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What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
Allow for the combination of empty pills and certain chems to produce pills with that chem's effect -This would require VCraft to be changed significantly, specifically - If not currently doable, the ability to put filled flasks/beakers, in pots/trays. And then there's the headache of the fact that chems are not an cardinal ingredient, i.e. Unlike empty pills, you can't have like 'one' of something like 106 samples - All the chems exist on an ordinal scale, with values between 0 and 1. The obvious solution there is that maybe X amount of millilitres can be recognised as the specific ingredient for that chem. Alternatively, you could create some form of other mechanic that works with both systems in VCraft to facilitate this - For example, a machine that you put empty pills in, then pour 200ml of say, Yekenol into, then it spits out Yekenol Pills.
Beyond that, there's still the pain of working out recipes and such, making sure they work without issue. But generally, everything should be straightforward - For example, empty pills + 200ml of 860 samples = 860 pills. And the effect on consumption is literally just the same as drinking that 200ml normally.
Obviously there should be limits to this based on certain existing chem effects: For example, you can't use ethanol with empty pills to make ethanol pills, otherwise cyanide and the entire related economy surrounding cyanide pretty much implodes. Similarly consider effects that may be too overpowered in combat to come into effect instantly, such as Immortal Flesh or Tylenol.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
I highly doubt it - However this does clash somewhat with the planned overdose system - There's already concerns about chems being abused, so I get that having a new way to do so more effectively may not be as desired, I'm not exactly sure how to reconcile this, but my thinking is that this sort of thing could count towards overdosing; I think it could be reasonably worked in so long as they all invoke the same effects, right? Basic principles of inheritance, encapsulation, abstraction, polymorphism, etc. ...Although I appreciate the fact that this is not as easy to do in GMod.Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
- Potentially opens up room for alterations to the chems processing system - Perhaps you could make this the small beaker only; Which would give it a solidified use and open up things like changes to the Bunsen Burner, so as to not make the small beaker useless. I don't think I've worded this right, but I hope you get my point.
- More use and justification of, the food system in VCraft, more recipes for empty pills.
- Opens up the possibility for an entirely new item economy?
- Aside from the injection gun, an in-world sensible way of administering a chem - So for stuff like infections, prescribe the needed medicine as just giving the chem pills for them to eat, rather than just dropping a science flask for them to slurp from. It's a minor RP enhancement, but it has some overlap with later points, such as the next two:
- Ease of distribution - "Hi, I want X of Y chem (for consumption use)." "Sure, that's $$$." Player gives $$$, receives X dosages of Y chem in pills, as opposed to giving them however number of flasks. Significant overlap with the first negative point.
- Quicker use of chems in situations where they're necessary - As opposed to taking out the thing you drink from, picking it up, then hitting right click to consume, instead it's like cyanide, you drop the pills from your inventory and then immediately use to get the effects. In combative scenarios, when both sides are getting their chem effects out faster, this should theoretically propagate to the combat flow overall and optimise it: With more time dedicated to actually participating in combat, the combat can reach a conclusion quicker, which should end the combat scenario sooner... Ironically being conducive to RP.
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
- Less storage space efficient - Bear with me on this one; So your standard dose of a chem is 200ml, right? That's 1/5 of a full 1L flask, which takes up 2 inventory squares (And fills a 200ml vial, which also takes up two squares). Assuming chem pills would take up the same amount of space as both cyanide and empty pills, that's 1 square, per pills. So even though yes, it's better for any flask or vial that is holding 200ml of something in two squares, which directly converts into one square - It's equal to 400ml alone, with efficiency dropping the more you approach 1L. The net result is less inventory space, in exchange for more ready use of a chem.
- Abuse - With the last positive point, that also carries with it the existing concerns about chems being abused undesirably as stated in the GitHub ticket. An example of this could be, even though I gave this chem as an example of something not to implement, Tylenol Pills. Imagine you're fighting a CI Juggernaut, they're almost dead and they immediately pop the full-heal pills from their inventory. You get the idea, the kind of thing that is made balanced by the necessity for whole process of picking up the flask and drinking it, giving a window to prevent that, etc.
- Dev Time - This is the largest obstacle to this suggestion's implementation, as this would most likely need changes to VCraft, which is a core addon, meaning it can only be worked on by core programmers with FTP access. At the time of writing, my understanding is that there are only two of those on staff and one of them also runs the entire network. Given that, this may require too much effort for too little improvement to the server.
- Underutilisation - It's highly possible that this feature won't be used enough to warrant its implementation, most likely because of the first point; Among other reasons such as it being extra effort to actually go through the process of making these chems into pills, rather than just straight up consuming from the flask. Admittedly, you could make drinking it straight from the flask worse for you, encouraging processing it in this way, but... Ehhh, I don't know.
Additionally with the second point, it's possible to end up not implementing recipes for the majority of chems by virtue of it being too overpowered - Which means you'd go through all the effort of making this possible, only to then make only a few recipes craftable.
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