Make Chemists smart

[SeafoDeer]

I find it kinda dumb that Botanists can be assigned a shelf to get their planting materials from but chemists require you to hold their hands and place all of their supplies in the table for them, the entire point of me hiring people was to automate Meth, why do I need to still do 90% of the work?

[Slackerdude74]

You can assign handlers to do that for the chemists.

[Wedge]

You can just use a handler to load up your mix stations. It would be nice if each mixer could have a supply shelf assigned to it though to save on needing that handler.

[KellyR]

Beware that even using a handler, they won't load the station according to the set recipe, they just take whatever they find on the shelf. You can make this work by, for instance, if you're mixing meth, putting items on the shelves in order, so a stack of pseudo, a stack of phosphorous, then a stack of acid, and repeating that pattern. However, if anything ever interferes with that in any way, it will break and you'll have to come back and troubleshoot.

Literally nothing in the game uses any sort of item type filtering in the "automation", so presumably even if chemists pulled from a "supplies" shelf, they'd still have this same problem.

[makeup.metalhead]

My way around this was to have two mixing stations and have a handler move the correct product to the first station, then move it to the second once it had the first mixing stage done. I do wish in future updates the chemists could do more on their own similar to the botanist.

[Mertt]

What I WISH we could do is assign the chemist a certain recipe and then assign the chemist multiple shelves to grab from, and then the chemist will mix that recipe you want as long as they have the ingredients available to them. Since this isn't the case I pretty much find the chemist completely useless and just setup 4-6 mixing stations and do it myself. My only gripe is storage space. You pretty much need insane storage, or you gotta constantly have deliveries being delivered to you for your mixing supplies if you plan to mass produce. There's also the fact the maximum delivery amount you can order is INSANELY small. If you're using an endgame mix you'll never be able to fully fill your shelves in 1 order.

[Lyghtstorms]

here is an example of how I set mine up. 1 chemist, 1 handler, 4 mixers V2, and 6 shelves ( one for each mixer, one for beginning product, and one for final product )
handler has 5 routes:
1. handler brings product from assigned shelf to mixer 1
2. then handler brings 1st mixing ingredient
2a. mixer 1 outputs to Mixer 2
3. handler brings 2nd mixing ingredient
3a. mixer 2 outputs to Mixer 3
4. handler brings 3rd mixing ingredient
4a. mixer 3 outputs to mixer 4
5. handler brings over 4th mixing ingredient
5a. mixer 4 outputs to desired shelf for packing
Have your chemist assigned to the 4 mixers ( obviously )

From there I have a second handler who takes the product, packs it into whatever size package I want and puts on the desired collection shelf for easy access.

This way I only have to keep the 5 shelves stocked with product and mixers and the goons do the rest. I have my producers just output the raw product on the shelf assigned for mixer 1's source. Seems to work well with short list mixes. I have not tried it with more complex mixes but it makes the easy mixes go smooth.

[Wedge]

Just load your shelves correctly. Works fine unless something bugs out then a save and reload fixes it usually.

[Lyghtstorms]

Originally posted by Wedge:

Just load your shelves correctly. Works fine unless something bugs out then a save and reload fixes it usually.

you said it, works fine until it doesn't. Mine might take up more space but has yet to bug out. No real thought required when each shelf is specific to its mix ingredient. just buy it and load.

[Ta_gta_89]

With 1 chemist and 1 handler i can make about 6 jars of single mix meth per day. All i have to do is fill the storage shelf for each ingredient, restock the second chem bench if I'm running low on product (chemist is assigned to this one too so i just have to fill it) and empty out the rack with jarred finished product in it.

Flow goes like this:
Chemist
-Chemist is assigned 2 chem benches, both go to the same oven (One bench is kinda an auxiliary that you just refill every time you get supplies delivered, if you fill it constantly you will have a surplus of liquid meth.)
-From the oven to the mixing station, set it so it makes 10 at a time, then mixing station to packaging (the chemist can deliver it to the packing station, just can't use it.)

Now the handler
-Setup the three main ingredient shelves and make routes from each to the 1 chem bench. (make sure you fill the benches with the 3 ingredients first otherwise the handler will load it with all acid or something)
-Setup a shelf for whatever mixer you want and make a route to the mixing station (Chemist handles the meth here don't worry about it)
-Setup a shelf with jars and make a route to the packaging station, then set the destination to another shelf.

You need a second handler if you want to do more mixing than that/automate even further. This also leaves you with a surplus of liquid meth hanging around in the second bench in case you run out of supplies that it can run off of for a day. Between this, my 2-mix og, and dealers flipping base green crack bricks, I'm making like 25k/day.

[KellyR]

Originally posted by makeup.metalhead:

My way around this was to have two mixing stations and have a handler move the correct product to the first station, then move it to the second once it had the first mixing stage done. I do wish in future updates the chemists could do more on their own similar to the botanist.

That works for mixers, not for chemistry stations, unless you want to use most of a Handler's routes on one chemistry station, since you'd need 3 different shelves feeding it.

[roboticaust]

Originally posted by KellyR:

That works for mixers, not for chemistry stations, unless you want to use most of a Handler's routes on one chemistry station, since you'd need 3 different shelves feeding it.

3 shelves feeding a mixed shelf (alternate acid, phos, pseudo in the slots to prevent issues), then that mixed shelf feeding all chem stations. Sounds like a lot of handler slots, but it's actually more compact than trying to throw 3 handler slots at every chem station. Even at baby numbers, it still is cheaper on handlers. 2 chem stations for instance would use 5 handler routes instead of 6 doing it this way. The savings only go up the more stations you are dealing with.

[JD]

Originally posted by KellyR:

Originally posted by makeup.metalhead:

My way around this was to have two mixing stations and have a handler move the correct product to the first station, then move it to the second once it had the first mixing stage done. I do wish in future updates the chemists could do more on their own similar to the botanist.

That works for mixers, not for chemistry stations, unless you want to use most of a Handler's routes on one chemistry station, since you'd need 3 different shelves feeding it.

I just have 1 shelf feeding 2 chem stations, and the only time I have ever seen an issue where they loaded up wrong items was when I ran out of the other items. so set up the chem station with the4 correct inputs and then assign the guy to keep those inputs topped off using 1 or more shelves. I keep it simple by having multiple other shelves feeding into that one feeding shelf if I Want to expand capacity.

[Maconijnr]

Originally posted by Lyghtstorms:

here is an example of how I set mine up. 1 chemist, 1 handler, 4 mixers V2, and 6 shelves ( one for each mixer, one for beginning product, and one for final product )
handler has 5 routes:
1. handler brings product from assigned shelf to mixer 1
2. then handler brings 1st mixing ingredient
2a. mixer 1 outputs to Mixer 2
3. handler brings 2nd mixing ingredient
3a. mixer 2 outputs to Mixer 3
4. handler brings 3rd mixing ingredient
4a. mixer 3 outputs to mixer 4
5. handler brings over 4th mixing ingredient
5a. mixer 4 outputs to desired shelf for packing
Have your chemist assigned to the 4 mixers ( obviously )

From there I have a second handler who takes the product, packs it into whatever size package I want and puts on the desired collection shelf for easy access.

This way I only have to keep the 5 shelves stocked with product and mixers and the goons do the rest. I have my producers just output the raw product on the shelf assigned for mixer 1's source. Seems to work well with short list mixes. I have not tried it with more complex mixes but it makes the easy mixes go smooth.

This^^^^

using the method described by Lyghtstorms i have an 8 stage mix setup going :)
using 8 mixing stations, 12 large shelves, 2 chemists, 4 handlers system works flawless, has been for in game weeks (many many real world hrs) and not bugged out once :)

using 8 large shelves 1 for each mixing item makes sure no mistakes ever get made if a shelf runs out the process just stops :)

1st handler takes from 1st 4 shelves getting mix items and loading them to 1st 4 mixers leaving him 1 spare process, that i assign to load the product from a 5th shelf into the 1st mixer.

2nd handler takes from the next 4 shelves and loads the next 4 mixing machines,
the 8th final mixer outputs straight to the 10 shelf, the 2nd handler uses his last process to move the product to the brick press/packing station, assign the packing station/brick press to the handler and output it to the 11th rack near door for me to just grab finished packed product and do what i need to do with it :)

the 12th rack is also near the door and is my input rack all deliveries i load to that shelf all 8 mix items from the vans, the final 2 handlers then take from that shelf to restock the the mix shelves doing 4 shelves each leaving 2 spare processes to move what ever you need them for ( 1 from each handler) left over :)

[KellyR]

Originally posted by roboticaust:

Originally posted by KellyR:

That works for mixers, not for chemistry stations, unless you want to use most of a Handler's routes on one chemistry station, since you'd need 3 different shelves feeding it.

3 shelves feeding a mixed shelf (alternate acid, phos, pseudo in the slots to prevent issues), then that mixed shelf feeding all chem stations. Sounds like a lot of handler slots, but it's actually more compact than trying to throw 3 handler slots at every chem station. Even at baby numbers, it still is cheaper on handlers. 2 chem stations for instance would use 5 handler routes instead of 6 doing it this way. The savings only go up the more stations you are dealing with.

If you have 3 shelves feeding into 1 shelf, you can't possibly guarantee that the Handler will load the items into that shelf in the right order. And if you're doing it yourself then why bother at all?

Originally posted by JD:

Originally posted by KellyR:

That works for mixers, not for chemistry stations, unless you want to use most of a Handler's routes on one chemistry station, since you'd need 3 different shelves feeding it.

I just have 1 shelf feeding 2 chem stations, and the only time I have ever seen an issue where they loaded up wrong items was when I ran out of the other items. so set up the chem station with the4 correct inputs and then assign the guy to keep those inputs topped off using 1 or more shelves. I keep it simple by having multiple other shelves feeding into that one feeding shelf if I Want to expand capacity.

One shelf feeding two chemistry stations can absolutely fail if the handler decides to move an item to Chem Station 1, and then an item to Chem Station 2, instead of 3 to Chem Station 1, and then 3 to Chem Station 2.

Which is why I just stock the chem stations myself. It takes them so long to go through a full 10 batches that I only have to do it every few days anyway.

[Camio]

There is a better way to do this, more efficient btw, and it requires less handlers and improves the process speed.

Nobody in all the Youtube I've seen seem to be using this; everyone is copycatting the less efficient way. Not that Youtube normally is the place for optimal play anyway, but still.