Buff the chemicompiler

[Scrumpys]

The chemicompiler is a pretty fun thing to play with, but the only problem is that its shockingly slow. It takes at least a minute or few to heat beakers even 100 degrees. I know that this is as fast as the reagent heater and cooler, but that heats faster depending on the temperature, so most people just set it to 1000 and stop it manually when it quickly reaches the right heat. Also, the reagent transfer rate is a bit slow too. I imagine it should be comparable to mixing the ingredients by hand, which 1/4* amount seconds is not.

So I think itd be nice if the chemicompiler heated reagents at the rate you get when you set the reagent heater and cooler to 1000 and if the transfer rate was increased to maybe 1/8* amount seconds or 1/12* amount seconds.

[ihenn]

The ChemiCompiler definitely does need some buffs. It is way too slow, and very difficult to write a program for. You would expect that putting up with BrainFuck to write a program to compile chemicals would result in a easier and faster way to produce the chemicals you want, but it does not. Doing it by hand is the superior method, and I would like to see a buff to the ChemiCompiler to make it worth using.

Let me explain how the ChemiCompiler is hugely inefficient compared to mixing it by hand:

• The obvious drawback is you must spend a considerable amount of time making the program by hand. (If you enjoy a programming challenge, then this can be an advantage).
  
• You must load all the required chemicals for the recipe into the machine. Certain steps can combine some ingredients into the same beaker, saving a few clicks, but for each required beaker it takes 4 + n clicks, where n is the required amount of chemicals / 10. So for 5 beakers with 20 chemicals each, it would take 30 clicks to set the machine up. 
  
• The ChemiCompiler takes EONS to heat and cool beakers. 
  

Now, doing the process by hand:

• No need to create a disgusting string of characters to input into a machine.
  
• Can load all the required chemicals into one beaker, the reactions taking place as you go. This only takes 2 + n clicks. Add 6 clicks for each heating/ cooling process, and an extra 2 if needed to load the beaker back into the dispenser. Using the previous reaction with 100 chemicals, lets say there is a heating cycle in the middle of the process. That would be a total of 20 clicks.
  
• Heating by hand can be done rapidly, as we can see when the reaction has taken place and stop the heating, whereas the ChemiCompiler requires it to be fully hot or cold.
  

So as you can see, the time we saved by doing the process by hand was:

• No coding.
  
• 10 clicks.
  
• Heating and cooling time.
  

Improvements I'd like to see are:

• No change to the coding. It's like a puzzle, and should reward you when you've done it right.
  
• Make the ChemiCompiler have an internal access to chemicals, that can be used within the code. They could be the atomic numbers of elements, an ID for chemicals, or something that would allow you to write the code and automatically access basic chemicals.  An alternative could be spectroscopy, have it scan chemicals and store their ID in the chemicompiler. More complex chemicals could be too difficult to scan, so you couldn't replicate everything. Having this functionality would save a lot of time setting up beakers for the machine.
  
• Make heating up elements stop when a reaction has taken place. This would allow the user to do what they do by hand, in the machine.
  
• Make cooling much faster by having it internally cool at 0 and stop when it reaches the desired temperature.
  

These changes would make using the chemicompiler actually have an in-game use, in addition to being an interesting puzzle.

[Vitatroll]

Yeah. I can see what you're saying. I agree with the temperature idea. Not sure about the transfer time idea, but that's just because I haven't used the CC in several months.

The CC is generally just used to a) Make repeated reactions or b) Make large batches from 100u beakers. The danger tends to come from 'a', which would be affected by transfer rate. 'B' is generally used drug operations, so it's of little consequence. Though really I'd like to see more people use the CC to good and bad effect, so a buff would be nice.

[UrsulaMejor]

Buffing transfer rate would monstrously overpower the device. It's one of the most powerful traitor items in the game

I do believe that heating/cooling should be faster

[Noah Buttes]

Buffing transfer rate would monstrously overpower the device. It's one of the most powerful traitor items in the game

I strongly disagree.

I can't think of a single thing you can do with the portable chemicompiler's transfer feature that you can't do just as well with a dead monkey and an iv bag.

[Roomba]

Buffing transfer rate would monstrously overpower the device. It's one of the most powerful traitor items in the game

I do believe that heating/cooling should be faster

Unless you can provide a recent example of the chemicompiler destroying the station in a method only the chemicompiler is capable of accomplishing, I'm not buying it. Chemistry has changed at least a fair amount since the days in which that was accomplishable, and the chemicompiler continues to be used just about never because every time someone suggests altering it in any way the same people come in and go 'no guys you can't do that it's overpowered in a manner I can never adequately describe but trust me guys it totally is'.

[UrsulaMejor]

Buffing transfer rate would monstrously overpower the device. It's one of the most powerful traitor items in the game

I do believe that heating/cooling should be faster

Unless you can provide a recent example of the chemicompiler destroying the station in a method only the chemicompiler is capable of accomplishing, I'm not buying it. Chemistry has changed at least a fair amount since the days in which that was accomplishable, and the chemicompiler continues to be used just about never because every time someone suggests altering it in any way the same people come in and go 'no guys you can't do that it's overpowered in a manner I can never adequately describe but trust me guys it totally is'.

Activating a single unit transfer 4 times a second is ridiculously overpowered with certain reactions. For example, ldm once a second for ~600 seconds. Or making a 4 second timer followed by rapid smoke powder activation of black powder smoke, ldm smoke, thermite smoke, and napalm smoke, each smoke happening in ~ the same second.

The only reason people aren't destroying the station with chemicompilers anymore is because the original cc nerd crew all lost interest once it went public and our codes were leaked. If someone like Bone Lord bothered to learn it you'd rue the day you thought it underpowered

[Noah Buttes]

Buffing transfer rate would monstrously overpower the device. It's one of the most powerful traitor items in the game

I do believe that heating/cooling should be faster

Unless you can provide a recent example of the chemicompiler destroying the station in a method only the chemicompiler is capable of accomplishing, I'm not buying it. Chemistry has changed at least a fair amount since the days in which that was accomplishable, and the chemicompiler continues to be used just about never because every time someone suggests altering it in any way the same people come in and go 'no guys you can't do that it's overpowered in a manner I can never adequately describe but trust me guys it totally is'.

Activating a single unit transfer 4 times a second is ridiculously overpowered with certain reactions. For example, ldm once a second for ~600 seconds. Or making a 4 second timer followed by rapid smoke powder activation of black powder smoke, ldm smoke, thermite smoke, and napalm smoke, each smoke happening in ~ the same second.

The only reason people aren't destroying the station with chemicompilers anymore is because the original cc nerd crew all lost interest once it went public and our codes were leaked. If someone like Bone Lord bothered to learn it you'd rue the day you thought it underpowered

I actually went through the effort of learning how to use the chemicompiler.

I stand by my statement that it's not fucking worth the effort put into it.

[Vitatroll]

Eh. I just found it a fun thing to screw with. I never cared about it being useful.

The only problem I have with a transfer rate boost is the sheer amount of lag a CC can generate via foams, smokes and other reactions.

[Totheark]

I'd honestly put much more effort into learning the bizarre CC code if the compiler had internal access to chemicals. As I see it, you might as well just mix the chemicals by hand because you need to gather beakers up anyways for the chemicompiler, and in the time it would take to set all that up you might as well just mix it by hand

[Noah Buttes]

I'd honestly put much more effort into learning the bizarre CC code if the compiler had internal access to chemicals. As I see it, you might as well just mix the chemicals by hand because you need to gather beakers up anyways for the chemicompiler, and in the time it would take to set all that up you might as well just mix it by hand

This would be a good idea for the stationary chemicompiler, but it would definitely be overpowered if the portable one could do it too.

Mainly because you can always just disable the chem apc in order to shut off the stationary version if someone decides to make endless sorium reactions using it.

[Vitatroll]

Even if you take away reactions - no fumes, fire, flashes, bangs, smoke, foam, implosions, explosions, hellonataco, etc. - I'd still be edging on nay.

The problem comes from them being so Copy&Paste-able. It'd eventually wind up where you slap in a few beakers of the missing reagents, paste in a code some dude gave you, and bam -- as much -insert bad chem- as you want. No learning or practice involved.

... and yeah, the major selling point of the CC is repeated reactions (the simplest command) and esotericism.

[Totheark]

I'd honestly put much more effort into learning the bizarre CC code if the compiler had internal access to chemicals. As I see it, you might as well just mix the chemicals by hand because you need to gather beakers up anyways for the chemicompiler, and in the time it would take to set all that up you might as well just mix it by hand

This would be a good idea for the stationary chemicompiler, but it would definitely be overpowered if the portable one could do it too.

Mainly because you can always just disable the chem apc in order to shut off the stationary version if someone decides to make endless sorium reactions using it.

I definitely agree that the portable version shouldn't have access to an internal chem pool. Not only would it be broken beyond belief, but how would you fit so much chemicals in a handheld device?

[misto]

condensed chem cartridge, much like compressed matter cartridge

[aft2001]

I'm bumping this ancient thread because I really do like this suggestion. Ihenn lists off multiple good ways of buffing the ChemiCompiler, so I'm not gonna make a brand new thread just to restate what they said.

In particular, I think the biggest thing that needs to be added if the CC were to be buffed would be an internal reagent synthesizer/finite (but very large) repository for the base chemicals (Probably excluding welding fuel). The handheld version of course would have a very limited amount of reagents it could synthesize before running out and requiring a refill from somewhere, maybe deep space?

The thing is utterly useless, as it's so much faster and easier to just make the stuff by hand in a chemical dispenser. It's 10x harder to use than any other piece of equipment in chemistry, and yet it's a lot less useful. Even if it were buffed to have an internal synthesizer, it would still take a lot of effort to make programs for it, so your average pubby wouldn't be able to make hellchems with it (they'd just use the bar's chem dispenser, anyways). The CC would probably just help make the complex medicines that chemists can't be bothered to make since they're making hellchems, like atropine and salbutamol ((salbutamol is seriously underused by the way, if you have an IV drip of it you just don't need to breathe anymore, and it has no downsides to it)).

Since this is an obscure mechanic, implementation of a buff isn't necessary. But, this is Goonstation, and gimmick mechanics is a hallmark of Goon (like pathology and networking).