Special components are full base cost, not half base cost.
ACKS Core page 118: “Components are usually organs or blood from one or more monsters with a total XP value equal to the GP cost of the research.”
Also I have to go do some research and find that other thread where this was talked about. The actual description of alchemists in ACKS Core does not say that they can make potions on their own, so to figure out if the thought I was having can work, I need another source.
(I was thinking that you could double their production cost after already figuring out the components needed. So their 1st level spell, with a formula, would cost a total of 750 gp to make; 250 gp of components and 500 gp of crafting. I’ll go see if this is feasible.)