Right now the only “chemicals” in the game seem to be:
bleach
ammonia
What are some other chemicals we could add for various actual recipes?
saltpeter (process into nitric acid, add ammonia, get ammonium nitrate for fertilizer or basic explosives, add fuel oil (we can say gasoline maybe) to get quality explosives; ammonium nitrate can also be used in crystal meth recipes)
chlorine (either to make bleach or to make chlorine tablets which can purify water, or possibly for chemical weapons, like the teargas grenades)
lye (from ashes, either for cooking/cure foods, or make soap, or possibly again as a chemical weapon)
maybe we could do a little more with the poppy plants; in theory you should be able to make a lot of different actual painkillers from them, not just “poppy sleep” and “poppy painkiller.”
it could be cool to need a whole lab setup, and to find various specific and realistic chemicals around, which the player couldn’t recognize without sufficient cooking skill.
MSG - would add to food’s thirst factor, but also increase longevity. Unless salt can already be directly applied, in which case, nevermind.
Borax - I’d be surprised if it wasn’t useable in some recipes - chemistry buffs please help (I believe mixed with aylmer’s glue it turns into flubbery GOO. goo traps??), but I’m familiar with the stuff as a mild bleaching agent, and bug killer.
Alum - very strong dessicant. Not sure if useful in the game’s context, just stating items in case someone else gets ideas.
Cooking oil - Not sure if in the game currently, but if Mythbusters can get a car to run on the stuff, I don’t see why it can’t be something found in restaurants. Possible additional uses in mechanical maintenance?
I think this is the kind of comprehensiveness I had in mind. Naturally it wouldn’t be as simple as listing every element and putting them in beakers, which seems a little wacky, and the fact that there are SO MANY combination of chemicals we can’t just go from there. I mean, hydrocarbons. It’s all C + H, but it’s the various amounts that matter a lot.
Plus there’s the question of how much interaction the player should need. Like, what, you just get a stack of carbon and 4 stacks of hydrogen and you press a button to make methane? It seems too simple. And there are just too many chemicals in the world to list all of those.
Maybe we should start from listing things we want as player abilities/recipes and work backwards to determine what steps, ingredients, and tools are necessary.
Also apologies, I just realized this thread should probably be in drawing board, not the lab.
[quote=“TheRealTenman, post:10, topic:1226”]Yes but the amount needed to make thermite is quite a lot.
Also Rust based thermite is boring, choose magnesium+aluminium. Because if it doesn’t explode then why the hell do you want it?[/quote]
In that case you could get the MnO[sub]2[/sub] that you needed from batteries since it’s a main components in lots of dry cell batteries. Though in that case I think something would be needed to stop you from magically transforming ammonia or lemons into magnesium oxide.
[quote=“i2amroy, post:11, topic:1226”][quote=“TheRealTenman, post:10, topic:1226”]Yes but the amount needed to make thermite is quite a lot.
Also Rust based thermite is boring, choose magnesium+aluminium. Because if it doesn’t explode then why the hell do you want it?[/quote]
In that case you could get the MnO[sub]2[/sub] that you needed from batteries since it’s a main components in lots of dry cell batteries. Though in that case I think something would be needed to stop you from magically transforming ammonia or lemons into magnesium oxide.[/quote]
Just create a “home-made battery” object and plug that in to work like batteries, but work in different recipes.
How about some hydrochloric acid? Or we could use Cl from salt and get a pure sodium by product (wouldn’t that be fun!). There is also Iodine tablets so hydroiodic acid could be a possibility as well. Then again I don’t know enough about the reactions to say if they are feasible with the tech available. Perhaps a look at alchemy reactions would be more appropriate to the tech level.
[quote=“TheRealTenman, post:13, topic:1226”]How would homemade batteries do any thing?
Think about it, Tin can, lemon, ammonia, whatever
How the hell can this power ANYTHING!
If you make homemade batteries separate then how far should you go?
Include volts and amps?
Include an expiration date?
Include rust generation on the can?
Or have an insanely complex charging system.
I vote charging system for realism but that would be a pain to code I assume.
Personally I would make it so that homemade batteries were useful for all tasks that involved recharging another battery (filling up a storage battery or internal battery, for example) but would disable them from most tasks that use batteries as ammo (such as in a welder, taser, or laser gun).
It’s really not that hard to turn heat into chem power. It’s that over here, plot doesn’t get you anywhere. Do you really need 40k+ of batteries and a .22 just to do your own bidding?
Acid rain is typically a mix of water and sulfuric acid, yes? I am not in a position to verify if acid rain can be collected in the same manner as rainwater, but that’s an easy source of another chemical. I assume it has the potency necessary to be somewhat useful, given it is capable of causing pain even without any concentrating or whathaveyou.
