Guide to hydroponics

Flower Power
Hydroponics and the Botanists who work there are important people on the station, especially in longer rounds. Botanists grow plants, obviously. Without plants, the Chef cannot make many types of food. Without those types of food, the denizens of the station will either have to live off of beef jerky and space twinkies, or starve to death. Now that you understand why this is important, let's get started!

Plants
Here is a chart with the types of plants you can grow, in case you forgot.

Growing The Afforementioned Plants


First, locate the hydroponics trays, sometimes referred to as "planting pots". this is where you will be planting the seeds. Take a seed in your hand, and click the pot. You will then get a message saying "you plant the seed in the pot.", or something along those lines. You can only plant one seed per pot. If you click the pot with an empty hand, you will get a basic analysis of the plant, and the nutrient and water level of the pot. Here is an example:

This pot has [plant] planted.

Water: 75/100

Nutrients: 8/10

This is an easy way to identify the plant, if you are not familiar with what they look like. It is also a good way to check on new species that have found their way into the "farm". If this happens, you will get a red message that says soemthing like "hydroponics tray has been overtaken by [plant]!". This can be good, bad, or a combination of both. Best case: a few Liberty Cap spores lodge themselves in the tray, and you get super duper high. Worst case: generic weeds. These grow very fast and serve no purpose as of now. All they do is take up space (get it? cause you're growing stuff on a space station?).

An example of a useful weed (not the smokable kind), is the humble nettle. Nettles are a very useful plant, and a powerful weapon if grown properly. If you play the Botanist and get picked to be a Traitor, then do not fret. Just wait for some nettles to show up in your garden and kill those targets with FLOWER POWER! Nettles are poisonous to begin with, but with skillful harvesting and increases of the Potency level, the nettles can deal a lot of damage, and have a very high knockout chance. However, they only can be used a few times before they leaves fall off and leave you with nothing.



Invasion of the Pod People
Hydroponics get a very special type of seed, Replicate Pod Seeds. These are experimental, genetically engineered plants that grow (physically deformed) human beings. They are easy to grow, but take time just like cloning some one in a cloning pod.

How do I potato people?
Using a replication pod is simple! Just follow the following steps:
 * 1) Find a dead person who is in need of cloning.
 * 2) Take a blood sample with a syringe.
 * 3) Inject a seed pack with the blood sample.
 * 4) Plant the seeds.
 * 5) Tend to the plants water and nutrition levels until it is time to harvest the cloned human.

Most of the time, crew members cloned via Replica Pod will be identical to their former selves. However, they can occasionally reborn more plant than man, their skin being covered by vegetation.

Do NOT attempt to recreate this effect during a critical situation. Replica Pod seeds are very limitated, since you cannot get some from already grown Replica Pods. If you require more pod seeds, plant them without any blood injected into it, you can potentially harvest more than one seed pack from it. It is recommended to use any nutrient but Left 4 Zed on Replica Pods, as they might die before harvest comes due to their short lifespan.

Remember: Potato people create the most succulent and delicious of mashed potatoes. If you happen upon one, grab your fork.

Caring for your Vegetable Friends
Mushrooms: Just feed these fertilizer, don't need to water them.

Weeds: Just water them, they don't need plant food. Nettles are considered weeds.

Everything else: Feed them water AND Fertilizer.

The hydroponics tray will warn you of any issues with your plants with colored lights.


 * Green Light: Ready for harvest
 * Blue Light: Low water
 * Yellow Light: Low nutrients
 * Red Light: Low health
 * Red/Blue Flashing Light: Alert: Weeds/Pests/Toxins

To fix the water problem, take your bukkit, fill it with water at one of the water tanks or sinks inside the farm, and pour the appropriate amount of water onto the plant. You can simplify this task by changing the amount of water used per transfer. To do this pick up a bucket, or stand next to a water tank and type "Set transfer amount" into the chat, or go to the "Object" tab and click "Set transfer amount". If a pot is full of water, you will not be able to add any more and the excess will splash onto the floor.

To fix the nutrients, replace the solution using the nutrient dispenser, then taking the vial and clicking on the tray. Only do this if the tray needs nutrients. The easiest way to be a Failmer (Fail Farmer) is to replace the solution when there are 9 units left. The excess fertilizer dissapears forever, and the dispenser has a finite supply.

Weeds can be removed by clicking on the tray while holding a mini-hoe in your hand. Keep clicking until you see the message "This plot is completely devoid of weeds. It doesn't need uprooting.".

If a plant is dead, a single click will empty it from the tray. If your tray decides to sprout some annoying harebell or unwanted crops, a few sprays with the Plant-Be-Gone will kill it, albeit rather slowly.

Your Badge of Office
Don't forget to prioritise the creation of your badge of office, the Pumpkin Hat. Grow a pumpkin, and then use the Hatchet from the back room to carve your heraldic visage into the vessel. Then don the symbol of your people, and go about your business with pride.

Chemicals, Wonderful Chemicals
Certain chemicals do special effects on plants and mushrooms. Either it kills, heals, feeds, or mutates the plant.

Things that you should feed your plants
Unstable Mutagens: Will either effect the potency, kill the plant, or change the plant's species. Does not add toxicity to the water. This is how Ice Peppers are made. Whine to and/or robust the Geneticist/Chemist to get some of this.

Radium: Lower chance to mutate plants, and causes more ill effects (and toxicity to the plant).

Nutriment: A fertilizer. You can get it from the Chef

Ammonia: A more pure fertilizer. Get it from the Chemist or hack the Nutri-Vend to get this.

Diethylamine: A very powerful fertilizer. Get it the same way you get Ammonia.

Anti-toxins: Makes your plant less toxic. You can get it by whining to anyone who works in Medbay

Cyroxodone: Heals your plant, via miracles. Get it from the Chemist, or find a nice doctor to steal some from cryogenics.

These will kill your plants
Toxins: DUH.

Acids: DUH.

Go Forth and Procreate
This section is about making new plants from existing ones. Remember, the seed dispenser will run dry very early into the round. And if you ask the QM for a seed crate, he will most likely laugh in your face and kick you in the dick for being stupid. So to make more seeds, you will need the help of Mr. Seed Extractor.

This little box (located next to the NutriMax) is your best friend in long rounds. It is possible to use your leet Hacking skills on the seed dispenser to get more, but these are all either poisonous or full of space drugs. To extract seeds from a plant, pick up a plant product (Fruit, Vegetables, Shrooms, etc.). Then, click the seed extractor. You will then get 1-4 bags of seeds or mycellium from the product. Then, dump out the contents of one of those shiny hydroponics crates you have, and put the extra seeds inside. This will keep them neat and organized.

If you don't want to waste one of your pretty green boxes, steal a crate from the Cargo Bay, or those pointless rooms right next to the mining dock. If a new species sprouts in your farm, keep it alive so you can make seeds from it and grow more.

Analyzing the Analysis
Upon selecting the Botanist, you will find that your apron contains a handy-dandy Plant Analyzer. You use this to get a highly detailed analysis of the targeted plant. The readout looks like this:



'''Age: How old the plant is. When a plant's age equals it's lifespan, it dies.'''

Endurance: The higher this is, the lower the water and nutrient levels can get before the plant dies.

Lifespan: How long the plant will live.

Yield: The maximum amount of product it will produce in it's lifespan.

Production: How many products it will produce at once.

'''Potency: The FLOWER POWER the plant posesses. If it is a chili, this equals hotness or coldness (for ice peppers). For shrooms, this       equals toxicity. For drugs, this equals how long it gets you high. For Nettles, this equals damage dealt.'''

The analyzer also shows you the status of the pot. Weeds and pests can be remedied by hoeing or a few squirts of Pest Spray. Toxicity is important for shrooms, because it tells you how deadly it is. The water and nutrition levels are self-explanatory.

Maximizing the Benefits


A correct botanist will harvest two or three times what he sowed. A good botanist will have his plants produce so much right-clicking on a tile will cause a mini-lag. But becoming the first station food provider doesn't come with luck. The educated businessman knows how to use what he possesses to take the maximum out of it.

To make tons of food, you need fertilizers. Nutri-Vend gets you some, but not enough to build your long-term farming empire. Here comes in action your Biogenerator. This fella accepts any kind of plants (but no Nettles because it'd be too easy), and can make meat, milk, fertilizers and anything leather-related (including tool-belts) out of the biomass it brews. Most botanists relies on unwanted plants, such as Amanita Flies, to fill it up, but we do not seek such pusillanimous spirits here.

Plant some watermelon seeds, and feed them with Robust Harvest. All plants produce the same biomass, watermelon are now more useless than ever. To get a huge amount of biomass, plant an apple tree, give him a Robust Harvest, and take the resulting harvest to the Biogenerator. Turns the biomass into Robust Harvest, and voila, you have completed the cycle of mass production.

On the Origin of Mutant Tomatoes
Forcing your plants to take the next step on the slippery stairs of Evolution is one of the funniest activities you'll experience as a Botanist. The joy you'll feel when your first glowing abominations will pop out of their sprouts! The surprise on your colleagues's faces once walking mushrooms will have invaded Captain's quarters!

Tools for playing amateur geneticist, sadly, aren't on your possession at the beginning of the round. Go ask chemists for Unstable Mutagen in bottles (or they'll cry back at you for not returning their precious Beaker). If you're lucky/persuasive, R&D will provide you with a Floral Somatoray, which emits precise amounts of radiation to mutate your vegetal friends even more efficiently. In case of reluctance, pretend the Chef asked you to.

If you went for the Chemist's way, take a Syringe from your dispenser, fill it with Unstable Mutagen and inject it directly into the plant you want to mutate. Mutations are entirely random: it may affect the pests, the weeds, or even kill your plant. It's recommended to inject minimum doses (5 units) so that you don't spoil 30 units of Mutagen in killing your Apple Tree, since a succesful mutation doesn't depend of the amount of Mutagen injected. A mutated plant will grow as a new mutated one, thus the growing cycle will go back to its initial state; don't try your mutations when the plant is already fully grown, it'll only be a waste of time (except if you want to, say, harvest Chilis to make new Chili seeds before trying to turn it into Ice Peppers).

Weeds and pests can mutate too. The latters won't grow into anything serious, but weeds can, and the new mutated plant will annihilate the seeds you previously put here. So use that hoe and that Pest-spray before doing anything serious.

Hey Kids, Try This at Home!
