Probably Stolen - Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim: The Complete Chemist Guide: Recipes, Purity and Profit [Up-to-Date]

Steam Community guide by lpinch.

Overview

This guide covers the chemist path end to end: what to buy, how to make each Chem Finisher product, how to get it as pure as possible, and what it sells for.
Buying and selling matter as much as the chemistry: what you can buy limits what you can make, and who you sell to decides both your price and how much suspicion you build. See the Ingredients and Selling sections.
A note on starts. This guide was played on the Chemist start, but almost everything applies to any start that buys the Retired Chemist referral, which gives the same kit and unlocks the same visitors. The Chemist start adds a Mini Smuggler Bay and cartel protection instead of insurance, for 300 less starting cash and −15 security reputation. On other starts, Chem Modules only come from the Retired Chemist and Dr. Jackson, so upgrades arrive more slowly.
On the Chemist start, the cartel also collects a weekly Dream Dust quota: see Chemist Start: The Cartel Deal.
Checked against game version 100-Rev5 and the 100-Rev7 open beta. Perk and visitor names come from the game files and may read slightly differently in-game.
Thanks to The Exceptional Fisherman, whose guide Chemistry and You filled in several reactions and tricks used here. Worth a read if you want the full technical detail.

Strategy: What to Make

Phanta makes the most money per purchase, and Dream Dust gives the best return with a guaranteed grade and less risk. Nightmare Dust comes next. Nomore and caffeine earn less but are legal, so they don't build suspicion. Most of the time you'll be limited by what visitors have for sale, so make everything that's profitable and use this table to decide what to buy first.
Buy firstBest gradeProfit per purchaseReturnWhyRestricted pack (Phanta)Near-Pharma, sometimes Pharma1,550 per pack13×Most money from one purchase, but the grade depends on the bottles and it's high contrabandDream Cap → Dream DustLab Pure505 per cap18×Guaranteed Lab Pure with a fully upgraded setup, medium contrabandNightmare CapLab Pure375 per cap13×High value per dust, but the 50°C limit makes it easy to ruinDream Cap → Nomore InjectorPharma185 per cap7×Legal, so it doesn't build suspicion. The Reducing Agent's random heavy metal usually keeps it below Lab PureCoffee beanLab Pure95 per bean4×Legal, so it doesn't build suspicion
Profit = sale price minus what you paid. Assumes 4 finisher modules, a fully upgraded blender, alcohol reused by feeding mush in portions, buying at base value +15% and selling with the usual +15% retail. Without blender upgrades, caps and beans give up to a third less. Real prices move with the market and your bargaining. Best grades are for the standard methods in this guide: Phanta and Nomore can go higher with fish-cleaned reagents (see Going Further).

How a run usually goes

• Start with Dream Dust. It's the easiest to get right and gives a guaranteed grade. On the Chemist start, always hand in enough for the cartel quota first. Put Nightmare Dust on the side when Nightmare Caps show up.
• Install Chem Modules as you get them, in the order under Upgrades and Module Priorities.
• Feed mush in portions (see Recipes). One portion's worth of alcohol handles a whole batch, and every batch evaporates in one night. The Solvent Recovery Module is a nice extra for pure, easy-to-dose alcohol, but it only saves about a credit per cap.
• Add Phanta once the plate is upgraded, and make every pack you get. Its grade depends on the bottles, so scan them to know what to expect.
• Mind who you sell to. Who buys your contraband decides how much suspicion it builds; see Selling. In weeks the Underground Exchange runs its ×4 Dream Dust trade, it beats selling your best vials.

Chemist Start: The Cartel Deal

Every week the Cartel Handler collects your Dream Dust quota.

• He takes every Dream Dust on the counter, so only put out what you mean to hand in.
• Purity is averaged over everything you hand in, so not every vial has to meet the target.
• The target starts at 10 dust at 40% and rises by 5 dust and 5% every week. Purity stops at 70%, but the count never stops growing.
  ResultCartel reputationNo dust, or average purity at a quarter of the target or lessGame overEach dust short of the count−4Each dust handed in, once the count is met+1Purity under the target− the gapPurity up to 10 points over the target+ the gapPurity more than 10 points over the target+ a quarter of the gap
  Every week pays 150 cash, 3 Dream Caps and a common pack. The Chem Module also needs the count met and purity no more than 5 points under the target. Dropping to −100 reputation ends the run.

Cut your dust

Count rep is per vial and purity rep peaks at target + 10, so Lab Pure is wasted on the cartel. Mix a dry filler into your extract before finishing: starch or sugar from blended, filtered and evaporated Nutrifruit, or boiled-down Gutterflow if you already have the Gutterflow Tap (a Water Trader upgrade, 300 + 250; thanks imaginewugs). Then aim for about 9 points over the target: 78–79% once it reaches 70%. Don't go past target + 10: at 81%, the purity rep drops from +10 to +2. You get more vials, more rep, and more Lab Pure left to sell.
Street-grade Dream Dust (60–80%) counts too. The cheapest steady source is the Chemist network upgrade (250): it adds Ashish to your phone, who delivers 8 dust at a 20% discount every 4 days (16 once you've spent 400 with him), and the first delivery is free. The Chemist Shareholder upgrade (1,440) adds 8 free dust a week. Mixed with a few of your own vials, it averages near the target without spending your extract (thanks randomskinnyguy).
Only cut for the cartel: grade multiplies sale prices, so cut product earns less when you sell it.

Reputation perks and the exit

• 25, Increased Stipend: the weekly stipend becomes 150 + 4 × your cartel rep, so 550 at 100 rep.
• 50, Reliable Chemist: the mid-week check-in's extra ingredients (3 caps and a common pack) cost 6 rep instead of 12.
• 100, Authorized Exit: the handler stalls 4 times, raising the bar by 25 each time, so you really need 200, the reputation cap. On the 5th weekly visit he lets you go: the quotas end and cartel protection is replaced by normal insurance.

The Basics

Every chem product goes through the same loop: buy → blend → react → clean → evaporate → finish → sell. The machines:

• Blender: turns mushrooms, beans and pills into liquid in a container. Without upgrades it loses 35% of what you put in (20% / 10% / 5% / 0% with 1–4 upgrades).
• Heating Plate: holds the container at a set temperature. Without upgrades the target is fixed at 99°C, and with one at 160°C, so you hold lower temperatures by switching between Low and Off. Two upgrades let you set the target yourself; three and four heat faster.
• Filter pitcher: pour through it with Kotton Fabric (catches large particles) or a water filter (catches small ones too).
• Evaporator: removes water, alcohol and Lipobond Agent, 300 mL per night with no performance bonus. It doesn't heat, so extracts survive.
• Chem Finisher: turns a dry batch into the product and grades its purity.
• Composition Spectrometer (scanner): shows exactly what's in a container. Keep it open on the container the whole time you work: while it cooks, and while you add acid, base or Lipobond. Watch the numbers move and stop the moment the mush, protein or fat hits 0, so you never overdo a reagent or overheat an extract. Getting great purity is almost impossible without it.
  The Retired Chemist referral (network upgrade, 1,000) gets you started with a worn blender, heating plate, evaporator, Chem Finisher and scanner, plus the in-game Chemistry 101 guide. It also unlocks the Retired Chemist, Shady Farmer and Dealer as visitors.

Ingredients

Who sells what, according to the game files. Percentages are the chance an item is in stock when that visitor shows up.
ItemBase valueWhere to get itDream Cap23Shady Farmer, twice a week (each visit: 2 small + 1 regular guaranteed, plus up to 2 more regular at 75% each); Cartel Handler (Chemist start); grow your own from Dream Cap seeds (Retired Farmer)Nightmare Cap26Shady Farmer (75%)Coffee bean28Retired Farmer; Shady Farmer (75%)Common pack: Chemical Supplies (Common), with 2 Mini Alcohol, Lipobond, acid and base50Retired Chemist; scavengers; ThiefRestricted pack: Chemical Supplies (Restricted), for Phanta, medium contraband100Retired Chemist (50%); Revolution Raider; some wanted-poster supply runsSolvent Recovery Module275Retired Chemist (75%)Chem Module (machine upgrade)250Retired Chemist (sometimes: they're the last thing he puts out, so they're often crowded off the counter); Dr. Jackson, once the Retired Chemist is unlockedKotton Fabric65Shady Farmer (75%); grow it from Kotton seedsWater filter—Retired Chemist (75%), plus a few other visitors
The two key visitors for this path are the Retired Chemist (supplies, modules and the restricted pack) and the Shady Farmer (Dream and Nightmare Caps, twice a week). To stop depending on visitors, see Going Further at the end of the guide.

Purity and Grades

Purity is the active ingredient's share of the batch the Chem Finisher takes, after the finisher adds its own contamination.

• The batch must be dry. No more than 0.1 mL in total of water, alcohol and Lipobond Agent. Nothing else counts as wet.
• The finisher takes exactly the required volume, as an even slice of everything in the container.
• The finisher contaminates its output unless it's upgraded: 12% with 0 upgrades, 6% with 1, 3% with 2, 1% with 3, none with 4.
  PurityGradeValue99%+Lab Pure+135%90–99%Pharma Grade+85%80–90%Near-Pharma+40%60–80%Street Standard045–60%Cut Product−45%30–45%Junk Grade−75%under 30%Starch Grade−95%
  With 0 upgrades the best you can get is 88% (Near-Pharma). Lab Pure needs all 4 upgrades and a dry batch of 99% or more.
  

Cleaning a Batch

Anything in a batch that isn't the active ingredient lowers its purity. Here's how to get rid of each kind.
UnwantedRemove withNotesWater, alcohol, LipobondEvaporatorWith the Solvent Recovery Module you get the alcohol back. The share equals the evaporator's quality bonus, capped at 100%: 50% from the module alone, 100% with two of them or one plus a Capped Neural Core (thanks Owlie). Put an empty container in the distillate slot to catch it, or it's lost.Plant matter, mush, debrisKotton FabricAlso caught by water filters, but Kotton lasts longer (1,000 durability vs 400).Physical contaminant, mineralWater filterKotton is too coarse for these. Run Kotton first, then the water filter, to save the water filter's durability.MicrobesUV Filter, acid or base, alcohol at 40%+ of the volume, or heatThe UV Filter turns them into water and is never used up (thanks Zippy). Acid or base kills up to 20× its volume. Heat removes 20% per tick from 70°C, all of them at 100°C. Other filters don't catch them.ProteinAcid or base at about 1:1Turns into debris; filter it out. Use one or the other, not both: it only works while one of them is in excess.FatLipobond Agent at about ⅛ of the fatWorks at any temperature and in a few ticks. Lipobond boils off above 55°C.Stabilizing AgentAcid or baseTurns into debris; filter it out.Leftover acid or baseThe other one, 1:1Both disappear. Since you can only add 1 mL at a time, it's worth it once more than 0.5 mL is left, or for any amount if you dilute first (see below).Chemical contaminantWater purification tablet + waterBrings it down to 0.7% of the total volume. The chlorine only breaks down while water is present, so wait until it reads 0 before evaporating.Heavy metal, starch, sugar***NothingKeep them out of the batch in the first place.* Nothing in the lab. Fish can clean heavy metal out of reagents beforehand (see Going Further). Hydroreed can wipe out small amounts of starch, but it also eats 28% of everything else each night, so it rarely pays (thanks nord12idun).
Precise dosing: acid and base don't react with water or alcohol, so you can dilute them in a flask first. At 1 part acid to 9 parts water, each 1 mL pour adds only 0.1 mL of acid, letting you match the protein exactly and cancel small leftovers. The extra water just evaporates. Start doing this if you're barely missing a grade, since leftover acid or base counts against purity (thanks RusticWolf). Bigger batches are also more forgiving: small fixed leftovers count for less of the total (thanks nord12idun).
Or use the Chem Finisher as a measuring tool: put a bottle of acid or base in it and pick a small recipe (Birth Control Pill takes 0.1 mL, Phanta 0.5 mL, Zyanide 0.6 mL). It makes a "pill" of exactly that much acid, which dissolves when you drop it into your batch. Without finisher upgrades 12% becomes physical contaminant, which the water filter removes anyway. It works for chlorine too, and matters more there: chlorine only cleans down to 0.7% of the container's total volume, and a whole tablet adds 15 mL of chlorine to it. On a small batch, use 0.1 mL pills instead. Don't dissolve the tablet in water: as soon as water is present, all of the chlorine reacts in one tick, contaminants or not. Drop it into an empty container instead, then finish pills from that (thanks Neyr129).

Pick your bottles: every acid, base and Lipobond bottle carries 2–8% random impurities. Microbes and physical contaminant clean out later in the batch, chemical contaminant only in recipes with a purification tablet (Dream Dust has none), and heavy metal never does. Common packs give you far more bottles than you'll ever use, so scan them and throw out the ones with heavy metal. A bottle dirty only with the removable kinds is fine to keep. Reducing Agent is different: each restricted pack only has enough for its own methylol, so use it whatever it carries.
Never put a chem batch in the water purifier. It turns everything that isn't water into water, and your extract goes first.

Recipes

Mini Alcohol Bottles are 30% water (175 mL alcohol + 75 mL water), so pour about 1.4× the alcohol you want. The alcohol your evaporator recovers with the Solvent Recovery Module is pure, which makes it easier to dose.
Nudka (45% alcohol) and wine (always 20%, whatever its quality) also work (thanks imaginewugs), but don't pour them straight into a batch: the rest of the bottle is basewater, which brings 1–2 mL of heavy metal that nothing removes. Run them through the evaporator with the Solvent Recovery Module and use the recovered alcohol. Beer can't be poured.

Dream Dust (2 mL, medium contraband)

• Blend the Dream Caps.
• Pour some alcohol into a second container, then add the blended caps to it in portions instead of all at once. The extraction needs alcohol at 5× the mush currently in the container, but it doesn't use the alcohol up, so the same alcohol works for every portion. Example: 130 mL of mush needs about 650 mL of alcohol all at once, but only about 90 mL if you add the blended caps 25 mL at a time.
• Heat to 40–49°C until no mush is left, then add the next portion. From 50°C the mush turns into plant matter before it's extracted, and the extract itself breaks down from 60°C.
• Add acid or base equal to the protein and wait until it reads 0. If more than 0.5 mL of it is left over, add 1 mL of the other to cancel it out.
• Kotton, then a water filter.
• Evaporate, then finish.Half the mush turns into extract, and every 2 mL of extract makes one dust. Dream Caps always have the same contents, so a fully upgraded setup gets Lab Pure every time. The rare exception is a dirty acid or base bottle (about 1 in 40) whose chemical contaminant drops you just under 99%: you'll have plenty of spares, so just use another one (see Pick your bottles).
  

Nightmare Dust (4 mL, high contraband)

Same steps as Dream Dust, at the same 40–49°C. It matters even more here: Nightmare Extract breaks down quickly from 50°C, losing about half per tick at 60°C. Half the mush turns into extract, and every 4 mL of extract makes one dust.

Caffeine Pill (5 mL, legal)

• Blend the beans.
• Add Lipobond Agent at about ⅛ of the fat, before heating. The fat is gone in a few ticks, and the leftover Lipobond boils off later.
• Add alcohol at 0.75× the coffee mush or more. Beans release only 15% of their mush per tick, so you need far less alcohol than for mushrooms.
• Heat to 50–78°C until no mush is left. Don't go to 80°C: there, water starts extracting at only 12.5% yield and takes mush away from the alcohol, and alcohol boils off above 78°C.
• Add acid or base equal to the protein (if more than 0.5 mL is left over, add 1 mL of the other), then Kotton, then a water filter.
• Remove the water and alcohol, then finish. Either evaporate overnight, or skip the evaporator: with a plate module, heat above 100°C until the water and alcohol both read 0. Caffeine doesn't break down with heat, but only do this once all the mush is gone (thanks TheNikita and Owlie).75% of the coffee mush turns into caffeine, on top of the caffeine already in the beans, and every 5 mL of caffeine makes one pill.

Phanta Pill (0.5 mL, high contraband)

Needs an upgraded heating plate. The restricted pack (called Chemical Supplies (Restricted) in-game) contains 2 precursor bottles (each N-Methylol + Stabilizing Agent) and 1 Reducing Agent bottle.

• Add acid to remove every last mL of the Stabilizing Agent. Any left over blocks the same amount of methylol from reacting.
• Water filter for the debris, then neutralize leftover acid with base.
• Add Reducing Agent at ¾ of the methylol. Dose the last mL precisely (diluted, or with finisher pills, see Cleaning a Batch): any extra can't be removed, only used up by your next pack's methylol (thanks Bubbadoo).
• Heat to 120–129°C until the methylol reads 0. At 130°C or more, Phanta breaks down.
• Add water and a purification tablet for the chemical contaminant, and wait until the chlorine reads 0. On a batch this small, 0.1 mL chlorine pills work better than a whole tablet (see Cleaning a Batch).
• Evaporate, or boil the water off on the plate while staying under 130°C (where Phanta breaks down), then finish.10% of the methylol turns into Phanta, so every 5 mL of methylol makes one pill. Purity depends on the bottles: they carry random heavy metal, which nothing in the lab removes. With perfect technique, packs average about 86%, ranging from about 68% to 95%. Scan the bottles to know roughly what grade to expect.

Nomore Injector (4 mL, legal)

Story spoiler: in-game, this recipe is a story reward. Both parts below are hidden if you'd rather find it yourself.
Where to get it: Li Bei Wen, one of the wanted-poster visitors, sells you Nomore Injectors on his first visit. Don't report him: he comes back 3 days later asking for chemical supplies. Sell him common or restricted packs; each one brings his next visit closer, and 1 restricted plus 2 common (or 4 common) gets him back in 2 days. On that last visit he leaves the formula note and two Lab Pure injectors. Reporting him ends the storyline (his bounty is 400).
The recipe: Needs Reducing Agent, which comes from the restricted pack.

• Make Dream Cap Extract (Dream Dust steps 1–5).
• Evaporate it dry. The reaction won't start if alcohol is more than 10% of the volume.
• Add Reducing Agent 1:1 with the extract.
• Add Lipobond Agent at ⅓ of the extract.
• Heat to 50–55°C until the extract reads