Guide to hydroponics: Difference between revisions

[[File:Hydroponics.png|frame|right|Hydroponics. This is your home.]]

== Basics of Botany ==

[[Hydroponics]] and the [[Botanist]]s who work there are important to the station, especially in longer rounds. Botanists grow plants that the [[Chef]] can use for food. Without botany, the station will have to live off of beef jerky and space twinkies, or starve to death.

=== Your Area ===

Hydroponics is divided into two rooms. The big southern section is where you'll spend most of your time growing goods. Trays and two vending machines, one with seeds and the other with miscellaneous items such as nutriments and tools for your job, are available where you grow plants. The [[#Biogenerators|bio-generator]] can be used to recycle plants and produce things for the station. In tandem is the seed dispenser used to reproduce your product. The northern area is where you can grab most of the equipment needed to work in botany.

* <span style="color:yellow;background-color:white">▮</span>'''Yellow:''' Low nutriment.

* <span style="color:blue;background-color:white">▮</span>'''Blue:''' Low water.

Tools that are of use in botany:

* [[File:Wrench.png]] '''Wrench:''' Used to move your trays around.

* [[File:Plantbag.png]] '''Plant Bag:''' Collects up to 50 items or 100 seeds from your harvest.

* '''Portable Seed Extractor:''' Can harvest and pick up plants and turn up to 100 plants into seeds.

=== [[File:Seed_Extractor.gif|Seed Extractor]] Plants 101 ===

Take some seeds from the vendor and put them into the trays. Make sure to keep them weeded with a cultivator and watered. Some plants have a varied growth times, such as wheat growing faster while watermelons or apple trees take a little longer before you can harvest from them. Sometimes these and other stats of a plant are effected if you ignore them after the light warns you of their status. You have a choice of 5 nutriments depending on if you hacked your machine or not. Once your tray flashes green, you're set to harvest. If you want to replicate the plant to continue growing more, just insert a harvested plant into the seed extractor.

=== [[File:Biogenerator.gif|Bio-generator]] Biogenerators ===

The bio-generator makes items out of the nutriment in plants, such as watermelons and pumpkins which have a 20% nutriment boost trait. To get biomass, grab a spare bucket and equip the machine with it then put your harvest plants inside. Open its interface and process the plants. If you somehow run out of nutriment in the vendors, remember you can print the three standard nutriments here. You can recycle any plant, though if they don't have nutriment like bananas, the efficiency is very low.

=== DNA Extractor ===

A recent addition, this allows you to extract genes and stats from seeds. This is a very useful machine for mass producing plants, saving time and is super easy.  

;How to use

# Go to a locker in the back room and take out the box of plant data disks.

# Put in another seed packet.

# You can now modify the seed's stats and genes based on what's in the plant data disk.

;Useful seeds for maxing production

* '''Potency:''' 50 for [[Guide_to_plants#Towercap|Tower-cap mycelium]] and [[Guide_to_plants#Cotton|Cotton]]

* '''Endurance:''' 50 for [[Guide_to_plants#Lime|Lime]]

* '''Lifespan:''' 60 for [[Guide_to_plants#Whitebeet|White-beet]]

=== Plants ===

There are three types of plants. The biggest category is "normal plants". The much smaller ones are "mushrooms" and "weeds". They are a little different from the normal plants:

* Mushrooms need less light, and suffer less from lack of it.

* Mushrooms don't need water to grow. They still use it, though.

* Mushrooms' yield can't drop to 0. It will always be at least 1.

* Weeds don't suffer from high weed level.

Empty trays can be occasionally overtaken by a weed. Possible plants include:

* 1/6 chance for [[Guide_to_plants#Reishi|Reishi]].

* 1/6 chance for [[Guide_to_plants#Starthistle|Starthistle]].

* 1/9 chance for [[Guide_to_plants#Towercap|Tower Cap]].

* 1/9 chance for [[Guide_to_plants#Plump_helmet|Plump Helmets]].

== Chemicals ==

=== Fertilizers ===

* '''[[Botanist#Fertilizer_types|E-Z-Nutrient]]:''' Makes your plant mutate once every time it's ready for harvesting, and has no effect on the yield.

* '''[[Botanist#Fertilizer_types|Left 4 Zed]]:''' Makes your plant mutate twice, but it will only produce one plant at most - if the plant's yield is 0, then nothing is produced! You'll have to use another fertilizer to harvest the normal yield of the plant.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Ammonia|Ammonia]]:''' Also a fertilizer, same effect as nutriment. Get it from the [[Chemist]] or hack the Nutri-Vend to get this.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Diethylamine|Diethylamine]]:''' A very powerful fertilizer. Twice as effective, meaning 1 unit diethylamine adds 2 units nutrient. Heals the plant AND also kills pests. Get it the same way you get Ammonia.

=== Pest Removal ===

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Pest_Killer|Pest Killer]]:''' Kills pests, and adds a small amount of toxicity.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Weed_Killer|Weed Killer]]:''' Same as above, but for Weeds.

=== Stats ===

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Unstable_Mutagen|Unstable Mutagen]]:''' Used to randomly mutate plants without harming them directly with toxins. Only use 1 or 2 units for optimized results.

* '''Radium and Uranium:''' Same chance to mutate plants, but you need 10 units, they also damage the plant and add toxicity.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Saltpetre|Saltpetre]]:''' Ask the chemists for this, this increases potency and has a chance to increase yield as well.

=== Plant Meds ===

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Charcoal|Charcoal]]:''' Makes your plant less toxic. You can get it by whining to anyone who works in [[Medbay]].

* '''[[Cryoxadone]]:''' Heals your plant, via miracles. Also lowers toxicity. Get it from the [[Chemist]], or find a nice doctor to steal some from cryogenics.

* '''[[Ash]]:''' Heals your plant and adds nutriment. Also kills weeds.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Saltpetre|Saltpetre]]:''' Heals your plant, increases potency and decreases production time.

=== Plant Killers ===

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry#Plant-B-Gone|Plant-B-Gone]]: Seriously damages the plant. Also lowers toxicity by magic and kills weeds.

* '''[[Guide_to_chemistry|Toxins, Acids, Fluorine, Chlorine]]:''' Damage the plant.

* '''[[Guide_to_food#Sugar|Sugar]]:''' Makes pests and weeds grow stronger. Unless you [[Traitor|plan to use some mutagen to unleash giant spiders upon the station]], it's of no use.

* '''Phosphorus:''' Damages plant, drains water, kills weeds and, surprisingly, adds nutriment. If you manage to get your hands on a lot of it, you can use it to kill useless plants without hurting the next plant.

== Advanced Botany ==

Maybe you want to grow something more impressive than the tiny potatoes your plants probably produced. Or perhaps you got unlucky and harvested only one of each. A plant's stats determine all this and more, and true botanists are unafraid to PLAY GOD and change them!

=== Stats ===

Use your plant analyzer on a growing plant. You should get something like this:

You can also scan the growns:

* Plant type: Normal plant

* Potency: 5

* Nutritional value: 1

* Other substances: 0

And seeds (you can also see these stats from inside the seed extractor storage):

These names may be confusing at first. Here is what they all mean:

* Age: Age of the plant. Only relevant in terms of the lifespan stat.

* Endurance: Max health. Between 10 and 100. Not very useful, unless you leave your garden often.

* Production Speed: How fast your plant reaches harvest. Between 1 and 10 -- the '''lower''' the faster. The plant has to wait (Production Speed) age cycles before each harvest.  

* Potency: The most important stat. Between 0 and 100. Basically, this determines plant power. Mostly affects the amount of chemicals in the plant, though some have additional effects, such as stun length for bananas. To get the amount of a given chemical in a plant, multiply the reagent in the chart by the potency: for example, 10% nutriment will be 5 nutriment at 50 potency.

==== Traits ====

Some plants have special traits, that can be transferred through the Plant DNA Manipulator. It is a well-known strategy to make a plan of which plants to grow to extract the traits you need to <s>mass murdering the whole crew</s> supporting others.

* Lighting

** {{anchor|Bioluminescence}}'''Bioluminescence:''' Causes the plant to glow, emitting light equal to 4% of potency. Available in multiple colors.

** {{anchor|Densified Chemicals}}'''Densified Chemicals:''' Doubles the reagent-capacity (that is 100u instead of 50u for most plants), allowing more reagents genes to be effective in a single plant.

** {{anchor|Fire Resistance}}'''Fire Resistance:''' Protects lavaland-plants from fire.

=== Mutations ===

To change the stats, you need to mutate your plant. Keep in mind that mutations are ''completely random'', but you can do a more efficient job depending on how much you're willing to cooperate with other departments.

* Of your starting fertilizers, '''E-Z Nutriment''' makes the plant mutate once every time it's ready to harvest. '''Left 4 Zed''' makes it mutate twice, but you'll have to replace the nutriment to actually harvest something! Finally, regular '''nutriment''' has a very small chance to mutate the plant into a different specie.

** 15% chance of normal stat mutation.

** 20% chance of nothing. You get a message when this happens.

Or, if you don't want to bother with species mutation, pour 2 units for a guaranteed heavy stat mutation, or even 1 for a guaranteed normal stat mutation. This method is mostly safe (if a plant mutates weed growth rate 10 its tray can be instantly overtaken) even if you don't have backup seeds, but you need a dropper/fertilizer bottle for this.

* You can use '''radium''' and '''uranium''', but they cause ill effects, and if you can get radium, you can get mutagen.

* Make sure the plant has a yield of at least 1 before harvest, in case the yield has been changed to 0 by repeated mutations.

* R&D can also make a wonderful thing called a '''Floral Somatoray'''. It has two options: Increase yield and mutate the plant. In yield more mode, every time you fire it at the plant, there is a chance the yield will increase. The chance becomes very small when you reach high levels, but it's very useful for low-yield plants. It can even raise yield from zero! In mutation mode, it will always induce a normal stat mutation.

=== Replica Pod Cloning ===

The [[Guide_to_plants#Replica_pod|Replica Pod]] is a very special plant. It can be used to grow dead people back to life, in the case that genetics is destroyed. To clone someone, follow these simple steps:

# Take a blood sample from the body using a syringe.

# Inject it into the bag of seeds.

## The cloned person will become a [[podman]]. They are a little different from normal humans (They regenerate in light but suffer in darkness).

## If you forgot to inject blood, you will get seeds. There's a chance that it will produce more than one seed, and this chance depends on both luck and the plant's yield.

If you ran out of seeds, remember that [[Guide_to_plants#Cabbage|cabbage]] can be mutated into a replica pod.

=== [[File:Hydrotray upgraded.png]] Upgrading your trays ===

Fertilizing trays with earthsblood (grow [[Guide_to_plants#Details:_Ambrosia_gaia|Ambrosia Gaia]])will slowly upgrade them. You can check the progress by examining the tray. Upgraded trays will glow, need no water / nutrients and be resistant to pests and weeds. They will keep the effect of the last fertilizer, so you might want to use robust harvest before fully upgrading them.

== Other Notes ==

=== Kudzu ===

Usual plant stats affect active kudzu in the specific way:

* Potency of the seed will make kudzu mutate more on spread (The chance to mutate on each new piece is potency / 10).

* Production will affect how fast the kudzu can spread, usual kudzu spreads at a rate of 20% of the amount of pieces per tick but no more than 30, production changes the cap (30 * production / 50) and the percent of processed pieces per tick (20 * (production / 50)).

Killing the last piece of kudzu will create a kudzu seed on its place with all the mutations of the piece saved in the seed, so if you reactivate it new first piece will have all the same mutations the seed has and will spread it to all the progenitors. Kudzu can gain mutations only on spread, here is the list of all of them:

|-

! Mutation

| Makes vines very entangly and spawns harmful flowers occasionally, flowers after destruction spawn flower mob that is agressive and attacks

|}

Adding special chemicals to the tray when the seeds are growing will affect the specific kudzu mutations:

* Adding ''5u'' of '''welding fuel''' will remove random ''positive'' mutation with a ''20%'' probability

* Adding ''5u'' of '''plasma''' will change the potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-15 to 5''

* Adding ''10u'' of '''[[Guide_to_drinks#Holy_Water|holy water]]''' will change a potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-5 to 15''

=== Sandstone and Soil ===

If you grow some [[Guide_to_plants#Grass|grass]] seeds, harvest it and then pick up the grass and use it (click on it in your hand), you will prepare grass tiles. Get a crowbar and remove some floor tiles, then place grass tiles in their place. In addition to looking nice, it can be used to get some sand. Just dig it with your spade and you'll get two piles. Now, pick up the sand and use it; you will make a sandstone brick. Using three bricks, you can make a soil plot, which is like a tray, except you can walk over it and there are no lights. You can also build a sandstone door with 10 bricks.

Science can [[Guide_to_advanced_construction#Hydroponics_Tray|build]] hydroponics trays. They can also upgrade them by replacing the matter bins, and this increases the water and nutrient capacity of the tray.

=== Wood and Drying Racks ===

First you need to get some [[Guide_to_plants#Towercap|tower-cap]] seeds, grow them and harvest them. You can then use a hatchet (and some other things, but it's not important) on the logs to chop some [[Guide_to_construction#Planks|planks]]. They have many uses: You can make chairs, tables, wooden floors and so on. A unique thing here is a drying rack. You can use it to dry a plant, and then smoke it. First, build a rack with 10 planks or find the ones in the botany back room (through maintenance). Then, grab a plant you want to dry and put it in the rack. Click on the rack and toggle drying so that the red arrows light up. Give it a few seconds and it's done.

Note: You can dry ''any'' plant and smoke it to consume all chemicals that were in it. You can smoke dried apples if you want, and get nutriment from them.

=== Things You Can Make Out of Your Plants ===

* Add some cable to a [[Guide_to_plants#Potato|potato]] to make a [[Guide_to_power#Power_Cells|potato battery]].

* [[Guide_to_plants#Glow-berry|Glowberries]] and [[Guide_to_plants#Glowshroom|glowshrooms]], as the name suggests, glow. Use the harvested plant in-hand to plant them on any surface.

* Flowers and [[Guide_to_plants#Ambrosia_vulgaris|ambrosia]] can be worn on your head.

* Add dried [[Guide_to_plants#Ambrosia_vulgaris|ambrosia]], [[Guide_to_plants#Wheat|wheat]], [[Guide_to_plants#Tea|tea aspera]] tips or [[Guide_to_plants#Tobacco|tobacco]] leaves to a [[Guide_to_plants#Towercap|tower cap]] log to make a torch.

[[Category:Guides]]