Chemistry makes up the building blocks that form most things, from the water in your glass to the glass that holds your water. Most of chemistry as it relates to the game is about making chemicals that have useful purposes, from miracle drugs that heal any injury to toxic chemicals that neutralize alien lifeforms to useful concoctions that can quickly transform materials. For the full list of chemicals and their interactions, see the Guide to Chemicals.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Dispenser | A machine that is loaded with cartridges that dispenses the contents of the cartridges. Basic chemical and bar technology. A single Dispenser typically has ten cartridges, and requires no power to operate. |
| Extractor | A machine that is connected to an atmos or plumbing pipe that extracts useful chemicals from it on demand. No research requirements on most standard ships/stations/colonies. |
| ChemiSynth | A basic chemical synthesizer that dispenses a variety of chemicals into any beaker inserted into it. A fundamental piece of equipment that requires a power cell. Upgraded ChemiSynths can synthesize a wider selection of chemicals and have other benefits. Sufficient scientific advancement will give you an even better option. |
| ChemiDispenser | Dispenses a whole slew of chemicals. Use a beaker (or similar liquid-bearing containers - however, you cannot insert some such as drinking glasses) on it to insert it, then use the machine to pick chemicals. You can choose to remove unwanted chemicals (isolate removes all chemicals BUT the selected one). When you're done, eject the beaker from the menu. Can be configured to automatically dispense certain chems using chem groups/bookmarks. The only downside is that it requires room power to operate and doesn't have its own battery. |
| Reagent Extractor | Converts certain items (usually food items or plants but not always) into chemical reagents that are stored into one of two internal tanks or an inserted container. The two internal chemical tanks hold 500 units of chemicals, helpful when you need to store a large amount of ammunition for biological warfare– er, automender refills. |
| All-in-One Grinder | Converts solid objects (usually material bars) into chemical reagents by grinding them down. Food items are ground down rather than juiced. The end product is stored in a 500 unit chemical tank that can be removed to pour the results into a chemical mixture. |
| Heating/Cooling Unit | Used to chill or heat containers. Use the menu to set a target temperature (Tip: click the number itself to punch in a number instead of clicking + and - over and over again.), and press Activate to start the heating/cooling process. |
| CheMaster 3000 | Used to turn chemicals into pills, medical patches, medicine bottles, canned drinks, or ampoules, though it can also isolate or remove reagents from the inserted beaker. If you need more information, click the Analyze option next to the reagent name, and the CheMaster will briefly describe what it does or at least what it is (which may or may not be helpful). The Analyze option can also conduct blood tests if you lack other tools (reagent scanner, upgraded health analyzer): draw blood and analyze it with the CheMaster in the pharmacy. When creating pills, patches, or ampoules, you'll be prompted to choose how many units are in each one (multiple pill/patch options only), as well as the label (which will show up as “<what you wrote> pill/patch” or “ampoule(<what you wrote>)”). Pill bottles and patch boxes work slightly differently from other containers. To get a pill or patch, click on the bottle resp. box with an empty hand while it is in your other hand. Pill bottles can be emptied by clicking the bottle with the hand holding it, dumping all pills on the floor. Patch boxes have to be opened before you can manipulate the contents. |
| ChemiCompiler | A complicated chemistry device, which uses a programming language derived from Brainfuck. It features 5 registers, 1024 bytes of RAM and 10 reagent reservoirs - to add beakers, click on the r[number] slots. The machine generates a pill or vial if they are targeted and can send reagents out an ejection port. There exists a handheld version used by the Syndicate that behaves identically but has only 6 reservoirs. For instructions on how to use it, see the dedicated ChemiCompiler guide. |
| Lab Counter | Surprisingly functional science storage! Has a whopping thirteen slots for your beakers, bottles, pills, syringes, tools, and other small- and tiny-size items in its table drawer. Click-drag its sprite onto yours or click on the counter with an empty hand to access them. You can sometimes find parts for them in Furnishings Crates from Cargo. |
| Fume Hood | A basic laboratory invention, the fume hood draws chemical smoke and vapor into the connected vent to the txic gas lines, allowing the chemicals thus created to be properly disposed of and making your scientists live longer. |
| Glass Recycler | Put glass shards, glassware, and blocks of glass or similar materials (from a reclaimer or material processor) into it to make other, bigger types of glassware. Boxes or containers of glassware can also be emptied into the recycler as well, saving time when recycling the boxes of small beakers into more useful large beakers. |
| ValuChimp | Dispenses monkeys, a valuable commodity for the modern scientist. This can be hacked to also offer 1 to 20 bananas and 1 to 2 vocal translators. |
| Replicator | A very-high-tech piece of science that can create copies of items placed in it when provided with large amounts of power. While this is often used to copy objects such as tools and firearms, this also can synthesize literally any chemical, if you can create it properly. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Beaker | Holds chemicals. Standard ones hold 50 units, large ones 100 units. You can make more at a glass recycler and find them in beaker boxes; you can order more beaker boxes from Cargo through both general Chemistry Resupply Crates and precursor Chemistry Resupply Crates. Has quite a few interactions: Click on another beaker or similar while the beaker is in your hand to transfer up to 10 units of chems into it. Click-drag its sprite into another beaker or similar (neither have to be in your hand) to transfer as many reagents as possible into the receiving beaker. Click on a person or mob with the beaker in your active hand to pour its contents onto them, applying the chems' TOUCH effects. Click on a floor tile with the beaker in your active hand to pour it onto the floor. This'll apply any special on_turf effects, e.g. CCl4 puts out any fires on the tile, cheese can make a wedge of cheese if there's enough, oil makes an oil spill. If you pour enough chems, it'll create a fluid puddle. Click on the beaker while it's in your hand to loosen or tighten your grip on it. If you have it on loose grip, you'll pour all the chems inside on the mob/tile; if you have it in a tight grip, you'll only pour 10 units from it. If your beaker is empty, clicking on a fluid puddle transfers some of the reagents into it. If it's filled, does the reverse: pours the reagents into the puddle. Click on a mess decal, such as blood stain, fungus growth, or oil stain, to collect its associated reagents. You can generally only do this once per pile. Note: Generally, the exact contents of beakers and other reagent containers can't be examined directly. A pair of spectroscopic goggles or a reagent scanner (PDA or separate) are recommended. |
| Reagent Scanner | Assesses chemical composition of many things. Click on a person, container, fluid puddle or other object with this, and it'll list the chemicals inside it. Only the hand-held version has a memory function (click on it or examine to see the results of the previous scan), but it is otherwise identical to the PDA program. |
| Spectroscopic Scanner Goggles | Assesses chemical composition of containers. Examine a beaker or other reagent container with these on to assess the exact composition and quantity of chemicals inside. Without these, you'll only see a rough estimate and description. These goggles are also available from the cargo bay. |
| Syringe | Transfers chemicals. Click on the syringe while it's in your hand to set to inject or draw, and click on someone/something to transfer 5 units of chemicals at a time. Drawing from a person will take a blood sample. Neither are instant, unless the recipient is yourself. Total capacity is 15 units. |
| Dropper | Transfers chemicals. Click on a beaker or other container to load it with reagents, click on another container to squeeze the reagents in. You can also drop it on a person to drip reagents onto them. Holds up to 5 units, and drops all of it at once onto its target. Dropping takes about half as much time as injecting with a syringe. |
| Mechanical Dropper | More precise dropper. Allows you to transfer reagents (up to 10 units) in increments of 0.1 units. Click on it in-hand to adjust how much is transferred and whether the dropper is in dropping or drawing mode. Otherwise used just like the dropper. |
Want to start making napalm? Hold your horses, pyromaniacs. First things first, we need to discuss some important safety tips:
Mix potentially-explosive chemicals in the Test Chamber. The Test Chamber is a chamber with reinforced walls and floors, built to withstand small explosions during mixing and testing. Thus, it can take much more damage during chemical accidents than the chemistry lab. Keeping other scientists and the mixing lab out of the collateral damage is one less reason for them to leave you to fry from your own fireball for potentially ruining their round. Definitely mix chemicals in the Test Chamber if you don't know what will happen. And if you can't mix the explosive stuff in another room for some reason, at the very least warn your colleagues before you do it.
Always wear your standard-issue gas mask and a biosuit + bio hood from the closets. This can't be stressed enough; some chemicals are accompanied with a “The solution generates a strong vapor!” message upon successful mixing, giving everyone adjacent to the tile a big whiff of the chemical that was just mixed on it. The full gas mask/biosuit set immunizes you to this and most chemical smokes and TOUCH reactions, protecting you from your colleagues' shenanigans as well as your own. There is no reason not to do this unless you're trying to choke on your own poisons. If you can get a fume hood installed and turned on, items mixed underneath it will automatically have their vapor and smoke safely drawn into the vent system, so you and other people don't have to worry about your faces melting off.
Don't mix random chemicals - similar to real life, if you aren't careful, you might cause a fire, explosion, implosion, and/or flash or catch a whiff of some toxic fumes. This is why it's important to have a gas mask and a biosuit + bio hood if you don't know what you're doing.
Pay attention to what other scientists are doing and don't get in their way. For example, if someone places a beaker into a reagent heater and runs away from it, he's probably anticipating a fireball or smoke of some degree and it's wise not to go look at, lest you get a face-full of it.
Use the fume hood if you are going to be close to a reaction. This device is made for mixing chemicals under without getting a faceful of the resulting smoke or vapor, and without toxifying your work environment.
Make liberal use of stabilizing agent. If you see a recipe that mentions stabilizing agent, always use it when mixing the recipe in question so it doesn't literally blow up in your face. It's a good practice to do this for recipes you're unfamiliar with. Be wary, however, that stabilizing agent doesn't work with everything - these cases should be mixed in the aforementioned test chamber.
Test harmful or unknown chemicals on monkeys, NOT other people. This is why you have the ValuChimp. Monkeys are NPCs with damage counters just like that of a human's, so they'll provide an accurate representation of what would happen if you use that chemical mix on a human. This is doubly important if you're a round antagonist, as you will need to make sure your deathchems actually cause death instead of just provoking your target into toolboxing you.
Test dangerous mixes in the Testing Lab or off-station. If you want test say, a beaker bomb, and it's supposed to make things explode, poison people, or otherwise harm things, try them in the Testing Lab or some place away from the station, so other people aren't affected. Be sure to warn people ahead of time, so they can exit the area in time.
Got all that? Good. Now we can get started with making napalm.
So, turns out making napalm isn't terribly complex at all. But there's more to chemistry than just making napalm–so much more! It's almost overwhelming. Where does an aspiring chemist start?
Learn the most-commonly used compounds and healing chems.
Basic compounds - Know each one by heart, for they are at the heart of many recipes. Luckily, there aren't many to learn.
Medical chems - Learn how to make and use healing chems, and you'll live longer – and enjoy more of the round! You can even help others too. Plus, when you start to learn harmful recipes, you'll be able to heal yourself when you fuck up. Some particularly useful ones to learn are styptic powder & silver sulfadiazine, which heal up some of the most common injuries.
Don't forget, there's a more detailed introduction/walkthrough to the wonderful world of chemistry below! Understand the patterns behind the recipes.
The recipes for chems from real-life generally follow a comfortably simplified version of the actual process; for example, methamphetamine is based on the Nagai route, while sulfuric acid is just the elements that make up the molecule.
The ones for entirely fictional chems tend be somewhat arbitrary, but for some, there's some simple logic linking them, e.g. glitter needs shiny stuff and a paper base for it, while flaptonium involves bird-related things. Even some of said arbitrary ones often use phoron for that “magical sci-fi chemical that can do anything”.
This holds particularly true for secret chemicals:
You can also make pre-set chemical groups, sometimes called bookmarks, through the Group button, so that the chem dispenser dispenses certain reagents automatically when you click one of the Group buttons. Groups streamline the production process quite significantly, especially for basic compounds. Even for simple recipes like potassium iodide, pressing just one button takes much less time than hunting and pressing for two of them, and you have a lot of control over amount created.
To make a chem group, put name of the reagent you want to dispense, an equal sign, the amount you want to dispense, and a name. Make sure that your chemical group has a name or else you'll lose your hard work when you try to add it. Separate reagents by semicolons. Here's an example reagent group for salt:
water=1;chlorine=1;sodium=1
Notice: no spaces needed, no semi-colon at the end necessary. The chems listed are added all at once at the same time, but there's still recipe priority; for something like that like luminol, you'll want to put the nitrogen and hydrogen towards the end, so you don't make ammonia. For fairly obvious reasons, you can't do things like sulfuric_acid=1; the chem dispenser simply doesn't dispense such reagents, just their ingredients. You must do hydrogen=1;oxygen=1;sulfur=1 instead.
You can insert your ID card into the dispenser to “save” it to your ID, any new groups made while your ID is inserted can only be used if your ID is in a dispenser. Good for keeping secret chemicals secret or just avoiding the hassle of adding new groups every time you have to use a new dispenser.
The basic bread and butter of chemistry is the ChemiSynth, or Chemical Synthesizer. This device synthesizes an array of common chemicals useful for scientific development in liquid format. Note that many of these chemicals are dispensed in formats that allow them to properly be handled - for example, items that are normally gaseous such as oxygen must have a stabilizing agent solidify them first for ease of handling.
The ChemiSynth runs on an internal, self-regenerating battery with 100 regenerating energy points, and dispenses its contents into a liquid container placed underneath it. Every ten milliliters of chemical synthesized uses one energy point, and the ChemiSynth must be in a powered area to recharge energy points. Ten milliliters generally qualifies as one 'unit'.
The current building blocks of chemistry are aluminium, bromine, carbon, chlorine, copper, ethanol, fluorine, hydrogen, iodine, iron, lithium, mercury, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, radium, silicon, silver, sodium, stable Phoron, sugar, sulphur, water and welding fuel, all of which can be dispensed from the ChemiSynth. You can also get the ChemiSynth to dispense Space Drugs, Morphine, Toxin, Carpotoxin, and Miner's Salve with the use of an eMag or root disk.
With the materials you have available, you have all sorts of things you can make. You can make medicines, foam, flash powder, poisons, space lube, window hardener, and so much more. The limit on combinations is a limit that exists only in your creativity (and the game engine). Be sure to be careful though, as mixing the wrong chemicals can be bad for your health – please make sure you know what a chemical does before you use it. Experiment at your own risk. Some pure chemicals are lethal or will cause heavy toxin damage if injected or ingested in their pure form, while others will explode, sometimes even with stabilizing agents.
Grinding minerals from mining will also get you metals that you can use in your concoctions, such as Phoron and Uranium.
The NanoMed Plus can also produce toxin when hacked.
Some chemical reactions will require you to heat the reagents. This can be done on a bunsen burner, by using a laser scalpel on the beaker, or in a Chemical Heater/Cooler. Bunsen burners will heat chemicals to the maximum temperature they can manage, and laser scalpels will heat substances nigh-instantly - however, some chemical compounds will explode if heated too much, so you may want to use the Chemical Heater for these. This machine will heat (or cool) a beaker to the exact desired temperature, slowing down the rate of temperature change as it approaches the target temperature.
The Reagent Grinder can distill reagents from materials placed inside; if there is a significant reagent associated with it, it will distill a pure sample into the collection beaker.
The Mini-Centrifuge accepts a beaker of up to 50 units, as well as ten 5 unit vials. It then removes individual reagents and puts them into the 5 unit vials. The Industrial Centrifuge is similar, but holds 500 units and has ten 50 unit beakers to separate into.
Need a bit more direction before heading off into the dangerous world of chemistry? This section describes a few specific commonly used and requested chems in ascending order of difficulty.
Acids happen to simultaneously have some of the simplest recipes, the most obvious harmful effects, and somewhat high usage. You'll be particularly using your good friend Sulfuric Acid for a couple of recipes, and R&D needs it on a semi-regular basis if nobody else is making it.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Sulfuric Acid | (1) Sulfur + (1) Hydrogen + (1) Oxygen → (2) Sulfuric Acid | Deals decent damage scaling with quantity. Sometimes melts items. Used in some other chem recipes and frequently used to print circuits! |
| Fluorosulfuric Acid | (1) Sulfuric Acid + (1) Fluorine + (1) Hydrogen + (1) Potassium @ 374 K → (3) Fluorosulfuric Acid | Deals even more damage, again scaling with quantity. Always melts items upon application, and melts headgear if 9 or more units are splashed on a person. |
Since Sulfuric Acid is made entirely of chemicals in the chem dispenser, you only need to put a beaker in and hit each of those chemicals once. Simple! Once you have some sulfuric acid, you can add the fluorine, hydrogen, and potassium - again, all found in the dispenser - but then you will need to heat up the beaker. Put it in the Heating/Cooling unit and set the temperature really high - just setting it to the required temperature of 374K is slow and won't cut it compared to setting it to the maximum temperature and just removing it once it reacts. And once it does react - congratulations, you have a beaker of face-melting, day-ruining acid!
If you have a more pacifistic slant, you can make most of the medicines which Medbay enjoys using. Two of the most commonly used medical chems are the following; they're fortunately pretty simple.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Styptic Powder | (1) Aluminium + (1) Oxygen + (1) Hydrogen + (1) Sulfuric Acid → (4) Styptic Powder | Slows down bleeding and heals BRUTE damage. Only apply topically, such as with patches - ingestion in pill or drink form poisons the patient! |
| Silver Sulfadiazine | (1) Ammonia + (1) Silver + (1) Sulfur + (1) Oxygen + (1) Chlorine → (5) Silver Sulfadiazine | Heals BURN damage. Just like styptic powder, apply it topically or it will poison whoever ingests it! |
Similarly to Fluorosulfuric Acid above, to make styptic powder, you first need to brew up some sulfuric acid and add some other chemicals from the dispenser. Unlike the acid, it doesn't require any heating, making it quick and easy. Silver sulfadiazine is a bit more involved because it uses Ammonia, which has the following recipe:
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Ammonia | (3) Hydrogen + (1) Nitrogen → (3) Ammonia | Doesn't actually do much on its own besides help the Botanists' plants - it does get used in a lot of recipes, though! |
This is an example of a chemical with a non-balanced recipe; pay careful attention to the ratios, or you may end up with leftover unwanted reagents! You'll also likely need to remove some of the resulting ammonia from the beaker to fit in silver sulfadiazine; you can't fit 30 each of ammonia, silver, sulfur, oxygen, and chlorine in a typical 100u beaker, much less a 50u one.
Those two chemicals alone can make medbay pretty happy when supplies run low. They can also be used by yourself if you don't trust doctors to patch you up, such as when you're an antagonist on the run from the law, or in the middle of a busy fight such as with Nuclear Operatives.
There are a couple of medical chems that medbay either doesn't start with or has a very low starting supply of, so making them will make the doctors there extra happy. See the following.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Synthflesh | (1) Blood + (1) Carbon + (1) Styptic Powder → (3) Synthflesh | Heals both BRUTE and BURN on application - even better than styptic powder and silver sulfadiazine individually do! |
| Perfluorodecalin | (1) Hydrogen + (1) Fluorine + (1) Salicylic Acid @ 374 K → (2) Perfluorodecalin | Heals OXY by a LOT and both raises and caps the breathloss amount - meaning you will only be able to talk in whispers while it's in you. |
| Cryoxadone | (1) Cryostylane + (1) Phoron + (1) Acetone + (1) Unstable Mutagen → (3) Cryoxadone | Does a bit of everything, as long as your body temperature is below 210K; heals BRUTE, BURN, TOX, and OXY by significant amounts. Warms you up if it heals you. |
Synthflesh is pretty simple, though you can't get blood out of any sort of dispenser - instead, you'll want to use a syringe on yourself or a monkey to extract blood, then deposit it into the beaker with the other ingredients. Another popular option is to ask medbay for a spare bloodbag and a scalpel - if you use the scalpel on the bloodbag, you can pour its blood directly into a beaker!
Perfluorodecalin and Cryoxadone require a few other yet-unexplained chemicals, laid out below.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Oil | (1) Carbon + (1) Hydrogen + (1) Welding Fuel → (3) Oil | A bit of a jack of all trades - if heated up enough it makes a fireball which both burns and produces ash, if applied to a floor it makes it slippery, if splashed on a borg it speeds it up, and it gets used in a lot of recipes! Wow! |
| Cryostylane | (1) Water + (1) Phoron + (1) Nitrogen → (3) Cryostylane | When ingested or splashed on someone, it freezes them in an ice cube. It can also be used on floors to make them slippery, and if you add some oxygen to a beaker with cryostylane, both will be gradually consumed to cool down the beaker's contents. |
| Acetone | (1) Oil + (1) Welding Fuel + (1) Oxygen → (3) Acetone | Fairly poisonous when ingested, and is used in several other recipes. |
| Unstable Mutagen | (1) Radium + (1) Phoron + (1) Chlorine → (3) Unstable Mutagen | Mutates and does radiation damage by the truckload to whoever ingests it. Handle with care! |
| Phenol | (1) Oil + (1) Chlorine + (1) Water → (3) Phenol | Does nothing by itself, but is used to make a few other medical chems. |
| Salicylic Acid | (1) Sodium + (1) Phenol + (1) Carbon + (1) Oxygen + (1) Sulfuric Acid → (5) Salicylic Acid | Also known as painkiller or analgesic. Cools you down if you're too hot, sometimes heals some BRUTE, and negates some of the slowed movement associated with being injured. |
To make the oil, you'll need to get some welding fuel - chemistry usually either has a fuel tank in a storage room nearby, which you can hit with a beaker to fill it, or chemistry will have some small, handheld red welding fuel tanks in a crate in the chemistry room. Whichever way you get it, make sure to watch how much of each reagent you have in your beakers - managing chemical amounts is a big part of chemistry!
Perfluorodecalin needs salicyclic acid, which needs sulfuric acid and phenol, which in turn needs oil. Balancing outputs is a little tricky due to sulfuric acid's unusual ratio, but it can be dealt with by using smart math or simply doling out ideal amounts with a mechanical dropper, and perfluorodecalin's excellent OXY healing makes it all worth the trouble.
Meanwhile, cryoxadone requires three other recipes - the simple cryostylane, the slightly more time consuming acetone, and unstable mutagen. This recipe will be your greatest challenge in balancing beaker amounts - either you'll need to waste some of the components or move them around other beakers. With practice you'll figure out your best way of doing things - and cryoxadone is a very worthwhile chemical to practice making!
A small usage note with cryoxadone - since you need to be quite cold for it to work, it's usually best to make pills of a mixture of cryoxadone and cryostylane. This pills, commonly referred to as “chill pills”, freeze the patient upon ingestion, allowing the cryoxadone to do its stuff as well as provide a defensive layer.
Explosives are one of the best-known and most visible products of a chemistry lab. That being said, be careful with these if you are not an antagonist. Use the test chamber liberally when you are new, and use it even more when you're experienced and trying out new and unusual explosive mixes. Warnings considered, try out these two basic explosives.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Flash Powder | (1) Aluminium + (1) Potassium + (1) Sulfur + (1) Chlorine (+ (1) Stabilizing Agent) → (5) Flash Powder | MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE STABILIZING AGENT BEFORE PUTTING ALL FOUR CHEMS IN ONE BEAKER. Flashbangs the nearby area upon activation, causing stuns and eye damage. |
| Magnesium Explosion | (1) Magnesium + (1) Copper + (1) Oxygen → BOOM! | Unlike the other recipes, this one actually doesn't create a chem - only a reaction. This also means it's dangerous to mix - it can hurt you and the chemical dispenser you're making it in! |
The first one, Flash Powder, has a common trait of several explosives - if you have enough stabilizing agent in the beaker before you finish the mix, instead of immediately detonating, you will get a chemical which will detonate once heated enough. In flash powder's case, it explodes at 374 degrees Kelvin. If you are a crime-doing antagonist, you can leave a beaker lying around and put a welding tool underneath the beaker to create a sort of timebomb.
| Chemical Name | Recipe | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Stabilizing Agent | (1) Iron + (1) Hydrogen + (1) Oxygen → (2) Stabilizing Agent | Prevents some - but not all! - explosives from detonating upon synthesis. Make sure you have enough for how much explosive you're making! |
It has a slightly odd ratio, so be careful when mixing it all together!
The other explosive above cannot be stabilized, and can thus never be found in a heatable chemical form. It's a bit simpler to put together, but the challenge comes to finding some way to mix it far away from yourself - else you'll get the brunt of your own explosive! Get creative, and you will become a master of chemistry in no time.
Once you're ready to cannonball into the deep end - or are trying to find out the recipe of one specific chemical - your next stop is the chemical list below. The sheer size of the list may be intimidating, but if you keep in mind the procedures above, you can tackle any of the regular chems - and potentially start on your journey to figuring out secret chems!
Syndicate scientists are widely regarded as one of the most, if not THE most, dangerous threats in the game, and chemistry is the main reason for it. Burning the station to a crisp, spraying toxic goo everywhere, lethal injections… this is all just another day in the office for a regular chemist, so I'm sure you can imagine that a traitorous one is infinitely worse as it's a free ticket to do all those nasty things you couldn't do while you were an actual crew member!
Simply put, any and every method of applying chemicals to people is now a weapon. Spray bottles and emagged hyposprays are quick, quiet and painless (for you) chem application tools. Beakers and beaker assemblies make cheap-yet-fantastic gas bombs. The traitor-granted chemistry grenade kit allows you to construct devastating chemical bombs. Flamethrowers are even more horrible; they convert chemicals into a spray that lets all included reagents penetrate skin (up to a little over five injected per shot), ignore biosuits/internals/gas masks and can hit multiple targets at once if aimed carefully, and the flamethrower can activate most heat-reactant chems in the spray by turning its igniter on.
Of course, you're far from invincible, so stocking up on beneficial chems to use for yourself is highly recommended - throwing poison and fire all over the place will have an angry mob out for your blood rather quickly, you know! Once you learn how to jump over this hurdle, the only limit to the destruction you can cause (other than the game engine, of course) is your imagination.
Chemicals can appear in various forms in-game: Liquid, pill, smoke, foam, or powdered.
Liquid is the main state of chemicals that any Pharmacist will be working with. This is the form of chemicals, reagents, drinks, etc., in beakers, bottles, cups, or other liquid containers.
Chemicals can be dispensed from a Chemistry Dispenser in liquid form, or converted from pill form to liquid form using a Reagent Grinder or by dropping a pill into a container with a liquid in it.
Chemicals and medicines in liquid form can be consumed or administered in the following ways:
Pills are pre-measured chemicals in a solid form, which can be swallowed by any mob with a mouth or force-fed by another mob. Pills are commonly found in the game world in pill bottles and emergency treatment kits.
Pills can be created using the ChemMaster 3000 by inserting a beaker with the desired chemicals, transferring them to the buffer, and selecting one of the ‘create pill’ options.
Pills can be consumed or administered by clicking on yourself or another mob with the pill in your active hand. Note that the target must have a mouth and cannot be wearing a mask or helmet that covers the mouth. Unlike injections, pills deposit chemicals into the mob's stomach instead of the bloodstream.
Smoke results from a chemical reaction and carries any other chemicals present in the container during the reaction. Any mobs within this smoke that are not breathing through internals or do not have a gas mask inhale these chemicals and are transferred to the mob's bloodstream. Additionally, any mobs or objects caught within the smoke are subject to any effects the chemical may have when touched or under physical contact, i.e., acid. This is commonly used for custom chemical smoke grenades and is the mechanism tear gas grenades work.
Foam results from a chemical reaction and carries any other chemicals present in the container during the reaction. Any mobs or objects caught within the foam are subject to any effects the chemical may have when touched or under physical contact, i.e., acid. This is commonly used for custom chemical foam grenades.
Powdered chemicals are a solid form of chemical that can be snorted.
Powdered chemicals can be made using an ID card or a sharp object or tool on a pill, such as a knife.
Powdered chemicals can be inhaled by clicking on them using a straw or physical money. This transfers the chemical directly to your bloodstream. Pills can also be put into food, beakers, or other containers.
All chemicals have a few things in common. They have a common name, a chemical formula (the reagents that make them, and any other treatment required to create them, including catalysts), a description of their effects, a metabolism rate (how quickly the chemical dissolves in the body), an overdose threshold (at what point overdose effects begin to occur), an addiction threshold (at what point you may become addicted to the substance), and a dependency threshold (at what point you begin to suffer if you are addicted).
The effects of chemicals are handled by loop controllers. The mob loop encapsulates most of the things that humans and cyborgs have for repeating code. One of the major components is the life process. The life process runs in approximately 2 second intervals governed by the mob loop. Effects are described in 'ticks' – effectively, one 'tick' is one period of metabolism. Effects depending on the amount remaining in the system are calculated after the metabolism cost is taken.
Therefore, if a chemical does 2 toxin damage each time life is called, it'll do 2 damage every two seconds. With a depletion rate of 1, it'll deplete 1 unit every two seconds, and so on and so on. Chemicals will last longer if they have a lower depletion rate. Chemicals that cause depletion of other chems will reduce the listed amount per cycle. If not explicitly stated, all chemicals default to a depletion rate of 0.4 units per cycle.
Some chemicals have one or multiple special effects when applied to a mob, and the difference can be quite significant. You should always pay close attention to the unique properties of the reagent(s) you want to synthesize or use.
TOUCH effects occur through direct exposure to the body. Acids that burn your face off and topical medicines are examples of this.
If the reagent has a “touch” based component, that component will affect the target (such as the instant heal part of Synthflesh), without being blocked by clothing. Currently all “touch” components are also “patch” components. Items that are absorbed into the bloodstream when TOUCHed have an indicator for how many units are transferred per unit TOUCHed.
Throwing a beaker, or using a beaker on anything with harm intent, will splash its contents. The longer throw distance, the more the splash will spread out. A grenade will splash its content unless it also contains smoke or foam. Splashing only does touch delivery. This means most chemicals will do absolutely nothing when splashed. Reagents that have special properties to affect environment, such as Water, will do so where splashed (creates slippery tile). Reagents that have a touch component will apply that component only. Example: If you throw a beaker of 80u Synthflesh at someone, you will instantly heal them for 100 brute and burn (and deal up to 150 toxin damage), since Synthflesh is touch/patch based. It doesn't matter if the target uses hardsuit or internals in this case. This means throwing a beaker of poison at someone will do nothing at all. Splashing can apply chemicals such as Thermite to walls.
Vapor is used by (ranged) spray bottles and foam. A portion of the reagents will enter the bloodstream of the target, but clothes will protect from some/most/all of it depending on clothing. Any hardsuit typically makes the target completely immune to getting it into their bloodstream, if the helmet is closed. But if the reagent has a “vapor” based component, that component will still affect the target, like Fluorosulfuric Acid. See more about foam below, with examples. Hercuri works best as vapor.
Patch is used by patches and medical gels. The reagent enters the target's bloodstream entirely AND if the reagent has a “patch” based component, that component will also affect the target. Currently all “patch” components are also “touch” components. Example: A patch of 20u Synthflesh will instantly heal 25 brute and burn (touch component), and also enter the target's bloodstream (which in this case does nothing). Standard patches can hold up to 40u of (usually) medicine.
INGEST reactions are things that happen from consumption (eating, drinking, breathing), before being transferred to the bloodstream.
The stomach does not have an infinite capacity; you can only eat so much! Trying to force it can cause damage and sickness. Stomach contents continue to deplete while waiting to be transferred, and have ingest effects while in the stomach; this means that you may have two different effects going on from the same chemical! Effects that inflict damage while here inflict it to the stomach organ directly. Vomiting removes a large portion of the contents of the stomach.
Ingesting reagents (eating or drinking) puts them into the stomach. The individual reagents in the stomach will then be digested over time, which slowly moves them to the bloodstream at a rate partly based on the amount of them in the stomach, and stomach type (race). This includes the nutritional (and other) contents of food, as well as the medicinal (or toxic) effects of whatever was eaten. Most reagents have no effect until they have been moved to the bloodstream where they start metabolizing (an exception is milk).
BREATHE reactions are things that happen if the substance is inhaled. They are treated as INGEST reactions with the exception that vomiting will not affect them, but coughing will, and you have to breathe in the contents. They are mostly applied by: internals, cigarettes, vapor masks, breath masks, and airborne contents (smoke). When breathing a toxic substance in the air, it continues to accumulate in the bloodstream as long as you are exposed to the toxic substance. This means that breathing a continuous supply of chlorine gas is very fatal, unsurprisingly. You need to breathe oxygen to remove damage from oxyloss.
Effects that inflict damage while here inflict it to the lung organs. Damaged lungs reduce your ability to breathe. Strangulation, not having lungs, and other things that stop your breathing stop your ability to get air into your system, but also keep you from breathing harmful elements in the air. Entities that do not need to breathe do not suffer the effects or enjoy the benefits of breathing in aerosolized chemicals.
Breathing removes air from the environment (breathe in…) and then adds it back (breathe out…) Humans take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, for example. They require 16 kPA oxygen in the air, and will begin to suffocate if they have less available. They will also be unable to breathe at certain pressure levels. Bioroids can breathe pure oxygen without long-term difficulties, but other species may not or may have different breathing requirements. Breathed gases are added directly to the bloodstream one tick after entering the lungs (with exceptions noted).
Cigarettes can be dipped in reagents to be filled. If smoking/vaping, you will slowly ingest whatever reagents the cigarette/cigar/e-cig contains over time. If the reagents are too diluted, they may not build up in your bloodstream fast enough to have any effect at all. E-cigarettes can be trimmed with a screwdriver and multitool to also create smoke, allowing others to ingest the chemicals thus produced (and reducing the amount of reagent ingested.
When a smoke reaction occurs, the smoke will consume any other reagent in its original containers, and spread that reagent to flooring and people/mobs who enter its area of effect. People who enter the smoke will be touched by the reagents. If they do not have internals or gas mask on, they will also ingest the reagents. The amount of smoke does not dilute the reagents. The reagents will be copied to every individual or tile (not walls, windows or doors) over the cloud's duration. Reagents that are special coded to affect floor/environment (such as blood, acid or Space Cleaner) will do so. Smoke will usually block sight.
Smoke example 1: Smoke containing 20u Synthflesh. Everyone caught in the cloud, including people wearing hardsuits, will slowly heal 25 brute and burn (and take toxin damage), if they stay in the smoke for its full duration (otherwise they will heal partially). Those who are not wearing internals will also ingest 20u of the medicine, making it enter their bloodstream (which does nothing in this case).
Smoke example 2: Smoke containing 20u Chlorine Trifluoride(CLF3). CLF3 has a touch(and vapor) component, so everyone caught in the cloud, including people wearing hardsuits and internals, will catch on fire. It will also deal burn damage to the environment, since CLF3 is coded to do so. Those who are not wearing internals will also ingest 20u of the CLF3 and thus, start heating up from the inside, effectively burning from both in and out at the same time.
BLOOD reactions are the cyclic effects that occur when the substance enters the bloodstream. Certain methods of transference go straight into the bloodstream. Addictions are checked at the time the substance enters the bloodstream.
Plant-specific effects apply to everything growing in a hydroponics tray.
This effect occurs immediately upon creation. Usually used for explosives, chemicals that fume toxic smoke, foams, etc. Proper stabilization agents may circumvent this, creating the 'Stable' form (which usually still has a trigger that allows the normal CREATE effect).
When a foam reaction occurs, the foam will consume any other reagent in its original containers, and spread that reagent to flooring and people/mobs who enter its area of effect. The foam will spread slower than smoke and is usually slippery. Reagents will be copied through the vapor type delivery to those affected over the duration of the foam, BUT the reagents will be heavily diluted depending on the amount of foaming reagent used. Any clothing will reduce how much of the reagents will enter a person's bloodstream. Furthermore, foam reagent bloodstream insertion is divided into several 'ticks'. A minimum amount of reagent is required per tick for it to enter a bloodstream. So if too little reagents are contained in the reaction, or too much foam is used, the foam will do nothing. These ticks are counted after dilution and protection from clothing. On the other hand, if you use very small amounts of foam, the reagents may instead multiply in the bloodstream to more than the original amount. Hardsuits with helmets on will make people immune to getting reagents into their bloodstream through foam. Despite dilution, the foam will still copy remaining chems such as acid, CLF3, or Space Cleaner to any tile it touches (but not walls, windows or doors). Foam will not block sight.
Foam example 1: 250u foam containing 10u Cyanide will spread a blue foam that does nothing to those it touches. The poison is too diluted to work at all.
Foam example 2: 20u foam containing 250u Fluorosulfuric Acid. A small area and everyone touched by the foam will have large amounts of acid slowly melting their clothing and the affected floor and items. Those who did not wear a hardsuit with helmet on will also have a large amount of acid in their bloodstreams, depending on what they were wearing and how long they were in the foam. If they had internals on or not doesn't matter.
Now that you've completed this basic course on chemistry, check out the full list of chemicals at the Guide to Chemicals.