Drugs Tradeskill Ideas
So, thinking about the Drugs tradeskill, we want a wide variety of drugs, but tradeskills tend not to allow very many skills. Jewelry has five, so let's go with that:
Uppers allows you to prepare Stimulant and Recreational drugs. 90 lessons in.
Downers allows you to prepare Narcotic and Alcoholic drugs. 270 lessons in.
Steroids allows you to prepare Steroid and Therapeutic drugs. 500 lessons in.
Trips allows you to prepare Hallucinogenic and Cosmic drugs. 680 lessons in.
Designer allows you to Purge and Cut existing drugs. 900 lessons in.
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Stimulants increase Agility and Techcraft by 15, but reduce Lifeforce by 10. They would also shift a character's build toward lean.
Recreational drugs have two unique fields, effect_first and effect_third which allow you to specify the first/third person lines for your drug's RP effects. Recreational drugs have no mechanical effect beyond this.
Narcotics increase Aim and Psyche by 15, but reduce Lifeforce, Evasion and Regen by 5 each. They cause you to slur your speech, just as alcohol does.
Alcohol functions by getting you drunk. It has no effect on stats, but it does mean you can brew algae whiskey on your ship.
Steroids increase Strength and Agility by 15, but reduce Regen by 10. They also shift a character's build toward heavy.
Therapeutics increase Lifeforce, Regen and Evasion by 10, but reduce Strength, Agility and Techcraft by 10 each. They also shift a character's appearance toward juvenile.
Hallucinogens increase Techcraft and Strength by 15, but reduce Evasion by 10. Like recreational drugs, this comes with the option to set an ambient message.
Cosmic drugs decrease ship trick cooldowns by 10% at the cost of reducing all stats by 5 each. They're made using kith-reactive compounds.
Purging eliminates all effects (positive or negative) of all drugs currently effecting the patient and reduces the impact of future non-purgative drugs by 20% for an entire year. Unlike other drugs, this is cumulative, and regular purgative treatments can render someone impervious to the effects of drug use if you stuff them with enough purgatives. Requires an AGREE from the patient.
Cutting allows you to cut an existing drug item with chemicals from a different drug design you have access to. This allows the imbiber to gain the effects of both designs simultaneously. Effectively adds a second Class to the drug as well as as an additional Effect_first and Effect_third. Does NOT change the appearance or imbibe messages, so you can spike drugs with this ability!
Normally, taking multiple doses of the same drug simply resets the duration of all effects, and taking different drugs gives you the positive effects of the latest stat-altering drug, but the negative and fluff effects of everything you've taken.
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To design a drug, you need the following fields:
Appearance: The phrase for the container that the drug comes in. For example, "a nanoplastic syringe of Black Nova".
Dropped: A sentence describing said container on the ground. "A sketchy looking needle lies here, full of black liquid."
Examined: The appearance of said container, in detail. I'll leave this one to your imagination.
Class: The class of the drug, which determines the effects. Can be any of the eight drug classes above.
Eat_first: The first person message for partaking in the drug. Despite the name, it doesn't have to be eaten - you could drink it or inject it or snort it instead.
Eat_third: The third person message for partaking in the drug. Uses $(caster$) variables as standard.
Effect_first: The ambient message shown to the user while under the effects of the drug. Only for recreational and hallucinogenic drugs.
Effect_third: The ambient message shown to everyone else. Likewise, only for recreational and hallucinogenic drugs.
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Comments
A few comments.
1) What prevents a person from constantly using drugs (as an artifact to boost certain stats)? Are there negative effects from prolonged use?
2) Modding requires a lot of investment in terms of gathering/ research? What kind of investment do you forsee in drug-craft?
Personally, I could imagine a PvP component to it where you extract certain parts from different races.
It's not so much a design tradeskill if it is altering stats (which it is) in which case, slightly higher costs and a research system are probably justified (obviously not as onerous as modding)