Since there have been a lot of Alchemy/Enchanting builds around, I wanted to take a look at what an optimized Enchanter could look like now.
The basics.
Various new options allow you now to produce preparations with a de facto endless shelf life. You want high Force and high Potency. But at the same time you want only to take Stun Drain, so only need an hour to rest between your work instead of days.
Build:
If you aren't a full mage, you now want Priority C or D for your magic:
The Enchanter (p.47 FA) gives Magic 5 and allows you to stay with a low priority for Metatype. The drawback is you now work with a skill group that you can't specialize in. Ask you GM about breaking up Skill Groups in chara creation.
Use your low priority needs for high attributes and skills - once you have your basic equipment, money is much less of an issue for you.
Qualities:
There are a lot of options now and ideally you'll get them all (mastery qualities don't increase in price so you can get them during play)
Mentor Spirit: Fire Bringer. There is really no substitute if you plan to be a serious alchemist. +2 to alchemy and +2 to manipulation preparations is gold.
Practice, Practice (HT): Get it for Enchanting - it's really great.
Alchemical Armorer: Very useful if you plan to use single shot weapons like the Ruger Warhawk or the Ruger 101, but more of a long term investment (needs initiation, so not really something you can base your build on)
Alchemical Bomb Maker: This quality is crazy strong. Direct and indirect damage can go through the roof with this - apply them to playing cards and feel like Gambit.
Archivist (w/ College Education): GET THIS QUALITY. Seriously, this is a cornerstone of the optimized build. More about that later on.
Dedicated Spellslinger: Technically it says Spellcasting, but a fair GM will allow you to use it 1:1 for the Alchemy skill group. Without that it's very hard to get useful preparations from the start.
Durable Preparations: Useful but no priority. Better to get after
Practiced Alchemist: Double duration beats the *3 potency from Durable Preparations. But they combine well, allowing you to carry them around for your full work day.
Items of Power: Low priority. It takes quite a while to get to the point where you risk addiction
Potion Maker: Sounds nice, but isn't really worth the trouble - Extra drain is a problem if you make preparations in the field, but you'll be hard pressed to mix potions on the go.
Spiritual Pilgrim: Useful for almost every magic active user - if you are acclimated to the whole area where you operate, your preparations will have a lot more power.
Vexcraft: Can be relevant since you already have Disenchanting from your skill group, but probably not all that useful if you can obliterate your opponent instead with a powered up stunball preparation
Gear:
Vault of Ages: You don't want one, you want many, many, many of them. Preferably all at maximum rating. Have them at home, have them installed in your car, have them installed in the cybertorso of your troll friend.
Enchanting Gloves (HT): You need those. Contact triggers are the easiest to create and use preparations and allow you rapid buffing
Bio-Pocket (HT): Go well with the gloves to store your preparations during the run without accidentally triggering them.
Atomizer: Turn Health spells into contact triggered spells. Essential if you plan to buff your team.
Alembic/Athanor/Crucible: Nice to have for downtime wealth generation. Especially the crucible is a great way to buy cheap reagents and turn them into valuable products.
Special Work Envirionment: This is a great addition to your lifestyle. Get one that allows you to raise the limit on foci and you can create strong foci with little actual investment.
Alchemical Spells:
Manipulation spells are probably the most versatile and useful spells for preparations. AOE combat spells and unresisted detection spells are also good since you don't have to contend with high counter dice pools. Health spells for buffing are great too, but need good action economy to be useful.
Concept:
You don't use anything more difficult than a pad and a pen to create your preparations. Just simple pieces of paper that you can fold or cut into desired shapes to quickly identify them by touch (with your enchanting gloves).
Archivist allows you to create preparations with force higher than your magic. Ideally you get to F10 so you can use the full potential of your Vault of Ages.
You'll need 8 magic knowledge skills at 4 to pull that off with a magic of 6. The College Education Quality is great for this to double your initial knowledge skill points.
After every preparation you'll suffer considerable stun drain. But with Quick Healer and an Autodoc (get it cheap as a Valkyrie Module) you can boost your healing time to require only one hour. With one day of work you can fill up your vault completely and then some.
Get an Alchemic Focus to boost your dice pool. Ideally you create potencies between 6 and 10 regularly so your preparations now have 16 to 20 dice behind them (and also a longer duration for sustained spells)
Start creating mid level foci (F3 to 4) with quickly created formula (F1) thanks to the limit breaking abilities of your quality and lifestyle option. Sell them to your team mates or contacts for more Vault of Ages. (And for your own use, of course)
When your run starts, take a good collection from your vaults with a few redundancies.
If you write on rice paper you can just eat your preparations by the handful to buff up quickly once situations arrive (or create trap sandwiches for assholes who like to steal their coworkers lunch)
