Randomize non-medical chem recipes every round

[Vitatroll]

My line of thought basically falls in with Houka's point of view. There are easier, less time consuming methods of causing greater pain to the station that require little to no research beforehand.

I can understand the POV of someone who doesn't know chem. The end result looks like a magical, one step reaction that absolutely murders anyone involved. What you're not seeing is the amount of effort and research someone put into making that one shot. It's never just learning the chem; you have to learn how to weaponize it. Even QGP, in all of it's glory, can be easily outdone in terms of damage and efficiency by someone who knows how to make max ttvs without setting foot in toxins. Same goes for a number of other killing methods.

People who learn these things the easy way (anything that isn't plugging in chems or getting obscure hints) tend to not value the recipes as much. Whether it's shown by leaving full recipes laying around in beakers or scanners, telling every friend they have about it (or just people they want to impress), or using the chem into extinction. I agree that some chems were just too powerful; fermids and NI3 being prime examples. Still, there were plenty of people who knew these chems before a small group of people ran them into the ground.

I can only hope for the sake of the nerds who plugged out QGP that those of us who learned the chem from watching a certain nerd's recent QGP rampage don't run it into the ground.

[Frank_Stein]

I just wanna share the two quotes I find most succinct in that general discussion thread

Chem is not fine the way it is. That's why it goes though nerfs and reworks when secret chems get out.

The problem with secret chems is that they're secret.
Balancing something by obscurity ultimately leads to a power creep when people figure out recipes, learn recipes from friends, and eventually figure out the most time-efficient way to make a hellchem. The problem with secret chems getting out of hand isn't that they're no longer secret, it's that the bottleneck you placed to balance their incredible power with is inherently flawed and always fails given time.

And as a counter arguement

Chemicals do not work like this in real life.

I do think chemistry could use some kind of change that makes keeping recipes secret and needing to change them periodically when too many people are using something unnecessary. But it does need a degree of predictability and stability.

Maybe there ought to just be a chemistry idea spitball thread? How would you veteran chemists improve the system?

[Klayboxx]

this is bad idea. it isn't fun for anyone at all if it takes 30+ minutes just for a traitor to find out how the fuck to make the thing that murders people.

how about instead just make secret chems not as good? this just seems like a knee jerk reaction to something that is probably fine as is.

[Paineframe]

The problem with chem is that it is used for purposes beneficial to the station only slightly more often than toxins is. There are, like, five useful chems, and no one makes them (except for personal use) because restocking medbay isn't exciting or experimental like researching the quickest way to kill a person with a single pill or working out the most efficient way of mass producing hellfoam.

[thirtiethelement]

How would you veteran chemists improve the system?

We've had, in the last few months, people poring over the chem files and editing some notably murderous chemicals like Phlogiston into some slightly less murderous stuff. While I don't approve this as a cross-the-board measure to entirely nerf chemistry, I almost enjoy the prospect of my main fodder for hellpills being obsoleted. It's kind of a signal, to go and do bigger and better things with newer chems. I would've never started looking at Voltagen if the nature of Phlogiston hadn't changed, for example. While it'd be awful to constantly switch up the formulas for every little thing, PERHAPS, and this is a VERY BIG PERHAPS, the abilities and damage values for a few of the greater, meatier death chems could be toned down. If only to encourage people to switch it up, keep it fun for their victims.

[BaneOfGiygas]

PERHAPS, and this is a VERY BIG PERHAPS, the abilities and damage values for a few of the greater, meatier death chems could be toned down. If only to encourage people to switch it up, keep it fun for their victims.

I personally disagree, and think that the current hellchems should, instead of having their effects be toned down, have their recipes toned up. The two star hellchems, CLF3 and phlogiston, are trivially easy to make in comparison to their destructive power, and a change as simple as making those two recipes more complex would change the shape of things fairly drastically.

Also, CLF3 and phlogiston were recently changed to be more murderous, not less.

[Berrik]

Who gives a shit how chemicals work in real life? In real life we don't have chemicals that animate random objects, raise the dead, or create parrots when poured on the floor.

[Nnystyxx]

Who gives a shit how chemicals work in real life? In real life we don't have chemicals that animate random objects, raise the dead, or create parrots when poured on the floor.

Yes, but those things are fun. This suggestion isn't.

[Roomba]

Who gives a shit how chemicals work in real life? In real life we don't have chemicals that animate random objects, raise the dead, or create parrots when poured on the floor.

If that's your only takeaway from a page and a half of people explaining why this is a bad idea, then I don't think this idea has had very much thought put into it other than standard knee-jerk rage. I'm afraid I can't see this idea going anywhere.

[atomic1fire]

Who gives a shit how chemicals work in real life? In real life we don't have chemicals that animate random objects, raise the dead, or create parrots when poured on the floor.

Fair, but making reagents "RANDOM" just gives people less incentive to make dangerchems as traitor, as opposed to wrestlebelt rampages or mechanics deathtraps.

Part of "elaborate" traitor weapons, is knowing that the work you put into learning how to do it will be worth it. If you can't depend on the design being stable it's not worth it.



I do like the idea of making one reagent that is actually called "RANDOM", that behaves randomly and uses totally random ingredients as a joke.

Maybe make the effects of "RANDOM" nondeadly so that chemists are gonna try to make it for the nerd bragging rights, but they can't harm anyone with it.

as for the actual suggestion, Don't randomize danger chem recipes, and instead impose physical restraints like location or environmental hazards. Building Cfl3 means wearing fireproof gear or playing stay away from the heater until it explodes.

[atomic1fire]

since I can't edit I just thought of a good reason that making chemicals more dangerous to make is good for traitors.

If a chemical creates fireballs or unleashes poisonous gas in it's creation, you can also weaponize that.

[LinkDaWolf]

as someone who knows next to nothing about chemistry this is a bad idea.

it's a cool idea for the introduction of NEW chems like some ideas in this thread, but otherwise this sounds like a way to ensure nobody ever uses chemistry

[somepotato]

Chemicals do not work like this in real life. If they were random then life itself wouldn't exist and the universe would look very different. Not only does this not make sense except in the Space Magic way, but it's a change made for the sake of screwing over people that are just really good at making things that kill people very quickly... when there are oodles of other ways to do the same damn thing, and even do things that are infinitely worse. For example: C-sabers, instant stun and shitloads of brute damage. Shotguns, instant stun, shitloads of brute damage. Radbows. A huge stack of radiation damage. Tank transer valve bombs, huge areas rendered airless and lethally cold and absurdly damaged, and anyone caught in the blast is likely dead or gibbed or at the very least missing limbs. Nuclear charges, which destroy about half of the station and are really not that hard to set up for an enterprising traitor.

You're basically screwing over every single chemist because you want to "balance" something, which will only serve to limit options and make the game less fun for people that do get to be a traitor from time to time. They'll just move from chemicals to boring saber rampages and bombs again, and feel sour about a mechanic designed specifically to make something closely tied to research pointlessly difficult to do.

No. I hate this idea.

using real life as a point is pretty silly, even though this idea is just as silly.

[Paineframe]

Who gives a shit how chemicals work in real life? In real life we don't have chemicals that animate random objects, raise the dead, or create parrots when poured on the floor.

Fair, but making reagents "RANDOM" just gives people less incentive to make dangerchems as traitor, as opposed to wrestlebelt rampages or mechanics deathtraps.

Part of "elaborate" traitor weapons, is knowing that the work you put into learning how to do it will be worth it. If you can't depend on the design being stable it's not worth it.

Bombs get used plenty despite the fact that their properties change on practically a monthly basis. And randomized recipes never seemed to dissuade geneticist traitors.

[A4Brogan]

There are, like, five useful chems, and no one makes them (except for personal use) because restocking medbay isn't exciting or experimental like researching the quickest way to kill a person with a single pill or working out the most efficient way of mass producing hellfoam.

On the contrary, There are far more than 5.

My favorite pill mix is 7 of Synthflesh, Potassium Iodide, Epinephrine, Saline Glucose, Charcoal, Atropine, and Antihistamine. Takes a while to build each up to 100, but once you get that Reagent Extractor topped off, those pills can make death your bitch!

And for the second thing: We either need to make medical more fun, or try to make it so chemistry is accessable to medical personnel. Maybe even have one of the three dispensers be IN the medbay.