Goonhub
06-27-2018, 09:10 AM
My counterpoint to this: why?
Secret chems come in two flavors: deadly/dangerous, and gimmick.
Yes, you can make deadly/dangerous things without secret chems, and in fact if you make a cocktail of deadly/dangerous things it will often be more dangerous than a single secret chem, so why do you need to know the secret chem? Is it just so you can add another thing to your hellmix that murders and gibs people in 2 seconds?
For gimmicks, gimmicks are only fun if they're not run into the ground. People run things into the ground. Do you want rotting-smoke in the bar every round making a good portion of the crew uncloneable? Do we need to have more big discussions of what is and what isn't okay to use on people as non-antag?
Putting the "it takes time to figure out the secret chem" gateway in means that people who aren't serious about it probably aren't going to find it out so aren't going to run it into the ground, meaning that you get more of a trickle of "this person learned this chem and is showing it off for a few rounds" every so often over "oh, good, another chemist just made <annoying secret chem #17>".
Generally when I see people complaining about secret chems being secret they're people who haven't worked out any of them or only the super-trivial ones. (Reminder: "generally", I know some of you have worked out some more and are complaining about it.) If you're not willing to put any work in I don't see why you should get to play with cool secret chems that do quirky things, just as learning packets or exploring telescience takes a multiple round investment.
For people who say that finding secret chems is just a case of "throw everything into an artbeaker until you get it": there are hints on the wiki, for one, which should reduce your search space. Additionally, chemistry is a science. Follow the scientific method! Record results of combining various chems such that you don't waste time trying them in the future. Repeat.
Regarding the "make it okay to talk about": I'd give it 2 rounds until people are spamming the recipes they know over the radio, at which point it's no longer secret. That's the nice thing about secret chem recipes: once you know them, you know them. Yes, there have been times where recipes have been tweaked; this doesn't happen often. Most people complaining about it seem to be complaining about them being changed post-2016 leak. You've had 2 years to find the new recipes if you really cared about them.
TL;DR: the argument for making them non-secret doesn't have weight, and if we ever did it we can't take it back.
Secret chems come in two flavors: deadly/dangerous, and gimmick.
Yes, you can make deadly/dangerous things without secret chems, and in fact if you make a cocktail of deadly/dangerous things it will often be more dangerous than a single secret chem, so why do you need to know the secret chem? Is it just so you can add another thing to your hellmix that murders and gibs people in 2 seconds?
For gimmicks, gimmicks are only fun if they're not run into the ground. People run things into the ground. Do you want rotting-smoke in the bar every round making a good portion of the crew uncloneable? Do we need to have more big discussions of what is and what isn't okay to use on people as non-antag?
Putting the "it takes time to figure out the secret chem" gateway in means that people who aren't serious about it probably aren't going to find it out so aren't going to run it into the ground, meaning that you get more of a trickle of "this person learned this chem and is showing it off for a few rounds" every so often over "oh, good, another chemist just made <annoying secret chem #17>".
Generally when I see people complaining about secret chems being secret they're people who haven't worked out any of them or only the super-trivial ones. (Reminder: "generally", I know some of you have worked out some more and are complaining about it.) If you're not willing to put any work in I don't see why you should get to play with cool secret chems that do quirky things, just as learning packets or exploring telescience takes a multiple round investment.
For people who say that finding secret chems is just a case of "throw everything into an artbeaker until you get it": there are hints on the wiki, for one, which should reduce your search space. Additionally, chemistry is a science. Follow the scientific method! Record results of combining various chems such that you don't waste time trying them in the future. Repeat.
Regarding the "make it okay to talk about": I'd give it 2 rounds until people are spamming the recipes they know over the radio, at which point it's no longer secret. That's the nice thing about secret chem recipes: once you know them, you know them. Yes, there have been times where recipes have been tweaked; this doesn't happen often. Most people complaining about it seem to be complaining about them being changed post-2016 leak. You've had 2 years to find the new recipes if you really cared about them.
TL;DR: the argument for making them non-secret doesn't have weight, and if we ever did it we can't take it back.