Off-brand Chemistry
Lower entry-level for chemists

That aside, who would be buying those even worse drugs? Non-lab is already traded at laughable prices.

Now, will anyone actually use candy that's of lesser quality when there's so much of the good stuff that's cheap and easy to find? There'd have to be a RP committment for that and I can't confidently say that many people will go for it. It'd be less profitable for resale, which is half the reason people buy candy, then there are the other downsides.

I agree with the spirit of this. You can see it with a lot of things that do not rate as "the best".

The idea of cheap bathroom stims is kind of cool though. Maybe they can make limited quality, limited quantity, and have limited uses aside from an explosion? Maybe they can only be asked for in certain parts of red (IE the park?) "Give me some of that garbage Vee, I like the way it burns my brain!"

I don't think anyone will use shittier tier drugs. It's a struggle to get people to use regular drugs right now. Evidenced by only a small amount of chemists who mostly sell drugs to NPCs directly or through intermediaries.

It might be an easier barrier to entry but making drugs has already been made much more forgiving than it used to be and cheaper to get started.

I think we need a different solution, if this is indeed the problem it's being made out to be.

Itd make sense that youd need chemistry skill to spike drinks, not sure about poisoning weapons or bullets but something like that does exist in the games and other cyberpunk literature so it’s worth considering.

It’d be good to introduce more things for ‘early game’ chemists to do so to speak. At least worth bringing up in the town hall.

It's not. Especially for someone who has never played Sindome before. If you don't even know how to rent a cube or get your first apartment, figuring out how money works and flows while trying not to die is not something that comes "easy".

Not to mention that even if an immie somehow has the ability to score a lab they will not have the actual skills to be able to produce anything that would be remotely worthwhile. So while I may have been smoking enough pud scum to think allowing an unknown immie to be unsupervised around my synth lab is a fantastic idea, whatever they're going to produce for me is going to be garbage in comparisons to the literal mountains of lab grade candy people are sitting on.

So yes, I do think that the archetype of the Candyman is not really supported that much as initially thought out to be.

For starters, I don't see many windows of opportunities for new players to get used to the systems of the game. This is for NEW players who don't have the meta-knowledge of Sindome, but there is no glowing beacon saying "Aspiring Candyman come here" that those who kind of float around the Immy Greeter role can nudge new players towards. For the most part it's just suggesting trying for the CGH pharmacist position if it's ever vacant.

Past that I'm scratching my head for applications for the Chemicals skill outside of CGH. In theory maybe VS but I don't exactly think that's going to be the game experience they signed up for.

So maybe addressing lack of chemist roles on entry should be a talking point at a staff meeting? Being told you have to save up a seemingly unobtainable amount before ever actually mixing a single chemical is probably not conducive to the New Player Experience when wanting to be a chemist.

Currently as it stands it feels like Candyman is more of a side profession or a Specialist Class than an actual character archetype. As said, being one does require a substantial investment of time, chyen, and UE before even getting in the door. So maybe advertising as a starting player type may not be the best idea.

I do think that the idea of Ghetto Chemistry is onto something here. Like, did you know that you can cook meth in Walmart? Not kidding. If you know what you're doing you can put the right ingredients in a soda can, shake it up, and by the time you're done shopping you'll have smokeable meth. Will it be actually good meth? Fuck no, but it'll be just enough to get your brain to stop screaming.

Unfortunately my idea would of course require the development of a whole system, even to the point of a complete overhaul of the system, so consider this wishful thinking given resources.

But the jist would be to turn candy into being about purity instead of strength with a whole lot of the unknown tossed in. Create a way of producing candy that is quick and easily affordable but dirty in terms of purity. Little Timmy's First Chemisty Set or something like that sold at the mall would be an idea. And the aspiring chemist would go around the world collecting ingredients to create the drugs. Some stuff that's easy to obtain. Some that's not so easy to obtain and may need a fixer's help. And essentially you combine items into the big pot of this Chemistry set and you pull out… something. Crystals to smoke, a liquid to inject, powder to snort, something like that.

What is produced would be ultimately unknown to the producer. You have a syringe filled with a liquid. The color of that liquid should be a good indicator of what is the dominant drug inside, but it might have other candies mixed in. Drug dealers (and addicts) should learn the indicators of their drugs instead of just blindly trusting that the needle marked V-202 actually contains that substance. Chem analyzers might need to be consulted. Perhaps internal Chemical skill checks on the inspect to help a bit.

Meanwhile pull the prices of existing labs back up to signify that they are the top end of the chemical production chain. That the synth lab is something that belong more behind locked Syndicate doors than in the back of an RV. And instead of having to mix chemicals and refine to get your candy, you can just dispense it. Maybe even allow for professional packaging to assure the user of what is inside.

I'll stop here because I'm starting to lose my own plot, but I definitely agree with the statement that there really isn't anything for a chemist to exactly do until suddenly they're doing everything and swimming in chyen.