I am absolutely in love with the concept for this game, I almost considered making something similar myself since nothing else existed to scratch the sandbox chemical processing itch. So thank you, you are a gentleman and scholar sir.
I work in the field of engineering, but don’t have a strong grasp on chemistry. I know the point of the game for some players is supposed to be discovering these reactions on your own, but I think there is going to be a player base who would appreciate some sort of look up or reference for how to get started with some of the more complex reactions. I think I’m personally more interested in the automated processing of these raw inputs, and less interested in the satisfaction of discovering every little reaction on my own. So I’m not sure how you balance or tailor the information available for different types of players, but I think it’s worth a thought. Along those lines, more info on physical properties of materials would be great (melting temp, specific heat capacity, density, etc.). If you’ve ever played oxygen not included, I feel like they did a pretty good job at giving you a lookup for the relevant physical properties of materials (properties relevant to their game engine).
One small detail that felt a little weird to me was glass did not allow the laser to pass through it with reduced heat transfer, the laser seems to almost immediately melt the first block of glass it hits. Adding realistic optics interactions between the glass and laser might be a cool thing to look into, but obviously this is a complex topic all on its own.
Keep up the great work!