Redmarket. The ideas I get while listening to the actual plays.

[RadioactiveBeer]

I could see there still being some meth around, but given that it requires a lot of chemical precursors I don't know how big it would be. A lot of the infrastructure necessary to produce meth (and not blow yourself up) would be compromised. Certainly you wouldn't be seeing NK-grade meth any more, unless maybe your enclave is a North Korean meth lab. Trailerpark meth, sure, and the one-pot methods are so easy you can literally make meth while driving, but again I'm not sure how long you'd be able to reliably source chemical precursors necessary for even the roughest batch. There are only so many pharmacies left unraided five years into the end of the world, though chemical warehouses are probably less likely targets. My guess would be that the production cycle would have to be kind of irregular - you make do with what you can, obviously, but you really can only cook once you've managed to source all the necesssaries and it's only going to get harder to source those ingredients as the Crash rolls on. Whereas the stuff you can grow in soil - poppies for opiates; marijuana etc - would be a more reliable crop. The only reason North Korea switched from opium to the meth game was that it was having problems with agriculture but had plenty of scientists and industrial facilities going spare.

A job for morally-flexible Takers might involve raiding a chemical refinery for certain chemical precursors, or securing a building that contains a good set-up for producing on a larger scale than one-pot cooking.

[clockworkjoe]

Are you an expert in this area? Could you explain what you need to manufacture drugs from the ground up?  Are there facilities to make chemical precursors east of the Mississippi?

[Gorkamorka]

Are you an expert in this area? Could you explain what you need to manufacture drugs from the ground up?  Are there facilities to make chemical precursors east of the Mississippi?

For game reasons...Of course. 

[RadioactiveBeer]

I don't claim to be Professor Drugs here. I kind of accidentally learned how to meth while researching North Korea while I was living in the South. Working in Asia is a bit crazy and drug charges are basically the worst thing to happen to a foreigner working there (and not uncommon given our relatively lax attitude to stuff like weed), so I educated myself a little.

Let's go with the aforementioned "meth while you drive" route, which is pretty easy but only really works on very small amounts. It's main appeal is you don't need much pseudoephedrine - so you can get around restrictions - but it also requires some hydrophobic solvents, ammonium nitrate, lye, lithium, salt and sulphuric acid. So while most of that is stuff you can fairly easily get hold of (pseudoephedrine from raiding a pharmacy; camping fuel or starter fluid for the hydrophobic solvent; liquid fertiliser; lithium batteries) and are fairly easy to get today, five years into the Crash a lot of that stuff is going to command a higher price if it's easily available at all. You try haggling an enclave out of the fertiliser it needs to grow food, or talking Aaron into letting you have his gadgets' batteries for meth. (And yes, the lithium in the batteries does mean this is one of the riskier meth process out there in terms of woops where did all this fire come from)

If your Taker group is out in the Midwest, or any area that was heavily agricultural pre-Crash, the Birch method is a bit simpler and easier to work on a larger scale. Again, you're reacting liquid fertilizer with pseudoephedrine and some kind of alkaline metal, such as sodium or lithium, and again you're at risk of burning down your everything. That's also not as bad as the Australian "hypo" method, which is fantastic if you want to inhale phosphene gas and/or get scorched by white phosphorous. This is all leaving aside the common practice of combining meth with other stimulants such as caffeine (no, really, meth isn't enough for some people).

That said, meth does have a history of use in the US military as modern as the Persian Gulf War - which Caleb alluded to which his evac sauce in episode 1 - so it's possible there are some US government owned facilities out there that were converted to ES production during the Crash. It's possible that the government did a lot of the work for you before NOPE'ing out, or falling to infection. Get past a few Casualties to get into a warehouse of liquid fertiliser, pseudoephedrine and alkaline metals? And the flammability/explosive risk the lithium/sodium imposes gives you a time limit or environmental complication on the mission because those commonly catch fire on contact with moisture or air - something's on fire, take what you can and go.

As to whether there are facilities to making chemical precursors east of the Missippi - honestly, I'd have to do some research on the industrial presences in the region before I commented. It's not a region I know particularly well. I do know that pseudoephedrine is produced from plant alkaloids, and that some of the plants in question (the genus Ephedra) do grow in America. That said, currently the majority of pseudoephedrine refinement and production takes place in India and China so once local stocks of that run out, you're probably going to have to start farming Ephredra plants to brew Mormon Tea.

[clockworkjoe]

Mormon Tea? Great! New job ideas incoming!

[trinite]

So in other words, it's exactly like in Payday 2. Got it.

[clockworkjoe]

Payday 2 doesn't have zombies.

Yet.

[RadioactiveBeer]

Who knows, maybe by the time of Red Markets someone's figured out how to improve Mormon Tea to the point of it being just drinkable meth.

[constructacon]

as an asthetic side note meth burns really weird colors and you, and wherever your cooking it, smells bad all the time.  as to the question of meth east of the mississippi, i live in north mississippi and meth production is one of the largest criminal problems we have here. i suspect anywhere you have a lot of farming the problem is the same as it would not be as supsicious to go to a store and by a lot of fertilizer as it would be in a largely urban enviroment.

[Twisting H]

Are you an expert in this area? Could you explain what you need to manufacture drugs from the ground up?  Are there facilities to make chemical precursors east of the Mississippi?

Hmm. I don't have the time but a dive through the Department of Justice and possibly some Chemistry journals could provide some insight to these questions. 

[constructacon]

what happens to zombies in red markets when they are hit with high voltage. i only ask cause i am prepping a game and wanted to know if an enclave built around a nuclear power plant would be safe if they ran massive amounts of electricity through there fence

[Redroverone]

what happens to zombies in red markets when they are hit with high voltage. i only ask cause i am prepping a game and wanted to know if an enclave built around a nuclear power plant would be safe if they ran massive amounts of electricity through there fence

I'd assume it's roughly similar to what happens to Normals - the muscles lock up and tissue burns.

[Gorkamorka]

Listening to the Redeemers looting the warehouse.

Just realised that RedMarket is a game about PC powerlooting.

[The Lost Carol]

Listening to the Redeemers looting the warehouse.

Just realised that RedMarket is a game about PC powerlooting.

Yeah, and in some ways that's how the Reformers will continue to play. The key as the GM is risk/reward. If they had the time and patience the warehouse could be a Mr. JOLS... if they can offload all the loot, A), and if they can survive what the GM should throw at them, B). You have to ensure it's a high risk, high reward scenario.

But the players I had were cautious, so looting became a big part of their MO. Since it's economic horror, having goods to provide is a good way to survive. But they know that getting everything is one thing, selling is another. Failing those checks makes them half as valuable, which greatly affects your bottom line.

[Gorkamorka]

Listening to the Redeemers looting the warehouse.

Just realised that RedMarket is a game about PC powerlooting.

Yeah, and in some ways that's how the Reformers will continue to play. The key as the GM is risk/reward. If they had the time and patience the warehouse could be a Mr. JOLS... if they can offload all the loot, A), and if they can survive what the GM should throw at them, B). You have to ensure it's a high risk, high reward scenario.

But the players I had were cautious, so looting became a big part of their MO. Since it's economic horror, having goods to provide is a good way to survive. But they know that getting everything is one thing, selling is another. Failing those checks makes them half as valuable, which greatly affects your bottom line.

I just felt it was funny, because powelooting everythin is very old style DnD thing to do.

A quick question about the job that Pixy created for herself. Do the rules have a reward/risk matrix?  Because once you have all these trucks you can start to make some really big scores.