A holistic review of goonchem's practical effects.
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:45 am
I've mained chemist for several months now. I've backdoored the Armory from space without a spacesuit. I've carpet-bombed the length of the station with plasma gas using just one beaker and survived standing in the fire. I've made pills which kill people in seconds, and pills which restore people from deep crit to full in seconds. I've had blobs wonder why THAT FUCKING CHEMIST NEVER DIES (and I even stopped doing that because I felt it was too broken and ruined rounds). Now I'm here to talk about goonchem.
First off, I've been confused as to the whole point of the goonchem update. Why was it implemented? I've heard a lot of reasons - to fix overpowered things, to make doctors more relevant, to make healing more involved, and so on. Basically none of these things have happened, but since I'm actually not sure if they were the purpose of the update, I can't really gripe about tg!goonchem failing any of its purposes. With all that in mind, it begs the question of why things were changed in the first place. If there is a reason, it'd be cool to know it. If there is no reason, then why change it to begin with? And why, in particular, cling to goonchem so strongly in the face of a majority (almost supermajority) vote to revert, and why deal with so many bugs? Surely there must be a reason.
Whatever. I'll just review the changes that I've seen, and comment on their practical purposes and what it means to me as a chemist.
First off, heating chemicals. This is fine as long as things don't get out of hand, and that hasn't happened. Heating beakers is a step. Adding nitrogen to your hydrogen is also a step. If a recipe has a lot of steps (I'm looking at Oculine, which incidentally DOESN'T use the heater for anything) then things will get frustrating as you begin to juggle beakers and fumble around with three different machines. Frustration is perhaps fine for the most useful of chemicals, especially poisons, but it has no place in basic first-aid chems. I view heaters as a non-issue and a welcome change, as long as future coders remember that there's a limit to the complexity you can add before things get really shitty to deal with. Nobody wants to juggle five beakers to make one medicine unless that medicine is worth the effort. Keep in mind that overly complicated recipes are a tax on the player behind the keyboard and everything should be fine.
Second, overdosing. A potentially fun tool for traitors. You can feed someone too much omnizine and claim ignorance when they start to die. There aren't a whole lot of OD-able drugs, however, and they kill far slower than other things that a robust chemist can mix up. Potentially fun, but I wouldn't intentionally use them. They're too slow.
Third, patches. They're okay. The main issue is that the patches generated in medkits are FAR too weak to be viable, even when you wait for their full duration. I like that they heal body-wide because it's a personal peeve of mine to have to click those tiny UI arms to apply a bandage. I really don't like the enormous patch sprite. It's a total usability issue. The sprite covers up other things, which is troublesome in chemistry because they're large enough to cover up beakers and pills. You eject the beaker and it appears underneath the patch. Ugh. I feel they should be the size of a bottle at most. Aside from all that, they're basically just pills in functionality. You can't swallow safely swallow styptic so make a patch instead. There are no practical implications of this one way or the other.
I've heard some users mention that goonchem should fix the thing where someone doses up on like 500u tricord and become a walking ling. That might be true, if not for the fact that you can still do that with other drugs. It HAS nerfed the result bit, I will admit that much. Spacewalking is still possible, but you have to mute yourself to do it. You also can't deal with toxins so easily when you're saturated with something like salglu, since charcoal and other anti-toxes will purge whatever other chems you're taking.
Cryo. Cryo is slower, but it's pretty much unchanged otherwise. Brain damage cure is slightly easier to mix, but cryo+clonex is no longer possible and you can't top it off with tricord. The important things are still intact with no practical changes other than slowing it down. Yawn.
Now for the meat and bones of chemistry: churning out lots of chemicals and keeping everyone alive. Chemistry truly is the beating heart of the medbay. A chemist without a doctor can keep things running. A doctor without chemistry can keep things running by asking the HoP for chem access. This was the case with trekchem and it's still the case with goonchem. If you think that this is a problem, then it's a problem with the medbay, not with chemistry.
The increased chemical limit is primarily to offset the loss of doctor's delight, in my experience. Under the old system it was possible to churn out 500u of DD without even touching the dispenser. Not many people did this, but it was possible and very effective at keeping the station's booboos fixed up even during blob rounds. 500u of DD generally lasts an hour and a half if you're mixing it with other chems. Add in some tricord and your usual dermaline/bicaridine mixes, and you've got some very robust pills for a very low chemical cost. That's all gone, but I can still churn out a large number of patches before running out. Did you know that Synthflesh is chemically efficient? 90u of synthflesh only takes 60u from the dispenser -- the other 30u comes from your own bloodstream. Synthflesh also heals two damage types, which significantly bumps up the dispenser-cost-to-healing efficiency if the patient happens to have both types. Better to use a single synthflesh patch than to use a styptic patch and then a silversulf patch. The blood efficiency thing is likely to be less useful after the new blood update, but I think we'll be fine borrowing humanized monkeys from genetics. We can always eat iron and nutriment to boost our blood generation. We can make both in the lab, after all.
No more generic toxin in the medbay means no more plant-b-gone, weedkiller unless we get toxin from the chef or cargo. Space kudzu is harder to deal with and botany's supply is harder to replenish. Bluh.
Deathpill combos:
15u plasma was a lethal dose and is still a lethal dose. You can now add perfluorodecalin to keep their damn mouths shut while they die. Perf doesn't heal toxin damage so it won't slow their death down that much. A bit on the slow side compared to mixed pills but simple to make and almost guaranteed to kill if you manage to forcefeed it to someone who won't receive help (like a wizard).
The usual quick-kill tactic of dumping different damaging chems into a single pill, so that they process in parallel and kill at astonishing speeds, is still around. It's slightly modified now but overall it's stronger. We lost the generic toxin that was freely available in the medbay, and with it we lost plant-b-gone and pest killer. On the other hand, we gained welding fuel and have a choice between lexorin (kills faster) or perfluorodecalin (shuts them up but ruins lexorin) or mute toxin (also shuts them up and works with lexorin but GOOD LUCK GETTING URANIUM IT NEVER HAPPENS). It's still possible to get your hands on toxin through the chef (and bad food while you're at it) to make some frighteningly fast death pills, but asking him for ruined food is kind of suspicious.
The poisons like cyanide, formaldehyde, and such are hardly worth mixing. If your goal is to kill someone, make a mixed pill. Or a grenade.
Grenades:
Same old stuff. Dark Matter and Sorium were broken when I tried them. Dark Matter sounds ridiculous if it's ever implemented - sucking everyone into the middle of your lube and acid sounds like a lulzy time for aspiring shuttle hijackers. I haven't had an opportunity to try perfluorodecalin's effects as a muting agent, but I imagine it's pretty strong if it works. Grenades haven't changed much, although the lack of plasma used in recipes now means that you have a bit more plasma to use in grenades.
Bruise packs and ointment. I never liked these. I said before, it's a personal peeve of mine to have to click all the body parts on the UI. Pixel hunting is something I really dispise! I blame my bad wrist. The current patches are just too weak, but apparently this is being fixed. Woo. If patches are made bodypart-specific then I'll cry.
I think I've covered pretty much all of the practical aspects. I'd like to talk about something which alarms me though. The concept that some coders have of "goonchem for goonchem's sake."
I play /tg/ codebase because I prefer /tg/ code. If I wanted to play on goon then I'd fucking play on goon. The concept is not a difficult one. If you must take only one thing from this entire review, let it be that bolded sentence there. It's the most important sentence I've typed.
When pudl comes along and says something like:
First off, I've been confused as to the whole point of the goonchem update. Why was it implemented? I've heard a lot of reasons - to fix overpowered things, to make doctors more relevant, to make healing more involved, and so on. Basically none of these things have happened, but since I'm actually not sure if they were the purpose of the update, I can't really gripe about tg!goonchem failing any of its purposes. With all that in mind, it begs the question of why things were changed in the first place. If there is a reason, it'd be cool to know it. If there is no reason, then why change it to begin with? And why, in particular, cling to goonchem so strongly in the face of a majority (almost supermajority) vote to revert, and why deal with so many bugs? Surely there must be a reason.
Whatever. I'll just review the changes that I've seen, and comment on their practical purposes and what it means to me as a chemist.
First off, heating chemicals. This is fine as long as things don't get out of hand, and that hasn't happened. Heating beakers is a step. Adding nitrogen to your hydrogen is also a step. If a recipe has a lot of steps (I'm looking at Oculine, which incidentally DOESN'T use the heater for anything) then things will get frustrating as you begin to juggle beakers and fumble around with three different machines. Frustration is perhaps fine for the most useful of chemicals, especially poisons, but it has no place in basic first-aid chems. I view heaters as a non-issue and a welcome change, as long as future coders remember that there's a limit to the complexity you can add before things get really shitty to deal with. Nobody wants to juggle five beakers to make one medicine unless that medicine is worth the effort. Keep in mind that overly complicated recipes are a tax on the player behind the keyboard and everything should be fine.
Second, overdosing. A potentially fun tool for traitors. You can feed someone too much omnizine and claim ignorance when they start to die. There aren't a whole lot of OD-able drugs, however, and they kill far slower than other things that a robust chemist can mix up. Potentially fun, but I wouldn't intentionally use them. They're too slow.
Third, patches. They're okay. The main issue is that the patches generated in medkits are FAR too weak to be viable, even when you wait for their full duration. I like that they heal body-wide because it's a personal peeve of mine to have to click those tiny UI arms to apply a bandage. I really don't like the enormous patch sprite. It's a total usability issue. The sprite covers up other things, which is troublesome in chemistry because they're large enough to cover up beakers and pills. You eject the beaker and it appears underneath the patch. Ugh. I feel they should be the size of a bottle at most. Aside from all that, they're basically just pills in functionality. You can't swallow safely swallow styptic so make a patch instead. There are no practical implications of this one way or the other.
I've heard some users mention that goonchem should fix the thing where someone doses up on like 500u tricord and become a walking ling. That might be true, if not for the fact that you can still do that with other drugs. It HAS nerfed the result bit, I will admit that much. Spacewalking is still possible, but you have to mute yourself to do it. You also can't deal with toxins so easily when you're saturated with something like salglu, since charcoal and other anti-toxes will purge whatever other chems you're taking.
Cryo. Cryo is slower, but it's pretty much unchanged otherwise. Brain damage cure is slightly easier to mix, but cryo+clonex is no longer possible and you can't top it off with tricord. The important things are still intact with no practical changes other than slowing it down. Yawn.
Now for the meat and bones of chemistry: churning out lots of chemicals and keeping everyone alive. Chemistry truly is the beating heart of the medbay. A chemist without a doctor can keep things running. A doctor without chemistry can keep things running by asking the HoP for chem access. This was the case with trekchem and it's still the case with goonchem. If you think that this is a problem, then it's a problem with the medbay, not with chemistry.
The increased chemical limit is primarily to offset the loss of doctor's delight, in my experience. Under the old system it was possible to churn out 500u of DD without even touching the dispenser. Not many people did this, but it was possible and very effective at keeping the station's booboos fixed up even during blob rounds. 500u of DD generally lasts an hour and a half if you're mixing it with other chems. Add in some tricord and your usual dermaline/bicaridine mixes, and you've got some very robust pills for a very low chemical cost. That's all gone, but I can still churn out a large number of patches before running out. Did you know that Synthflesh is chemically efficient? 90u of synthflesh only takes 60u from the dispenser -- the other 30u comes from your own bloodstream. Synthflesh also heals two damage types, which significantly bumps up the dispenser-cost-to-healing efficiency if the patient happens to have both types. Better to use a single synthflesh patch than to use a styptic patch and then a silversulf patch. The blood efficiency thing is likely to be less useful after the new blood update, but I think we'll be fine borrowing humanized monkeys from genetics. We can always eat iron and nutriment to boost our blood generation. We can make both in the lab, after all.
No more generic toxin in the medbay means no more plant-b-gone, weedkiller unless we get toxin from the chef or cargo. Space kudzu is harder to deal with and botany's supply is harder to replenish. Bluh.
Deathpill combos:
15u plasma was a lethal dose and is still a lethal dose. You can now add perfluorodecalin to keep their damn mouths shut while they die. Perf doesn't heal toxin damage so it won't slow their death down that much. A bit on the slow side compared to mixed pills but simple to make and almost guaranteed to kill if you manage to forcefeed it to someone who won't receive help (like a wizard).
The usual quick-kill tactic of dumping different damaging chems into a single pill, so that they process in parallel and kill at astonishing speeds, is still around. It's slightly modified now but overall it's stronger. We lost the generic toxin that was freely available in the medbay, and with it we lost plant-b-gone and pest killer. On the other hand, we gained welding fuel and have a choice between lexorin (kills faster) or perfluorodecalin (shuts them up but ruins lexorin) or mute toxin (also shuts them up and works with lexorin but GOOD LUCK GETTING URANIUM IT NEVER HAPPENS). It's still possible to get your hands on toxin through the chef (and bad food while you're at it) to make some frighteningly fast death pills, but asking him for ruined food is kind of suspicious.
The poisons like cyanide, formaldehyde, and such are hardly worth mixing. If your goal is to kill someone, make a mixed pill. Or a grenade.
Grenades:
Same old stuff. Dark Matter and Sorium were broken when I tried them. Dark Matter sounds ridiculous if it's ever implemented - sucking everyone into the middle of your lube and acid sounds like a lulzy time for aspiring shuttle hijackers. I haven't had an opportunity to try perfluorodecalin's effects as a muting agent, but I imagine it's pretty strong if it works. Grenades haven't changed much, although the lack of plasma used in recipes now means that you have a bit more plasma to use in grenades.
Bruise packs and ointment. I never liked these. I said before, it's a personal peeve of mine to have to click all the body parts on the UI. Pixel hunting is something I really dispise! I blame my bad wrist. The current patches are just too weak, but apparently this is being fixed. Woo. If patches are made bodypart-specific then I'll cry.
I think I've covered pretty much all of the practical aspects. I'd like to talk about something which alarms me though. The concept that some coders have of "goonchem for goonchem's sake."
I play /tg/ codebase because I prefer /tg/ code. If I wanted to play on goon then I'd fucking play on goon. The concept is not a difficult one. If you must take only one thing from this entire review, let it be that bolded sentence there. It's the most important sentence I've typed.
When pudl comes along and says something like:
orthere's a fuck ton of oculine pills in vendors. the reason the recipe's hard on goon is because they have a shit ton of oculine pills and a shit ton of goggles that fix eyesight (we dont have them)
so basically on goon if you manage to have to MIX oculine, you fucked up and deserve shit.
Then I just facepalm because "that's how goon does it" is a shitty copout excuse to do anything. What is balanced on goonstation is not necessarily balanced for everyone else, and there's no guarantee that it's even balanced on goonstation itself. There's no reason to copy every little thing. I didn't sign up for this shit.it's 40 because that's how it is on goon