@EkVideogames (View Post)

 BASE is supposed to be some sort of "anti-ACID", so elements which have a high Hardness value (say, SPNG) are easily eaten away by ACID, but not by BASE, and vice versa, if Hardness is small (like in BRCK), ACID will have a hard time dissolving the elements, while BASE will do it more easily. Elements which have Hardness equal to 0 are not destroyed by ACID and BASE. Essentially the condition for BASE to eat an element is base_life >= 2*element_hardness, so it should explain some of the behaviour you've noticed.

As for the reaction between BASE and ACID/CAUS, the idea was that diluted BASE (i.e. with low .life value) shouldn't react with ACID since it's mostly just water. The condition which triggers the reaction is base_life >= acid_life, and this indeed has a weird effect that high-concentration ACID won't react with BASE, but once diluted, the reaction will start. Now that I've read your post, I also find it a bit weird. Maybe a better condition would be something like base_life + acid_life >= 100.

In my defence I'll say that BASE was in development for over a year at this point, its reactions were discussed in Discord, we had a playtest last year (around June 2025) and the beta was out for a couple of weeks. In other words, there was plenty of chance to express your concerns, so I hope this will serve as an encouragement to you and others to try out snapshots/playtests/betas more.

Given TPT's release schedule, even if I were to change some of the BASE's mechanics, it would arrive not very soon, so there will already be plenty of saves relying on the current formula (there's already a huge factory save utilizing BASE, for instance). If the opportunity presents itself to quickly release 100.1 in the next couple of weeks (say, if someone finds a crash bug which will need to be fixed urgently), I'll think about sneaking in the change to the BASE-ACID/CAUS reaction.