Introduction
Chemline has long been the bane of most doctors’ existence, making even experienced players bang their heads against the wall as they wait for power regeneration. This guide is aimed to help solve two common issues that people face during chemline:
- Not being able to keep up with HMs, with the line getting longer and longer while the fridge is empty.
- Not having any energy left once you make the basics.
I ain’t reading allat!
Welp, I’ve yet to make a TL;DR for this 
This guide is a 
Work In Progress and will likely improve over time, or become irrelevant if chem power gets a buff.
Why should you even listen to me?
You probably shouldn’t.
I am simply a chem enthusiast who likes to optimize medbay prep. If anything I say goes against what your fellow experienced doctors are saying to you, it might be wise to listen to them instead! However, I do hope some of this information is going to be useful to the up-and-coming chemists.
What should I even make?
Stuff to make
The number of mixes that you can make is practically infinite. However, I would divide them all up into 3 categories:
- The essentials
IA (ImiAlky) and Fe/Fe+ (Iron). A typical HM will not leave medbay without these. They are the most expensive chems you will be making, so ensuring you make the right amount is crucial. In a lot of cases, you can ask research to network some iron for you to make it less expensive.
I would also include UNGA in this category, as most marines need some kind of space efficient and fast way to heal up without having to go to a corpsman and UNGA is the perfect solution to that. - The great to have
MB (MeraBica) and KD (KeloDerm). Most HMs will gladly take these and you can safely make as many bottles of these as there are HMs, given they are very cheap to make.
FN/FN+ also go into this category, but it’s prohibitively expensive on time. If you have aslavenurse who is ready to make a nutrient run, then go for it! - The nice to have
D+ (Dexalin Plus), NW (NitrogenWater), ATD (AriTricaDylo), liquid epinephrine and the rest. Some HMs will ask for these and some will take them if given the option to. These are your lowpop bread and butter, given there is more than enough power to supply 4-6 HMs with the basics. If you are not sure about your energy and/or time availability, then best not to make these.
There are several types of chemicals that don’t typically need to be packaged in bottles of 16 pills. Namely, IA, NW, ATD, D+ (and in a dire energy crises, Fe), can sometimes be packaged in bottles of 8 pills to save power.
Most importantly, making 8 pill IA on highpop will save you a whopping 12 power per bottle, which is enough to make an entire unga tank, 3 bottles of MB or 6 bottles of ATD, if you got enough time to run around collecting reagents for that. IA is very rarely used more than 8 times per OP by a typical HM, and if one were to use all of it, other corpsmen are extremely likely to still have some to spare.
Resource management is the game
Resources and such
In the chem lab, you have 3 different resources, which you need to manage. They are:
- WeyMed Reagents
These are practically infinite, given the sheer number of WeyMeds around lower medbay. When you do run out of reagents in your lab WeyMed, you can run to medstorage or eastern medbay to fill a bucket or two. That, however, requires… - Time
By far your most versatile tool. You have around 20 minutes from waking up to properly make both all the meds and unga tanks for marines. You can create all the chems in the world after the first drop, but 90% of HMs and marines will not see a drop of them. You can use your time to do a lot of things, but you should prioritize making in-demand mixes that will actually see use on the ground. - Chem Dispenser Energy
The most important and annoying part of manning chemline - the wait for more is grueling. Your best bet is to budget your energy and not make too much of something that will not see use. Take a look at how many HMs there are to know what kind of demand to expect. Given ~20 minutes for prep time, you will get about 700-750 power total. Your best path to success is to not let any of it go to waste by having power restore into a full energy bar.
Your time is your best currency, as with time you can get both the reagents and the energy. You can get more reagents by spending time walking to a different WeyMed or simply waiting for reagents to regenerate, and while you do that, your are also spending time waiting for Chem Dispenser energy to restore.
Do not be afraid to spend time on getting reagents, you can do plenty in the ~20 minutes before drop, even if you happen to be alone.
At the same time, you can get reagents from another source - your colleagues from upstairs, the researchers! Most of the time, they will be able and willing to network you some chemicals, usually iron, if you ask them nicely.
How to keep up
Being speedy
Alright, so we know what to make, but how do we make ALL THAT before the marines say their goodbyes and go off to die a gruesome death? The answer is simple:
Almost all common mixes can be made in batches of two. This saves you A LOT of valuable time that you could spend making more mixes! However, your regular old bluespace beaker isn’t beefy enough to handle all that juice, so we use a bucket instead.
You can get two free janitorial buckets south of Alamo in the janitor’s closet, or, if those are taken, you can print some at the workshop just east of it.
[insert screenshots of how to get there here]
Your second line of defense against being slow is a Use Other Hand hotkey.
[insert hotkey screenshot]
This allows you to hold a bucket one hand and a reagent bottle in the other and alternating between pouring the bottle into the bucket and refilling it in the WeyMed, without moving your mouse at all!
[insert quick bucket filling gif]
Finally, you should be using quick presets to label and color your bottles in the ChemMaster, along with the Select All and Deselect All buttons!
If you find the whole preset system confusing, here’s a short video guide [insert hyperlink to guide] on how to create and use presets.
Chem recipes
How to make stuff
Most mixes have some quirks that make them a bit tricky to make optimally.
IA:
- Start with 240u of dylo (4 bottles)
- Add 80 Chlorine + 80 Nitrogen (2 clicks + 2 clicks)
- Add 120 Carbon + 120 Hydrogen (3 clicks + 3 clicks)
- Add 40 Carbon + 40 Hydrogen (1 click + 2(!) clicks)
This makes 32 pills of IA, enough for 2 full bottles or 4 half-filled bottles. The total cost is 48 energy, making it the most expensive
The reason why we only add 120 Carbon and Hydrogen to start with is that when done, we are only left with 20u of empty space, which only makes it possible to add 20 Hydrogen at a time. We minimize the clicks by leaving enough space until the end.
MB:
- Start with 80 Carbon.
- Run to the sink next to the chem lab door (just below the trash bin) and click it 4 times to get 80 free water.
- Take a bottle of bicardine and keep filling the bucket until it’s full (340u).
- Make 32 MB pills (2 full bottles), leaving 20 bica in the bucket.
Further steps are optional, unless you are planning on making more MB and want to save 20 bica. - Add 80 Carbon and 80 free water into the bucket.
- Add 5 bica bottles to the bucket (300u).
- Make 32 more MB pills.
This method makes 64 MB pills, equivalent to 4 full MB bottles with just 16 energy, making MB one of the cheapest mixes, just behind ATD.
KD:
- Add 80 Oxygen + 80 Phosphorus to a bucket.
- Fill the bucket with kelo to the brim (340u).
- Make 32 KD pills (2 full bottles), leaving 20 kelo in the bucket.
Further steps are optional, unless you are planning on making more KD and want to save 20 kelo. - Add 80 Oxygen + 80 Phosphorus to a bucket.
- Add 5 kelo bottles to the bucket (300u).
- Make 32 more KD pills.
Very similar to MB, but twice as expensive. In cases where there is an experienced OT giving out grenades or you happen to know an incendiary OB is going to be used, KD might be even more important than ever to help marines recover from heavy burns.
Fe+/FN+:
- Add 20u of Dexaline Plus to a bucket.
- Add 480 Iron OR 240 iron + 240 nutrient, depending on what you are making.
- Make 32 pills of Fe+/FN+.
Fe+ and/or FN+ can be a great help and partial replacements of proper D+ bottles. Having only 0.625u of D+ per pill, they are not creating a risk of OD while still removing all oxygen damage once metabolized. If the cause of oxygen damage is blood loss, this resolves the issue by including iron, while oxygen damage from broken lungs can be temporarily treated with a combination of Fe+ and peri.
ATD:
- Add 2 bottles of inaprov (120u) + 5 bottles of dylo (300u) to a bucket.
- Add 20 Phosphorus.
- Make 16 pills from 160 tricord, 160 dylo and 40 arithrazine.
(Click transfer 60 twice, 30 once and 10 once to transfer 160 tricord quickly) - Add 1 bottle of inaprov (60u) + 4 bottles of dylo (240u) to a bucket.
- Add 20 Phosphorus
- Make 16 pills.
- Add 1 bottle of inaprov + 4 bottles of dylo to a bucket.
- Add 20 Phosphorus.
- Make the last 16 pills.
This method makes 48 pills of ATD, equivalent to 3 full ATD pill bottles. The reason why this recipe calls for only 40 arithrazine per bottle is simple: arithrazine metabolizes 4 times slower than dylovine and tricord, so by putting 4 times less of it, they finish metabolizing at the same time.
While ATD is EXTREMELY heavy on WeyMed reagents, it only requires 6 energy per 3 bottles, making it by far the cheapest mix, if you got the reagents or time to get some outside chem.
UNGA:
- Set the transfer amount of the empty tank to 300u by left clicking on it.
- Add 40 Oxygen + 40 Phosphorus + 40 Carbon to a bucket
- Add 40 Water from the sink to the bucket.
- Take the tank to a WeyMed outside the chem lab, either in medical storage just south of it, or next to prep to the east.
- Add 2 bottles of bica (120u), 1 bottle of dylo (60u), 1 bottle of inaprov (60u), 2 bottles of kelo (120u) and 2 bottles of oxy (120u) to the tank.
- Pour the contents of the bucket into the tank.
Premaking the MeraDerm 120+120 mix before filling up the bucket will save you a trip back to chem with the tank. If you want to, you can take two buckets and 2 tanks with you at the same time to do 1440 units of unga at once.
Bonus mix — Cryomix:
- Grab 3 large beakers (you can get 2 from the cabinet in chem and one either from the grinder or the WeyMed)
- Grind 12 Phoron to a bluespace beaker (or however much you want)
- Add 60 Cryoxadone to a large beaker.
You can find a total of 90 Cryoxadone in 3 beakers in the chem cabinet. - Add 30 Cryoxadone to a bucket
- Add 60 free water from the sink (3 clicks with a bucket)
- Add 60 Oxygen.
- Add 60 resulting cryomix to each of the two remaining empty large beakers.
All 3 beakers should be half full with Cryoxadone by now. - Add 20 Phoron to the bucket.
- Add 90 Sodium to the bucket
- Remove all the remaining phoron in the ChemMaster
Make sure the ChemMaster is not set to return chems to the beaker. [insert ChemMaster screenshot here] - Will all the large beakers to the brim with the resulting Clonexadone.
When inserted into the cryo capsules, the resulting mix will heal all types of damage fairly quickly and heal IB without the need for surgery.
Making cryomix should be your lowest priority before drop, as there will always be time to make it after everyone already left to fight.
Chem cost
Planning your energy consumption
So, you have your 700-750 energy budget, you can keep up with energy recovery and, most importantly, you haven’t yet developed carpal tunnel. How do you plan on spending all that juice?
First and foremost, you have to consider the cost of your basic HM kit. This typically consists of IA, Fe, MB and KD. There are many different configurations of this kit, however, which depend on how poor you want corpsmen to feel during the OP.
| Kit | Cost | Kits made with all the energy |
|---|---|---|
| Four 16 pill bottles | 60 energy | 11-12 kits |
| 8 pill IA, 16 pill Fe | 48 energy | 14-15 kits |
| 8 pill IA, 8 pill Fe | 36 energy | 19-20 kits |
| 16 pill IA, free Fe from research | 36 energy | 19-20 kits |
| 8 pill IA, free Fe from research | 24 energy | 29-31 kits |
This is all well and good, but what about the rest of the stuff? How much does that cost per pill bottle? What can I make more of, without fearing an energy shortage?
Generally, if you make 8 pill IA, you should have enough energy to make some other chems, but having a breakdown of all the costs is nice
| Mix | Energy Cost | Reagent Cost |
|---|---|---|
| IA | 24 | 120 |
| Fe (15u) | 24 | 0 |
| MB | 4 | 320 |
| KD | 8 | 320 |
| D+ (7.5u) | 8 | 40 |
| ATD | 2 | 340 |
| Fe+ | 24.66 | 3.33 |
| FN | 12 | 0 |
| FN+ | 12.66 | 3.33 |
| IS | 24 | 0 |
| NW | 16 | 0 |
| TB | 0 | 480 |
| UNGA (720u) | 12 | 600 |
Most important calculation
The secret recipe for success
All info above is well and good, BUT in order to actually survive a highpop chemline, you need to learn something that cannot be taught in a guide:
COMMUNICATION!
Chances are, you won’t be the only one in chem. Chances are, you won’t be the one solely deciding how to spend energy this round. Chances are, you will need to cooperate with your colleges! Awful, right? It’s as if we’re all on a roleplaying server..
If you are planning to spend 100 energy right now, communicate with your colleague at the other side of chem. If you need them to go prep something else, tell them, or better yet, go make it yourself! Even if you are capable of single-handedly manning chem and creating all the things needed, you should never turn away an inexperienced player from trying to make something! The time spent typing messages in chat is, arguably, better spent than the time clicking away in the chemical dispenser. Have fun!
