted open, or being broken into and the chemical locker being smashed open within the first few minutes.

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

stop being toxic dude

yeah I should've worded my point more gracefully. I was frustrated with how little their argument really explained despite them pushing to totally rework a part of the game I enjoy

[Emimiyu]

I read again that pharmacist access to chemistry got cut.

I prefer when it have chemistry access

[Agent reburG]

Okay, enough yapping and wailing on my behalf, how about this as a quick fix. 

Give Medbay a console, to request chems not every chemical in existence, but a set list of advanced medical chems like Synth flesh, Omni but also Yobizine and Lexorin etc. 

When requested X, science gets a chemical requisition order from CC of Y different chems and Z amount of said chems, all chems being semi difficult to synthesize maybe varying pending on what was requested. 
Important being, SCI doesn't have to synthesize X itself, but a randomly assorted order. 
Once they sent it, successfully, CC returns two locked crates, one with the requested chem for Medbay, and a reward for SCI (Rare chems, glassware like the handheld dispenser etc, varying again pending what was requested). 

Now, said console definitely needs a cooldown, but also puts SCI in position only they can accomplish. 
Now, with the gambling gamer gear, SCI might actually begs Medbay now for requests.

I don't want to clap myself too hard on my own shoulder, but I think this could create voluntary player agency, not because you need to, but because the other has something that really benefits you and them at the same time. 

It's also more additive instead of supplementary, which people usually like more.

Yeah I think that's a good idea. 

Could be something where when the requests are made, money is added to the ordering budget to cover the costs of the requested with a little extra to order something for your own benefit

Yeah, people like cooperation, but HATE depending on others. 
Medical should still keep access to the Pharmacy, to kill time, have more options when rolling traitor, but most importantly not have to beg for the most benign chemicals. 
Remember, the Bar has currently less obstructed access to a Chempenser, than medical staff, of course Medical Mains hate this (I do so too). 

We need both sides to benefit noticeably, if it's only one, the other feels belittled and struggling mid-air, most likely stopping to engage at all with it. 
But currently NOBODY gains anymore from doing it this way, so obviously engagement is low and the players aren't to blame. 

I do like this change

But it feels like most medical mains aren't willing to play ball with the idea at all, given nearly all the rounds i've played recently involved the pharmacy either being bolted open, or being broken into and the chemical locker being smashed open within the first few minutes.

Medical isn't playing ball, because they play alone at court. 
Pharmacist cryo out of boredom, do other things or don't exist in the first place. 
And SCI is even less encouraged, because "Ask the Pharmacist, not me!".
If players collectively dodge something mechanic-wise, it might be the mechanic itself and not a whole group of players deciding to be malicious.

[Lord_earthfire]

I do like this change

But it feels like most medical mains aren't willing to play ball with the idea at all, given nearly all the rounds i've played recently involved the pharmacy either being bolted open, or being broken into and the chemical locker being smashed open within the first few minutes.

If you see this pn RP, please ahelp that.
We need to get a grip on this. There likely only a few people that do that, and we need to root them out as fast as possible.

Stuff like this is why i think chemistry should not be in the medical department. The main problem of chemists and roboticists are not the lack of mechanics, their main problem are doctors overstepping boundaries.

[AgentOrphan]

What's good everyone,

I have a few notes from actually trialing out Pharmacist.
While it is nice to create some intra-departmental reliance by giving us the interaction oppurtunity, this PR feels rushed to all hell. I suspect it was done this way to address something major, but I have no insight as to what that might be. Conjecture aside, here are some notes:
The Pharmacy itself has very few of the tools needed to reliably produce chems. A condenser, for example, is not only very useful but actually necessary since the chem rework for phenol/acetone production. Given that you cannot reliably produce the industrial quantities of oil that Science can, this makes it sooooo wasteful and time consuming that its rarely worth it and instead mass-produce common and easy mixes that are maybe no more than two steps in a chain, such as sulfuric acid which can be produced easily in small quantities. But alas, producing larger amounts of chems requiring sulfuric acid or even cyanide is non-sensical because the offgassing turns the Pharmacists' closet into an area denial weapon at best or a coffin at worst. Why? Because there's no beaker lids supplied either. So the Pharmacy needs some basic chemistry apparatus to function, obviously being blocked from barrels will stop the worst of the industrial scaling that can happen in Chemistry but keeping the Pharmacy at least functionable should be considered a TOP priority to making this role viable if it can become viable. I've also noticed on certain maps that not all the chemistry-related buildings are not in the Pharmacy, such as the reagent extractor, removing one of the functional roles of actually processing medicines for distribution that the Pharmacy should really be able to do on a timely manner. What is particularly egregious is the seperation of the Reagent Extractor from the Chemmaster on Donut 3 which is a really "just why?" moment for Medical Doctors who might have white weed but now must find an empty container to put the omnizine itself in for hypospray refills or whatever.

Which leads me to infrastructure. The Pharmacy really is a coffin, lacking intercoms, phones, disposal and delivery chutes (most maps will have one or the other with the exception of Cog1, Cog2, and Clarion which have neither), hell even a Chemical Request console would be nice. Space might be lacking to fit a lot of the bulkier items in lovingly, especially with the Chemistry related buildings, but why even bother with the PR altogether if the Pharmacy is only ever going to be as effective as a wet tissue in putting out a fire? I can understand why MD mains might be unhappy with the restricted access, because a Pharmacist on their own isn't an effective role as it stands right now, while restricting some of the things that MD mains might want to do during their downtime- not even touching on the Antag nerf (which isn't itself a dealbreaker, but might limit some of the more devious things an Antag Doctor could do). Overall, it just feels- half-assed, for lack of a better term, which is a shame because I do like some aspects of Pharmacy gameplay and the idea overall. If nothing is changed, it will become the weakest role in Medical, and probably the station overall.

In saying all that, here are some ideas, just thrown out into the void and not at all connected to eachother, for your consideration:
- The Pharmacy should have ALL the basic chemistry gear. Bunsen burners, condensers, those neat flasks with the configurable drip setting, beaker lids, everything except for barrels. The rooms also need their own basic infrastructure- intercoms, maybe two (one for chemistry, one for medical). Phones. Dispoal and Delivery chutes. The works.
- The Pharmacy Chemical Dispenser should be limited in dispenses, if the goal is to deepen inter and intra-departmental reliance. This should also go for the Bar Chemical dispenser as well. I just know some of y'all would absolutely loathe this idea, but the idea here is to make Chemistry the only Chemistry in town. It is probably by design that Civilians get access to a Chemical Dispenser, but then why not move it to Botany who have so much more use for it and basically have a Chemistry setup on their side already. Since Chemistry already has its gameplay tendrils spread about the station, why not either lean into it or curtail it altogether, as this PR almost certainly seems out to do?
- A complete gameplay overhaul for the Pharmacy, instead of having it be just Chemistry-but-shit. Consider what Hospital Pharmacies do in real life- they distribute medicines and track inventory of those medicines, as well as research new ones in some cases. Why not bring back the same type of gameplay pathology offers, but for medicine instead? This is by far my favourite of the ideas.
- A very divisive idea, but one that could work: The Chemist as its own station role, eliminating the Pharmacy and Pharmacist altogether, restricting access to regular Scientists and incentivising Chemists to actually do their job in fufilling requests station-wide (one idea is to tie Chemistry-output to fufillment of requests. Genetics has done this well with their budget allocation being able to purchase more raw materials, maybe Chemistry should be similar?). Scientists be dammed (says the Scientist main), they already have an absurd amount of gameplay options and a lot of slots, and this is probably why no one sits in Chemistry all-shift: there's too much to see and do, and so much access to go with it. Split Science into 2 main subdepartments: Researchers, and Chemists, who both lack access for eachother while RD rules them all. Artifacts research is content heavy, toxins is provides interesting avenues for station improvement or traitor gameplay (yes, even outside of bombs), and telescience researchers often vanish into portals with large groups of followers never to be seen again. Do they really need Chemistry access, or is it a vast ego trip for an antag free-for-all (or even the common crimer, as Science is want to produce frequently)?

Obviously there's more than a handful of ideas floating around out there, but ultimately what it boils down to is whether or not the Pharmacist is a viable, effective, but most importantly, fun role to play. Right now its none of those, and it seems like it is difficult to toe the line between making it more effective without crushing the need for Chemistry or just merging the two roles together. But we would do well to remember that there are other potential oppurtunities for gameplay expansion without the necessarily common solution of just merging the two.

[Agent reburG]

If you see this pn RP, please ahelp that.
We need to get a grip on this. There likely only a few people that do that, and we need to root them out as fast as possible.

Stuff like this is why i think chemistry should not be in the medical department. The main problem of chemists and roboticists are not the lack of mechanics, their main problem are doctors overstepping boundaries.

And again, the one only way to currently get this PR to work consistently is Ahelping
For something incredible petty. 

I ask, shouldn't security handle this? 
Breaking and Entering falls at first in their jurisdiction, but I BET 90% security will not care, so will headstaff, AI that opened the doors, ahelp them too? 

Has the MD no saying of who has access to what in their department? 

Do Admins now have to constantly play scales? 
What if, the Pharmacist is incompetent? Do you just don't get what you need, have to do it yourself or wait 20 minutes? 

You can't compare this with Security or Engineering, because their inactivity produces immediate faults, while medbay can work without extra chems, it does nerf them. 
This won't be noticeably, but with every shit-for-brains Pharmacist interaction, resentment and frustration grows. 
Not every shift, but consistently. 
Even at a delusional peak performance of the pharmacist at a soulless stationary, medical itself becomes a lot more boring and it's already ungrateful with the usual "Need heal", "Clone now" etc. 

Why throw a critical role for a previous gimmick role single slot under the Bus? 
The Chemical Request Console wasn't working reliably before, medical was already mostly a 9-5 and nothing new was added, infact more removing is seemingly planned. 
I don't see this working till the next months when it's steadied on the outside, but worse underneath. 

Also address the bloody Chempenser at the Bar, double down or drop this hypocrisy.

[Lord_earthfire]

I ask, shouldn't security handle this? 
Breaking and Entering falls at first in their jurisdiction, but I BET 90% security will not care, so will headstaff, AI that opened the doors, ahelp them too? 

If sec needs to handle something non-antags do, you need in most cases to ahelp that. Breaking and entering is also an example in the "stay in your lane" rule.

Head staff and AI opening it is fine. They have access and can give it. But if i see a medical director AI-opening into chenistry as a scientist, yes, i dhould ahelp.

The problem, like we talked about, isnt about the rules. Its about enforcement. So do your part and ahelp. I personally need to get better at that as well.

Also address the bloody Chempenser at the Bar, double down or drop this hypocrisy.

The job of a bartender is providing chemicals. Mainly alcohol related ones. The difference is that medicals job is not making chemicals, their job is -using- them.

Compare the bartender to pharmacy, and medbay to the personal getting drunk. You don't want the drinking staffie on the bar machine.

Redundancy is good. Botany can make chems, bartemder can make them, qm can order them. It's not bad that you can bypass chemistry/pharmacy by ordering by qm. What counts that a different department does it and friction/interaction is created.

The problem arises when a department uses a recource that is meant to be limited but are also given the ability to create it.

You are talking about a hypocrisy because you don't understand the issue.

[Agent reburG]

I ask, shouldn't security handle this? 
Breaking and Entering falls at first in their jurisdiction, but I BET 90% security will not care, so will headstaff, AI that opened the doors, ahelp them too? 

If sec needs to handle something non-antags do, you need in most cases to ahelp that. Breaking and entering is also an example in the "stay in your lane" rule.

Head staff and AI opening it is fine. They have access and can give it. But if i see a medical director AI-opening into chenistry as a scientist, yes, i dhould ahelp.

The problem, like we talked about, isnt about the rules. Its about enforcement. So do your part and ahelp. I personally need to get better at that as well.

Also address the bloody Chempenser at the Bar, double down or drop this hypocrisy.

The job of a bartender is providing chemicals. Mainly alcohol related ones. The difference is that medicals job is not making chemicals, their job is -using- them.

Compare the bartender to pharmacy, and medbay to the personal getting drunk. You don't want the drinking staffie on the bar machine.

Redundancy is good. Botany can make chems, bartemder can make them, qm can order them. It's not bad that you can bypass chemistry/pharmacy by ordering by qm. What counts that a different department does it and friction/interaction is created.

The problem arises when a department uses a recource but are given the ability to create it.

You are talking about a hypocracy because you don't understand the issue.

You promoted Ahelping bolted open pharmacies or breaking of lockers, things only worthy of Staff intervention when breaking into critical areas repeatedly
Here some quotes, 

 "Only minor crime is permitted for non-antagonists" (1. RP Server rule)

"Trespassing is a common complaint and is not a serious crime, though it is good practice to investigate any complaints of trespassing as you may find that the suspect has entered an area they do not have access to in order to commit some further crime. Trespassers should be asked to leave if they do not have express permission from a head or department member to be in a restricted area. They should only be forcibly removed if their presence in the area constitutes some clear and immediate danger to the station (IE a staff assistant in the AI upload). If the suspect caused or exploited some structural damage to get into the area, engineering should be called in to repair it." (Space Law regarding Low Crimes: Trespassing, suggested punishment: None)

"Disorderly Conduct is a broad offense that applies to any activity that might be considered wildly inappropriate or unprofessional on the station. Unlike harassment, it only applies if the behavior is untargeted or doesn't seem persistent but is still disruptive." (Space Law regarding Low Crimes: Disorderly Conduct, suggested punishment: Ticketing)

"Dereliction of duty can be a serious charge on a station where all employees are required to work together for the sake of safety and productivity, but the enforcement of such is generally outside of security's jurisdiction. Any serious dereliction of duty such as the engineers not starting the engine or the captain leaving the nuclear authorization disk where anyone could find it should be reported to the Head of Personnel, who is best equipped to deal with the situation via docking of pay or reassignment. Lesser charges such as the janitor not cleaning messes in a timely manner might only be grounds for a ticket." (Space Law regarding Low Crimes: Dereliction of Duty, suggested punishment: Ticketing) 

Here regarding hacking into places:

"Hack responsibly!

Like mechanical hacking, packet-hacking is not in of itself a violation of the rules or a crime Security could persecute you for. It is not considered Grief in the same way, say, bombing something could be, and you do not need to be antagonist to use packets.[/color]
However, if you use packet-hacking to commit crime, e.g. using packets to break into the Research Sector, then crew are well within their right to try to stop you, and Security is allowed to punish you for it.[/color]
In addition, if you use packet-hacking to break into sensitive places (e.g. AI Upload, Security in general, Armory specifically), steal vital job equipment (e.g. the Captain's spare ID), or commit other borderline Grief acts, you can be yelled at by an Admin or even banned from the game for a while, especially if you make a habit of doing it."

Ahelping for these offenses is petty and also no where promoted. 

Regarding the Bar, 

They hand out Drinks and Food, not chemicals, that's correlation at times but NOT the same. 

They could easily still do their task without it, in fact needing chemicals for special drinks? 
Hey, you know what, why don't just use the Chemical Request Console? 
Give SCI a repeatable task for every round duh, causes player interaction duh, breaks the vicious circle of the Bar having their own chems, not needing SCI, SCI not doing things and being the reason why the Bar needs to have their own chems duh.  /sarcasm

[Kotlol]

Holy crimney...

Okay I am sorry but this whole ruling on staying in lane vs minor crimes.. I can safely say this.

BREAKING AND ENTERING is allowed and even ENCOURAGED to a degree by the designers.
How many staffies litterly have the given objective of: "Steal a space suit from EVA."
Yea that one requires clearly minor criming and if you can't or an admin might ban you....
That is COUNTERINTUATIVE.

Where I see this discussion going is much much much simpler.
But that fix will have people harrasing engineering to go: Get a chem dispenser from Science.
Yes I was thinking of a chem dispsenser limit that has to be restocked but keep the infinite one for Science.

Eitherway... as it stands now. I think the biggest problem is there are a lot of underlaying problems in the game that need to be fixed 1st.
And all of these come down to: "Why does medbay suck?"
Until the root problems are solved, all these changes to it constantly is just gonna annoy doctors during cirsises.
We keep moving the goalpost against medbay lately with these changes and while some good, I think it's time to look for other ways to change medbay.

If doctors are bored, they can make house calls and check other departments. They can still doctor small things (and I think we need more small things to doctor).
But if a robotcist is bored, the best they can do is grab a monkey and do surgery on them... and I think that department needs more to do.

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

Regarding the Bar, 

They hand out Drinks and Food, not chemicals, that's correlation at times but NOT the same. 

They could easily still do their task without it, in fact needing chemicals for special drinks? 
Hey, you know what, why don't just use the Chemical Request Console? 
Give SCI a repeatable task for every round duh, causes player interaction duh, breaks the vicious circle of the Bar having their own chems, not needing SCI, SCI not doing things and being the reason why the Bar needs to have their own chems duh. 

I don't know why everybody is bloodthirsty to rip chemical dispensers out of the hands of every player, I think it's cool when bartenders make whatever bullshit secret chems their customers order, I once saw one guy drink a fuel tank full of sarin after the bartender made it for them

[Agent reburG]

Regarding the Bar, 

They hand out Drinks and Food, not chemicals, that's correlation at times but NOT the same. 

They could easily still do their task without it, in fact needing chemicals for special drinks? 
Hey, you know what, why don't just use the Chemical Request Console? 
Give SCI a repeatable task for every round duh, causes player interaction duh, breaks the vicious circle of the Bar having their own chems, not needing SCI, SCI not doing things and being the reason why the Bar needs to have their own chems duh. 

I don't know why everybody is bloodthirsty to rip chemical dispensers out of the hands of every player, I think it's cool when bartenders make whatever bullshit secret chems their customers order, I once saw one guy drink a fuel tank full of sarin after the bartender made it for them

I was calling out the hypocrisy, I don't want them to remove it, but they just close their eyes about the similarities. 

They wouldn't dare to go after that.

[Torchwick]

I have a few notes from actually trialing out Pharmacist.
While it is nice to create some intra-departmental reliance by giving us the interaction oppurtunity, this PR feels rushed to all hell. I suspect it was done this way to address something major, but I have no insight as to what that might be.

….

Which leads me to infrastructure. The Pharmacy really is a coffin, lacking intercoms, phones, disposal and delivery chutes (most maps will have one or the other with the exception of Cog1, Cog2, and Clarion which have neither), hell even a Chemical Request console would be nice. Space might be lacking to fit a lot of the bulkier items in lovingly, especially with the Chemistry related buildings, but why even bother with the PR altogether if the Pharmacy is only ever going to be as effective as a wet tissue in putting out a fire? I can understand why MD mains might be unhappy with the restricted access, because a Pharmacist on their own isn't an effective role as it stands right now, while restricting some of the things that MD mains might want to do during their downtime- not even touching on the Antag nerf (which isn't itself a dealbreaker, but might limit some of the more devious things an Antag Doctor could do). Overall, it just feels- half-assed, for lack of a better term, which is a shame because I do like some aspects of Pharmacy gameplay and the idea overall. If nothing is changed, it will become the weakest role in Medical, and probably the station overall.

This is what gets me, and it’s not an attempt to be mean or rude to those making the PRs. It FEELS insanely rushed, and the most common response to fixing it that I’ve seen has been; “feel free to PR”. I agree that not all changes are required to get a PR out the door, and yes, sprites and the like can be added later. My main issue is that any other PR would’ve been made to wait before shoving it out the door.

The map changes feel completely rushed to meet the demand of people with concerns, and I don’t think that was the best way to go about it. I appreciate that the changes were made to address the front desk concerns, but… it doesn’t feel natural. The lack of blinds, intercoms, etc… it just feels like it was completely rushed to stop the complaining. Again, I entirely get the point of the PR and I agree with the reasoning on changing things, but I think the change itself is backwards, and I wish more time was given to discuss alternatives.

That’s not to say it can’t be changed now, so I am hopeful that we can find the alternative we need. I don’t think anyone has rushed these changes to be malicious, but I think having this conversation and respectfully outlining concerns is a good place to start.

[Lord_earthfire]

Regarding the Bar, 

They hand out Drinks and Food, not chemicals, that's correlation at times but NOT the same. 

They could easily still do their task without it, in fact needing chemicals for special drinks? 
Hey, you know what, why don't just use the Chemical Request Console? 
Give SCI a repeatable task for every round duh, causes player interaction duh, breaks the vicious circle of the Bar having their own chems, not needing SCI, SCI not doing things and being the reason why the Bar needs to have their own chems duh. 

There is a difference. You are talking about -what- chemical they should be able to make. And even more so about chemicals that department doesn't need to function. A place of supply.

I am talking about if a department should be making chemicals at all. And about chemicals thst department needs to function. A place of demand.

Your discussion is worthwhile to have. Of course the bar doesn't need the chem dispenser.

If we want to talk about this properly, then we're talking about removing the bar dispenser. Botany offers most of the chems there. Stock up the booze vendor, kill off all dispensers in the bar.

We don't do the latter because we want the bartender to be a place of supply of chemicals. And we want multiple places that offer these. Read: create redundancy

Medbay, however, is not. However, they can currently make chemicals to satisfy their demand.

You want to talk here about modifying the selection of choices in a system (chemistry system). I am talking about the option to remove the access to that mechanic at all in a department i personally say shouldn't have it.