So recently the decision has been made to keep the chemistry and cooking skills as one in the same (for a variety of reasons, which I am not going to go into right now). This does leave us with one problem though; that of coming up with a new name that gives the impression that a skill applies to both cooking and chemistry. So to that I’m asking you, the people of the suggestion forums, for suggestions.
(Seriously, about the best I could come up with were “alchemy”. Anyone got any good ideas?)
RIOT!!!
Concoction, Brewing, and Cook&Chem are ideas that have been discussed on the IRC, if anyone that wasn’t present wants to weigh in on any of these ideas.
DISSENT!
Let’s hold of the riots for now. We’ll hear the reasoning later. If you disagree with it then you can start rioting. 
REBELLION!
Shrugs Cooking fits if you ask me, mainly because all I can think of is the following:
-and-
Oy, calm down.
As for reasoning, the biggest one is that right now cooking can’t simply stand on it’s own as a skill. This might change at some point in the future, allowing for a split between the two skills (and something that I am personally for) but for now we’re simply looking for a nice inclusive name to use that brings to mind both fields. I know that I’m not the only one out there who had a “what?” moment when they found out that cooking was the same skill used for chemistry. If we can’t find anything then we will probably default back to “cooking”, but I’d like to ask for suggestions for something better if anyone can come up with anything first.
No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful.
[quote=“Miloch, post:9, topic:3554”]No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful. :P[/quote]
I’m assuming it has something to do with most chemistry recipes requiring quite a high skill level and most cooking recipes requiring a rather low skill level.
That is, cooking gives rapidly diminishing returns, while chemistry is only useful at rather high levels.
This could (and will) probably be rebalanced, but I’m also assuming that the reason it’s not happening right now is that there are other things of greater importance to focus on.
Disclaimer: just gonna repeat that these are assumptions.
I support making the two skills stand on their own eventually, along with combining food and drink into one tab (to be possibly split into subtabs). In the meantime, “cooking/chemistry” is one character longer than the longest skill name we have now, “piercing weapons”, and would just baaaaaarely fit. Maybe “Cooking/Chems” as another acceptable alternative. While the basic idea behind the two is essentially the same, the purpose/product between the two is too radically different to be combined into one effective, descriptive term.
[quote=“Leper, post:10, topic:3554”][quote=“Miloch, post:9, topic:3554”]No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful. :P[/quote]
I’m assuming it has something to do with most chemistry recipes requiring quite a high skill level and most cooking recipes requiring a rather low skill level.
That is, cooking gives rapidly diminishing returns, while chemistry is only useful at rather high levels.
This could (and will) probably be rebalanced, but I’m also assuming that the reason it’s not happening right now is that there are other things of greater importance to focus on.
Disclaimer: just gonna repeat that these are assumptions.[/quote]
The thing with the skill levels has previous been discussed. Tired of going over the same old ground.
[quote=“Leper, post:10, topic:3554”][quote=“Miloch, post:9, topic:3554”]No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful. :P[/quote]
I’m assuming it has something to do with most chemistry recipes requiring quite a high skill level and most cooking recipes requiring a rather low skill level.
That is, cooking gives rapidly diminishing returns, while chemistry is only useful at rather high levels.
This could (and will) probably be rebalanced, but I’m also assuming that the reason it’s not happening right now is that there are other things of greater importance to focus on.
Disclaimer: just gonna repeat that these are assumptions.[/quote]
The thing with the skill levels has previous been discussed. Tired of going over the same old ground. As I stated, pull the Chemistry recipes out, drop the levels down, and make them stand on their own. Of course you are going to have to do some organizing and balancing. That stands for any change you make within a game. Why would this work? Because you wouldn’t have cooking meat enmass to give you access to chemical based recipes. In my current game I boil water and cook meat and voila! I can now make gunpowder and any other chemical I really care to bother to make.
IME, high-level foods like spaghetti bolognese and fruit pies were things that were never strictly necessary.
(But having a handful of spaghetti bolognese or half a pie in my pocket for field snacking was amusing and effective.)
Since I opposed the split, I’m gonna hold off on further comment on the merits. “Cook&Chem” amuses me so I’ll support that title, though I had no problem with “Cooking”.
[spoiler][quote=“Miloch, post:12, topic:3554”][quote=“Leper, post:10, topic:3554”][quote=“Miloch, post:9, topic:3554”]No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful. :P[/quote]
I’m assuming it has something to do with most chemistry recipes requiring quite a high skill level and most cooking recipes requiring a rather low skill level.
That is, cooking gives rapidly diminishing returns, while chemistry is only useful at rather high levels.
This could (and will) probably be rebalanced, but I’m also assuming that the reason it’s not happening right now is that there are other things of greater importance to focus on.
Disclaimer: just gonna repeat that these are assumptions.[/quote]
The thing with the skill levels has previous been discussed. Tired of going over the same old ground.[/quote]
[quote=“Miloch, post:13, topic:3554”][quote=“Leper, post:10, topic:3554”][quote=“Miloch, post:9, topic:3554”]No, no, no. Your doing it, wrong. You’re supposed to say something like, BAN!!! Then I go, NOOOOOOOO!!!
As for a name, sorry, I have no idea. They two aren’t really related. I’d say just keep them are they are for now. Though why you can’t simply pull the chemistry recipes out of cooking and drop them down I don’t understand.
BTW, thread derailment, successful. :P[/quote]
I’m assuming it has something to do with most chemistry recipes requiring quite a high skill level and most cooking recipes requiring a rather low skill level.
That is, cooking gives rapidly diminishing returns, while chemistry is only useful at rather high levels.
This could (and will) probably be rebalanced, but I’m also assuming that the reason it’s not happening right now is that there are other things of greater importance to focus on.
Disclaimer: just gonna repeat that these are assumptions.[/quote]
The thing with the skill levels has previous been discussed. Tired of going over the same old ground. As I stated, pull the Chemistry recipes out, drop the levels down, and make them stand on their own. Of course you are going to have to do some organizing and balancing. That stands for any change you make within a game. Why would this work? Because you wouldn’t have cooking meat enmass to give you access to chemical based recipes. In my current game I boil water and cook meat and voila! I can now make gunpowder and any other chemical I really care to bother to make.[/quote][/spoiler]
Sorry, I wasn’t aware that it’d been discussed to great length before. 
My personal opinion on the matter is that it makes little sense to have them both under the same skill, so we’re in agreement there.
Personally, I’d just call it Chemistry.
Here’s another take: go overboard with the fancy words.
Call it: Victual Science
Part of the problem, and this went over in the debate, is that we want to emphasis that “skill” here skill in implementation.
We are the technician, not the scientist.
This is why we have mechanics and electronics instead of engineering and physics, for example.
This is why we have fabrication instead of materials science.
So the problem with chemistry as a name is that it implies that the skill is a science skill - it’s not. The skill is about following an ordered sets of operations, mixing together ingredients under controller conditions, applying the right amount of heat over the right amount of time, insuring a clean work area that avoids contamination, etc. and so on.
The skill is not knowing chemistry it’s doing chemistry, and the name has to represent that.
Hmm, append an ‘s’ to the name and it gets that quasi-science online college kind of feel.
As a placeholder, it can afford to be silly, and here’s what it does:
It makes no claim to being understood outside of it’s function, and therefore doesn’t have to deal with people’s preconceptions, (like cooking & chemistry), and meanwhile it represents both fields.
-Just to be clear, the name is meant to facetious- it’s really just taking two words that share connotations with our two concepts & sticking them together, (and hopefully doing a good job in the process)
Preperation
Well whatever that skill is, Gryph, it surely ISN’T cooking. Including with cooking is a balance issue, as previously stated. Now, I don’t know of a good name for what the “chemistry” skill should be called. It’s definitely a quick and dirty form of chemistry. Backyard chemistry or the like. But I’d still feel it’s a lot closer to Chemistry then to Cooking. I also feel that balance is more important then naming conventions.
Lol, how about “Concocting” ? Sounds just half ass enough to be right, eh?
Homebrewing is also an alright name.
Honestly I think it really is still Chemistry as it’s still the knowledge of chemicals and how they interact.
From ye ole wiki: Chemistry, a branch of physical science, is the study of the composition, properties and behavior of matter.
This is all about the behavior of matter. You can talk about being technicians and not scientists but I feel in this case the line you are trying to draw is not as distinct as you feel it is. Engineers tend to deal in larger scale issues while mechanics tend to deal in smaller scale issues. Chemistry isn’t usually talking about scale. Besides you can have different types of engineers and mechanics. Not every job will draw the nice neat line you seem to want. There were people who worked in medicine who were known as chemists. These were practitioners, not scientists. I think your line is too artificial my friend.