Botany Buffs and QOL

Development Feedback
1

ITEMS

Big beaker

at start of botany for grinding this allows to grind fruits to see the contents or grind for nutriment and vitamins that heals plants this way if chef isn’t available or service worker you aren’t robbing a big beaker from chem at the start of a round.

CHEMICALS

L4Z buff

Reduce the HP loss This hopefully will encourage more people to use it because they aren’t intimidated by the HP loss also because it speeds up mutations by multiplying them (Means 2or more mutation in a single metabolism of mutagen).

Gasses, cancer, and Kudzu
make it so that using less than 10u of mutagen will never make the plant unviable, kudzu, mandragora and or create freezon this way the low-risk botanists that use 5u at a time don’t have to waste time trying to struggle to make a mutation happen only for it to die, kudzuify or kill them with freezon,

This ensures that low risk botanist can make bare minimum of mutations
without it taking so long and not get cucked by gasses, kudzu, and or cancer
oh and seedless too.

Super Mutation Mode

By going above 10u mutagen you enter super mode where kudzu cancer and gasses are “unlocked” basically your safety net is gone and you need phalxamine, dylovene, Mini hoe spam, internals, etc to solve all the problems that come with cancer, gasses, kudzu to save your super mutant until its ready to harvest a “HARDMODE” Mode if you will, if you manage to keep your plant alive you get to harvest The fruits of your labor and its chemical contents.

OTHER
reduce the metabolism rate from 3 seconds to 2 seconds this should hopefully make the changes from mutagen more immediate and speed mutations up a bit so that you don’t have to wait alone with nothing but your thoughts and existential dread.

Notes:
this should hopefully make botany better for everyone whether you are a high-risk seasoned super mutator or a low-risk botanist that is just trying to do your job and not die with these buffs and changes it will be a better experience for everyone, if anyone have other suggestions do leave them here.

(considering this post is getting absolutely murdered I will think of something else to give better accessibility)

//man I wish i could colour text here to make this easier to read

Alternative
Add an advanced guide in the in-game guide about
how to deal with certain problems
dying plants, gasses, ETC

2

Being entirely honest, most of these changes just remove tiny knowledge checks that any botanist with a good few shifts worth of experience should be able to overcome with little difficulty.

Want a large beaker? Go get Sci/Cargo/Engi to print you one for half a sheet of glass. Though you could just transfer from a small beaker into a bucket if you’re wishing to store the reagents you acquire.
L4Z hp loss annoying you? Use Dylovene to offset it.
Terrible dangerous mutations annoying you? This is part of the process. Removing these would make botany feel alot more stale as you’re just waiting on mutations without anything engaging happening. If the mutation is killing other plants like frezon can you have a spade to remove it. If the plant gains the deathgene, just dose it with Phalanxamine to cure it.

Practically all roadblocks in botany can be avoided / undone with the proper preparation and knowledge, these changes would make botany overall less engaging and less rewarding to get good at.

2 Likes
3

eh.

a roundstart beaker would be nice - it’s kinda inconsistent which stations give you one, and which don’t - but i can’t find myself agreeing with the rest of this. heck, even the beaker isn’t needed that badly - if there’s no chef, you either let yourself in with skeleton crew accesses, ask chem nicely, or go ask cargo. it’s an inconvenience, but a pretty minor one.

the left4zed buff isn’t… really needed? i’ve never actually found that left4zed makes my plants unhealthy. if it did, i’d just ask chem for dylo, or compost some apples into it since nutriment heals plants slightly.

i don’t have anything to say on the “using less than 10u muta cuts out major harmful mutations” idea beyond just… thinking it’s kind of unnecessary. why do we need to remove the difficulty?

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mostly want to improve its accessibility
this idea is basically a training mode/casual mode for more casual botanists
the fastest way is still super mutations but basically it’s like crutch for more casual player it won’t affect any veteran players although because they use more than 10u at a time

5

good point but a majority of players don’t know this nor read the guides in the forums so unless they somehow end up with a veteran player, they are going to have a difficult time to find this information unless the information is built into the in game guides?
(also, Damm you nuked my suggestions to ashes)

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Most this information is in the guide book under service botany. If they safety net 10u was put in it would remove all the diffaculties from botany, Mutagen is extremely powerful and all the ‘bad’ mutations are the price you pay for it.

Without Gas, kudzu or death trait, you can very-very easily get Koi and Deus getting Oppo without issues. If you want an easy mode, dont use muta, sure you’ll never have Koi, or deus. but you will also never have to handle the dangers of it, and you can use robust harvest for lovely 50-potancy, as long as you remember they are now seedless and clip.

1 Like
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oh shit I didn’t noticed the guide updated my bad