This update is about new code/features that are focused (at least for now) around expanding the kind of things that VS employees can do, or pay others to do.
BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES
There are certain things and situations within the game now that can be 'collected' in a specimen thermos. These are things that are usually in interesting situations or rooms. For example, sewer water.
BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT THERMOS
These containers are used to collect samples. There are 15+ different types of samples that can be collected in a variety of situations. I'm not listing them here, as it's something people need to figure out in game by trial and error and exploration.
CHEMICAL PROCESSING AND PRODUCTION MACHINE
There is one of these in game now, at VS. It is not fully complete, as 50% of what I want them to do hasn't been coded yet. Currently you can:
-load samples from containment thermos's into this machine.
- refine/extract the material to get chemicals. This reduces the amount of raw material, limiting how much you can refine. It takes time, and the time and yield is based on chemical skill.
- research the chemicals to find out more information about what they are, and where they are found, and what they do. It will take multiple researches to unlock all the information. Time + research score increase is based on Chemical skill. Chemicals have primary and secondary attributes, as well as special attributes.
- review what data the machine has on compounds and chemicals within it
I expect it will take a long time for people to discover the different compounds that can be collected and then research the chemicals to understand what they do. And even more time to gather enough of the material to refine enough chemicals to be useful.
The next phase, which has not been developed yet, will be allowing for combining of chemicals to create new chemicals, and then the production of a small batch of a drug based on the new chemical. Think 1 vial and 3 hits.
These drugs will be hyper experimental drugs with larger effects (positive and negative) than other drugs. You might be able to create an AWESOME combat drug, boosting all the consumer's stats a bunch, but it might also give them radiation poisoning, or straight up kill them after a few minutes. Or something in between. You might create a miracle nanite serum that heals someone completely with a single dose. Or combine chemicals in such a way as to do everything, but with a lot of side effects. I have a bunch of different effects and bonuses planned for the creation side of things.
The goal is for lots of experimenting leading to lots of failures and a few successes, and difficulty repeating successes, due to the limited ability to procure and refine the chemicals, leading to this being a longer term slow burn way of creating interesting experimental drugs that doesn't require full GM hands on-ness each time.
There are a lot of possibilities here for RP. VS hiring people to explore for new compounds. VS creating new drugs and testing their efficacy on unsuspecting Mixers. Or paying them to test it in certain situations. Plenty of other stuff as well. And tangible progress tracking as part of collecting, refining, and researching different chemicals.
Some of the compounds are going to be REALLY hard to acquire and require GM help / plots (or really good timing) to make happen, and that opens up more opportunities for VS and others they might hire to put together a team to collect some of the compounds.
I think even as it stands, it's a nice addition to the stuff that VS employees can be pushing on. It's still very beta, and isn't going to have far reaching impacts on the game, even when it's completed, but my hope is that it adds a bit of color and intrigue to the RP at VS.
From the perspective of if this has always existed... VS just got this tech and is now experimenting with it.
(Edited by Slither at 12:54 pm on 1/31/2025)
