Guide to Xenobiology

Xenobiologists are in charge of the creation, care, and eventual culling and harvesting of 'Slimes', which are extremely dangerous to handle without the right equipment.

Familiarize Yourself

Generally speaking, you and your slimes will be at a remote facility, far from the main station, referred to as Xenobiology. It has many cells to place your slimes inside of, where they cannot get out without some serious effort. Each cell has a disposals chute, used to safely give food to the slimes inside the cell without endangering yourself, as well as a button to lock down that specific cell, in case the glass breaks or you have something even more dangerous than a slime inside. Elsewhere, you should have a Processor machine, which is used to harvest dead slimes and recycle food.

Get equipped

You'll need these items to do your job.

• A fire extinguisher, to efficiently kill slimes. Some slimes might also light you on fire. For best use, move the slime into a corner so all the water hits them.
• A syringe, used to inject various fluids (generally Phoron, blood, or water) into Extracts, which you obtain from processing dead Slimes.
• A slimebaton, which functions similarly to a stunbaton, however it is only effectively against Slimes (and Prometheans). One hit will stun the slime for a few seconds, and will discipline it. A slime baton can be used to build a slime securitron, which is very useful if you're the only Xenobiologist but there is a friendly Roboticist onboard. More slimebations can be made in Research and Development.
• A Slime Taser, which like the above, functions similarly to a normal energy weapon, however it is only effective against slimy things like Slimes and Prometheans. The stun duration is smaller than the Baton, however it can be used at range, and across window panes. Like the baton, more can be made in Research and Development.
• Galoshes, which prevent you from slipping on wet surfaces. The fire extinguisher makes the floor wet, and not wearing these can be extremely dangerous if you slip while a slime is trying to eat you.
• Welder and welding helmet. Useful for minor self repairs that will be inevitable, if you or your co-worker is a Full Body Prosthetic or Bound Synthetic. Also useful for mending the cracks on the cell windows, as slimes tend to smash them if they see food on the other side of the window.

Optional but highly useful things to acquire to make your job easier.

• A slime securitron, from Robotics, which is optimized to fight slimes and other minor xeno-lifeforms.
• A medibot, also from Robotics, to heal you from minor harm the slimes may do to you, as the closest medical bay might be far away or even off-world.
• A temperature gun, from RnD. It can kill slimes at a range when set to the 'cold' setting, and can replace the fire extinguisher.

Basics of Slime Care

When you start your shift, you should have two grey colored slimes in different cells. They will most likely try to escape their cell to eat you or your co-worker, so feel free to use the xeno taser to stop them. One of these cells should be dedicated to growing grey slimes, so you will have a renewable source of monkey cubes. If you run out of monkey cubes, you will need to get more from Cargo, which could take awhile.

When your 'grey' cell slime reproduces, you should always ensure that one grey slime is always alive inside, and kill or separate the rest into different cells. It is a good idea to keep one grey extract in reserve in case all of your greys are lost, for whatever reason, as injecting a grey extract will create a new grey slime.

Cells should never have more than one color of slime inside, as they tend to fight each other and it can be difficult to tase them due to other slimes being in the way.

Some colors are more useful than others, for instance;

• Dark Purple, obtained from going (Grey > Purple > Dark Purple) or (Grey > Orange > Dark Purple), allows for a renewable source of phoron. You start with two sheets, which gives 40u of liquid phoron when ground up, or 8 injections. Generally, the more useful reactions from extracts require phoron, so Dark Purple is a good goal to work towards early.
• Blue, which is just one step from Grey, will give you two useful things. Slime stability agents reduce the odds of mutation when a slime reproduces, which you should give to your dedicated Grey slime until the chance goes to 0%, to increase the average yield of monkey cubes as well as to prevent the rare but possible situation of all four new slimes not being Grey anymore. Blue slimes also give you Frost Oil, which isn't terribly useful on its own but can be very useful when paired with a Metal Slime, for reasons explained below.
• Metal, which like Blue, is one step from Grey. Metal slime extracts allow for most types of metal material to become renewable, which includes steel, plasteel, gold, silver, uranium, and platinum. One extract creates 20u metamorphic liquid metal, which will turn into a different type of liquid metal (e.g. liquid gold, liquid silver, etc) when it torches them in a reagent container, like a beaker. Liquid metals are not very useful on their own, but can be made into a solid sheet of material by adding 5u Frost Oil to the reagent container. The Frost Oil is consumed when this is done, and 20u of liquid metal makes one sheet. Frost Oil is obtained from Blue slimes.
• Purple, which is like Blue and Metal, one step away from Grey. The extract can make a Slime Steroid Agent, which when applied to a living slime, will increase how many extracts it will make when put in the processor.
• Cerulean, which is obtained from (Grey > Blue > Dark Blue > Cerulean) or (Grey > Purple > Dark Blue > Cerulean), will create Extract Enhancement Agent, which adds more uses to an extract. This is extremely useful, as less slimes need to be breed to produce a given number of things.
• Red, which is obtained from (Grey > Orange > Red), will make a Slime Mutation Agent, which increases the odds of mutation when slimes split. Useful for if you're targeting a specific color, as higher odds for mutation mean less generations are needed to get there.
• Yellow, obtained from (Grey > Orange > Yellow) or (Grey > Metal > Yellow), can create self recharging 10k power cells, which are very useful for Bound Synthetics, Hardsuits, Defibs, certain APCs, and potentally anything that uses power cells.
• Pink, obtained from (Grey > Blue > Pink), can be used as a source of healing, both while alive, as well as when using their extracts. The extracts can produce three different kinds of advanced medications, which Medical might want. The medications can fix organs, fix bleeding, or fix bones, depending on what is injected into the extract.
• Light Pink, which is one step from Pink (Grey > Blue > Pink > Light Pink), can be used to make a specific slime be friendly and harmless forever, which might be useful to use on a Pink slime, so you can replace a medibot.
• Sapphire, obtained from (Grey > Metal > Gold > Sapphire), is how you get Prometheans. The extract gives you a slime cube, which creates a Promethean if it can find another player who wishes to play as one.

Slime Protection

Slimes can kill you in many ways, dependent mostly on their color. Wearing the correct armor when handling a specific color can make survival much easier. Xenobiology has been provided with a large range of specialized clothing to wear, when the need arises.

• Bio Suits, which prevent damage from slimes trying to eat you. Note that slimes will wise up to this and instead try to glomp you to death instead. A bio suit will also stop slimes from spreading certain chemical-based attacks onto you.
• Fire Suits, as the orange slime can ignite you, and the dark purple slime can release Phoron gas if killed improperly.
• Bomb suits, as the oil slime explodes if killed improperly (hit with fire).
• Radiation suits, as the green slime is radioactive. It is also thick enough to protect from slime chemical attacks.

Slime Life-cycle

Slimes start their life as a small baby. Don't be fooled, it is still very dangerous and capable of killing anyone careless. Slimes require food, or else they will die. Starving slimes have been known to turn on their captors.

When fed enough, baby slimes will grow into an 'adult' form, which makes them tougher. When the slime eats enough as an adult, it will reproduce, by splitting into four new slimes. There is a small chance that one or more of the new slimes may mutate into a different color. If this happens, the mutated slime should be isolated from its siblings, as they will fight each other to the death if they are separate colors. A slime taser is useful for this, as it can shoot through the glass of the cell.

Slime Psychology

Discipline

Slimes can be subjugated by force by various means, with the easiest way being the slimebation. The slime will give a sad face, however it won't harm humanoids for a little while. If it was trying to kill something, it will stop doing so.

Successfully removing a slime from someone it's eating will also discipline it.

Beating the slime with a heavy object repeatively will sometimes discipline it, however this is not guaranteed.

Obedience

Giving 'justified' disciplining to a slime will cause it to become more obedient, making future disciplining last longer. Sufficient amounts of obedience can make discipline last forever. Note that slimes in that state are still dangerous, as they will still defend themselves against attackers.

An act of discipline is 'justified' when it is done while the slime is trying to harm or eat someone, otherwise it is 'unjustified'.

A slime securitron will automatically engage 'guilty' slimes, but leave innocent ones alone.

Resentment

Giving 'unjustified' disciplining to a slime will cause the slime to hold resentment towards their captors. If pushed too far, the slime will enrage, and try to kill everything it can see, so try to not be like Security.

Sometimes it is possible to calm down a raging slime with enough disciplining, however it is generally easier and safer to just kill it with a slimebation and fire extinguisher.

A slime securitron engage an enraged slime in a fight to the death, not stopping until the slime dies, or the securitron is destroyed.

Speech

Slimes appear to be capable of slow, simple speech, and will respond to various topics and requests that it hears.

If a slime likes you enough or is sufficiently obedient, it can be given certain commands, such as to follow you, to stop attacking/eating/following things, or to attack a specific target. You'll need to say the slime's 'name', or say 'slimes' to give the command to all the slimes that can hear you.

You can also say hi to them, and they will respond.

Tactics

All slimes have various means to harm things. The most common attack is a 'glomp' which will hurt whatever it hits, and will hurt more if the slime is a big one. Some slime colors will cause a substance to enter your bloodstream if it successfully hits you. Sufficiently thick clothing should stop that from happening.

A more dangerous 'attack' is that the slime may decide to attach themselves onto their victim, which is how slimes eat things. This causes severe cellular damage to the victim, and will require advanced medical treatment to fix, so you are advised to remove the slime from yourself or your co-worker ASAP if it latches on. A slime securitron will rush to you if this happens to you. Slimes won't try to eat inorganic entities, instead glomping them.

Slimes can also incapacitate its target in two ways. First, it can try to knock down its target by shoving them down, which stuns for a brief moment, however it is not guaranteed to work. Second, it can use stored up electricity to shock a target to stun them for a longer period of time. After downing a target, a slime generally will try to eat it if it's organic, or continue glomping it to death if not.

Friend or Foe

Slimes will never willingly harm another slime of the same color, or a Promethean. When under the effects of discipline, a slime will not try to fight or eat humanoids or robotic entities, but will still eat monkeys.

A slime pacified with a slime docility agent will never harm anyone and is incapable of doing any harm. Pacified slimes will also never enrage, even with a red slime extract.

An enraged slime will ignore the effects of discipline.

Slimes Biology

Slimes come in many colors, and most of them have unique properties. Their extracts will do different things depending on the color, as well. Slimes will attack slimes of a different color, so separating them with different cells is required.

When slimes reproduce, there is a chance that one or more of the offspring will mutate into a different color. The chance is usually at around 25%, however this can be increased or deceased by giving the slime a mutation agent or stability agent, which can be obtained from a red extract and blue extract, respectively.

Each color, except for the grey slime, will have a specific trait unique to that color, and may warrant additional preparation before handling. A list of slime colors is provided below.

Tier 0

Grey Slime

Tier: 0
Threat Level: Medium
Special Abilities: N/A
Recommended Preperations: N/A
Grey slimes are the first slimes you will have, as you start with two. It's generally recommended to always have a cell with grey slimes, as their extracts create monkey cubes, which you will need a lot of.

Extract creates a fresh grey slime when injected with phoron, which is useful as a backup in case all your specimens die or all your greys mutated.

Extract creates monkey cubes when injected with blood.

Tier 1

Orange Slime

Tier: 1
Threat Level: Medium
Special Abilities: Increases flammability of targets per hit, chance to ignite per hit
Recommended Preparations: Wear a firesuit
Orange slimes can light you on fire if you're careless, however generally this is not a big deal as you have a fire extinguisher (you did bring one right?). If you want to be extra safe, wear a fire suit.

Note that if an orange slime can trigger the dark purple or oil slime's effect.

Extract will create smoke when injected with water.

Extract will create a phoron fire if injected with phoron.

Purple Slime

Tier: 1
Threat Level: Medium
Special Abilities: Injects toxins per hit
Recommended Preparations: Wear a biosuit
Purple slimes inject a weak but long lasting toxin into their victim with each attack. A thick armor such as a biosuit or spacesuit will stop this from affecting you.

Extract will create a slime steroid agent when injected with phoron, which is a potent chemical mix that causes a slime to produce an additional extract when processed. It needs to be alive for the steroid to be applied.

Blue Slime

Tier: 1
Threat Level: Medium
Special Abilities: Injects cryo-toxin
Recommended Preparations: Wear a biosuit
Blue slimes chill their enemies with cryo-toxin, so a biosuit will keep that away from you. Don't wear a winter coat, it isn't thick enough to stop the injection and it will actually make it take longer to warm up, potentially making the cryo-toxin lethal.

Extract will create a slime stability agent when injected with blood, which reduces the odds of mutations by 15%, and carries through across generations. Useful for your grey slimes so they stay grey forever.

Extract will create frost oil when injected with phoron, which can solidify certain liquid metals like liquid iron, gold, silver, etc. Five units frost oil and twenty units of a metallic liquid will make one bar of solid metal, consuming the frost oil in the process. Some foods also call for frost oil in their recipe.

Metal Slime

Tier: 1
Threat Level: Medium
Special Abilities: More durable, resistant to weak weapons
Recommended Preparations: N/A
Metal slimes are harder to kill by virtue of being able to take more punishment before dying. They are one of the few slimes able to survive a dark blue extract cold snap. They otherwise aren't much more dangerous than a regular grey slime.

Extract creates 20 units of a metamorphic liquid when injected with phoron, which when combined with other metallic liquids (such as liquid iron, gold, silver, uranium, phoron, etc), will turn into the liquid it touches. This makes metallic liquid renewable, and metallic liquid can be converted to more useful solid metal with frost oil.

Extract creates 20 units of binding liquid, which is used to create 'alloys', without the intense heat. This is used to create liquid steel and liquid plasteel.

Tier 2

Yellow Slime

Tier: 2
Threat Level: High
Special Abilities: Shoots lightning, charges electricity faster
Recommended Preparations: Out-range slime with slime taser, wear insulation if possible
Yellow slimes are one of the few slimes to possess a ranged attack. Be warned, the lightning can go through the glass of its cell, so the blast doors may be required. The lightning technically has a very high range, but slimes will only fire it if they are between two to three meters from their target. Yellow slimes don't fire lightning when in melee range (their glomps actually hurt more, however).

Extract will create an object that can be used as a large powercell, with a capacity of 10k. Unlike regular power cells, these will unconditionally self recharge at a slow rate. Useful for APCs, Defibs, and Synthetics. It cannot be used as a substitute for device or weapon cells.

Extract will create an EMP when injected with blood, as strong as a regular EMP grenade. The user is not immune to the EMP blast, so be careful.

Extract will create an object which glows with yellow bio-luminescence when injected with water.

Dark Purple Slime

Tier: 2
Threat Level: High
Special Abilities: Injects phoron per attack, creates phoron fire if killed with fire
Recommended Preparations: Wear a biosuit
Dark Purple slimes inject phoron into its target, which is extremely toxic, so a biosuit is required.

Extract will create liquid phoron when injected with water.

Dark Blue Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a burst of cold after a short time. This would be useful for killing slimes in an area around you, for example if you had incautiously activated a red slime extract. However, the burst is not strong enough to kill even a baby slime.
• Potential Children: Dark Blue, Purple, Blue, Cerulean
• Potential Parents: Dark Blue, Purple, Blue

Silver Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a brief flash of light (does not stun, but does white out the interface for you and others nearby). When the flash ends, it leaves behind a small number of random food items which can be literally anything edible, from the mundane to the exotic--including things like brain burgers, death berries, or even an appendix.
• Potential Children: Silver, Blue, Metal, Pyrite
• Potential Parents: Silver, Blue, Metal

Red Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates Slime Glycerol.
  • Blood: Makes nearby slimes rabid. Has some fun uses. Slimes will still pay attention to "friend" designations, and will not attack you if they consider you one.
• Potential Children: Red, Oil
• Potential Parents: Red, Orange

Green Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates one unit of mutation toxin, which can be drawn back out of the used extract with a syringe. Make sure to isolate this toxin with the help of a chemist friend - the syringe will also draw out slime jelly, another toxin that will gib you in a matter of minutes! Injecting yourself with the mutation toxin (alone, as you isolated it, right?) will turn you into a slime-(wo)man, and slimes will see you as one of their own and never attack you. Keep in mind though that you are no longer technically human (though not necessarily a threat) as far as the AI and Cyborgs are concerned.
• Potential Children: Green, Black
• Potential Parents: Green, Purple

Pink Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a bottle of docility potion, a potent chemical mix that will nullify a baby slime's powers, causing it to become docile and tame and letting you name it. You too can have your own pet, just like the HoP!
• Potential Children: Pink, Light Pink
• Potential Parents: Blue, Pink

Gold Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Spawns 1-3 hostile creatures! Any hostile mob that exists in the code that isn't blacklisted (e.g. human mobs, robot mobs, bugged/unfinished mobs) has a chance to spawn. You can use this to learn about creatures that might otherwise only appear during events, or to have a chance to obtain resources normally not available without events like Xenomorphs or Space Carp. This is very dangerous, so ensure a well armed Security Officer is close by.
  • Nutriment: Same as Phoron, except the mods are guaranteed to also try to eat you after they finish kicking the shit out of you or you lie down and accept your fate like the preyslut you are.
  • Blood: Spawns 1-3 neutral creatures! These lovable pets can also include hostile mobs which have had their faction changed so they won't attack the crew! Be careful, because they'll still attack some things like piloted mechs, robots (not Cyborgs), and any mob whose faction is not set to neutral, including your other slimes. Mobs that provide useful resources will not be possible to spawn in this way, because that would make it too easy.
• Potential Children: Gold, Adamantine
• Potential Parents: Metal, Gold

Bluespace Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Will teleport anything in the room not nailed down to a random beacon in the world.
• Potential Children: Bluespace
• Potential Parents: Yellow, Bluespace

Sepia Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a camera. How? Slime Magic!
  • Blood: Creates some film for a camera. How? More Slime Magic!
• Potential Children: Sepia
• Potential Parents: Sepia, Dark Purple

Cerulean Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a bottle of extract enhancer. When used on a extract it triples the amount of uses it has. You can start laughing madly now.
• Potential Children: Cerulean
• Potential Parents: Cerulean, Dark Blue

Pyrite Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates some paint. For the love of all that is holy, don't give it to the clown! There are no clowns. Moving on.
• Potential Children: Pyrite
• Potential Parents: Silver, Pyrite

Oil Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates an explosion after a moment.
• Potential Children: Oil
• Potential parents: Oil, Red

Black Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Randomly creates between 1 and 50 pieces of a random mineral. It also has a 1/1000 chance to explode, and a 1/10 chance to do nothing at all. Pay attention and keep your distance when working with black slime cores. If it begins to vibrate violently, run.
• Potential Children: Black
• Potential Parents: Black, Green

Light Pink Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a bottle of docility potion. Docility potion is a potent chemical mix that will nullify an adult slime's powers, causing it to become docile and tame. Your pet is bigger than the HoP's!
• Potential Children: Light Pink
• Potential Parents: Light Pink, Pink

Adamantine Slime

• Inject the extract with:
  • Phoron: Creates a rune that can summon an adamantine golem, a player-controlled construct that will follow its creator's orders. If no player is available for the golem, the rune will fizzle, but can be re-used.
• Potential Children: Adamantine
• Potential Parents: Adamantine, Gold

How to make an efficient slime farm

• First of all: Get that extinguisher and kill one of the two baby grey slimes. This ensures that in the case your slimes die, or if they mutate into colors you don't like, you are assured to have a backup grey slime extract available to start over.

• Soak a monkey cube in water and feed it to the slime by putting the monkey in the disposal. Engage the disposal and maintain line of sight to the slime while it eats the monkey. This will ensure the slime and further ones that come from it will not try to eat you, as you will be in their "friend" list (this list is also copied down to slimes that are born from it).

• Keep your slimes well-fed. If they are hungry enough, they can and will start destroying their enclosure windows, and may even escape. Each enclosure includes shutters that can be closed if your slimes get fractious.

• Don't run out of monkey cubes. For long-term experiments, this means maintaining a line of grey slimes in addition to whatever experimental breeding you are doing.

• Be prepared for injuries. Even slimes that see you as a "friend" may still glomp you, causing physical damage and possibly breaking bones, and if they are hungry enough or don't see you as a friend, they will attempt to eat you, causing genetic damage. It's advisable to keep your suit sensors on full (tracking beacon included) so that Medical personnel can find you if you are unconscious. Genetic damage is not visible on the sensors, but physical damage is, and if Medical is paying attention they will see you getting hurt. If you are too hurt to get to Medical, yell over comms. It will take them a while to get to you, since Xenobiology is behind several locked doors, but it's better than dying while your slimes smugly watch you bleed out. Xenobiology includes a simple first-aid vendor, which can help you treat minor injuries or stay alive longer after major ones.