Guide to Botany
Your dream garden awaits!
Keeping it Green
When you click on a plant pot with an empty hand, you can check the plant to see how it is doing. Various indicators will appear when you do so, which describe the condition of the plant and soil - red indicators are bad, blue indicators are good:
Message | Meaning |
---|---|
The soil is completely dry. | The soil has run out of water. This will quickly kill the plant. |
The plant is dying. | Maltreatment or harmful chemicals are killing the plant. |
The soil looks rich and fertile. | Indicates the presence of compost in the soil. Remember, this dries out the soil quicker. |
The plant glistens with good health! | Judicious compost and water use has resulted in a healthy plant! |
The plant is flourishing! | The plant has extremely high health. Expect good harvests! |
The plant looks strange... | You have managed to grow a rare mutant strain of plant. This could be good or bad! |
Weeds have infested the soil. | This pot has been infested with a weed-type plant. You will have to take special measures to get rid of it. |
In addition, you will receive a report of any chemical in the plant pot. Hopefully, there's at least water in it, but chemicals may also include stuff you've added like plant formula or compost. Some plants may produce nectar, a delightful treat for space bees. Harmful chemicals like toxic slurry may also appear, which usually require you to clean out the pot.
If you click and drag a plant pot onto yourself, you will completely clear out the pot. This not only empties any plant out of it, but completely cleans out all soil water, nutrients, everything. However, this will not work on pots infested with weeds! You must find a way to kill the weeds before emptying the pot if you want to get rid of them. Weeds will occasionally appear in unoccupied plant pots and may have various effects or even produce items, but remember - these are weeds and thus are useless and annoying at best, and downright dangerous at worst! Get rid of them when you can.
1986 Blue Ribbon Winner: Biggest Weed Harvest
Plants carry genes which affect various things relating to their growth and crops. While plant seeds are easy enough to come by from the dispenser or ordering crates of them from the Cargo Bay, these seeds start out completely plain and devoid of any particular genetic fluctuations. Every time a seed is planted, it mutates a bit. Any seeds harvested from this plant will carry those genes, which will mutate again when planted. This way, you can breed plants for particular qualities. Genes can degrade as well as improve, however, so be careful not to end up with completely useless seeds which produce no crops or die instantly.
To get even more in-depth with planting you have the plant analyzer, which can scan a plant, fruit, or seed for genetic variables. For each variable, higher is better.
Species | Tells you what kind of plant it is. |
Generation | How many times this breed of plant has gone through a full lifecycle. Incremented by 1 whenever a seed is planted. |
Maturation Rate | How fast the plant grows from a sprout to a crop-producing plant. |
Production Rate | How fast the plant becomes harvestable. |
Lifespan | How many harvests the plant will produce before dying. This has no effect on plants that are harvestable only once. |
Yield | How many crops the plant will produce besides its normal amount. |
Potency | How powerful items produced by this plant are. Higher generally means more reagents inside. Affects crop quality. |
Endurance | How high the maximum health of the plant is, which affects how much it can resist dehydration, poison, and fire. Affects crop quality. |
With these, you can tell how much of a certain plant you can harvest, or how long it will live, or what you need to do to keep it alive. Some plants aren't just one-off harvests: for example, you can tend tomatoes for multiple harvests if you want! In fact, should you keep the plant happy (with blue indicators above - rich and fertile, and very healthy), you will likely have a chance at harvesting MORE than you would if you had just plain watered it. Some plants may even inherit a special genetic mutation giving them indefinite life, as long as you tend to it. It pays to keep an eye on your plants! It's just a matter of knowing when to add water, or fertilizer, etc. Plants work the same way in real life - to an extent. Don't water your plants? They'll die. Overwater? Same deal. Be careful with your plants, they are fragile little angels~
Crop quality is affected by potency, endurance, and, to a limited and lesser extent, plant health. Just like life, higher quality plants taste better and thus heal more HP when you eat them, and their crops have more quality prefixes, like "good", "supreme", and "prime". Better also means bigger, for higher quality also means the crops have larger sprites. There's a limit as to how huge crops can get, but it's quite high; with some effort, you can get harvests that are almost as big as a person! You reap what you sow, and if you sow potency and endurance, you'll reap the rewards.
Apart from plain compost, botany starts with several plant formulas tailored to altering a plant's specific traits (all explained in the next section). If you want to experiment, call in the scientist or grab some Discount Dan's and test the effects of various chemicals in the soil.
Tools & Machinery
The fancy stuff you use to enhance your plants or extract useful chemicals. The Chef and Bartender also have various culinary gadgets at their disposal for making with fancy foods and drinks with your favorite plants. Feel free to check Foods & Drinks for a full list of recipes.
Icon | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
Plant Analyzer | Provides you with a report of a plant's genes, its current condition, the presence of any mutations and other information. This functionality is also built into your PDA. | |
Reagent Scanner | Click on a person, container, fluid puddle or other object with this, and it'll list the chemicals inside it. Only the hand-held version has a memory function. This functionality is also built into your PDA. | |
Watering Can | Actually just a glorified beaker with a maximum capacity of 120 units. Often requested by Scientists and other people working in Chemistry. There are a few purely cosmetically different variants unlocked via earning Botanist XP. | |
Produce Satchel | This spacious satchel makes the life of every chef or botanist much easier. Almost any type of food-related item (dishes, bottles, seeds etc.) can be stored in them, and they also interact nicely with tables (drag & drop), crates, the food processor, mail chutes and other objects. Interacting with a satchel while on grab intent will allow you to remove a specific item from its contents. | |
Chainsaw | An electric chainsaw to keep weeds in check. Passable emergency weapon. | |
Hydroponics Tray | The seeds go in here, obviously. You can plant them manually or by using drag & drop. The bar on the right tracks water level, and the tray has various indicators for the status of the plant:
You can also click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to secure it to the floor, so that it doesn't move when you bump into it. Clicking on it with a screwdriver or wrench again will unsecure it, allowing you to move it around again. | |
Seed Fabricator | To unlock the more interesting seeds (notably cannabis), you'll have to mess with the wires using a screwdriver and multitool. (For the record, this is a fabricator, not a vending machine, so you'll have to toggle a white light.) | |
Portable Seed Fabricator | This portable seed fabricator is acquired by hacking the GardenGear vendor. This device is actually more like a seed planter rather than a hand-held version of the seed fabricator. To plant seeds with this thing, do the following:
Unlike the stationary version, it does not create physical seeds, but it also does not have a cooldown, making it ideal for planting several seeds in rapid succession. If you want to get a plant mutation that's only possible via random chance and have this plus an efficient method for clearing plants, you can plant seeds with the portable seed fab, and then clear them away, "rerolling" plants until you get your desired mutation. | |
PlantMaster Mk3 | Have a special or even new species in mind? This clever machine allows you to infuse seeds with certain reagents (drawn from an inserted beaker) and splice them together, or in other words tweak the desired genetic traits. It can also extract seeds from fruits or vegetables, which is great if you have a certain strain you want to grow more of. The PlantMaster supports drag & drop for the following objects: seeds, produce, beakers/bottles, produce satchels. | |
Reagent Extractor | Processes certain produce into reagents. Comes with two built-in storage tanks capable of holding up to 500 units each. You may then transfer said reagents to an inserted receptacle. The extractor supports drag & drop for the following objects: produce, beakers/bottles, produce satchels. | |
CheMaster 3000 | See Chemistry. | |
Compost Tank | Converts unwanted or excess produce as well as seeds and organs into compost. Use drag & drop to stuff them into the tank. Similar to trays, you can click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to anchor it down; doing it again unanchors it. | |
HC Water Tank | This high-capacity tank holds 100000 units of water. If you don't have a watering can, you can use drag & drop to transfer water directly to a hydroponics tray. You can anchor it down by clicking on it with a screwdriver or wrench, so it stays still when you bump into it. Clicking on it a screwdriver or wrench again will unanchor it. | |
UV Grow Lamp | Makes all plants within four tiles (i.e. a 9x9 square-shaped area of effect) grow faster. Click it to turn it on and off. Click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to secure it, so it doesn't move when people bump into it; click on it again with a screwdriver or wrench to make it movable again. | |
Botanical Mister | Adds a few units of whatever reagents stored inside it into any surrounding trays within four tiles. By default, it contains 1000 units of water, so it'll effectively water your plants for you, but it'll accept all kinds of chemicals. Also, you can click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to secure it to the floor; you can click on it again with a screwdriver or wrench to make it movable once more. In addition to spawning in Hydroponics at roundstart, you might find another of these in an semi-abandoned satellite not too far from the Mining Outpost. When emagged, the range expands from four (9x9 square area of effect) to five (11x11), and instead of filling plant trays, it fills up open containers (e.g. beakers without lids, drinkware, but not people or other misters) within its area of effect. When active, its description/Examine text also has a line saying "It is humming with an oddly disturbing sound." | |
Plant Pot | For decoration. Plants in clay pots don't grow and can't be harvested, but luckily don't need water or nutrients and can't die, making them ideal for sprucing up places or showing off your favorite plants. You can transfer plants to it with a garden trowel. Similar to the tray, you can click on the pot with a screwdriver or wrench to secure the pot, so it stays in place, and unsecure it, so you can move it around. Plant pots are obtained from the GardenGear. | |
Garden Trowel | Click a plant in a hydroponics tray with this in your active hand to uproot it, allowing you to transfer it to a clay plant pot. You unfortunately cannot use this to transfer plants to hydroponics trays, and you can uproot the plant at any stage in its growth, from just planted to fully matured and ready to harvest. You can find trowels in the GardenGear. | |
Water Pipe | A special container that's definitely not for drug usage that allows you to smoke reagents placed into it. Can be found in the GardenGear's hidden items menu. | |
Lava Lamp | What even is this, is it real lava, why does it bubble, can we eat it? Ponder this and more with your high friends. | |
Smoke-Shield Generator | A shield generator specifically for use of smoking herbs responsibly without them getting in the way of other crewmembers. Simply put it down, power it up along with your herbs of choice inside the shield and light away. Remember to use responsibly. |
GardenGear
Most basic tools and plant formulas are available from this GardenGear vending machine. It has also a few items for Ranchers, since they use hydroponics too. When the "Hidden Items" option is toggled on via hacking, it also vends some more unusual items, like a "water pipe", a random amount of grass seeds (a relic of a time when you could only get grass through the GardenGear and it was possible to directly "plant" grass by clicking on a tile while holding a seed of grass), and, if you're lucky, a single "strange seed".
Icon | Quantity | Item | Hidden item? |
---|---|---|---|
5 | Watering can (spawns filled with 120 units of water) | No | |
5 | Plant analyzer | No | |
5 | Compost bag | No | |
3 | Chainsaw | No | |
5 | Garden trowel | No | |
10 | Produce satchel | No | |
10 | Beaker (standard 50u versions, empty) | No | |
10 | Weedkiller | No | |
5 | Mutagenic Plant Formula | No | |
5 | Ammonia Plant Formula | No | |
5 | Potash Plant Formula | No | |
5 | Saltpetre Plant Formula | No | |
5 | Mutadone Plant Formula | No | |
5 | Plant pot | No | |
3 | Nesting Box | No | |
2 | Chicken Carrier | No | |
2 | Smoke-Shield Generator | No | |
1 | Water pipe | Yes | |
1 | Portable seed fabricator | Yes | |
3-6 | Grass seed | Yes | |
1 | Strange seed (only 25% chance of appearing) | Yes |
Nutrient Formulas
In addition, there are a number of plant formulas at your disposal, in a variety of containers. Bottle-based formulas hold 40 units and can be dispensed from the GardenGear. Quartermasters can order Hydroponics: Nutrient Crates, which contain jug-based formulas that come in 200 unit containers. The chemicals inside jugs aren't any different from the chemicals inside bottles (e.g. the saltpetre in the Saltpetre Plant Formula bottle is the same saltpetre in the High-Strength Plant Nutrients jug); the main difference is how much you get in each container.
The bottles and jugs themselves act fairly alike. For example, they can both go into glass recyclers, even though the latter is not made of glass. Notably, though, jugs cannot go into chem dispensers.
Icon | Name | Container | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Compost Bag | Other | This basic additive improves the plant's health over time. Can be refilled at, you guessed it, the compost tank. You can get spare compost bags from the GardenGear, as well as order them from QM in the form of Hydroponics: Starter Crates. | |
Weedkiller | Bottle | Also known as atrazine. As the name implies, it will quickly spell the end for any uninvited guest like lashers or space grass. The GardenGear has a few of these, as does the Hydroponics: Starter Crate the QMs can order. | |
Ammonia Plant Formula | Bottle | Some plants grow slowly, so a bit of ammonia can speed up the process. Just be prepared to water them more often. | |
Potash Plant Formula | Bottle | This is the chemical to go for if you want large harvests, but it will likely shorten the plant's lifespan. | |
Saltpetre Plant Formula | Bottle | Saltpetre tends to have a good effect on the crop potency and is particularly useful for medical herbs, cannabis and chili. | |
Mutagenic Plant Formula | Bottle | Dumping unstable mutagen into the tray is an easy option to grow all kinds of crazy stuff, however you have little actual control. If a species has multiple possible mutations, it will probably be difficult to get the one you desire. If a species has no possible mutations or stat/infusion based mutations, this won't do much besides scramble your crop's stats. | |
Mutadone Plant Formula | Bottle | As seen in medbay, but mutadone also works on plants. Mutating them wildly often damages their DNA and therefore this formula may be required to address some of the genetic problems. Unfortunately, mutadone slows down plant growth significantly as long as it is present in the tray. | |
Mutagenic Plant Nutrients | Jug | A big jug with 200 units of unstable mutagen, a glowing green (hence the jug color) chemical that randomizes plant stats and can sometimes induce mutations. | |
Healthy Plant Nutrients | Jug | The 200 units of mutadone in this jug will fix any negative plant stats but inhibit growth. | |
Quick-Growth Plant Nutrients | Jug | 200 units of ammonia, when you really need to speed up plant growth. Oddly yellow... | |
High-Yield Plant Nutrients | Jug | This jug holds 200 units of potash, which improves yields at cost of number of potential harvests. | |
High-Strength Plant Nutrients | Jug | "High-Strength" simply means it has 200 units of saltpetre, rather than being a mark of supreme quality. For when you're deadset on getting the dankest kush possible. |
Available Crops
Most of these seeds are readily available from the Seed Fabricator, but a few require a little hacking to access.
The game categorizes plant seeds into a couple of categories:
- Fruit & Vegetable: Can typically be eaten by themselves as snacks, often conferring some sort of buff, in addition to being used in dishes. There is no mechanical difference between fruit and vegetable plants SS13, merely an difference in categorization, based roughly on botanical rather than culinary definitions.
- Herb: Can be made into cigarettes and cigarillos, as well as burned in a practice called hotboxing.
- Weed: These plants can survive and grow without water, but are vulnerable to weedkiller/atrazine.
- Flower: Are flowers. They look pretty.
- Miscellaneous: Encompasses a couple of plants that, while edible, are designed to be put to a kitchen processor and made into ingredients for various dishes. This also has a few plants that yield raw resources for materials science.
- Alien: Alien plants you get from strange seeds and Botany rewards.
Name | Crop Icon | Plant Icon | Type | Harvests | Time | Genome | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Grape | Fruit | Variable | Average | 20 | ||||
Orange | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains orange juice. | |||
Melon | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 19 | Contains watermelon juice, surprisingly. | |||
Carrot | Vegetable | Once | Average | 16 | Contains carrot juice and oculine. | |||
Lemon | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains lemon juice. Clearly. | |||
Lime | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains lime juice, as you'd expect. | |||
Apple | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 19 | Contains apple juice. Heals 1 unit of TOX, BURN, BRUTE, OXY, and BRAIN per bite. Deals 5 damage when thrown at a doctor (or anyone with the medical training trait), because an apple a day keeps the doctor away. | |||
Banana | Fruit | Variable | Average | 15 | Contains potassium and banana juice. Yummy. | |||
Strawberry | Fruit | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains strawberry juice. | |||
Blueberry | Fruit | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains blueberry juice. | |||
Raspberry | Fruit | Variable | Average | 7 | Contains raspberry juice. | |||
Cherry | Fruit | Variable | Average | 20 | Contains cherry juice. Not blood, really! | |||
Avocado | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 18 | ||||
Pumpkin | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 19 | Make your own lantern or cute bowl! Contains pumpkin juice. | |||
Eggplant | Fruit | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains nicotine. | |||
Cucumber | Fruit | Once | Average | 19 | ||||
Garlic | Vegetable | Once | Average | 13 | Contains holy water. Not recommended for vampires. | |||
Onion | Vegetable | Once | Average | 13 | ||||
Lettuce | Vegetable | Once | Slow | 12 | ||||
Potato | Vegetable | Once | Average | 16 | Makes great French fries, batteries and captains. Also spawns as a trinket. | |||
Coconut | Fruit | Variable | Average | 19 | Contains coconut milk, which is distinct from regular space milk. Crack it open with some sort of cutting tool or a chairflip! | |||
Pineapple | Fruit | Variable | Average | 21 | Contains pineapple juice. Don't get in it your eyes. | |||
Coffee | Miscellaneous | Variable | Average | 6 | Coffee berries extract into...coffee. They can also be processed into coffee beans. | |||
Synthmeat | Miscellaneous | Variable | Average | 7 | Contains synthetic flesh. Each of its organ mutations can be obtained by infusing this plant with a different chemical. The resulting organ plant can have its crop's max organ health and failure threshold greatly increased by strengthening its endurance stat. | |||
Corn | Vegetable | Once | Average | 10 | Processes into popcorn. You can also just heat it (such as with a welder's special attack or similar) to make popcorn. Contains corn starch. | |||
Soybean | Vegetable | Variable | Average | 7 | Processes into milk. Conveniently contains space soybean oil. | |||
Chili | Fruit | Variable | Average | 17 | Processes into hot sauce. Contains capsaicin. | |||
Tomato | Fruit | Variable | Average | 18 | Processes into ketchup. Contains tomato juice. Not blood. | |||
Peanut | Miscellaneous | Once | Average | 6 | Processes into peanut butter. | |||
Wheat | Miscellaneous | Once | Fast | 10 | Processes into flour. | |||
Oats | Miscellaneous | Once | Fast | 10 | Processes into oatmeal. | |||
Sugar Cane/Sugar | Miscellaneous | Once | Fast | 8 | Processes into sugar. Contains, you guessed it, sugar. (What else would it contain?) | |||
Rice Sprig | Miscellaneous | Variable | Fast | 8 | Processes into rice. | |||
Beans | Vegetable | Variable | Fast | 6 | Contains nitrogen. Eating it allows fart propulsion in Space! | |||
Peas | Vegetable | Variable | Average | 8 | Plain peas. There's not much in them. Perhaps the Rancher could use these? | |||
Pear | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 19 | Can be fermented into cider. | |||
Peach | Fruit | Variable | Slow | 17 | Contains peach juice. May contain The Presidents of the United States of America song references. | |||
Cotton | Miscellaneous | Variable | Average | 5 | Processes into fabric when used in a material processor. | |||
Tree | Miscellaneous | Variable | Slow | 20 | Chainsaw the resulting log to get your very own barricade. | |||
Bamboo | Miscellaneous | Variable | Slow | 10 | Produces bamboo stalks, which can be cut down to produce edible shoots. | |||
Contusine | Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains salicylic acid. | |||
Asomna | Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains ephedrine. Can be distilled into tea. | |||
Nureous | Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains potassium iodide. | |||
Commol | Herb | Once | Average | 16 | Contains silver sulfadiazine. | |||
Ipecacuanha | Herb | Once | Average | 16 | Crop is ipecacuanha root, which contains space ipecac. | |||
Venne | Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Contains charcoal. | |||
Mint | Herb | Once | Fast | 1 | Contains, as you'd expect, mint. | |||
Tobacco | Herb | Once | Fast | 11 | Contains nicotine, naturally. | |||
Catnip/Nepeta cataria | Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Extract catonium to synthesize cat drugs. | |||
Poppies | Herb | Once | Fast | 1 | Extracts into morphine. | |||
Cannabis | Herb | Once | Fast | 2 | Make your own joints by combining a leaf with a sheet of paper. | |||
Aconite | Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Contains aconitine. Wards aways and smites werewolves. | |||
Rose | Flower | Variable | Fast | 7 | Every rose has its thorn, and the ones on these might prick you if you pick them up. To protect yourself, wear gloves or augment your arms into ones made out of metal; use wirecutters to remove the thorns. Every rose has a name too; Examine it to find it! | |||
Hydrangea | Flower | Variable | Average | 7 | The hydrangea flower makes for a very nice decorative flower and a beautiful headdress. It comes in 4 color varieties: white, purple, blue and pink. Rather than being based on the pH of the ground, the GardenGear® patented space hydrangea's colors are instead mutation-based. | |||
Bird of Paradise | Flower | Variable | Slow | 7 | The tall bird of paradise is a plant that can be used for decorative purposes and as a nice headdress. This flower takes a long time to grow, and in the language of flowers, it denotes success and freedom, among other meanings. | |||
Gardenia | Flower | Variable | Fast | 7 | The Gardenia flower can be used as a headdress or a decorative plant. Although it is a flowering plant within the coffee family, it does not contain or extract into coffee. | |||
Lavender | Herb | Once | Average | 3 | The lavender flower can be used as a nice headdress. Or be extracted into lavender essence to spread some nice scent around the station. | |||
Space Fungus | Weed | Infinite | Slow | 30 | Contains, as you'd expect, space fungus, which is great for boosting endurance. | |||
Grass | Weed | Once | Average | 4 | Harvested leaves can be extracted into Grass Gro, which makes lovely grass grow when poured onto floor tiles. | |||
Creeper | N/A | Alien | N/A | Fast | 8 | Attacks other plants and spreads into adjacent empty pots. | ||
Lasher | N/A | Weed | N/A | Fast | 5 | Will lash out at nearby people with its thorns. | ||
Radweed | N/A | Weed | N/A | Slow | 40 | "Contains" radium, although this plant never creates produce. Emits radiation, affecting nearby plants and people. | ||
Slurrypod | Weed | Once | Average | 45 | Will explode if not quickly harvested, spreading toxic goop. Contains toxic slurry | |||
Man Eater | Critter | Once | Variable | 12 | Will climb out of the pot once grown enough. see this part for more information | |||
Houttyunia Cordata | Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Fish mint, contains mercury. | |||
Rafflesia | Flower | Variable | Slow | 9 | Corpse lily. It produces the largest flower there is; so large that you can use it as a hat! Every now and then it smokes miasma and other chemicals it might include. The amount smoked is based on yield and potency, and the more endurance it has the more often it smokes its contents. | |||
Dripper | Alien | Variable | Average | 0 | Contains plasma. | |||
Puker | N/A | Alien | N/A | Average | 0 | Once fully grown, it will occasionally vomit. | ||
Lite Lotus | Alien | Once | Slow | 0 | Contains luminol. | |||
Goldfish | Alien | Variable | Fast | 0 | Produces goldfish crackers, which contain enriched MSG. | |||
Synthetic Cat | Alien | Once | Average | 0 | Grow your own pet cat today! | |||
Rock Plant | Alien | Variable | Slow | 0 | Produces rocks. | |||
Crystal | Alien | Variable | Slow | 0 | Produces plasma glass shards, which causes people to fall over and seriously injure their feet! | |||
Peeker | N/A | Alien | N/A | Slow | 0 | A plant with an intense stare. Don't assume you are safe just because you planted it! | ||
Turmeric | Vegetable | Once | Slow | 13 | Produces turmeric root, which can be processed into curry powder, and contains turmeric powder. | |||
Tea | Herb | Once | Fast | 1 | Produces tea leaves, contains tea, and can be processed or distilled into matcha. | |||
Nettle | Herb | Once | Fast | 7 | Stinging Nettle. Every now and then it injects histamine and other chemicals it might include. The amount injected is based on potency, and the more endurance it has the more often it injects its contents. | |||
Cinnamon | Vegetable | Variable | Slow | 13 | Contains cinnamon. | |||
Mustard | Fruit | Variable | Average | 12 | Contains mustard. |
Crop Mutations
Sometimes, whenever a plant's genes would normally mutate, i.e. when planted, when exposed to mutagen, and when infused in the gene manipulator, the plant might become a variant of itself, called a mutation. Some only occur due to random chance. Others don't appear unless the certain plant stats (usually either endurance or potency) are within certain thresholds or the seed is infused with certain chemicals. Even then, the plant doesn't always automatically mutate upon meeting those prerequisites, for it still has to randomly mutate into the variant. The requirements only ensure the plant has a possibility of becoming that mutation.
There are many different mutations, each with different effects depending on the species! Feel free to experiment or pester more experienced botanists. The following is an extensive but quite possibly incomplete table of possible mutations:
Mutations are not secret, so they do not fall under the secret content policy. That means, among other things, you can freely explain how to get them to someone in-game (or in the Goonstation Discord, or the forums, or other public communications channels) without needing to get their explicit consent or prefacing it as spoilers.
note: if no Prerequisite is listed it means the plant only has a chance to mutate when planted.
Mutant | Crop Icon | Plant Icon | Original Species | Prerequisites | Info |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seething Tomato | Tomato | Infusion with one of the following: chlorine trifluoride, phlogiston, pyrosium, sorium | Seethers, tomatoes with hot flavor. When thrown, makes a 3x3 fireball and inflicts BURN upon the person, which scales with potency and can be reduced by heat resistance. Tomato fireballs can ignite other seethers, causing them to erupt after a delay. Contains welding fuel. Use with caution. | ||
Suspicious Tomato | Tomato | Infusion with strange reagent. | Crikey, aggressive vegetables. Killer tomatoes try to attack any non-Botanists in sight. They can bite people for 4 BRUTE, with a 10% chance of 6 BRUTE, and can also charge at people for 4-6 BRUTE and a 20% to stun the victim for 2 seconds. They have very poor health however and splat into messy stains easily. It goes without saying that you should be careful with these if you're not an Antagonist. | ||
Green Grape | Grape | Heals twice the amount of regular grapes and contains insulin. | |||
Ricin Rice | Rice | Infusion with insulin and >=60 Potency | Putting sprigs of this into a still yields space ricin, a slow but fatal poison. RIC-e + insul-IN = RIC-IN. | ||
Grapefruit | Grape | Get it? Contains grapefruit juice. | |||
Blackberry | Raspberry | Contains blackberry juice. | |||
Blue Raspberry | Raspberry | Contains blue raspberry juice. | |||
Blood Orange | Orange | Contains changeling blood in addition to orange juice. Peculiar. | |||
Clockwork Orange | Orange | >=30 Endurance | An orange that is also a chronometer, how practical. Hurts to eat though. Extracts into iron. | ||
Rainbow Weed | Cannabis | Gets you extremely high thanks to having LSD. | |||
Deathweed | Cannabis | 10-30 Endurance, <=30 Potency | Also known as black weed. Gets you extremely dead, since it contains cyanide. | ||
Lifeweed | Cannabis | 30-50 Endurance, >=30 Potency | Also known as white weed. Contains omnizine. | ||
Omega Weed | Cannabis | >=420 Potency | Gets you extremely high and extremely dead due to the massive amount of poisons and drugs in it. Specifically it contains: atropine, bath salts, capsaicin, cat drugs, crank, ectoplasm, hairgrownium,haloperidol, histamine, itching powder, krokodil, lithium, LSD, methamphetamine, mercury, psilocybin, space drugs, Suicider, and THC. | ||
Chilly Pepper | Chili | Infusion with cryoxadone or cryostylane (optional). | Quite...chilling. Both the chemicals listed can give chilly peppers, but cryostylane has a higher chance of inducing the mutation. In addition to containing cryostylane, eating the pepper directly lowers your body temperature. These are both affected by Potency. | ||
Fiery Chili | Chili | >=75 Potency OR Infusion with El Diablo chili reagent or phlogiston (optional). |
Also known as ghost chilis and ghostlier chilis. Both chems can cause the mutation, but you're more likely to get it with phlogiston. Contains capsaicin. If the the capsaicin doesn't warm you up, the act of eating one of these directly raises your body temperature, with the amount scaling to Potency. If you put these chilis in a still, you get an extremely spicy chem called ghost chili juice. | ||
Magic Mushroom | Space Fungus | Contains psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen. | |||
White Mushroom | Space Fungus | >=30 Potency, <=10 Endurance | Contains a potent mycotoxin. | ||
Cloaked Panellus | Space Fungus | >=25 Yield, <=10 Potency | Cute. Also known as "cloakshroom". Contains cloaked panellus extract. | ||
Omega Slurrypod | Slurrypod | Variously called omega slurrypod and glowing slurrypod. Contains two toxins for the price of one. You really shouldn't eat this... | |||
Synthbrain | Synthmeat | Infusion with mannitol | Grows synthetic brains | ||
Synthheart | Synthmeat | Infusion with blood | Grows synthetic hearts | ||
Syntheye | Synthmeat | Infusion with oculine | Grows synthetic eyes | ||
Synthlimb | Synthmeat | Infusion with synthflesh | Grows synthetic arms and legs. | ||
Synthbutt | Synthmeat | Infusion with simethicone | Grow your own hat! | ||
Synthbuttbot | Synthmeat | Infusion of synthbutt seed with a bot chemical. | Grow your own buttbot! | ||
Synthlung | Synthmeat | Infusion with salbutamol | Grows synthetic lungs. | ||
Synthstomach | Synthmeat | Infusion with charcoal | Grows synthetic stomachs and synthetic intestines. | ||
Synthliver | Synthmeat | Infusion with ethanol | Grows synthetic livers. | ||
Synthspleen | Synthmeat | Infusion with proconvertin | Grows synthetic spleens. | ||
Synthpancreas | Synthmeat | Infusion with sugar | Grows synthetic pancreata. | ||
Synthkidney | Synthmeat | Infusion with urine | Grows synthetic kidneys. | ||
Synthappendix | Synthmeat | Infusion with compost | Grows synthetic appendices. | ||
Free-range Egg-Plant | Eggplant | Infusion with eggnog.(optional) | |||
Steel Wheat | Wheat, Oats | Infusion with iron reagent. (optional) | Use the food processor to convert the ears into iron fillings. Use a reclaimer/material processor on the produce to get...steel. | ||
Durum Wheat | Wheat | A hardy wheat for a hardy palatte, fit for processing into spaghetti | |||
Salted Oats | Oats | Contains salt, can be grinded into bags of salt. | |||
Thumbling Creeper | Creeper | Thumbling creepers, when harvested, periodically roll around the floor until they hit a hydroponic tray. On meeting a tray, they root into the ground, becoming a nasty trap and further spreading creeper onto nearby trays. Running over a rooted creeper throws the person onto the floor and deals damage, akin to a more nasty plasmaglass shard. Slipping or getting thrown into a rooted creeper deals additional damage and destroys the thumbler. Damage dealt scales with potency. They can also be manually be rooted into the ground by using a garden trowel. Rooted thumbling creeper can be removed by using wirecutters. Thumbling creeper seeds normal creeper instead of the mutated version. | |||
Pepper Corn | Corn | Contains pepper, can be grinded into bags of pepper. | |||
Clear Corn | Corn | Contains ethanol. | |||
Rainbow Melon | Melon | The ideal party snack! Full of melonium and fun to throw at people! | |||
Bowling Melon | Melon | >=12 Endurance, see notes. | A melon that you can also use as a bowling ball! Damage scales with more endurance up to a point. Once the plant's surpassed the endurance threshold, this mutation has a 20% chance to occur whenever the plant can mutate, which is actually good since the default chance for other mutations is 8%. | ||
Balloon Melon | Melon | Infusion with either hydrogen or helium. | Not a melon at all, just a regular balloon. Filled with whatever reagents the plant produces. Endurance can help you increase its capacity. Discounting the custom versions made through splicing, they come in two varieties, one with helium, one with hydrogen (aka "hindenballoons" or "hindenmelons"). | ||
Delicious-looking Apple | Apple | >=40 Endurance | Contains capulettium. "Napples" if you will. | ||
Peanutbutter Sandwich | Peanut | Infusion with bread reagent. | |||
Strange Soybean | Soybean | This "soylent chartreuse" contains high-energy plankton, promised! | |||
Money Tree | Tree | Paper tree with >= 30 potency | In space, money does grow on trees. Money grown scales to Potency. Handy shortcut to know: click-dragging a stack of cash on the floor onto a stack of cash in your hand lets you collect all the cash around you and puts it into the stack you're holding. | ||
Rubber Tree | Tree | Infusion with glue reagent (optional). | Contains rubber, the reagent. Where all the synthrubber for the wires comes from. | ||
Sassafras | Tree | Contains safrole. Makes sarsaparilla when put into a still. | |||
Dogwood Tree | Tree | Infusion with aconitine (aka wolfsbane) (optional). | Bark Bark Awoo. | ||
Paper Tree | Tree | Infusion with paper reagent (again, optional). | Creates paper. How direct! | ||
Glowstick Tree | Tree | Infusion with radium. | Creates lit glowsticks, their brightness scales with potency. | ||
Shivering Contusine | Contusine | Contains salbutamol in addition to salicylic acid. | |||
Quivering Contusine | Contusine | Contains Histamine in addition to salicylic acid. | |||
Robust Asomna | Asomna | Contains synaptizine in addition to ephedrine. | |||
Fuzzy Nureous | Nureous | Contains hairgrownium in addition to potassium iodide. | |||
Burning Commol | Commol | Contains phlogiston in addition to silver sulfadiazine. | |||
Bilious Ipecacuanha | Ipecacuanha | Harvests into ipecacuanha roots, which contain vomit, sewage, and bitters in addition to ipecac. Can be distilled into vomit. | |||
Invigorating Ipecacuanha | Ipecacuanha | Harvests into ipecacuanha roots, which contain methamphetamine in addition to ipecac. | |||
Black Venne | Venne | Contains atropine in addition to charcoal. | |||
Dawning Venne | Venne | Also known as Sunrise Venne. Contains mannitol and mutadone in addition to charcoal. | |||
Twobacco | Tobacco | >=30 Potency | Get it? Contains nicotwaine. | ||
Blooming Lasher | Lasher | Tough to harvest, but worth it since the resulting lashberries contain booster enzyme! But because the presence of the enzyme is tied to the plant's Enzymatic gene rather than to the plant itself or the fruit, you need to harvest it first before splicing in order to get hybrids containing the chem. | |||
Smoldering Radweed | N/A | Radweed | Extracts into ClF3. Since it bears no fruit, you need splicing to obtain a fruit bearing the fiery compound. | ||
White Radweed | N/A | Radweed | Completely harmless. Extracts into pentetic acid, though splicing is required to actually get fruit bearing the medicine. | ||
Wholetuna Cordata | Houttyunia Cordata | Literal fish mint. Contains fish oil in addition to mercury. | |||
Jelly Bean | Bean | Grows magical jelly beans that can contains VHFCS and either tasty food related chemicals or something absolutely awful and unsavoury. | |||
Golden Pea Pod | Pea Pod | Grows golden pea pods that can contain Ammonia. | |||
Leaker | Dripper | Contains ???? and oil. | |||
Mocha Coffee | Coffee | >=20 Potency | Contains chocolate. | ||
Latte Coffee | Coffee | >=10 Endurance | Contains milk. | ||
Syreline Plant | Rock Plant | Produces syreline. | |||
Bohrum Plant | Rock Plant | Produces bohrum. | |||
Mauxite Plant | Rock Plant | Produces mauxite. | |||
Uqill Plant | Rock Plant | Produces uqill. | |||
Holo Rose | Rose | Infusion with luminol | Even though these roses are holographic, they can still hurt! Be sure to protect your hands when handling them. These ones like to be named after cyborgs, ghost drones, and AI units. Give one to your local silicon to show your appreciation! | ||
Spiced Pumpkin | Pumpkin | Infusion with capsaicin | Creates a pumpkin that's filled with pumpkin spice latte. Use a spoon on it to turn it into a drinkable beverage, or use a knife on it to make a unique carved pumpkin you can wear around! |
Advanced Gardening for Dummies
Plants are more than just big dumb objects that get thirsty and give you crops. They're complex systems with their own genetics system, complete with splicing, and are intimately affected by chemicals in different ways. Read on to learn about some of the more complicated things you can do with botany.
Extraction
Most plants will give you seeds when harvested, but some don't. Lack of seeds is naturally a problem, because some advanced botanical techniques involve manipulating seeds, and seeds are essential to passing on traits from your agriculturally-engineered plants.
Fortunately, in these cases, you can still get the seeds by inserting some fruits (one or two will do) into the PlantMaster, clicking on it to bring up its computer interface, switching to the "Seed Extraction" page, and clicking "Extract" for the fruit of choice. It's that simple--you even get to see the stats of the fruit.
Note that it is important that you insert an actual fruit. You can't, for example, get cannabis seeds from a cannabis leaf, because the leaf doesn't have seeds.
Infusions
Infusion allows you to directly modify plant traits by adding a chemical reagent to a plant seed, rather than waiting for Mother Nature and the Father Random Number to slowly evolve your seeds. For some seeds, infusing certain plants also has chance to induce a special mutation. Note that infusing a certain reagent doesn't make that plant produce that reagent, e.g. infusing water won't make the fruit of the resulting plant contain water.
Infusions are performed at a PlantMaster Mk3. Click on the PlantMaster with your seed of choice, then a container with the chemicals you want to infuse the seed with, and click on the PlantMaster. (Click-dragging also works.) Go to the "Seed List" page, scroll to your seed of interest and choose "Infuse"; if you have multiple chemicals that could be infused, you get to choose. You should see the effects immediately. Note you need at least 10 units of a chemical to infuse it, and effects don't scale by volume, not that it matters much since you always infuse 10 units at a time.
Each chem does a range of damage to the seed on infusion, increases the chance of failed splicings and reducing the health of the resulting plant. If you try to infuse past 100% damage your plant seed will be destroyed. Let's take saltpetre, for example. You put your seed in the PlantMaster Mk3, and on infusion the plant will be dealt a range of damage from 3 to 7. It also will increase the potency in a range of +2 to +8. It has a chance to increase the yield by up to 2 as well or not at all. Meanwhile, mutadone is a little more interesting in the fact that it will try to raise all stats to zero if they are below zero.
Most of the Reagents available from the GardenGear machine can boost different stats, experiment and see what you like best. If you're interested, here's a table below you can expand to see all the chems you can infuse that actually have an effect, where to get them, and what they do.
Reagent | Source | Mat. Rate | Prod. Rate | Lfspn. | Yld. | Potency | Endurance | Seed Dmg. | Notes & Additional Effects |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ammonia | Ammonia Plant Formula, Quick-Growth Plant Nutrients | +5 – +10 | +2 – +5 | - | - | - | - | +13 – +27 | Good at speeding up plant growth. Has 5% chance to also give Accelerator gene |
Potash | Potash Plant Formula, High-Yield Plant Nutrients | - | - | -2 – 0 | +1 – +4 | - | - | +3 – +7 | Increases size of harvests at cost of plant lifespan. |
Saltpetre | Saltpetre Plant Formula, High-Yield Plant Nutrients | - | - | - | 0 – +2 | +2 – +8 | - | +3 – +7 | Increases amount of chemicals inside each crop and boosts amount of crops you get too a bit. |
Space Fungus | Use a beaker or similar on fungus stains in maintenance or extract from Space Fungus. | - | - | - | - | - | +1 – +3 | +3 – +7 | In addition, has 3% chance of giving Damage Resistance gene. The go-to for increasing Endurance, which makes plants more hardy and is essential for certain mutations. |
Mutadone | Mutadone Plant Formula, Healthy Plant Nutrients | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | +3 – +7 | Essentially attempts to reset stats back to zero, indirectly reversing the effects of chems like unstable mutagen. |
Radium | Chem Dispenser | -10 – +10 | -10 – +10 | 33% chance to -1 – +1 | -2 – +2 | -5 – +5 | -3 – +3 | +8 – +22 | Basically, randomizes plant stats! Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation. |
Uranium | Discount Dan's food products, NPC merchants. | -10 – +10 | -10 – +10 | 33% chance to -1 – +1 | -2 – +2 | -5 – +5 | -3 – +3 | +8 – +22 | Makes plant stats go up and down by random amounts and also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation. |
Stable Mutagen | See Chemicals | -10 – +10 | -10 – +10 | 33% chance to -1 – +1 | -2 – +2 | -5 – +5 | -3 – +3 | +3 – +7 | Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation, with separate 2% chance of granting Unstable gene. One of the safer options for messing with plant genetics and randomizing stats. |
Unstable Mutagen | Mutagenic Plant Formula, Mutagenic Plant Nutrients | -20 – +20 | -20 – +20 | 33% chance to -2 – +2 | -4 – +4 | -10 – +10 | -6 – +6 | +3 – +7 | Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation, with separate 5% chance of granting Unstable gene. Offers mostly minimal seed damage and the highest stat randomization ranges, but with risk of a potentially bad gene. |
Blood | Ask Medbay for some, Stab yourself and scoop up blood with beaker or similar. | +4 – +6 | +4 – +6 | - | - | - | +4 – +8 | +3 – +7 | Hastens growth and makes Man-Eater stronger, but otherwise has no effect on other seeds. |
Toxic Slurry | Extract from slurrypods. | - | - | - | - | - | +4 – +8 | Resets to 0 | Toxic stuff is good for Slurrypod seeds! And only those seeds. |
Green Vomit | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | +4 – +8 | Resets to 0 | Fixes seed damage and boosts endurance of Slurrypod seeds, and only slurrypod seeds. |
Weird Cheese | Extract from weird cheese. | - | - | - | - | - | +4 – +8 | Resets to 0 | Yet another gross chem that clears seed damage and raises endurance of Slurrypod seeds, and only slurrypod seeds. |
Charcoal | Extract from venne, ask Medbay for some. | - | - | - | - | - | - | Sets to 100 | Only applies if seed is Slurrypod |
Pryosium | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +83 – +107 | Firey chems hurt plants. |
Phlogiston | Extract from Burning Commol or see Chemicals. | - | - | - | - | - | - | +83 – +107 | Liquid fire is bad for seeds. What else is new? |
Chlorine Triflouride | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +83 – +107 | ClF3 hates scientists and firefighters, and it hates plant seeds too. |
Sorium | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +83 – +107 | Fun for sending objects flying, but hurts seeds a lot when infused. |
Fluorosulfuric Acid | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +78 – +87 | This powerful acid hurts seeds a lot. Who knew? |
Sulfuric Acid | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +43 – +57 | This common acid is bad for seeds. Were you expecting something else? |
Atrazine | Weedkiller bottles | - | - | - | - | - | - | +53 – +67 | Weedkiller harms weed seeds too (and only weed seeds), less if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Plasma | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Turns out plasma is not good for seeds. Damage is reduced if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Toxin | Rancid milk, certain insect bites. | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Naturally, toxin is bad for seeds. It's not so bad if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Mercury | Extract from fishmint or get from Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Bad for soil, bad for people, bad for seeds too. Toxin Immunity Gene reduces most of the damage. |
Oil | See Chemicals | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Oil hurts the seed. Less damage if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Space Cleaner | Ask the Janitor for some. | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | There is less damage if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Chlorine | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Chlorine hurts you a bit, and it hurts seeds a bit too. Less damage if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Fluorine | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Fluorine damages seed less if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Welding Fuel | Get from handheld fuel tanks and big tanks. | - | - | - | - | - | - | +18 – +37 | Less seed damage if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene. |
Tray Chemistry
Certain chemicals have certain effects that occur every few seconds when they're in inside plant tray. Whilst infusion effects are immediate, tray effects can add up. Due to the funny way BYOND uses numbers, a plant absorbs roughly half the reagents in its tray every while or so, but never actually runs out, like some sort of chemical Zeno's motion paradox. Since chems in trays don't actually scale by unit (e.g. 0.25 units of saltpetre is the same as 250 units in the tray), then given enough time, a batch of chemicals in a tray can have a greater effect than infusing it into a seed.
Different chemicals affect different statistics. Besides the self-explanatory health and the previous discussed Maturation Rate, Production Rate, Lifespan, Yield, Potency, and Endurance, some plants also boost a hidden "Growth" stat that tracks how mature a plant is. Some chemicals also damage the plant, taking away health, and there are different types of damage. This is less like how humans take BRUTE and BURN damage and more like how toolboxes and knives both inflict BRUTE but the first causes it through blunt trauma while the second stabs. RAD and POISON damage can by negated by certain genes, but ACID and FIRE damage cannot be resisted.
While most chemicals don't affect plants that much, many others do. Don't be afraid to experiment and find out for yourself. If you just want to get straight to the data or are pathologically curious, expand the table below.
Reagent | Source | Growth | Health | Mat. Rate | Prod. Rate | Lfspn. | Yld. | Potency | Endurance | Dmg. (Type) | Notes & Additional Effects |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phosphorus | Chem Dispenser | 66% chance of +1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Slightly boosts plant growth speed, not as good as other chems though. |
Ammonia | Ammonia Plant Formula, Quick-Growth Plant Nutrients | +4 | 66% chance of +1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Removes 4 units of chems from tray every few seconds. Specifically it removes a bit from each different chem, but the general ratio of chems will be preserved, and it can't remove all of a certain chem. End-all-be-all for accelerating growth speed. |
Diethylamine | Ammonia Plant Formula + Ethanol + Heat | 66% chance of +2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Midtier plant growth speed booster. |
Potassium | Extract from bananas or get from Chem Dispenser | 40% chance of +1 | 40% chance of +1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Low-tier growth speed and health booster. Before you add it, it's be best to remove the water first, because when water and potassium mix, they explode! |
Ash | Heat up paper or oil in a beaker or similar container. | 80% chance of +1 | 80% chance of +1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Passable for healing plants and speeding up growth, but there're definitely better options. |
Compost | Compost Bag | - | 66% chance of +1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Okay at restoring plant health, but ammonia offers same benefits and more. But it's pretty common. |
Potash | Potash Plant Formula, High-Yield Plant Nutrients | 50% chance of +1 | 50% chance of +1 | - | - | If > 1, 24% chance of -1 | 24% chance of +1 | - | - | - | If plant dies after one harvest, separate 66% chance of -2 GROWTH if GROWTH > 2. More crops per harvest, but plant doesn't live as long. |
Saltpetre | Saltpetre Plant Formula, High-Yield Plant Nutrients | 80% chance of +3 | 80% chance of +3 | - | - | - | If >1, 24% chance of -1 | 50% chance of +1 | - | - | Gives crops bigger volume of chems, but you get less crops per harvest. Also surprisingly good at healing plants and making them grow faster. |
Space Fungus | Use a beaker or similar on fungus stains in maintenance or extract from Space Fungus. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 50% chance of +1 | - | Probably your best choice for boosting Endurance to get specific mutations or make plants more robust. |
Water | Sink, water tank | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Essential for plant growth to occur at all. |
Mutadone | Mutadone Plant Formula, Healthy Plant Nutrients | If >5, 80% chance of -5 GROWTH | - | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | If <0, 50% chance of +1 | - | Attempts to restore plant stats to 0 if they're negative, but inhibits growth. |
Charcoal | Extract from venne, ask Medbay for some. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Removes 2 units of these harmful chemicals: chlorine, mercury, plasma, radium, sulfuric acid,toxin, toxic slurry, welding fuel |
Blood | Ask Medbay for some, stab yourself and scoop up blood with beaker or similar. | +3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 80% chance of +1 | - | Growth speed and endurance boosts occur only if plant is man-eater |
Radium | Chem Dispenser | - | - | 16% chance of -10 – +10 | 16% chance of -10 – +10 | 16% chance of -1 – +1 | 16% chance of -2 – +2 | 16% chance of -5 – +5 | 16% chance of -3 – +3 | 80% chance of +3 RAD | 16% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. Radioactive stuff hurts plant growth and randomizes plant stats, naturally. |
Uranium | Discount Dan's food products, NPC merchants. | - | - | 24% chance of -10 – +10 | 24% chance of -10 – +10 | 24% chance of -1 – +1 | 24% chance of -2 – +2 | 24% chance of -5 – +5 | 24% chance of -3 – +3 | +2 RAD | 24% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. It makes sense a radioactive element would scramble plant stats and sometimes induce new genes and mutations. |
Polonium | Traitors' poison bottles, pill bottles marked ???? | - | - | 25% chance of -10 – +10 | 25% chance of -10 – +10 | 25% chance of -1 – +1 | 25% chance of -2 – +2 | 25% chance of -5 – +5 | 25% chance of -3 – +3 | 80% chance of +5 RAD | 25% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. This radioactive substance is a little better than other elements at scrambling plant stats and causing genes and mutations, but causes more damage. |
Stable Mutagen | See Chemicals | 80% chance of -3 – -1 | - | 16% chance of -10 – +10 | 16% chance of -10 – +10 | 16% chance of -1 – +1 | 16% chance of -2 – +2 | 16% chance of -5 – +5 | 16% chance of -3 – +3 | - | 16% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Unstable mutagen is better in almost every way. |
Unstable Mutagen | Mutagenic Plant Formula, Mutagenic Plant Nutrients | If >1, 40% chance of -1 | - | 24% chance of -10 – +10 | 24% chance of -10 – +10 | 24% chance of -1 – +1 | 24% chance of -2 – +2 | 24% chance of -5 – +5 | 24% chance of -3 – +3 | - | 24% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Like its name suggests, it scrambles plant stats and sometimes causes new genes and mutations. |
Glowing Slurry | Extract from omega slurrypods. | -2 – -1 | - | -10 – +10 | -10 – +10 | -1 – +1 | -2 – +2 | -5 – +5 | -3 – +3 | - | Attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Arguably best of its kind for randomizing plant stats and inducing genes and mutations, with a relatively low growth penalty. |
Atrazine | Weedkiller bottles | -3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 POISON | Damages plant and inhibits growth only if plant is a weed and does not have Toxin Immunity. |
Plasma | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 POISON | Turns out plasma hurts plants, for the most part. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. |
Acetaldehyde | See Chemicals page. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 POISON | This chemical precursor hurts the plant if it does not have Toxin Immunity gene. |
Formaldehyde | Ask Chaplain or Medbay, see Chemicals page. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 POISON | Embalming fluid hurts plants. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. |
Toxin | See Chemicals page | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 POISON | Toxin hurts you a little, and it hurts plants a little too. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. |
Miasma | See Chemicals page | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 POISON | Miasma is harmful for both plants and people. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. |
Acetic Acid | See Chemicals page | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 ACID | It's a weak acid, but it still hurts plants. |
Fluorosulfuric Acid | See Chemicals page | -5 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 10 ACID | As with people and items, this nasty acid wrecks plant health and severely stunts growth. Did you expect anything else? |
Sulfuric Acid | See Chemicals page | -3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 ACID | Not as bad as its fluoro- version, but still hurts plant health and slows growth. |
Phlogiston | Extract from Burning Commol or see Chemicals page | -12 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 8 FIRE | To nobody's surprise, adding phlogiston destroys most plants and acutely stunts growth. |
Phlogiston Dust | See Chemicals page | -12 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 8 FIRE | Just like regular phlogiston, the dust form hurts plant health and growth. |
Napalm Goo | See Chemicals page or notes. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 POISON | Unsurprisingly, napalm is bad for plants, though you might be surprised it poisons them rather than burns them. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. It's also possible to make this if you make some clever splices with seething tomatoes. |
Welding Fuel | Get from handheld fuel tanks and big tanks. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 POISON | Damages plant if it does not has Toxin Immunity gene. |
Chlorine | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 POISON | Hurts people, hurts plants too, if plant lacks Toxin Immunity gene. |
Fluorine | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 POISON | No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene |
Mercury | Chem Dispenser | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 POISON | Mercury hurts plants, who knew? No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene |
Gene Strains
Also known as "traits" or just "genes" or "strains", plant gene strains also affect plants in ways beyond just simple stat boosts. Certain plants can develop certain gene strains whenever they have a chance to mutate, whether naturally or induced through certain chemicals, and some chemicals can induce specific gene strains. Chemicals such as Unstable Mutagen increase the chance of a plant acquiring random gene strains, be it positive or negative. Gene strains can be passed on through splicing as detailed below.
Gene Strain | Source | Effect |
---|---|---|
Toxin Immunity | Can develop in Bean, Carrot, Coffee, Chili, and Pea plants. | True immunity to many poisonous chems. Having certain toxic chemicals in the tray does not hurt the plant, and infusing certain toxic chems does not damage the seed, though it still suffers the usual seed damage due to splicing. |
Radiation Immunity | Can develop in Cotton, Nureous, and Rose plants. | No damage from any radioactive chemicals polluting a plant tray, but other effects can still occur. Radioactive chemicals, specifically polonium, radium, and uranium, cannot harm the plant when the plant's in the tray. However, those chems can still affect the plant's stats/alleles and cause it to mutate, both when they're infused with the seed or sitting in the plant's tray. This also doesn't affect similar chems that emit radiation, e.g. unstable mutagen. |
Unstable | Can develop in Apple and Synthmeat plants OR Infusing seed with stable or unstable mutagen has a small chance of inducing this gene. |
Plant's genetics sometimes randomly changes, with the effect basically like having glowing slurry in the tray. Every so often, the plant has a 18% to potentially acquire a new gene strain (if available from its 'natural' pool), mutate into another form, and/or have its alleles/stats go up and down by certain ranges (specifically: Maturation Rate & Production Rate: -10 to 10, Lifespan: -1 to 1, Yield -2 to 2, Potency -5 to 5, and Endurance -3 to 3). Unstable also randomly lowers and raises quality, and for fungi (and its two mutations) specifically, it can also increases/decreases amount of mushrooms harvested and the amount of health directly healed when eaten by random amounts. |
Accelerator | Infusing seed with ammonia has small chance of inducing this gene. | Plant matures and bears fruit faster with no strings attached. Every few seconds, the plant has a 10% chance to boost its both Maturation Rate and Production Rate by 1. |
Drought Resistance | Can develop in Cannabis, Commol, Ipecacuanha, Tobacco, and Tree plants. | Less damage from wilting, indirectly. As in real life, when the tray runs out of water, plants take damage from lack of water every so often. This gene makes it so the plant takes damage less frequently. |
Fast Metabolism | Can develop in Soybean, Tree, Grape, Gardenia, and Cherry plants. | Doubles the growth rate of the plant. Also doubles nutrient consumption (including water). |
Slow Metabolism | Can develop in Bean, Cinnamon, Coffee, Cotton, Mustard, Pea, Treeplants. | Greatly decreases the growth rate of the plant, but reduces nutrient consumption rate (including water). |
Rapid Growth | Can develop in Bamboo, Wheat, Oat, and Garlic plants. | Increases growth rate without drawbacks. |
Stunted Growth | Can develop in Chili and Banana plants. | Decreases growth rate of the plant. In fact, it can cause a plant to un-grow! |
Enhanced Yield | Can develop in Rice, Hydrangea and Synthmeat plants. | Increases plant yield without drawbacks. |
Stunted Yield | Can develop in Commol, Ipecacuanha, Cannabis, and Tobacco plants. | Decreases plant yield. |
Superior Quality | Can develop in Apple, Pear, Peach, Lavender, and Sugar plants. | The plant acts as if it has 20% more Potency. This doesn't actually raise their Potency, but it does influence effects that scale based on Potency. For example, if you have an apple tree, and it gains this gene strain, their Potency stat won't go up, but apples from it will have more reagents than apples from a tree with the same Potency, but without this gene. If Potency is negative, it still increases the effective Potency, e.g. a plant with -10 Potency functions like one with -8. |
Inferior Quality | Can develop in Tomato and Soybean plants. | The plant acts as if it has 20% less Potency, effectively making it the mirror opposite of the Superior Quality gene strain. While the actual Potency stat stays the same, it does adversely affect interactions that depend on Potency. For example, a money tree with this gene strain produces less cash than one without it, even if it has the same Potency. It works with negative Potency too, so it basically makes negative Potency even worse. |
Splice Enabler | Can develop in Tomato, Orange, and Onion plants. | Seeds with this gene strain are spliced more easily, i.e. have a higher splice success chance. The splice chance increase is additive, meaning that this may enable some splices that are otherwise impossible. |
Splice Blocker | Can develop in Lime and Corn plants. | Seeds with this gene strain have a lower splice success chance. |
Splice Disabler | Seeds of Hydrangea, Bird of Paradise and Gardenia plants start with this gene strain. Temporary Spliceability turns into this after splicing. | Seeds with this gene strain cannot be spliced at all. |
Damage Resistance | Can develop in Bird of Paradise, Cinnamon, Cucumber, Mustard, Potato, and Pumpkin plants OR Has a small chance to arise in any plant upon injection with Space Fungus. |
The plant takes less damage from harmful things, such as toxins and chainsaws. |
Vulnerability | Can develop in Lettuce, Rose, Orange and Nureous plants. | The plant takes more damage from harmful things. |
Variable Harvest | Can develop in Lavender and Hydrangea plants. | This gene randomly affects the amount of harvests the plant has left. Each time the plant is harvested, it rolls a chance to not consume, to increase or to additionally decrease the amount of available harvests.On average this strain results in 20% more harvests out of a plant. |
Mutagenic | Can develop in Eggplant plants. | The plant has a higher chance of randomly mutating (see Crop Mutations). It works by increasing the mutation chance during new mutation checks, which trigger upon infusion with certain chemicals and upon planting of the seed. |
Anti-Mutagenic | Can develop in Carrot plants. | The plant has a lower chance of randomly mutating. |
Poor Health | Can develop in Bamboo, Wheat, Oat, Rice and Grass plants. | The plant continually receives damage from frailty. This damage is not mitigated by e.g. toxin resistance. |
Seedless | Can develop in Grape, Cherry, and Melon plants. | This plant will not produce any seeds, either from harvesting or from extraction. 'Tis a dead end! |
Immortal | Can develop in Banana and Melon plants. | This plant can be harvested an infinite number of times. The plant can still die by other means, such as toxin damage or chainsawing! |
Terminator | Can develop in Garlic, Sugar, and Eggplant plants. | This plant has a small chance to spontaneously die. How rude. |
Stabilizer | Can develop in Creeper, Cucumber, Potato, and Pumpkin plants. | This gene strain prevents plants from randomly mutating. This also protects it against mutation by other sources, such as the Unstable gene strain or mutagenic reagents. On the flip side the plant's stats can no longer be influenced with tray chemistry (infusing seeds still works though). |
Advanced Photosynthesis | Can develop in Corn and Lime plants. | This plant grows much faster in general. If you provide it with enough light, it will grow even faster. |
Hyperaquacity | Can develop in Lettuce plants. | Produce from this plant contains (more) water, scaling with potency. Makes your lettuce even less nutritious. Just kidding, stay hydrated! |
Toxic | Can develop in Onion plants. | Produce from this plant contains Toxin, scaling with potency. A favorite for the chefs and ogres. |
Enzymatic | Develops in seeds harvested from Blooming Lasher plants. | Produce from plants with this gene contains booster enzyme, scaling with Potency. |
Inert | Develops on mutation to a Wholetuna Cordata plant. | Whenever this plant tries to produce chemicals, it has only a 5% chance to succeed at doing so. |
Invasive growth | Can develop in Creeper plants. | This plant will try to kill other sorrounding plants and replants itself, akin to how Creeper behaves. Plants with the inhibited potential or seedless gene strain cannot plant new copies of themselves. Creeper with this gene strain will try to spread more aggressively. |
Overpowering Genome | Always appears in Man-Eater seeds. | This plant is always considered the dominant plant during splicing. In other words, the resulting plant will inherit most of its characteristics from the plant with this gene strain. |
Temporary Spliceability | Always appears in Man-Eater seeds. | This plant can be only be spliced once. Afterwards, this gene strain is replaced with Splice Disabler, i.e. you can't splice it again afterwards. |
Inhibited Potential | Always appears in Man-Eater seeds. | Produce from this plant won't contain any of the following chemicals: ghost chili juice, lithium, and potassium. |
Splicing
Splicing allows you to combine two individual plant genomes together into a entirely new hybrid plant, with the interesting side effect of the resulting hybrid extracting into whatever the parent plants extracted into. This results in things like superherbs that heal burns, fix genetic defects, and remove toxin damage simultaneously; "prank" bananas that explode when eaten; and peanuts so sugary that they put people in diabetic comas. The resulting seed packet will be an average of the color of the two parent seed packets. The splicing process also combines the names of the plants spliced, potentially yielding Amusing & Entertaining (TM) results.
The actual splicing process is pretty simple. To start, click on an PlantMaster with two of your seeds of choice, or click-drag them onto the machine. Then click on the PlantMaster, go to the "Seed List" page, scroll to your seeds of interest, and click on "Splice" for both. You'll get a number describing how likely it is the splicing will go through, and once you confirm you want to proceed with the splicing, you should get a new seed, with a name along the lines of "Hybrid [roughly half of name of one plant][roughly half of name of other plant].
Meanwhile, the mechanics of splicing, especially regarding splicing chance, are considerably more complicated than a few mouse clicks and are described below.
Adapted from a forum post by ISaidNo
Each plant species has a variable called "Genome" which is used to track how similar two species are to one another. Generally two species from the same group (eg fruit, veg, herbs) will have genomes which are close to each other, and thus easier to splice.
When splicing, the formula for your chances is worked out like so:
- Start Splicing Chance at 100%
- Compare the genomes of the two seeds, subtract the lower one from the higher one
- Multiply the sum of step 2 by 10, then subtract that from the splicing chance
- If either seed has damage from infusing, subtract damage amount from splicing chance
- Cap splicing chance between 0 and 100 to prevent bugs
- Perform the check to see if splicing succeeds or not
So, an example.
- You're trying to splice Weed (genome 2) with Synthmeat (genome 7).
- You start with 100% splicing chance.
- Subtract low genome from high genome: 7 - 2 = 5
- Multiply that by 10: 5 * 10 = 50
- Subtract that from the splicing chance: 100 - 50 = 50
Assuming you haven't damaged either seed with infusion, you have a 50/50 chance for this splice to succeed. That's not so good odds, of course. So how can we improve them?
When seeds are successfully spliced, the hybrid has a new genome which is the average of the two, calculated by adding the two plant's genomes together and then halving it. Assuming you successfully spliced Weed and Synthmeat, the new genome would be (from (2 + 7) / 2) 4.5.
What you need to do is chain. The genomes are generally done by group: Herbs have very low genomes, grasses and veg are in the middle, and fruit has very high genomes. Alien plants and weeds have genomes that are all over the place. This isn't a general rule either, there are exceptions here and there! Commol has a genome that's more in the vegetable group than the herb group with it being a root rather than a leaf, for example.
Dominance
All plant seeds have a dominance allele, which determines whether the given seed is dominant or recessive. Dominant seeds have bolded names in the splicing screen, whilst recessive seeds do not. During splicing, one of the two seeds is always picked as the dominant splice seed and the other one as the recessive splice seed. If both seeds are initially dominant or recessive, this is picked at random. The seed resulting from the splice inherits most of its physical properties from the dominant seed, i.e. a dominant potato spliced with a recessive coconut still looks like a potato, distills into vodka, and inherits its alleles (growth rate, potency, etc.) from the potato seed. However, its name will be a combination of 'potato' and 'coconut', any gene strains will be combined into the resulting seed, and any reagents in the coconut plant will also appear in the resulting spliced plant. If both original seeds are dominant or both are recessive, the resulting splice's alleles will be averaged between the two seeds.
Hotboxing
Crops of plants in the "Herb" category can be burnt to release smokepowder-based clouds made from the reagents inside, a process called hotboxing. Generally, this is considered bad practice if it is not contained in a Smoke-Shield Generator or if it is not done in a private area. This may also get you yelled at if not contained properly, especially if the herbs are filled with harmful chemicals.
Under normal circumstances, the number of reagents per burned herb that can become smoke is 20 units. For example, if you burn 13 leaves of cannabis with 50 units of chems inside each one, the resulting cloud has 260 units of chems, not 650; the other 390 units disappear. The Syndicate hotbox lighter bypasses this limit. Additionally, hotboxing herbs is disabled on the shuttle on the RP servers.
Out of this World
Out in the Debris Field, Adventure Zone, and Trench, you can find several strange, truly alien seeds (though, despite the similar appearance and name, they are not man-eater seeds) Experiment!
Grow your own murder plant today!
Man eaters behave a bit differently compared to other plants, not only will they hop out of their trays and eat other peoples once fully grown, you can also modify their stats by taking care of them like the murderous botanist that you are.
First of all, man eaters start with a genome of 12, 120 health, 200 stamina, 10 stamina regen, 25% desorient resist and receives 25% more damage from fire. Also, their movement have a heavy penalty, comparable to someone being drowsy at all time.
In order to make your plants stronger you need to take care of their endurance and potency, endurance increases the health of the plant in increments of 3 for each point while potency increases their stamina by 3 and grants 0.1 extra stamina regen going all the way to 30 stamina regeneration at 300 potency.
Splicing is also different for man eaters, they always have this 3 strains: Overpowering Genome, Temporary Spliceability and Inhibited Potential by splicing a plant containing a chemical with the man eater seed their attack will inject 3+(yield/20)
units of that chem, as long as it isn't one of the blacklisted chems in the Inhibited Potential strain.
You can feed monkeys and humans to the man eater while it is still in their tray! just grab them and click on the plant to feed the creature to them. Every time you give your green friend a delicious snack it will increase their endurance by 20 - 30 points.
Be careful though fire and atrazine are very dangerous to your plants! Of course setting a plant o fire is going to hurt but weed killer works differently against man eaters acting like a proper poison, it deals 3 damage per tick to the plant and has a skin penetration of 0.3 meaning that 1 unit of atrazine splashed on the man eater will convert into 2 damage over the duration.
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