Beginner's Guide to Chemistry (Medical)

[Miraviel]

Introduction

Welcome! You are probably already familiar with the Guide to Chemistry wiki page (if not, open it now!), this guide is meant to be used with it! Dosages are always debated, these are my preferred ones. You change them later if you want (apart from a very few exceptions). This is a beginner's guide, there are way more drugs to mix and other ways to use.

 Important:

If you want to experiment with explosives, narcotics, and toxins, please become a Scientist and use their chemistry (scichem) instead. Medical chemists have their own SOP which, if not followed, can cripple the entire department.

With this out of the way, let's get started!

Workplace & Tools

•  Chem Dispenser: This is the machine for dispensing and mixing chemicals. Insert a container such as a Large Beaker or a Bucket into it and click on it to use it.
•  ChemMaster 3000: After you are done with mixing, eject the beaker from the Dispenser and put it into this. Transfer the chemicals to the ChemMaster, then decide the form and the dosage of your medicine.
•  Chemical Heater: Some medicine requires heating. Set the heater to 1000K, insert a container and turn it on. (If you set the heater to 1000K, it heats up faster). Remove the container once the chemicals are mixed - it will emit a bubbling or a sizzling sound. Caution: if the heater reaches 1000K, it explodes.
•  Chemistry Bag: Take the bag into your hand and click on a pile of pills/patches/bottles. It will store all of them. Click on the Smartfridge to transfer everything. (Use the bottom Smartfridge for now.) Drag and drop the bag to a tile if you want to empty it onto the floor or onto a table.
•  Smartfridge: This is where medicine is stored. It automatically sorts medicine by their name and dosage. There are two of them, a public one (on the left) and one designated for the doctors (the bottom one). For now, only use the bottom one.
•  Gas Mask: You'll work with a few dangerous chemicals such as Cyanide. To avoid inhaling it, always use a gas mask during work.
•  Science Goggles: If you examine a container with these on (by shift-clicking on them), you can see what they contain.
•  Large Beaker: Every Chemist starts with two, they hold 100u (100 units) reagent. This is what you use for mixing.
•  Bucket: They hold 120u which is often more efficient than the beaker. You can (and should!) go to Cargo and ask for 2-4 buckets when you arrive at the station.

Medicine

Medicine work in different forms. Some has to be applied on the skin, some has to be used with a dropper or a syringe, others have to be ingested in a pill form. To make it easier, I will use the following icons before each medicine:  pill,  patch, and  bottle. To avoid wasting or overdosing anything, try to stick to these dosages for now. (10u means 10 units.)

Core Medicine

These are the drugs that the Smartfridge should have at all times. For the actual recipes, see Guide to Chemistry.

•  Mannitol (10u): Heals brain damage. Most often occurs after suffocation and/or death.
•  Mitocholide (30u): Used to revive organs (and to heal organ damage but very inefficiently). It is usually used with Strange Reagent.
•  Mutadone (1u): Fixes genetic defects. They often occur after cloning or Geneticists being dummies. One unit is enough for everything, less simply won't work, more is a waste.
•  Pentetic Acid (5u): Heals toxin and radiation damage rapidly and purges chemicals from the bloodstream. Far superior to Charcoal and it is easily mass produced. Forget Charcoal, make these! Wear a gas mask while working with Cyanide.
•  Perfluorodecalin (10u): Heals oxygen damage rapidly. We use it in a patch form because the pill form would get patients addicted to it.
•  Strange Reagent (1u): Used to revive the dead. Don't use it yourself because it is super dangerous. Some species cannot be cloned so this is their way to get properly revived. Get Omnizine from the CMO, wine from the bar and mix them up! Always make the pills into 1 unit, no more, no less. (If there is no CMO, ask your doctors to get Omnizine, they will know how to get it. hopefully)
•  Synthflesh (10u/20u): Heals both brute and burnt damage. Number one choice to patch up corpses before reviving them. You need blood for it - use a syringe and draw it from yourself or get an animal from the Geneticists for it. Don't draw more than four or five times or you'll start choking. You can replenish blood by ingesting Iron.

Less Core Medicine

These are the medicine that are good to have and you should make some once the Smartfridge is stocked with the previous ones.

•  Antihol (5u/10u): Purges alcohol from the body and sobers up the patient. Medbay gets more drunkards than you'd expect.
•  Cryoxadone (30u): It is used in the cryotubes, they heal genetic damage. It often occurs after cloning or reviving someone with Strange Reagent. It is also used to make biomass for the cloner. (Mix blood with Cryoxadone in front of the cloner console to produce Synth Meat. The cloner will automatically suck it in.)
•  Hydrocodone (30u): An extremely strong painkiller, it is used for surgery on certain species (such as vox, plasmamen, etc.). You can get Morphine from the white medical vendors. Surgeons will love you if you make these because you make their job much, much easier. Shoutout to all the chemists who makes these, you are the best
•  Saline-Glucose Solution (10u/20u): It heals both Brute and Burnt and restores blood. It is rarely used because everyone just gets shoved into a cryotube or a sleeper for instant treatment and forgets about blood loss. It is still good to have, especially if patients start to pile up.
•  Silver Sulfadiazine (20u): Heals burn damage, less effectively than Synthflesh. Careful, you can quickly drain your Dispenser with mass-producing these.
•  Styptic Powder (20u): Heals brute damage, the same way as Silver Sulfadiazine. People often use Synthflesh for both Brute and Burnt instead of this or Silver Sulfadiazine, but it is good to have if you have nothing to do.

I Guess I Should Include These Medicine

These drugs are rarely used, either because people don't want to bother with using them or they are only needed under very special circumstances.

•  Holy Water (30u): Used against cultists and vampires and to make Strange Reagent. If the Chaplain is dead/not cooperative during a cultist or a vampire round, security will ask you to mass produce this.
•  Oculine (10u): Heals eye and ear damage. Upgraded Sleepers will have it so it is rarely needed, but if Science is lazy, you'll need to make some. If you, too, feel lazy, just ask Botany to grow carrots. Carrots contain Oculine - just grind them up, separate plant-matter from it and make them into pills.
•  Potassium Iodide (10u): Heals radiation damage. It is so rare that some people think radiation is just prolonged toxin damage. It is not
•  Teporone (10u): Stabilizes body temperature, used once in a blue moon. If anyone asks for this, they probably want it as a dental implant, so make sure it's in a pill form.

Miscellaneous

Things you should keep in mind or otherwise relevant.

•  Mixing Potassium and Water instantly creates an explosion, be super careful.
•  Pills have to be metabolized, meaning they won't work on dead people.
•  Patches always cut the applied dosage in half. Applying a 20u Silver Sulfadiazine patch will transfer 10u. On the flipside, they work on corpses.
•  Botanists will arrive at shift start, asking for Unstable Mutagen. It is essential for their job, please fill their buckets with it.
•  The virologist will also come and ask for Sugar (and maybe Unstable Mutagen). Give them a bottle (30u) of each. They will also come back to convert their virus into pills once they are done, let them in if they ask you to!
•  Some people will ask for Space Lube and narcotics. If you consider yourself a decent medical chemist, please don't give out either of them. They are mostly funny for the user itself and no one else.
•  If anyone breaks into Chemistry, call security and/or the CMO as soon as possible. This place is one of the go-tos for people who are up to no good. Sometimes doctors unwrech the Smartfridge to enter it and to use one of your machines. It is... Kind of illegal and annoying, but it is usually ok during emergencies.
•  The easiest ways to get Omnizine is to ask from the CMO. If they give you their Hypospray, use a syringe to get the omnizine out of it (30u). If there is no CMO, the hypospray is already stolen, or they are reluctant to co-operate, get warm donk pockets from the kitchen. They produce omnizine once you metabolize them. You can use dialysis on the Sleepers to get your blood, and so the Omnizine, in a beaker.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Miraviel

[Miraviel]

I have no idea why the pictures appear at the end when I always delete them but oh well, the guide is dooone.

Aaaah I somehow fixed it

Edited February 23, 2018 by Miraviel

[Arakaki]

Nice Guide

[Gaty]

Hey, thank you! I might give chemistry a try after all my hours here, pretty cool guide.

Tho you could also put the recipes for each medicine.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Gaty

[Reschreiter1311]

On 2/23/2018 at 6:11 PM, Miraviel said:

 Patches always cut the applied dosage in half. Applying a 20u Silver Sulfadiazine patch will transfer 10u. On the flipside, they work on corpses.

The works on corpses part could make newbies believe that EVERYTHING works on dead bodies that way.