Chemistry: infinite, procedurally-generated compounds.

What i dont get is how a potion would create a cave.

 

This is so very nice. Here, take my vote

Seriously, if they're giving us the option to build a nice, high-tech lab; They might just as well let us use it for stuff other than hang out, store weapons and test traps.

 

It could be a very, very strong acid? *shrugs*

 

Aww glad you like

Some are a little rusty, so just choose the ones you think should fit personally. I'll write more soon.

 

Something's don't have to make sense properly, off the top. Assume it's a powerful acid or perhaps the potion gives you the idea to create a tech that can do such a thing? These are just ideas, remember

 

I like the general idea, but maybe instead of 8, 16 should be used (just to make amount of potential effects higher)
Also why not add random chance of new number appearing (just to mess things up a bit )
for example
1212`1212`1212`1212 + 5454`5454`5454`5454= 1212` 5453`2121`4545

 

Eh, I dunno. Science relies on predictable results, and chemistry is all about being scientific. Lab coats. Beakers. Goggles.

If there was a chance each time I mixed salt with water that it could produce Uranium, that would be really weird.

 

Pretty much what Deadly said, once chemicals have been discovered, they should be fairly simple to reach.

Also, I did some maths, if we used 16 bits to store a number per chemical (of which we would have 5); we would have 1.208E24 (1.2 septillion, or 1.2 million billion billion, also known as 1 metric fuckton.) different chemicals.
I think this would give an adequate number of chemicals that are possible.
Although I think we're dealing with maths that starts to deliver some insanely big numbers very, very fast. The number of possible chemical combinations come the fourth tier chemicals is a number so large that it requires scientific notation to write down how many digits it has, which is 3.742E44 digits.

Anyway, I was mostly really bored and decided to see just how many chemicals could be made from this. Turns out a lot.

 

What if you just had some way of randomly changing it, via a machine or something?

 

I'm hoping that that's entirely possible using complex machines. I don't think that a randomizer should be a box, as part of why Chemistry is interesting is because we can make really big machines that have a purpose.

 

Impurities? Of material and badly cleaned equipment.
Also some sort of fission and fusion machine would also be great (energy consumption would be adequate of course)

 

Impurities and poorly-cleaned equipment are both solved with correct precautions, something that every videogame i've encountered does automatically during crafting. You never have to wonder "is my machine clean enough? Did I remember to wipe the test tubes properly? Did I distill the water for long enough?
I think it would be eternally frustrating to have a chemical be affected by randomness, if I find an amazing chemical, tell it to my friend, he makes it and gets something completely different both of us will be disheartened.
You might be able to create "unstable" chemicals that have random effects on you, but they're clearly marked as such and not very common.


Also. I've been thinking a little more about this idea, and thought about how various chemicals could be used, you don't have to consume them, some will enact their effects as soon as they're crafted (if nobody's around and all of its effects act on players/mobs, it'll fizzle.)
Others can be attached to items, such as weapons for temporary bonuses/changes.
Still more can be consumed to have their effects on the player
Others can be thrown/fired to be weaponized or used as support tools.
If the generator is up to it, some items might have effects on various pieces of furniture, burnt for fuel in a furnace or to fuel your starship.
They might even be crafting ingredients for chemical weapons/armors, they have the properties of the chemical.

 

Chance of impure materials could depend on quality of equipment (the best equipment could negate chance of impurities at all)
And ores/blocks could consist of mixed materials, thus allowing to refine them into multiple elements

What if some elements could be used as additional crafting materials (that could slightly change item properties)?

 

Right now it seems like you're on the defensive. Pseudoboss and I are questioning whether it makes sense to have a chance of random results in the experiment, and you are justifying it as best you can. However, what I really don't understand is why you would want to have a chance of random impurities. Why would you want this to occur? How do you think it will feel when you get it? What makes that better than not having a random chance?

For me, I imagine mixing A with B and getting C, and then realizing that C is really fucking awesome I try to do it again and I can't. Ever. Because the only reason I even got C in the first place was a random fluke, and now I can't even really be sure what I need to do to get more C. Or furthermore, maybe I know that usually A + B = D and I really want a specific amount of D, so I collect the exact amount of A and B to mix the amount of D I want because I'm very time efficient like that, and then some percentage of that randomly ends up spoiled and turns out as useless E that nobody really wants.

Of course, I'm someone who thinks critical hits and random damage variance should be removed entirely, and that item drops rates for killing mobs should never be lower than 1%. I'm not even kidding, I really really REALLY hate luck-based mechanics in virtually any game. I want my actions to determine the outcome, not the actions of some random number generator. In other words, maybe I'm a tad biased on this subject.

 

Interesting... interesting. Could be somewhat annoying at times but yeah... interesting. Yeah, it could be added to the game!

 

Why would it be annoying? It is in no way required to use, there's little to nothing you have to do with it, and it doesn't do anything non-cosmetic that couldn't be done with other items. If you don't want to use it, don't.
If you want to experiment around, make giant machines that combine chemicals for science, and possibly crate a nice healing salve or slow grenade, it's there for you.

 

A fantastic idea however seems very complex. The time and energy it would take for staff members to make, test, and animate these effects and characteristics would take a while unless simplified. This is what I could see happening;
- Many hours spent finally making it perfect, but many users feel it is too complicated.
- Not enough hours spent and okay, but the more heavy chemistry players say its too simple or unfinished.
I also understand that this wouldn't be all done at once. However the major problem would be how easy it is for someone with no understanding of chemistry to jump into this and make awesome chemical effects and buffs. And still allow chemistry savvy people to really dive into it and create more complex items with a still simplistic set up so everyone can do this.
I guess I would love to see this however I would like everyone to be able to this sort of feature and not just for a certain group of people. Hopefully it will be implemented and I look forward to beta and the final release afterwards!

 

Yeah but what if other players would use it against you. I can imagine this one guy with an inv full of debuffs applying them to anyone he can. Now as I said this idea is cool but it could be easily missused.

 

He could just as easily have an inventory full of guns that apply various debuffs to you and be just as -- if not more -- annoying.
My guess would be that each debuff wouldn't stack with the others.
Say, you apply two chemicals one that slows the opponent by 35% and deals 5 DPS poison to him. Then you hit hit him with another chemical that deals 8 poison DPS to him and turns him green. The total effects would be that the opponent is slowed by 35%, taking 8 DPS and is green. The more powerful debuff is applied and the less powerful one is dropped. If you had a gun that inflicted poison and slow, and another that inflicted poison and turned him green i'd expect the same thing to happen.

 

I like some of the ideas, but some of them go beyond chemistry and start becoming too out there and magical.
Raining weapons, calling down meteors, changing weapons effects, turning in to decorations? I can't see how ones like those fall under chemistry.

Strangely the bad effects ones mostly make sense.