Editing Alchemy (section)

== How buff potions work ==

Drinking a potion applies its effect for the listed '''duration''', then it wears off. The rules the engine uses:

* '''One buff per effect type.''' Drinking a potion of the same '''kind''' (and same skill, for skill buffs) '''replaces''' the active one — it refreshes the timer rather than stacking two copies. Drinking a fresh Miner's Brew, for example, just resets Mining speed to +10% for another 20 minutes.
* '''Different effect types run together.''' A skill-speed buff, a combat buff and an XP buff can all be active at once, because each is a different kind.
* '''Timers run offline.''' Buffs tick down whether or not the game is open, and expire cleanly mid-session.

Combat buffs (attack / defense) feed the same score the [[Guardians|Guardian]] and [[Rivals|raid]] fights use, so a Titan Brew or Stoneskin Elixir is a real, if brief, boost before a hard [[Expeditions|expedition]].

=== The salve ladder ===

The three salves all heal instantly and to full — what separates them is '''how many creatures each one reaches'''. Since v0.36.93 no two share a reach, so each is a genuine upgrade over the last rather than a pricier way to do the same job.

{| class="wikitable"
! Salve !! [[Alchemy]] !! Heals !! Best for
|-
| {{Icon|fern-poultice}} [[Fern Poultice]] || 10 || '''One''' hurt or injured creature || Patching a single dino cheaply
|-
| {{Icon|sagebind-salve}} [[Sagebind Salve]] || 48 || Every hurt or injured creature in your '''party''' (up to 5) || Cleaning up after an [[Expeditions|expedition]] — the party is exactly who takes the damage
|-
| {{Icon|primal-balm}} [[Primal Balm]] || 86 || Every hurt or injured creature in the '''whole [[Stable]]''' || Mass recovery, including benched dinos
|}

The '''Heal''' buttons (on the [[Stable]] and on a dino's card on the [[Player]] page) spend your '''cheapest''' suitable salve, so stock the low rungs freely — a Primal Balm is never burned while a Fern Poultice sits in the [[Bank]].

=== The potion shelf and auto-drink ===

You no longer have to open the [[Bank]] to drink. Since v0.36.48 every skill page carries a '''potion shelf''' at the top holding that skill's own potions as tap-to-drink bottles — Lumber Tonic on [[Logging]], Miner's Brew on [[Mining]], the crop tonics on the Farm. A bottle shows how many you hold, flips to a live countdown once drunk, and sits greyed with a "Brew in Alchemy" hint for anything you haven't brewed yet.

The four '''XP potions''' — Focus Tonic, Sage Elixir, Scholar Elixir and Ascendant Elixir — boost whatever you are doing rather than one skill, so since v0.36.65 they share a single XP tile on '''every''' skill page (the Farm included); tapping it opens a picker.

'''Auto-drink''' (v0.36.65): every tile has an auto pip. Switch it on and the moment that potion expires another is poured — the same one you last picked, so re-aiming it just means choosing a different tier in the picker. Each line is its own switch, so you can keep XP topped up without burning through your speed brews. Auto-drink '''keeps running while you're away''', so a long night can genuinely work through a shelf — the welcome-back summary lists every potion it drank, the way it already lists what your workers ate.