🎲 [v2] Alchemy Lab FAQ & Discussion

[zephyr1]

NOTE: This thread is a work in progress to answer the frequently asked questions that pop up, and for discussion of using Alchemy Lab (or not using it, as the case may be).

Please post questions and discussion down below.

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What is Alchemy Lab?

Alchemy Lab is an Advanced Building that unlocks with Stronghold 23.

It was originally released in September 2019, and was revamped in June 2020.

It allows Transmuting some items into some other items. It also produces Alkashards, which can be combined into an item of your choice from a selection of random items.

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Can I Transmute items to other items of the same rarity, e.g. 1* Crafting Ingredients to other 1* Crafting Ingredients, or Training Manuals to Rugged Clothes?

Yes, as of the second version of Alchemy Lab, many items can be Transmuted into other items of the same rarity.

This is one of the biggest differences from the first version of Alchemy Lab, which only Transmuted items from lower to higher rarity, with the exception of Transmuting 4* Ascension Materials into different 4* Ascension Materials.

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Are Gems required to use Alchemy Lab?

Yes, Recipes 10A and 10B (i.e. both Recipes unlocked with Building Level 10) require Gems to use — these cover Transmutation of Farmable 3* Ascension Materials to Unfarmable 3* Ascension Materials (with a 5% chance for a 4* Ascension Material), as well as Transmutation of 4* Ascension Materials to other 4* Ascension Materials. These Recipes are similar to the old ones from Levels 9 and 10 in the original Alchemy Lab.

This is a change from Version 1, where Levels 6 through 10 required Gems to use.

Version 2 of Alchemy Lab also introduces an additional optional use for Gems, to Boost Alkashard production. More on that below.

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Can I use Gems to buy Alkahards?

You can’t currently directly purchase Alkashards, but Version 2 introduces a new option to “Boost” Alkashard production when completing a Transmutation.

This option to “Boost” is presented when collecting items from completed Transmutatations. A popup offers to collect the items and Alkashards, or to alternatively spend a specified number of Gems to boost the Alskahard production by a particular amount. This option is only available when collecting the items — once you’ve made a decision to Boost or not, the items and Alkashards are collected, and the option is no longer available for those items.

If you’re collecting multiple items from sequential Transmutations at the same time, then the Boost option will be multiplied accordingly. As an example, if the Boost for a single item provides 2 extra Alkashards for 1 Gem, then collecting 3 items at once will offer 6 extra Alkashards for 3 Gems. This option is all-or-nothing — when collecting multiple items at once, your only option is whether to Boost for all of them or not; you can’t choose a partial Boost based on fewer items. If this were a concern, collecting items more frequently will provide more control over Boost options.

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Can I rush Transmutation times using Gems?

No.

Unlike Training Camps, Forges, Hunter’s Lodge, and Hero Academy, the long durations for Transmutations can’t be accelerated or skipped.

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Can I run more than one type of Transmutation at a time?

Yes, as Alchemy Lab is upgraded, it allows for up to 3 different Levels to be run at the same time in parallel.

Items queued in the same Level run sequentially, however. There’s nothing you can do to accelerate the Transmutations of a particular Level.

• Building Level 5 unlocks 2 simultaneous Transmutations

• Building Level 10 unlocks 3 simultaneous Transmutations

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Can I queue and dequeue Transmutations like in a Training Camp or Forge?

All Levels and Recipes allow queueing.

Some Recipes also allow dequeuing, which is a change from Version 1. I’ll add a list of them once I’ve confirmed which do.

For the Recipes that don’t allow dequeueing, because it’s also impossible to accelerate Transmutations, players should be mindful of what they queue into Alchemy Lab, as it’s currently impossible to undo those decisions, or do anything to accelerate them. So you can effectively tie up Alchemy Lab for extended periods of time.

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Upgrade & Research Costs

Updated graphic showing all upgrade and research costs by @cap

Alternatively, all Upgrade and Research Costs/Time are listed here: 🧪 Early Information on "IMPROVED" Alchemy Lab [Part of The Beta Beat v30] - #312 by zephyr1

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Alchemy Lab Levels

The Small Giant Staff have confirmed that there will be no changes from the final version of Beta.

For a graphical version see image above by @cap

Alternatively you can see here for information: 🧪 Early Information on "IMPROVED" Alchemy Lab [Part of The Beta Beat v30] - #312 by zephyr1

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What are Alkashards, and how do they work?

Version 2 Update:

@zephyr1

Like the current version of Alchemy Lab, the new version of Alchemy Lab produces Alkashards in addition to items resulting from Transmutations.

However, the number of Alkashards required for Combining to select an additional item has been reduced from 10000 to 1000.

Additionally, the Alkashards produced by some of the existing Transmutation Recipes have been changed. And, as noted above, there’s a new option to Boost Alkashard production with gems, if desired.

The rewards for Combining Alkashards have changed a bit too. While there are still 6 random items to select from, the item quantities and types have been reduced.

Reward Options for Combining Alkashards in Version 2

There are six items, and you can select ONE of them:

• 1x Unfarmable 3* Ascension Material (two random ones to select from)

• SOMETIMES, 1x 4* Ascension Material (this is occasionally available instead of a 3* Ascension Material; data will need to be collected to discern the percentage chance, but I suspect it’s in the 5-10% range)

• 10x 30x* Emblems (two random Classes available to choose from) *changed from 10x to 30x on October 7, 2020

• 5x Titan Battle Items (two random ones to select from)

Once you select an item and Combine Alkashards, the item selections the next time you Combine Alkashards will be refreshed with new random options.

The item selection remains the same until you Combine Alkashards, so there’s no way to refresh/shuffle/reroll the options.

Information from original Version 1:

Click for Original Information

@zephyr1

Introduction of Alkashards

A new Item has been added to Beta as part of the Alchemy Lab, called Alkashards.

I would compare Alkashards to two things many people will have encountered in their lives:

1. Customer Loyalty Programs or Credit Card Reward Points, where you earn points that can later be redeemed for an item selected from a catalog
2. Arcade Tickets, where you can trade in a large pile of tickets for an item of your choice…and everyone wants the item that costs more tickets than anyone is ever going to get without spending a very large amount of time and money at the arcade

The Alchemy Lab produces Alkashards whenever any Transmutation is completed. The number of Alkashards produced varies with each level of the Alchemy Lab and the items being Transmuted.

In this initial version of Beta (remember this is highly likely to change), once you have 10,000 Alkashards, you can Combine the 10,000 Alkashards into an item of your choice, selected from 6 random options.

I’ll include full details on the number of Alkashards produced by each Transmutation when I document all of the Alchemy Lab Levels, but suffice it to say, in this first version, it requires a LOT of items and/or Gems to get to 10,000 Alkashards.

In my opinion, the cost/conversion ratios are in need of significant adjustment to make them worthwhile — but the premise of how it works is excellent.

The options that you can select one of currently appear to include:

• Your choice of 1 of 2 random 4* Ascension Material selections (e.g. Poison Darts OR Mystic Rings)
• Your choice of 1x 4* or 3x 3* Ascension Material selections (e.g. 1x Farsight Telescope OR 3x Warm Cape OR 3x Battle Manual — farmable 3* Ascension Materials can currently be included as an item choice)
• Your choice of 1 of 2 random 50x30x Titan Battle Item selections (e.g. 50x30x Hurricane OR 50x30x Time Freeze)
• You choice of 1 of 2 random 200x50x Emblem selections (e.g. 200x50x Fighter Emblems OR 200x50x Rogue Emblems)

You can choose 1 and only 1 of those items, e.g. 200x50x Fighter Emblems. You don’t get both of the items from that category, just one.

To say this again to prevent confusion:

While there are two options of each type, you only get 1 of those — so you’d pick 1x Poison Darts OR Mystic Rings3x Warm Cape, for example, not both.

Once you select that 1 item from the choices and Combine the Alkashards to produce it, all 6 of the item selections are changed randomly again.

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Alkashard & Alchemy Calculators/Guides

@TheEyes’ guide, primarily focused on farming Alkashards from Alchemy Lab: A Guide to the New Alchemy Lab (v30, 2020-06-17)

@Vikingblood80’s Simulator

@Vikingblood80

• You can use this tool for simulating different AL setups.
• You can find a low food cost setup.
• You can find the time how long it will take to reach 1000 Alkashards with your particular setup by simply increasing the running time until you cross 1000 Alkashards.

If you wanna use it you need to store a copy that will allow to edit it. You can find it here:

Alchemy lab - Google Sheets

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Beta Information and Discussion

The Small Giant Staff have confirmed that the live version of Alchemy Lab will exactly match the final Beta version.

🧪 Early Information on "IMPROVED" Alchemy Lab [Part of The Beta Beat v30]

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Related Threads

• A Guide to the New Alchemy Lab (v30, 2020-06-17)
• Alkashard Combination Bug (V30). 1k Shards for old 10k Rewards (Working As Intended, Staff Response #24)

[Guvnor]

Thanks as always @zephyr1 for all the awesome work!

[Cheds]

So…as usual for me as you post so much it’s overwhelming.

TLDR - should I consider building the thing now??

[Guvnor]

Kinda maybe yes…

Shards

The Shard Rewards are really the biggest winner out of the rebalancing. Previously you could get EITHER a 4* mat OR 50 emblems (nobody really chose the other options) for 10,000 shards.

NOW for the same price you can get 90x emblems & a good chance of the 4* mat too.

Which Levels?

A really great read is the guide by @TheEyes: A Guide to the New Alchemy Lab (v30, 2020-06-17)

In terms of which levels to use, it depends largely on your gem availability… If you have some gems available, AL19 (Level 10A) is a pretty good investment. Essentially generates enough shards for you to cash-in each week & while also giving you a shot at the 4* mat each week from the transmutation.

AL20 (Leve 10B) is OK, again if you have some gems to burn, and will give you another shard cash-in per week. If you have 1x spare mat you can essentially keep putting it in & out each week… just keep turning it over.

@TheEyes suggests that the “sweet spot” in terms of shards/food & shards/time (particularly if you don’t have gems to burn) is in the middle ranks (as expected):

@TheEyes

• In terms of efficiency there’s a sort of sweet spot at 4B, 5B and 6B: roughly 1k food per shard, 2.5-2.7 shards per hour.
• It’s important to note that 5B also costs the Iron needed to craft the uncommon battle items in the first place: 7 bear banners costs 40530 iron (since I’m assuming you’re going to throw bear banners into this rather than something more expensive). It does, however, output a 3* battle item which is either more expensive or costs food to produce, so frankly that’s pretty much a wash; no one is substantively short on iron in the late game anyway, and being able to effectively purchase Revive scrolls and Super Antidotes using iron is a pretty good deal.

[NoVelcroShoes]

Big thankyou for your work

[Wolf9]

Thanks for the hard work.
Does it change your mind about using it, gou seemed underwhelmed when it first came out.
I’m still on the fence, doing some more reading and waiting to see when it comes back on to judge. Expecting some kind of nerfed outcome.
Have fun.
Wolf9

[Gryphonknight]

Current thoughts on version 2.0

@another discussion

Utility

@Another player

could actually be useful for balancing out battle items if it wasn’t so expensive.

My original hopes for Lab, and Academy, were something like Training camp 20, something players would race to build.

Then something like 4x Iron storage level 20, something that benefits all play styles.

Now it is more like 4th house level 20, or 4th forge level 20, something you do when bored and using up extra iron.

Version 2.0

Keeping that utility in mind, I actually really like two changes

The ability to change same rarity to same rarity ( looking at you 1* ascension items) [Thank you SGG for listening]

The ability to use at least 1x of every outcome, minus the outcome you want, to guarantee an outcome. Example using every 1* battle item except 1* mana potion to guarantee a 1* mana potion. ( looking at you kits/ backpacks, and mana items ). THIS should be explicitly explained in an in game tutorial!!!!!!!!! [Thank you SGG for at least removing merciless RNG from one of the new updates - though I am not filled to the brim with joy].

This actually works because you can use all the ascension items, and battle items you do not like, and be guaranteed an output of something you do like.

The only problem is you will likely end up with an output you like, but still have too much instead of flattering you streaks. And the play styles that would benefit from it, cannot afford the cost in resources and time.

Or you can guarantee an single outcome by sacrificing at least 1x of all items so you are likely to include items you do not want to lose to gain something better ( looking at you kit/ backpacks versus rugged clothes, looking at you dragon attacks versus tornadoes ). Which I would consider a great design decision if it was more affordable.

Currently it is just better to farm for missing ingredients during Atlantis Rising.

Click for off topic rant about small teams

As a game modder myself, this is one decision ( Atlantis Rising) that seemed good at the time, but is actually causing lots of unintended difficultly with the rest of the planned roadmap ( this can be inferred from Path of Valor relics only working for Season 1 ) but fixing it would require a huge investment in adjusting the roadmap or adjusting Empires loot system or both.

I think this really shows that a small team can accomplish a lot, but by its very nature is constrained to a limited amount of development cycles. At a certain point in a company’s life cycle it has to grow to meet demands for its products, or sell its business to a company that can scale it up.

The prime reason being competitors can always bring more staff/ resources than the original. Reminds me of Empire raids were players get X raid energy per hour, and a set amount of heroes, but attackers can bring effectively limitless raid energy, and heroes, to attack the defense team.

SGG appears to be resisting this, we will see if that leads to good outcome ( Diamond arena) or bad outcome ( Bronze arena ).

FIN

[Guvnor]

@Wolf9

Does it change your mind about using it, gou seemed underwhelmed when it first came out.

Personally? yes… but also no…

I think if this version of AL had come out originally I would still be underwhelmed & not use it… BUT a good year or so has passed since that time & I have progressed further in my game…

And it’s more this later factor which is influencing my liklihood of using AL2.0 vs. the fact that it has been revised…

I am now at the point where I am giving serious consideration to using all my gems of the AL transmutations rather than more summons… I have well & truly reached the point of diminishing returns for Hero Summons where I am having to do many many summons just to get someone NEW.

[arathemis]

Somethisng that is not explained in the OP:

Can I research a level while I upgrade the AL?
Can I research a level while a perform a transmutation on another level?
Can I start a transmutation on level 2 and upgrade the AL to level 9 at the same time?

Thanks.

[EngOran]

@zephyr1

You can queue up multiple Transmutations for a given Level, but once queued, you cannot remove or reduce the queue

I’m not sure this is true, I am able to remove transmutations from the queue (I only have the lab at level 1 so might be different if doing multiple queues)

[Suicide_Bunny]

Running it at level 10A now. Can not remove queued transmutation.

@arathemis

Can I research a level while a perform a transmutation on another level?

Yes.

[EngOran]

It’s willing to refund 12 herbs and some food, but no chance of getting those gems back!

[Sabrar]

I have AL at lvl9 currently and have researched lvl9 transmutation. Will this research transfer to lvl10A once I upgrade my AL or will I have to research it again?

[EngOran]

@zephyr1

The Small Giant Staff have confirmed that there will be no changes from the final version of Beta.

Please see here for information: Early Information on “IMPROVED” Alchemy Lab [Part of The Beta Beat v30]

This also doesn’t appear correct. Level 1B is costing 12 items and 1800 food rather than 1000 given in the opening post here.

[Ultra]

@EngOran

@zephyr1

You can queue up multiple Transmutations for a given Level, but once queued, you cannot remove or reduce the queue

I’m not sure this is true, I am able to remove transmutations from the queue (I only have the lab at level 1 so might be different if doing multiple queues)

This is confirmed. You can not remove or reduce the queue at Alchemy Lab. This was true then, and it is true now.

[Ultra]

Anyone of you guys see other significant uses from Alchemy Lab other than AL19 and AL20? I want to research some more to increase the viability of getting shards. The more shards, the more ascension mats.

[TriNitro]

@zephyr1

You can queue up multiple Transmutations for a given Level, but once queued, you cannot remove or reduce the queue.

Well, to my surprise, there seems to be some levels, where you now can DEQUEUE. I can do so at level 4B but i cannot on level 10A (might be due to the gems involved?!).
Can anyone please test, if its possible on the other levels? Unfortunately, i have no capacity for another transmutation…

@zephyr1 - Did you hear anything about this change and whether it is intended from staff?

[EngOran]

The level I could dequeue was 1B

[TheEyes]

@EngOran

This also doesn’t appear correct. Level 1B is costing 12 items and 1800 food rather than 1000 given in the opening post here.

Wow. Okay, that makes AL 1B less interesting than I previously estimated. That’s still 900 food per alkashard, which remains the most food efficient, but that’s less of a TC11 deal and more of a TC4 deal: something you use until your farms are up to scratch and then abandon.