There has been some discussion already about the pluming nerf, none of which I have partaken in (until now) or even read (except one specific post). I only know of it due to some of the topic lines of players talking about the nerf itself, either liking or hating the nerf. I want to contribute to this discussion by relaying my subjective experience of the nerf in the hopes that the nerf can be readjusted, or perhaps even have chemistry receive a rework.
Some background first:
- I like complex systems and machinery
- I am inexperienced with chemistry and plumbing on beestation
- I have never attempted pre-nerf plumbing, and thus have no attachment to pre-nerf plumbing
When I joined the active round on beestation as a chemist, I already had some experience with chemistry on yogstation, so I made a bunch of superior healing medicines for everyone who was injured. I got bored after this, so decided to try out plumbing, mostly relying on the guide to plumbing hosted on the wiki.
Though the guide was useful, it was outdated. The most obvious thing to notice was the outdated sprites, but graphical changes don’t change the advice on the wiki, so I thought I was solid. I immediately decided I wanted to make a meth factory, so I went to set up synthesizers and the reaction chamber. First step was to make Ammonia, so I hooked the factories together, and it didn’t work. I fiddled with the inputs to the reaction chamber and outputs from the synthesizers, I tried plungering the reaction chamber to see if something was clogging the pipes, I even installed a chemical tank to make sure I wasn’t just reading something wrong. Eventually I gave up, and searched up what the issue was.
Now, I’m an adept googler (hold your applause) and it took multiple searches until I found the help I needed. The information I was looking for was not found on the plumbing guide and it was not found on an easy search. Given this, I don’t expect new players to be able to easily find the important information, particularly since neither the game nor the guide explain what the important information even is. But what is the important information? It was that the synthesizers were out of fuel and needed to be filled by a matter cartridge. There is no indication on the synthesizers that this was something I needed to do. It took me finding this thread to figure it out:
EDIT: I can now add links, yay!
Now, having to find a salt thread about why a mechanic is bad is not a good way to find the information. If this is the first thing a new player sees to know what they need to go do plumbing, they are immediately being thrown into a discussion they have no knowledge of, and will probably take the side of the salter due to the salt post being the first thing they see. It was an immediate turnoff for me to do chemistry, as apparently I needed to grab a bunch of these expensive matter cartridge thingies I never heard of to plug into the synthesizers to make the goodies come out. I decide to power through it, however: The miners were doing well and the science autolathe was not too far from medical (this was BoxStation).
Once I installed the matter cartridges, the Ammonia started being produced as expected. Huzzah, now we can get onto making meth. As I continue expanding the factory, however, I started to understand what the salt post was talking about due to Beestation’s interesting trends:
- Nobody refills the autolathe
- Everybody needs iron and glass
The combination of these two factors meant that it was difficult to supply the synthesizers I was building, which slowed down the construction process and made it harder to check if the factory was working correctly. I also had to run a short distance to the science autolathe multiple times, as there was never enough iron or glass for all the cartridges I needed. I was also not receiving help from my supporting chemist, as while I was building a factory for a narcotic, he was actually helping the rest of medbay by supplying them with useful healing drugs.
Making the factory was also really slow. The plumbing RCD also requires matter cartridges, which meant the limited amount of metal going around also had to fuel the tool I was using to build the factory, meaning less for the synthesizers. Having to go over to science to get matter cartridges was also slow, since I either had to hope it had enough iron and glass to print new cartridges, or walk over to the medifab first and get a stack of metal and glass. Either way, there ended up being a walk between departments I was not invested in and I could not spend developing the factory.
Eventually, the emergency shuttle was called, and I was only to the point where I could make Ephedrine, and even then, not all the synthesizers were fueled, so I couldn’t make any good chemical except Diethylamine, a rather easy chemical to mix from the chem dispenser. I decided if I was going to make meth under a time limit, I had to do it the traditional way, and so I did, making 40 5u meth pills in a fraction of the time it took to make an incomplete factory.
The whole experience was discouraging, as a chemist and as someone who attempted plumbing. To spend a bunch of time on something that doesn’t even work or made a cool result, only to realize what you did was sub-optimal compared to the easiest way I already knew about. By adding the requirement of matter cartridges as fuel, the chem dispenser became the best way to produce chemicals by all accounts, as it is simply cheaper, easier, quicker, and more efficient than factories.
The one thing I recommend is to make it clearer that the synthesizers need matter cartridges, by indicating on the inspect tooltip (and maybe the sprite) that the synthesizers need matter cartridges to make chemicals. Another thing that can be done is to install an autolathe in or near plumbing. An additional autolate in medical would be useful to everyone, not just the plumber, but could be too powerful, so I’m fine if this is not implemented.
However, both of these are band-aid fixes over a more important issue, that being that factories are sub-optimal to build, cannot always be built due to the cost of metal and glass, and are not worth the time investment. This is an issue I’m not sure how to fix, being someone who is not an active chemist and spends most time in engineering and science.
Those are my two cents on the discussion about the plumbing nerf. Lets hope the factories become more fun in future.