Chemists are not what I imagined beforehand: dissapointing

[Fr0g]

(Great game, got hooked)

I was imagining what I would be able to do once I could hire a chemist, but when I saw what they could do, I was dissapointed. They cost the most, but can only push a button, literarily. Can't even stock the mixer they're using, so they're much less capable than the handlers, who can pack stuff from one shelf, with packaging supplied in another, and put finished products on yet another shelf.

I imagined you'd get a screen where you could choose what mixes to do, from the ones you've unlocked. And perhaps a "make any" mix, where they would do unlocked mixes from what's avaliable in their "supply shelf". Perhaps they'd need a offloading table, where they could put intermediate mixes, that can't be finished atm.

Other ideas are: option to make "mixes up to X amount of combinations" or a simple priority stack: they would try to pursue the topmost mix, the the second etc, and if you put "any" at the bottom, you'd atleast have a fallback random mix output.

All this would make chemist way more powerful, but this is the way I'd like them I think. I appreciate the multi-mixer conveyor belt that paople have allready built to make complex mixes, but honestly it's a bit to hard-core for me: I don't want to spend that time and effort. I understand people want end-game factorio or "shapez" style production, where such effort pays off, but perhaps there's a way to strike a balance? If you just think about it, it does seem silly you'd have to do all that just to get complex, or varied mixes out of you chemists. In the game there are quite a massive number of mixes possible. What you can do with the chemists doesn't really live up to that aspect: Even if you manage to have your chemists produce a complex mix, how do you get them to mass produce a broad variety? Say 10-20 different products?

These are just thoughts. The game is in Early access after all, so it's all good!

[It's Shas]

I think the whole employee system needs a rework. It currently feels like its only there because tyler wanted to have it for the EA start but its bare-bones, barely functions and is mildly infuriating at best.

[Des]

This should be posted in Suggestions.

Chemists are necessary if you want to automate your production. They're invaluable for chemistry stations, lab ovens and cauldrons. But they're not very good with mixing stations, but that's not the chemists' problems, it's a limitation of the mixing station itself. For example a chemist cannot use the mixing station if a new mix has been discovered, thus halting the automation process. The other issue is the threshold can only go up to 10, which is really limiting and can cause inventory problems.

The mixing station is the bottleneck, bar none.

I have offered the following solutions to the mixing station. If necessary, add a MK3 variant.

- allow AI to continue mixing even when a new mix is discovered
- Allow us to set max threshold to 20.
- Allow us to queue or stack mixers, so instead of going from 0 > 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 effects, you can throw in 4 different mixing ingredients to create a product that has 4 effects. Increase the time for mixing to complete from 1 minute to around 4-8 minutes.
- Use mixer at a 1:20 ratio instead of 1:1. 1x mixer for every 20 product. This addresses the "delivery simulator" issue. Maybe make this available only for the MK3 variant.

[Fr0g]

Diposting pertama kali oleh It's Shas:

I think the whole employee system needs a rework. It currently feels like its only there because tyler wanted to have it for the EA start but its bare-bones, barely functions and is mildly infuriating at best.

Yes, I believe so too. He got it in, but it's bare bones.

[Fr0g]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Des:

This should be posted in Suggestions.

How do I do that? Can I make a copy?

To your other points: You want better mixing stations, but what you suggested doesn't adress my feelings about the Chemists being pretty useless at making mixes for you. I specifically want more interesting options for the chemists using the clipoard on them.
In your hands the mixing table is quite usable, for the chemists, not so.

If you could select mixes for them to attempt to do, then the new mix discovered problem would go away. Then it's up to you to find new mixes.