Chapter 04 · Industrial ChemistFM 93-07
Industrial Chemist
You ran synthesis lines at a chemical plant, precise to a fault, signing off on batches nobody outside the building ever thought about. You also know every process the plant would rather you didn’t.
| Spec | Issued |
|---|---|
| Creation cost | −4 (Engineer-shaped: same cost, explosives already known) |
| Effective start | Chemistry 5 · Electrical 1 · First Aid 1 · Precision Chemistry |
| Granted trait | Precision Chemistry (purchasable 6) — bonus batches sometimes; Chemistry XP much faster. |
| Already known | Vanilla NeedToBeLearn explosives: pipe bomb, smoke, aerosol, flame, firecracker, noise maker |
| XP source | Chemistry crafting only. Every job can mishap. Skill makes mishaps rarer. Gear makes them hurt less. Precision does not make you fireproof. |
Who this is for
The house’s medicine, fuel, powder, and bombs. You spawn at Chemistry 5 — moonshine is already on the bench — and you walk out knowing the engineer’s explosive list. First Aid 1 is not flavour; you will need it for other people and occasionally for yourself. If you wanted the drums nobody else will touch, that is the Hazmat Technician.
// FROM THE FILES — SOUTH PLANT
The plant south of Stanardsville signed off batches the state never asked to see. You signed a few of those. The recipes did not forget you. Precision is not fireproof. Neither is the hoodie you like.
How to play it
- Do not skip the floor. Mix Cleaning Solution and Press Water Purification Tablets are ungated. You spawn at 5, so they are XP and product, not a tutorial. Cleaning liquid and tablets are what a town actually consumes. Bombs are the Saturday night.
- Set a bench, not a crater. A mortar, bowl or jar on any surface is the chem bench. Distillation is a kept pot or saucepan, a rubber hose, and a lit fireplace or BBQ in range — the same open fire any still needs. Do this inside walls, with water, with rags. Mishaps hit the person at the bench.
- Farm and trash are feedstock. Fertilizer stands in for nitrates. Lard for soap. Crops, spirits, plastic bags. A Scrapper’s solvent and a farm’s surplus are your logistics. You are not a combat occupation that happens to craft; you are a plant that happens to live in Knox County.
- Medicine before powder, unless the stall is already screaming for brass. At 6: analgesics, hemostatic dressings. At 7: mill smokeless gunpowder — this is how the ammunition loop stays fed, because pulling down factory rounds is a net loss of propellant. At 8: crude antibiotics. At 9–10: stimulants, industrial adhesive, bio-ethanol, chlorine.
- Sell the surplus. Keep one batch ahead. Precision’s bonus batch is how you get rich without looking like a raid pinata. List through a vendor ledger, not a lootable crate. See The Market.
- Wear the gear anyway. Precision makes mishaps rarer and batches fatter. It does not replace gloves, distance, or a Hazmat friend for reclamation. Hazardous Reclamation is trait-gated: without Hazmat Protocol the recipe is simply not in the menu.
The Chemistry ladder
| Skill | What the town feels |
|---|---|
| 0–2 | Cleaning, tablets, antiseptic wash, sterilize rags, nitrates, flux adhesive |
| 3–4 | Pesticides, soap, vinegar, spirits to antiseptic, plastic to lighter fluid — you are already past this |
| 5 | Survival moonshine — spawn |
| 6 | Analgesics, hemostatic dressings; Hazmat-only reclamation sits here too |
| 7–8 | Smokeless powder; crude antibiotics |
| 9–10 | Field stimulants, industrial adhesive, bio-ethanol, chlorine |
Pair with Ammunition Technician (your powder is their press), Hazmat Technician for the drums, and a farmer. Explosives you already know are for problems that are not the workbench.