Apothecary¶
Official render art of the machine.
The Apothecary is the machine pills are assembled in. This page covers everything that affects the outcome of a craft. Exact numbers live in the reference, which is generated directly from the mod's code.
Machine layout¶
The Apothecary window has three panels: left (utility slots), center (active ingredients), and right (text fields and the craft button).
The whole Apothecary window: utility slots on the left, active ingredients
in the center, text fields and the craft button on the right.
Left panel, 4 slots:
| Slot | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Blanks | Required. The craft will not start without one |
| Coating | Optional. Strengthens or extends effects |
| Dye | Optional. Pill colour only |
| Output | Machine-only. The finished pill lands here |
Center panel, 12 slots: active ingredients — what the pill's action is built from.
Right panel, four text fields:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | The finished pill's name. Determines which stack it joins |
| Description | Free text. No effect on the pill |
| Quantity | How many pills to make per craft (1–25) |
| Target product | Recipe priority when scarce material is contested |
Coating¶
Optional slot. A coating treats nothing by itself — it strengthens or extends whatever is already mixed into the 12 active slots.
| Coating | Effect |
|---|---|
| Basic | Small increase to strength and duration |
| Extended | Noticeable duration increase, strength unchanged |
| Potent | Noticeable strength increase, duration unchanged |
| Advanced | Both strength and duration, plus reliability |
Exact values are in the reference.
Duration extension applies only to effects that are already spread over time, and only to ones beneficial to the character. Instant effects cannot be extended; neither can harmful ones.
If the coating fails its skill roll, the strength bonus is lost and a penalty is applied to skill instead.
Blanks¶
An empty blank (custompillkit) is a required consumable. One blank is spent
per craft regardless of how many pills the batch contains.
Made in the medical fabricator: plastic + organic fiber, 2 per craft, skill 10.
Active ingredients¶
Any item with a real in-game effect when used on a character can go into the 12 slots. The mod contains no list of permitted items — at load time it reads every item's data from the game and works out its effects itself. The available range therefore grows automatically with installed mods.
What happens to the ingredients depends on whether a recipe links them.
No link between ingredients¶
If the game has no recipe combining the items you placed, each ingredient acts on its own and their effects add up on the finished pill.
Combo recipes¶
If the set of ingredients matches a real recipe from the game, that recipe fires as a whole: the pill takes the effect of the finished product rather than the sum of its inputs.
Example: adrenaline ×2 + morphine ×1 is the real combat stimulant recipe. The pill gets the combat stimulant's effect.
Chains¶
Recipes chain automatically. If one recipe produces something another recipe requires, both stages run in a single craft — there is no need to make the intermediate product separately.
Example: sodium + chlorine make saline, and saline is an input to other recipes. Supplying the raw materials is enough.
Recipe substitution¶
If a recipe is short a component but the material that component is made from in the game is present, the Apothecary substitutes it automatically. The amount is taken from the real recipe that produces the missing component.
Example: a recipe needs morphine, there is none, but opium is available. Morphine is made from opium ×2 — so two opium are consumed in place of one morphine.
Substitution by effect¶
If the game has no recipe producing the missing component at all, the Apothecary looks for a substance with a comparable effect. A substitution is accepted only if all three conditions hold:
- the substitute shares at least a quarter of the replaced item's effects;
- the strengths differ by no more than a factor of 4 in either direction;
- the effect signs match — an antagonist cannot replace its agonist.
Consumption scales with relative strength: a substitute twice as strong is consumed at half the quantity.
Priority when material is scarce¶
When several recipes compete for the same material, priority follows slot order by default — the earlier slot wins.
The Target product field overrides this. Type the name or identifier of the product you want and its recipe gets top priority. Any language the item is named in works.
If the name is not recognised, or the product is unreachable in this craft, the field does nothing and the craft proceeds normally.
Exact match
The field compares the whole string. Surrounding whitespace is trimmed and
case is ignored, but extra characters will prevent a match. Watch for Latin
letters in item names: "Blood Pack O-", for instance, uses a Latin O, not
a zero.
If the name won't match, type the identifier
An item's raw identifier (hyperzine, combatstimulantsyringe,
antidama1) always resolves, and keeps working even for items with no
translation at all — modded items without a localization file, where the
game itself only ever shows the technical name. Localized names come from
translation files and therefore depend on the mod; the identifier does not.
When in doubt about spelling, the identifier is the safer input.
Substitute leftovers¶
Substitution is calculated in fractions, not whole items. If less than a whole item's worth was consumed, the remainder is neither lost nor added to the pill as a stray effect — it becomes a strength bonus for the recipe the substitute was covering.
The bonus rises steeply for small leftovers and reaches its ceiling at around three units. See the chart.
Skill¶
Medical skill is checked separately for each active ingredient and each combo recipe, against the requirement that item or recipe has in the game itself.
Active ingredients. A success roll is made. On success the item's normal effect applies; on failure, its own failure effect, if the game defines one. A coating's reliability is added to skill for this roll.
Combo recipes. The recipe always fires if the ingredients are physically present. Skill affects only the result's strength: ×0.7 below the recipe's requirement, ×1.2 at or above it. Ingredients are never lost to a bad roll.
Batch size¶
The Quantity field sets a batch size from 1 to 25.
The total effect budget is divided evenly across the batch: two pills get half each, ten get a tenth each. To keep large batches worthwhile, a compensating potency bonus is applied. Debuff risk rises alongside it.
Two independent rolls are made for each pill — one light debuff, one heavy. A single pill can get both, one, or neither. A triggered debuff adds a random harmful effect to that pill.
Key points:
- below 7 pills there are no debuffs at all;
- the light debuff peaks at 19 and disappears after 20;
- the heavy debuff starts at 15 and peaks at 25.
Full curves and table: reference.
Ingredient count¶
Debuff chance depends not only on batch size but on how many active ingredients are in the 12 slots in total. The sum is what counts — repeats and distinct items are treated the same.
The bonus starts at 6 ingredients for the light debuff and 9 for the heavy one. It adds to the batch-size chance and does not affect debuff strength, only probability.
Values: reference.
Summary: what determines the outcome¶
| Factor | Affects |
|---|---|
| Ingredient composition | Which effects reach the pill |
| Whether a recipe links them | Sum of effects, or the product's effect |
| Medical skill | Ingredient success, combo strength |
| Coating | Strength, duration, reliability |
| Batch size | Strength per pill, debuff chance and strength |
| Ingredient count | Debuff chance |
| Substitute leftovers | Combo strength bonus |
| Target product | Who gets the scarce material |