Guide to Xenobotany
A Xenobotanist is a Scientist who works to determine and manipulate the genetics of plants in space. A xenobotanist works in Xenoflora.
Tools
- Nutrients - Feeds your plants.
- Bucket - Used to pour water (or other chemicals) into trays.
- Pest spray - Removes pests from hydroponics trays.
- Mini-hoe - Removes weeds from hydroponics trays.
- Hatchet - Used to chop wood.
- Plant Analyzer - Shows a readout of useful information concerning the plant.
- Hedgetrimmers, Wire cutters or Scalpel - Used to take plant samples.
- Flora data disk - Stores a single gene from a specific plant variety.
It's recommended to ask Robotics for a farmbot - they will provide one if you give them a plant analyzer, a bucket and a mini-hoe, as well as drag a water tank to them. There are plenty of spares around Botany.
Genetics
Plants have twelve genes, labeled and ordered at random each round. Each gene represents a set of traits from the plant:
- Biochemistry: Which reagents the fruit contains; which gases the plant generates.
- Environment: Plant's preferred temperature and light levels, and how much tolerance it has for changes in light level.
- Metabolism: Whether the plant requires water or fertilizer. Whether it alters the ambient temperature.
- Diet: Whether the plant consumes gases in its environment; whether the plant is carnivorous (eats pests) or eats tray weeds; how much water and fertilizer it consumes.
- Pigment: The color of the plant and its fruit; the color of any bioluminescence.
- Structure: The look (icon) of the plant and its products, and whether the plant is harvestable repeatedly.
- Output: Whether the plant produces electrical power or bioluminescent light.
- Atmosphere: The plant's tolerance for changes in temperature and pressure away from its preferred levels.
- Vigour: How long the plant takes to mature and produce fruit. How much fruit it produces. Whether it can spread out of its tray.
- Fruit: Whether the fruit is juicy and will splatter when thrown; whether the plant has stinging spines and will inject its reagents into anyone coming in contact with it.
- Hardiness: The endurance, as well as pest and weed resistance of the plant.
- Special: The ability to teleport the thrower or target when thrown.
A gene label from any given plant represents the same trait across all plants; in other words, if gene F6 represents products (biochemistry) for tomatoes, it will also represent products from ambrosia.
Lysis-isolation Centrifuge
This piece of machinery accepts a seed packet or cutting as well as a data disk. When used to scan a seed, it destroys the seed to reclaim its genetic information, which can be loaded onto a data disk a certain number of times before the stored genome degrades completely.
Bioballistic Delivery System
When loaded with a data disk and a seed, this machine is used to apply the gene stored on the data disk to the loaded packet. It will overwrite the corresponding gene on the target packet. Seeds can only be overwritten a certain number of times before they degrade completely and can no longer be modified.
Xenoflora Chemical Dispenser
The chemicals here can be directly poured into trays from a beaker. Of note are:
- Ammonia and Diethylamine: Both of these serve as fertilizer and are able to heal the plant they're given to. Useful to mix with Radium to minimize the damage to a plant.
- Radium: Induces random mutations in a plant, may force a plant to undergo a change to a subspecies, and directly damages the plant.
- Unstable Mutagen: Causes random mutations, does not cause damage.
Floral Somatoray
This self-recharging device obtained from RnD at a minimal Uranium cost has three settings:
- Induce Mutations: This mode causes completely random mutations, and may possibly force a plant to undergo a change to a subspecies like Radium does.
- Increase Yield: This mode doesn't manipulate the gene of the plant - each shot merely has a chance to cause the plant that's already planted on the floor to yield more fruit, repeatable ad infinitum
- Induce Specific Mutations: This is probably what you wanted this weapon for, or four of them, to begin with. It lets you randomly mutate the specific gene that you want. Right-Click and Select Gene to do so. Useful to identify genes with, and even more useful to induce specific changes to genes that you want.
Be very careful not to use this weapon directly adjacent to a tray. You need to be on Harm intent and at least one turf square away in order to safely fire it at a tray - otherwise it will register as a melee attack and damage the plant.
How to Modify Seeds
- Identify your genes.
- Pick two plants whose genes are very different from each other. Since all the plants from the seed vendors have the same Resistance, Environment, and Consumption genes, it helps if one of the plants is an exotic seed that you've planted and harvested more seed packets from, either through tasking cuttings or by extracting seeds from the fruit. If you don't have exotic seeds, you can mutate an existing species to have genes that are different.
- Have three or four identical seed packets from each species.
- Using the lysis-isolation centrifuge, add a seed packet from Species 1. Analyze the genome (this will destroy the seed packet!). Then add a flora data disk to the centrifuge and copy each gene onto the disk. Eventually, the genetic information in the lysis-isolation centrifuge will be exhausted, and you'll need to add and analyze another Species 1 seed packet. Repeat this until you have a disk for each of the twelve genes.
- Using your plant analyzer, analyze Species 2, and make a note of its characteristics.
- Put a seed packet from Species 2 into the bioballistic delivery system. Add one of your flora data disks with genes from Species 1, and apply the modification.
- Eject the seed packet and analyze it again with the plant analyzer. Note which gene has changed. For example, if the plant from Species 2 now has a trait from Species 1, you know that's the trait you have transferred, and that that's the gene on the disk.
- Label your disk with the gene, or make a note of which gene is which.
- Repeat this with the other five disks, each time making a note of which gene is which. If the modified plant doesn't change at all, you've likely transferred a gene that is identical in Species 1 and Species 2--usually the Flowers gene. Eventually, modifying any given seed packet will no longer be viable; the machine will tell you when that happens. You'll have to switch to a new seed packet.
- Now that you have your genes identified, think about which genes you want to transfer from which plant to which. Typically, with exotic seeds, you'll want to make them viable for growing on the station.
- Vigor is a good gene to transfer to plants that grow or produce fruit slowly. Choose a plant which produces fruit quickly or in large quantities and transfer the Vigor gene to the exotic plant. Vigor genes from a plant that doesn't grow kudzu-style can be transferred to one that does, to make these plants more manageable. (Or you could transfer the kudzu vigor gene to a non-spreading plant; we're not judging here.)
- Environment genes from station-adapted plants will help the target plant to grow on the station.
- Consumption genes from plants that are particularly frugal, or which can eat weeds or pests, can be transferred to plants that don't.
- Resistance genes from resistant plants can be transferred to plants that are vulnerable to pests, toxins, or weeds.
- Bioluminescence can be transferred from one plant to another via the Flowers gene.
- The Products gene is special: Instead of replacing the gene on the target plant, it's added in. Your target plant will now produce two types of fruit, one from the source and the other from the target, and each fruit will contain chemicals from both fruit types. However, transferring a Products gene will result in a generally less vigorous plant with less potent fruit.
Dangerous Plants
Taming Kudzu
Kudzu, and other spreading vines, will spread from their tray into the lab. Given time and open doors, a vine plant could spread throughout the station. It will also entangle people who step into an area with thick growth and may inject any chemicals from its fruit into the people it has entangled. Garden-variety kudzu isn't so dangerous; the dylovene it contains is not toxic. But beware of the vine which contains cyanide.
To control a spreading vine:
- Before you plant, modify a vine-type plant by splicing in a Vigor gene from a plant that doesn't spread.
- Plant a vine-type plant in the isolation area of the Xenoflora lab.
- A hatchet can cut down vines more quickly than most tools.
- Plant-b-gone and other chemicals that kill plants can also kill vines.
- A goat will eat vine plants quickly and effectively (but is also ornery enough to bite you). Order one from Cargo.
- If the plant injects something poisonous, don't be where the vines are. Borgs are safe from poisonous substances.
- If the plant has the trait that makes it very carnivorous, it will drain blood from people it captures in its vines. Once again, don't be where the vines are.
Atmospheric Hazards
Some exotic plants emit gases ranging from nitrogen to phoron. Some of these gases are dangerous only when the plant has created so much of them that the pressure in the room is dangerously high; others are dangerous even in small quantities.
To grow a plant that produces gas:
- Always plant unknown exotic plants in an isolation tray connected to a port.
- Your PDA includes an atmospheric scanner. Pull it up and monitor the air to detect gas-producing plants before you're unconscious or poisoned.
- If a plant produces gas, toggle the tray lid on the tray. This will isolate the tray, but it may not be the kind of environment the plant likes. Plants grown in isolation trays with the lids up will need careful tending and a lot of diethylamine.
- Call for Atmospherics if the problem has gotten bad enough to contaminate the room (an atmos alarm panel flashing orange or red).
- If you were exposed to Phoron gas, leave the room immediately, decontaminate and get to Medical.
Tips and tricks
- Your general-purpose as a Xenobotanist is to find out which gene mask corresponds to which trait and use this info to make bizarre mutant plants.
- You can click a disk in hand to clear the contents and reuse it. You have a limited number so keep an eye on them. More can be ordered from cargo.
- Plants have varied traits. Using a given plant to isolate a specific trait may be worthwhile (ie. kudzu for spread, poppies for flowers).
- Other traits should be fairly easy to find (product trait will cause the target to grow extra fruits, etc).
- When the Biochemistry gene is mutated through chemicals or somatoray will boost or remove 20 from the potency value.
Guide Table 
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