Make xenoflora a science subjob, and mutative fertilizer

[Midaychi]

 

Xenoflora being part of xenobio is my fault for being too lazy to figure out how to add science subjobs. I was actually the first to add the map changes, and made that ugly ass area near virology that got eventually moved southeast, so now I am here to appeal to the much less lazy forces of justice.

 

Xenoflora was both originally designed on bay and originally meant by its designer Zuhayr to be a science subjob, and have access to the wide array of things that science can provide such as the floral ray, toxins, and the research outpost chem dispenser.

 

It was also meant to be added on because its modularity made adding new mutants easy, but that hasn't happened much yet. It's the reason the gas system exists for xenoflora though; it is technically possible to mutate plants into having different atmospheric and temperature needs than normal plants and it is entirely possible to close tray lids and wrench them onto port connectors for this very purpose.

 

So, TL;DR xenoflora benefits a lot more from being wedged into science instead of xenobio and made part of the science id level, and xenobio does not detriment much from removal of such from xenobio.

 

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Second part of this suggestion is not something in Zuh's original designs, but I think it would be neat; A goon-like mutative fertilizer. Basically one or maybe two (or more I guess if you want to get fancy) variety/(ies) of plant fertilizer that when used, apply gradual and somewhat random mutative effects to the plant in the tray.

 

Paradise's code for xenoflora and bay's code for xenoflora diverged a while ago, and paradise got some custom mutation and such handling.. so as a result it's a pain in the donkey to accomplish any mutations on paradise in comparison because you're basically flushing mutagen down a tiny tray-shaped toilet and hoping some of it sticks in the .1 miliseconds it has to take effect before vanishing into the ether, whereas bay trays have a reagent resivour and trickles it down into the tray.

 

(As clarification of above, yes I know with some basic effort you can get the mutant variants just fine. That's not what I'm referring to. Playing the random luck slot machine on bay to get some of the more advanced conditions available to transfer over on gene disks is hard enough, but paradise's custom changes make it near impossible unless you have a fully upgraded portable chem dispenser on hand. It just requires that much in magnitude more of unstable mutagen vs bay due to the gradual march of diminishing mutative returns and the aforementioned tray-toilet that grace paradise.)

 

 

TL;DR, Fertilizer version of unstable mutagen that can't be used for making neon rainbow tajarans and maybe can be only got via being produced in the biogenerator for points. Would make covering the station in walking mushroom kudzu 33% easier.

 

[Fj45]

 

Biggest issue with mapping xenoflora properly is that currently, research is very dense and doesn't really have much room to work with. To place it where bay already has it would mean remapping toxins.

 

An alternative may be to move it all the over to where RnD used to be while the break room existed. I will have to have another look at that area though.

 

[Midaychi]

The research outpost would work too wouldn't it?

[Sparkyninja]

People always seem to ignore toxin's testing. Why not remove that massive testing waste of space, have a bomb teleporter to some "far off" test area and use the space for something more productive (Such as Xenobotany)

[Plotron]

 

Because then we wouldn't have thumpy thumps with people panicking and repeatedly requesting AI to find the cause of the explosion.

 

But to be honest: toxins testing is a one-time affair. Once you put a hole in there, it becomes kinda useless.

 

[Fj45]

 

Outpost is too isolated and having xenoflora there would make it even more of a bloated, unbalanced labyrinth.

 

One possibility is to keep xenoflora in xenobio but turn xenobio into an overall science job. Just a thought though.

 

[belarion]

 

Perhaps placing xenobotany where the toxins storage room is now (just below robotics) could work?

Its not like any of the canisters are ever used anyway, and we could always stick a similarly sized storage in the empty space between toxins mixing and the shuttle dock if people really miss their N2O.

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

An alternative may be to move it all the over to where RnD used to be while the break room existed. I will have to have another look at that area though.

 

I think this would be a great idea, especially if we make xenoflora a more general science job and not simply a subsection of xenobiology. It will place them closer to the research area where they would be able to obtain their Floral Somatorays (and the Advanced version when I finish making it), while also making it more visible to the scientists (which would hopefully lead to it being more used).

 

and hoping some of it sticks in the .1 miliseconds it has to take effect before vanishing into the ether, whereas bay trays have a reagent resivour and trickles it down into the tray.

 

When I reworked our botany, I looked at Bay's current version of botany. I tested out their version which, as you explained, holds the reagents longer and spreads the effect out over time. However, one thing I disliked about their system using this was the lack of apparent control and the extreme randomness it caused. While I acknowledge that the mutation system should feel uncontrollable to a degree (you literally are dumping a radioactive goop in and seeing if it changes), I felt their system wouldn't be a solid fit for our style of play.

 

True, obtaining specific conditions such as bio-luminescence is difficult, but I hesitate to say it is any more difficult here to obtain them than it is on Bay. While our system will only produce 1 mutation with 5 units and theirs may produce up to 3, the chances of said mutations occurring is quite different.

 

One thing that confuses me is your assertion of there being some sort of diminishing returns? Apologies if I misunderstood your meaning, but the system does not have diminishing returns on the mutations. The chances will not change based on the number of previous mutations (or attempts), and increasing the dosage actually increases the chances due to the tier system that was created for the rework. The only times that the chances (for a given amount of mutagen) are lowered is if the mutation modifier (increased with Left 4 Zed) is lowered.

 

However, I do like your idea of a fertilizer mutagen, and I am quite tempted to experiment with implementing such an addition. This would definitely use a system more akin to Bay's current version, prompting multiple mutations over time instead of the more instant effect that our system uses. It would likely be a sort of dual-function reagent that replenishes nutrients while sparking mutations, and making it available in the biogenerator wouldn't be too outlandish in my mind.

 

If you would like, I'd be more than happy to discuss this topic with you further, as well as work with you to develop botany / xeno-botany further. Adding new plants and mutants is also something I would like to look into, and would I feel collaboration on such would be a great idea.

 

[Midaychi]

 

That's odd. When I tried it, I found I needed 5 units to trigger a mutation, but it'd start requiring 10 (and you had to use 10, if you put 5 in and waited a second and put 5 in again it wouldn't trigger) and it'd just start requiring more to trigger a mutation. I'd have to use a new plant to not end up dumping entire beakers on it.

Maybe I was just high or something.

 

[Fj45]

I might have a think about getting xenoflora in where the RnD lab used to be, might need to move emergency storage somehow...

[FalseIncarnate]

 

That's odd. When I tried it, I found I needed 5 units to trigger a mutation, but it'd start requiring 10 (and you had to use 10, if you put 5 in and waited a second and put 5 in again it wouldn't trigger) and it'd just start requiring more to trigger a mutation. I'd have to use a new plant to not end up dumping entire beakers on it.

Maybe I was just high or something.

 

The Tier system that I implemented does use different mutation chances based on the volume of the mutagenic reagent.

 

For unstable mutagen, the lowest chance Tier (Tier 1) is 1-5 units, with 6 units being the start of Tier 2, which would explain why 10 units seemed much more effective than 5 (because it is). When you dropped back to 5 again and tried twice, you were using the lower Tier's chances again, which would explain the apparent lack of any effect. Radium has larger ranges for the Tiers, so you'll need more of it to trigger higher tiers than you would if you were using unstable mutagen.

 

It wasn't a case of diminishing returns, it was simply a game of chance that felt like diminishing returns due to the significant differences between Tier 1 and 2 mutation chances.

 

For the record: There are 4 Tiers for mutagenic reagents. Tier 3 is the lowest one that can result in a species shift. All chances are increased by the mutation modifier stat given by Left 4 Zed. It is possible to reach 100% chance on Tier 1, though this requires gallons of Left 4 Zed.

 

I've been avoiding openly posting the exact specs of the system, but you can either PM me for them or decipher the code for them if you wish.

 

[Midaychi]

 

So something like this?

 

[Fj45]

 

No need for the table into escape, if possible the shuttle shouldn't be touching the windows, emergency storage is now maybe a little large and I would recommend you change the layout of xenobio a little more.

 

Otherwise, nice job.

 

[Midaychi]

Xenobio is in that picture? D:

[Fj45]

Shit, sorry, xenoFLORA.

[Midaychi]

 

Squish? I thought about making it curve around so it could fit more trays, but it'd look silly.

 

Alternatively I could find somewhere else and split it into two rooms. One for the machines and equipment and another for the trays

 

 

[Fox McCloud]

I'll see what I can do about mapping this in below toxins. It means that toxins will have to be completely re-done, but I'm ok with; it's overly complex right now and takes up gigantic amounts of space.

[Midaychi]

Woh. Hold on there before you start remapping toxins. Paradise probably has the best toxins area of any station I've seen because it actually allows you to use the actual equation to blow things up (2 moles of plasma to 1 mole of oxygen at 100 degrees centigrade). This is because the freezer and the heat exchanger loop make it super easier. If you go appeasing the church of the holy hot co2 exhaust and frozen oxygen by simplifying toxins then it'll never be the same.

[Midaychi]

But in actual seriousness do what you want with toxins. The above was (Mostly) a joke. Really what we need is a device that heats and cools tanks put in it directly, put it in a 4x4 closet next to the canister freezer and you could remove 90% of toxins mixing including the furnace. Just make toxins mixing into a tank temp changer, that freezer and a connector port, a tank of plasma and a tank of oxygen. And a closet of transfer valves. Bam.

[Midaychi]

 

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/97

 

I tried stuffing it into the research outpost and it kind of worked.

 

[Plotron]

Too bad Fox went with his own version.

[Fox McCloud]

 

Too bad Fox went with his own version.

 

It's actually not; it's Bay's version; they designed the whole Xenoflora job+mechanics, so I deferred to their expertise on it.

 

Toxins is the only thing that's my own design.

 

[Fj45]

I may end up making the entire thing far smaller....bay isn't always very strong in map design.

[Midaychi]

 

Yeah that layout works too.

 

Wish someone would port the random seeds in exotic crates over from bay, and maybe implement the random seed thing for flora reconstitutor fossils. It's a shame that paradise's atmos is incompatible with new-zas, cause' a lot of the fun atmos-related mutations are commented out.