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 |
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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 result in plants that 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 at 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, 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 catering staff 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 |
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Plant Analyzer | Provides you with a report of a plant's genes, its current condition, the presence of any mutations and other information. The functionality is also built into your PDA. |
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Watering Can | Actually just a glorified beaker with a maximum capacity of 120 units. Often requested by Scientists and other people working in Chemistry. |
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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. |
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Chainsaw | An electric chainsaw to keep weeds in check. Passable emergency weapon, but not very durable. |
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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:
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Seed Fabricator | To unlock the more interesting seeds (notably cannabis), you'll have to mess with the wires (and for the record, this is a fabricator, not a vending machine, so you'll have to toggle a white light.) The required tools can be found in Tool Storage. A hand-held version may be acquired by hacking the GardenGear vendor. |
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GardenGear | Most basic tools and plant formulas are available from this vending machine. |
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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. |
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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. |
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CheMaster 3000 | See Chemistry. |
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Compost Tank | Converts unwanted or excess produce as well as seeds into compost. Use drag & drop to stuff them into the tank. |
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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. |
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UV Grow Lamp | Makes all plants with two tiles (i.e. a 5x5 square-shaped area of effect) grow faster. Click it to turn it on and off. |
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Botanical Mister | Adds a few units of whatever reagents stored inside it into any surrounding trays. 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. It's not in Hydroponics at roundstart, except on Destiny and Clarion, but you might find one of these in an semi-abandoned satellite not too far from the Mining Outpost. |
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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. |
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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. |
In addition, there are a number of plant formulas at your disposal, in a variety of bottles.
Icon | Name | Description |
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Weedkiller | Also known as atrazine. As the name implies, it will quickly spell the end for any uninvited guest like lashers or space grass. |
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Compost | This basic additive improves the plant's health over time. Can be refilled at, you guessed it, the compost tank. |
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Ammonia | Some plants grow slowly, so a bit of ammonia can speed up the process. Just be prepared to water them more often. |
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Potash | This is the chemical to go for if you want large harvests, but it will likely shorten the plant's lifespan. |
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Saltpetre | Saltpetre tends to have a good effect on the crop potency and is particularly useful for medical herbs, cannabis and chili. |
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Mutagenic | 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. |
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Mutadone | 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. |
Numerous other reagents also affect plant health or growth in some way:
- Phosphorus - Phosphorus slightly accelerates plant growth, though not nearly as much as ammonia does.
- Potassium - Adding potassium boosts plant health somewhat and makes it grow a little bit faster.
- Ash - Ash slightly boosts both plant health and growth.
- Diethylamine - Diethylamine helps plants grow faster, more than phosphorus but still less than ammonia.
- Space Fungus - Fungus makes the plant extra hardy & more resistant to the aforementioned poisons. Many plant mutations also involve reaching certain levels of endurance.
- Glowing Slurry - Glowing slurry slows down plant growth slightly and immediately induces a mutation. Surprisingly, this doesn't damage plant health very much.
- Stable Mutagen - On plants, it's less likely to cause mutation than unstable mutagen but is more likely to dampen plant growth.
- Radium - Radium can cause a plant to mutate, but, unsurprisingly, irradiates it, damaging the plant.
- Uranium & Polonium - For hopefully obvious reasons, these radioactive substances damage plant health and have a fairly high chance of inducing mutations.
- Fluorosulfuric Acid - As with people and items, this nasty acid wrecks plant health and severely stunts growth. Did you expect anything else?
- Sulfuric Acid & Hydrochloric Acid - These acids also hurt plant health and slow growth, though not as much as fluorosulfuric acid.
- Phlogiston & Phlogiston Dust - To nobody's surprise, adding phlogiston destroys most plants and acutely stunts growth.
- Acetaldehyde, Acetic Acid, Chlorine, Fluorine, Formaldehyde, Mercury, Napalm, Plasma, Toxin, Welding Fuel - Unsurprisingly, all these chems poison the plant, decreasing its health. Formaldehyde, chlorine, and fluorine are the worst among them.
- Charcoal - Charcoal gradually removes any harmful chemicals in the plant tray.
Chemicals change plant traits when they're in a hydroponic tray or used in an infusion. Infusion immediately changes the plant's traits, so if you're hankering for triple-digit potency weed right then, right now, it's often better to stick with infusions. On the other hand, 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 up their effects (e.g. 0.25 units of saltpetre is the same as 250 units in the tray), then given enough time, adding a chemical into the tray can have a greater effect than infusing it into a seed.
Available Crops
Most of these seeds are readily available from the Seed Fabricator, but a few require a little hacking to access.
Name | Crop Icon | Plant Icon | Type | Harvests | Time | Genome | Notes |
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Grape | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 20 | |
Orange | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains orange juice. |
Melon | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 19 | Contains water, unsurprisingly. |
Carrot | ![]() |
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Food | Once | Average | 16 | |
Lemon | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains lemon juice. Clearly. |
Lime | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 21 | Contains lime juice, as you'd expect. |
Apple | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 19 | Contains apple juice. Heals 1 unit of TOX, BURN, BRUTE, OXY, and BRAIN per bite. |
Banana | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 15 | Contains potassium. Yummy. |
Strawberry | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains strawberry juice. |
Blueberry | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains blueberry juice. |
Cherry | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 20 | Contains cherry juice. Not blood, really! |
Avocado | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 18 | |
Pumpkin | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Slow | 19 | Make your own lantern! |
Eggplant | ![]() |
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Food | Variable | Average | 18 | Contains nicotine. |
Cucumber | ![]() |
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Food | Once | Average | 19 | |
Garlic | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Average | 13 | Contains holy water. Not recommended for vampires. |
Onion | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Average | 13 | |
Lettuce | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Slow | 12 | |
Potato | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Average | 16 | Makes great French fries, batteries and captains. Also spawns as a trinket. |
Coconut | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 19 | Contains coconut milk, which is distinct from regular space milk. |
Pineapple | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 21 | Contains pineapple juice. Don't get in it your eyes. |
Coffee berries | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 6 | Extracts into...coffee. |
Synthmeat | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 7 | Contains synthetic flesh. If you could make it into patches, Medbay will love you. |
Corn | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Average | 10 | Processes into popcorn. Contains corn starch. |
Soybean | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 7 | Processes into milk. Conveniently contains space soybean oil. |
Chili | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 17 | Processes into hot sauce. Contains capsaicin. |
Tomato | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Average | 18 | Processes into ketchup. Contains tomato juice. Not blood. |
Peanut | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Average | 6 | Processes into peanut butter. |
Wheat | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Fast | 10 | Processes into flour. |
Oats | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Fast | 10 | Processes into oatmeal. |
Sugar Cane/Sugar | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Once | Fast | 8 | Processes into sugar. Contains, you guessed it, sugar. (What else would it contain?) |
Rice Sprig | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Fast | 8 | Processes into rice. |
Beans | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Fast | 6 | Contains nitrogen. Eating it allows fart propulsion in Space! |
Pear | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Slow | 19 | Can be fermented into cider. |
Peach | ![]() |
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Ingredient | Variable | Slow | 17 | Contains peach juice. May contain The Presidents of the United States of America song references. |
Cotton | ![]() |
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Other | Variable | Average | 5 | Processes into fabric when used in a material processor. |
Tree | ![]() |
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Other | Variable | Slow | 20 | Chainsaw the resulting log to get your very own barricade. |
Bamboo | ![]() |
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Other | Variable | Slow | 10 | Produces bamboo stalks, which can be cut down to produce edible shoots. |
Contusine | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains salicylic acid. |
Asomna | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains ephedrine. |
Nureous | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 3 | Contains potassium iodide. |
Commol | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 16 | Contains silver sulfadiazine. |
Venne | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Contains charcoal. |
Mint | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Fast | 1 | Contains, as you'd expect, mint. |
Tobacco | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Fast | 2 | Contains nicotine, naturally. |
Catnip/Nepeta cataria | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Extract catonium to synthesize cat drugs. |
Poppies | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Fast | 1 | Extracts into morphine. |
Cannabis | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Fast | 2 | Make your own joints by combining a leaf with a sheet of paper. |
Aconite | ![]() |
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Herb | Once | Average | 1 | Contains aconitum. Wards aways and smites werewolves. |
Rose | ![]() |
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Flower | Once | Fast | 7 | Every rose has its thorn, and the ones on these might prick you if you pick them up while not wearing gloves; use wirecutters to remove them. Every rose has a name too; Examine it to find it! |
Space Fungus | ![]() |
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Weed | Infinite | Slow | 30 | Contains, as you'd expect, space fungus, which is great for boosting endurance. |
Grass | ![]() |
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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 | ![]() |
Weed | 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 | Emits radiation, affecting nearby plants and people. |
Slurrypod | ![]() |
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Weed | Once | Average | 45 | Will explode if not quickly harvested, spreading toxic goop. Contains toxic slurry |
Man Eater | ![]() |
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Critter | Once | Variable | 0 | Will climb out of the pot once grown enough. |
Houttyunia Cordata | N/A | ![]() |
Houttyunia Cordata | Once | Average | 1 | Fish mint, contains mercury. |
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:
Mutant | Crop Icon | Plant Icon | Species | Prerequisites | Info |
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Seething Tomato | ![]() |
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Tomato | Infusion | Tomatoes with an explosive flavour. |
Suspicious Tomato | ![]() |
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Tomato | Infusion | Crikey, aggressive vegetables. |
Tomacco | ![]() |
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Tomato | Infusion | Edible cigarettes! Contains super-addictive amounts of nicotine. |
Green Grape | ![]() |
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Grape | Heals twice the amount of regular grapes. | |
Grapefruit | ![]() |
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Grape | Get it? Contains grapefruit juice. | |
Blood Orange | ![]() |
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Orange | Contains changeling blood in addition to orange juice. Peculiar. | |
Clockwork Orange | ![]() |
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Orange | Endurance | An orange that is also a chronometer, how practical. |
Rainbow Weed | ![]() |
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Cannabis | Gets you extremely high. | |
Deathweed | ![]() |
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Cannabis | Endurance, potency | Gets you extremely dead. |
Lifeweed | ![]() |
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Cannabis | Endurance, potency | Contains omnizine. |
Omega Weed | ![]() |
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Cannabis | Extremely High Potency | Gets you extremely high and extremely dead. |
Chilly Pepper | ![]() |
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Chili | Infusion (optional) | Quite...chilling. |
Fiery Chili | ![]() |
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Chili | Potency Infusion (optional) |
Extremely spicy! |
Magic Mushroom | ![]() |
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Space Fungus | Contains psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen. | |
White Mushroom | ![]() |
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Space Fungus | Endurance, potency | Contains a potent mycotoxin. |
Cloaked Panellus | ![]() |
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Space Fungus | High Crop Size, Low Potency | Cute. Contains cloaked panellus extract. |
Glowing Slurrypod | ![]() |
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Slurrypod | Contains two toxins for the price of one. You really shouldn't eat this... | |
Synthorgan | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Synthmeat | Harvests can either be synthbrains, synthhearts, syntheyes or a combination of all three. | |
Synthlimb | ![]() |
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Synthmeat | Grows synthetic arms and legs. | |
Synthbutt | ![]() |
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Synthmeat | Grow your own hat! | |
Synthbuttbot | ![]() |
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Synthmeat | Infusion (synthbutt seed) | Grow your own buttbot! |
Free-range Egg-Plant | ![]() |
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Eggplant | Infusion (optional) | |
Steel Wheat | ![]() |
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Wheat, Oats | Infusion (optional) | Use the food processor to convert the ears into iron fillings. Use a reclaimer/material processor to get...steel. |
Durum Wheat | ![]() |
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Wheat | A hardy wheat for a hardy palatte, fit for processing into spaghetti | |
Clear Corn | ![]() |
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Corn | Contains ethanol. | |
Rainbow Melon | ![]() |
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Melon | The ideal party snack! Full of melonium and fun to throw at people! | |
Bowling Melon | ![]() |
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Melon | Endurance | A melon that you can also use as a bowling ball! Damage scales with more endurance up to a point. |
Balloon Melon | ![]() |
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Melon | Infusion | Not a melon at all, just a regular balloon. Filled with whatever reagents the plant produces. Endurance can help you increase its capacity. |
Immortal Melon | ![]() |
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Melon | Can be harvested an infinite amount of times. | |
Delicious-looking Apple | ![]() |
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Apple | Endurance | Contains capulettium. |
Immortal Banana | ![]() |
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Banana | ||
Strange Soybean | ![]() |
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Soybean | Contains high-energy plankton, promised! | |
Money Tree | ![]() |
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Tree | In space, money does grow on trees. | |
Rubber Tree | ![]() |
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Tree | Contains rubber, the reagent. Where all the synthrubber for the wires comes from. | |
Sassafras | ![]() |
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Tree | Contains safrole. Makes sarsaparilla when put into a still. | |
Dogwood Tree | N/A | ![]() |
Tree | Bark Bark Awoo. | |
Paper Tree | ![]() |
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Tree | Creates paper. How direct! | |
Shivering Contusine | ![]() |
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Contusine | Contains salbutamol in addition to salicylic acid. | |
Quivering Contusine | ![]() |
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Contusine | Contains curare in addition to salicylic acid. | |
Robust Asomna | ![]() |
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Asomna | Contains methamphetamine in addition to ephedrine. | |
Fuzzy Nureous | ![]() |
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Nureous | Contains hairgrownium in addition to potassium iodide. | |
Burning Commol | ![]() |
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Commol | Contains phlogiston in addition to silver sulfadiazine. | |
Black Venne | ![]() |
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Venne | Contains atropine in addition to charcoal. | |
Dawning Venne | ![]() |
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Venne | Contains oculine, mannitol and mutadone in addition to charcoal. | |
Twobacco | ![]() |
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Tobacco | Get it? Contains nicotwaine. | |
Blooming Lasher | ![]() |
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Lasher | ||
Smoldering Radweed | N/A | ![]() |
Radweed | ||
White Radweed | N/A | ![]() |
Radweed | Completely harmless. | |
Wholetuna Cordata | ![]() |
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Wholetuna Cordata | Literal fish mint. |
Advanced Gardening for Dummies
The PlantMaster Mk3 is a powerful tool for the dedicated botanist. Instead of relying on Mother Nature and hoping for the best, you can tweak genetic traits with better precision. To this end, the machine is equipped with three distinct modules:
- A seed extractor.
- An injector to infuse seeds with chemicals provided by a beaker or other container.
- A splicing apparatus to create hybrids of the same or two different species.
Extraction
In case you don't already have seeds with the DNA of a particular plant, insert some fruits (one or two will do) and switch the computer to the extraction mode. It's that simple.
Infusions
Infusion allows you to directly modify plant traits by adding chemical reagents to plant seeds. Most of the Reagents available from the GardenGear machine can boost different stats, experiment and see what you like best. Here are the listed stats for the basic plant chems.
Reagent | Mat. rate | Prod. rate | Lifespan | Yield | Potency | Endurance | Damage |
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Ammonia | +10 to +5 | +5 to +2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 to 26 |
Saltpetre | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 to +2 | +2 to +8 | 0 | 3 to 7 |
Space Fungus | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 to +3 | 3 to 7 |
Potash | 0 | 0 | -3 to 0 | +1 to +4 | 0 | 0 | 3 to 7 |
Unstable Mutagen | -19 to +19 | +20 to -17 | -2 to +2 | -4 to +4 | -10 to +10 | -6 to +6 | 3 to 7 |
Mutadone | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | If < 0, +1 | 3 to 7 |
Each chem does a range of damage to the seed on infusion, If you try to infuse past 100% damage your plant seed will be destroyed. lets take salpetre 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. Mutadone is a little more interesting in the fact that it will try to raise all stats to zero if they are below zero.
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 mechanics of splicing 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.
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!
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