Base Addiction off Amount of Reagent Processed

[wesoda25]

Basically, I’ve always thought addiction was a sub-par system, a quick fix to a problem that needed something a bit more complex. Not only does it make 0 sense, it allows for micro-dosing via vapes to be a way to bypass all of a chemicals risks. If we were to base addiction off of how much of a reagent was processed, not only would it be realistic, it would solve the issue of micro-dosing.

Of course, it’ll take a while, namely due to having to change every reagents OD point to something higher than they are currently. Changing how addiction itself works will be the easy part. Not to mention, wiki would need updating too. So I wanted to poll the community before bothering to try this (no promise that I will regardless).

Some nice things about this change, aside from those above, would be giving doctors (and players) a bit more breathing room. If someone sleepers you with morphine, for example, you could take charcoal/calomel/pentetic to avoid getting the addiction for the rest of the round.

Additionally, it could make room for some cool traits. Weak and strong willed, scaling addiction amount accordingly with each.

[Kierany9]

yes
addiction has always been garbage and doesn't actually work like an addiction does
hell, i'll add this change myself if I don't see a pr up for it soon

[Mickyan]

Is it going to keep track of reagents processed in the long term or just for how long they were in your system like morphine?

[kevinz000]

It should track long term.

[wesoda25]

It should track long term.

Aside from getting a new body, yeah.

[wesoda25]

rise from your grave, fuck current addiction

[Cobby]

moved this to ideas since the only feedback here is "current system bad".

I would be okay with this. I forget if there's a way to handle addiction, I don't think there is beside body transfer and well lol...

[Screemonster]

I had an idea for a system to avoid the microdosing problem a while back which was basically to give chems a "metabolite" reagent that was exchanged for the original chemical and removed from your body at a much slower rate, so that people that avoided the OD threshold by taking a sub-OD dose and waiting it to wear off before dosing again would eventually build up to OD levels of the metabolite

it'd also allow for !!FUN!! things like drug interactions without those drugs having to directly react with each other, like a benign chemical that turns into a deadly poison if you've recently had a common medicine or whatever

likewise bar drinks could be refactored to all have small amounts of ethanol (scaled to the strength of the drink) as the metabolic byproduct and have drunkeness based off of that rather than the drinks themselves, and the drunkenness won't set in until you've given the booze enough time to hit your bloodstream, and so on

[EOBGames]

Why do half the problems with chems come down to fucking microdosing? Great change idea, look forward to seeing it implemented.

[wesoda25]

ok I have something very close to the end product but won't ever get there because it's coded the wrong way and idk how to do it right. If anyone is willing to hold my hand for a bit through this I'd really appreciate it. hmu at wesoda24#6674 if so.

[nullbear]

I had an idea for a system to avoid the microdosing problem a while back which was basically to give chems a "metabolite" reagent that was exchanged for the original chemical and removed from your body at a much slower rate, so that people that avoided the OD threshold by taking a sub-OD dose and waiting it to wear off before dosing again would eventually build up to OD levels of the metabolite...

I had this idea too, but expanded on it a bit.

Chemistry devices already have some groundwork done for them to be able to 'detect' certain reagents based on 'scanner tier'. They should:
1. Only detect reagents up to their scanner tier +1.
2. Only identify reagents up to their scanner tier.
Ex. If a thing contains reagents of tier 1, 2, and 3. A scanner w/ tier 1 scanner will detect and identify 'tier 1' reagent, and will detect 'tier 2' reagent (but identify it as 'unknown reagent'), and wont even pick up the tier 3 reagent at all.

---

Next, some 'drugs' and medicines that have some kind of effect on you would in fact be slowly converted into metabolites, where the metabolites are a 'higher tier' reagent, and the metabolites are actually the ones that cause the effect. An example would be: 'Tier 1 Healing Drug' is metabolized in-body into 'Healing Enzyme' at a 3:1 ratio. Then 'Healing' Enzyme is metabolized into actual healing. a Tier 2 Healing Drug might metabolize at a 2:1 ratio, as an example. This seems like pointless obfuscation, but consider it as 'just another part of chemistry recipes', where in order to react, the reagent needs to be metabolized. Depending on the purpose of the reagent, you could have it remain in the system for a considerable amount of time, such as for tracking chemical addictions. (while the first stage of the drug causes the drugs actual effects.)

---

Finally, throw some 'higher tier' chemicals/drugs "enzymes" in that can only be attained using botany or virology to "process" or "react" them. Botany is already well suited for 'injecting plants with random reagents', this would just allow you to inject a plant with say, 'healing drug', to have the plant react/metabolize it into a different drug or chemical. As for virology, you could just dump the chemical in with some contaminated blood, or you could add a whole new 'bio' system to virology that would handle the production of 'enzymes'. Hell, you could throw some of this at xenobio too, if you wanted. I think this would be an interesting way to add 'semi-secret' recipes without BS-ifying the code, while smearing chemistry on other departments and making people love/hate it more.