Alchemy, for dyslexics

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First off, big thanks to Gnox24, I'm basing all my early work on what I understood of your formulas (I'm not a numbers guy, in fact I'm only doing alchemy because my neighbor got irritated with it and threw all his equipment in my hovel, lol). So, lets keep this one as math free as possible for now, (yes I realize what I just said, lol) and if there is any interest, I'll keep this thread updated with the results of all my experiments..

Day 1: I started off with 2 mushrooms, salt: 16 Mercury: 18 Sulphur: 41 lead: 24.

After 2, 1 hour ticks in the pressure cooker, they had both raised from 5% to a whopping 6% (hear the sarcasm in that?) with a stability rating of "somewhat unstable". Sweet, time for the alembic to neutralize that a bit. after 2 hours in the alembic, the stability had dropped down to " a bit unstable" BUT, the purity had dropped to 4% (salt: 14, mercury: 17, sulphur 39, lead: 27).

Well, at least I raised lead by 3 points, even if the overall purity dropped to 1% less than the original. Strange since the dominant element was sulphur. So todays overall lesson? YOU WILL ALWAYS BE WORKING IN RISK TERRITORY. If you are attached to your stove, items, cooker, or alchemy equipment.. Dont bother, so far I have only blown up a mushroom, but I'm quite sure in a day or so, the Salem DEP will be helping me clear up the wreckage of my cooker and/or stove...

But i digress.. after getting the mushrooms back down to " a bit unstable" I went for round 2 in the cooker, but promptly stopped after an hour and a destroyed mushroom, at best I can get that back up to where it started, so I threw the experiment away and restarted with fresh items.

Final output of that fiasco of an experiment? 1 mushroom, 4%, salt: 14, mercury: 17, sulphur: 39, lead: 27

Day 2: I woke up today mad at mushrooms.. so now we are going to try some metals and see if we cant redeem ourselves with some better results. The cooker received a bar of iron at 8% salt:32.53, mercury: 3.10, sulphur: 33.39, lead:30.98. (I also threw a piece of ore off the same boulder , same purity, into the test tubes, just to see what would happen by starting off the process there) And a piece of ore at 20% salt: 48.51, mercury 8.41, sulphur: 2.70, lead: 40.39.

NOW, my second 1hour tic just ended, but I intend on pushing this one a little further, so after I have results (next couple hours assuming I dont blow up a chunk of the new world) I'll get back on and update.

And again, all credit to gnox24, without your efforts I would not have even have made it this far, right about now my entire hovel would look like a scene from Spun or the Sultan Sea.

Feedback encouraged, I'm willing to try any and all suggestions in the pursuit of getting this alchemy thing cracked

[DarkNacht]

The Pressure Cooker, Test Tubes, and Alembic are fairly well understood and how they work is posted on the wiki and in the forums. If you want to do some documenting on exactly how the Conjunctive Retort works that would be great.

[Darkside]

I believe I can predict what your conclusions will be: your neighbor was the smartest guy you ever met.

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I believe I can predict what your conclusions will be: your neighbor was the biggest griefer you ever met.

For now, im going with that..

and the retort is pending shortly, I've put less emphasis in that one just because at a glance, it seems pretty straight forward, that should be the last step before the second cycle begins.. in theory.. although in theory, I shouldent be getting lower purity numbers after the alembic.. Ultimatly I think this experiment will end with the words " This is a great way to break glass and spend in game currency" But hey, I like blowing things up

[DarkNacht]

It seems many people look at Alchemy wrong, it does not work very as a cycle where you apply it over and over to get really high purity of a single element. It works much better to just apply it a little bit to everything to get slightly higher purity at each level of your purity grind to eventually get moderate levels in multiple elements with 1 or 2 elements mostly eliminated.

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your 100% right on this one. but it feels like it makes for one expensive investment towards making expensive worm food. metals are a dead end, i can change the composition, but at the cost of lower overall purity, and that dosent help the lockets any... anyways, this thread ends the same as my predecessors, dead until i replace broken glass..in the end I got to break something expensive though, and thats all that matters

hopefully at the very least, my numbers help out anyone whos thinking about building a digital methlab and dosent want to wrestle with pi formulas..

[mdm20]

The retort is the only one worth using. It's affect is similar to the pressure cooker, except it takes from the 4th and gives to the 3rd (until the 3rd reaches the 2nd). Here are the 3 reasons why I like it.

1. It doesn't explode. I've been using 2 of them for a while now and never lost one. I've had lots and lots of items disappear inside the retort, so it's had plenty of opportuntity to explode.
2. It has 4 slots
3. It raises instability at a reasonable level.

The pressure cooker is also somewhat useful, but tends raises instability too fast and explodes frequently. The other 2 devices are completely useless in their current state.

In my opinion, they could completely fix alchemy and make it like a game within a game if they made these changes:

1. Retort: do nothing, it's perfect now
2. Pressure Cooker: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding)
3. Test Tubes: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding)
4. Alembic: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding); In addition, make it so that it lowers instability w/o touching purity.

Doing those things would make alchemy like a game where you try to raise stuff up slowly over time. There still exists the possibility of you losing items to instability if you don't watch them.

[DarkNacht]

The retort is the only one worth using. It's affect is similar to the pressure cooker, except it takes from the 4th and gives to the 3rd (until the 3rd reaches the 2nd). Here are the 3 reasons why I like it.

1. It doesn't explode. I've been using 2 of them for a while now and never lost one. I've had lots and lots of items disappear inside the retort, so it's had plenty of opportuntity to explode.
2. It has 4 slots
3. It raises instability at a reasonable level.

The pressure cooker is also somewhat useful, but tends raises instability too fast and explodes frequently. The other 2 devices are completely useless in their current state.

In my opinion, they could completely fix alchemy and make it like a game within a game if they made these changes:

1. Retort: do nothing, it's perfect now
2. Pressure Cooker: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding)
3. Test Tubes: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding)
4. Alembic: make it like the retort (4 slots, no exploding); In addition, make it so that it lowers instability w/o touching purity.

Doing those things would make alchemy like a game where you try to raise stuff up slowly over time. There still exists the possibility of you losing items to instability if you don't watch them.

Oh my god, someone who has actually used the Retort. Is there any chance you could post some data on the exact result of using it(starting elements, final elements, number of ticks, and instability increase)?

[mdm20]

It takes exactly one point from the lowest element and adds it to the 3rd lowest element. It does this once an hour, until the item gets too unstable and explodes or the 3rd element reaches the 2nd element. I don't have any numbers as far as instability, but I'd guess 1/2 has much instability change as the pressure cooker.

[DarkNacht]

It takes exactly one point from the lowest element and adds it to the 3rd lowest element. It does this once an hour, until the item gets too unstable and explodes or the 3rd element reaches the 2nd element. I don't have any numbers as far as instability, but I'd guess 1/2 has much instability change as the pressure cooker.

Thank You I have been asking about this for a while and no one seemed to know.