Proposed change - Merge chemistry and botany

[Tlaltecuhtli]

Bottom post of the previous page:

well have botany and a public garden so if there is no botany you can still fertilize plants with poo and grow meth

[oranges]

Why the fuck do people use "slippery slope" like it isnt a literal textbook logical fallacy.

Oh yeah, just like I said adding lizards as a round-start race is a slippery slope, and look where are we now? But it's ok, you're too young to remember that.

they already need to work together to get the best chems, this just makes working together no longer impossible

Yeah, it's just killing inter-departmental interaction. Don't we have a thread about cargo irrelevance already?

inter departmental interaction should be about working together to acheive advanced cool stuff, as it is right now botany relies on chemistry to do anything cool and chemistry doesn't rely on botany at all.

Chef has the same issue, he relies on botany immensely (except he can go to cargo to get food if he's lucky) and there's basically nothing botany requires from them.

There isn't anything positive that will come out of these kinds of one way interactions.

[Lumbermancer]

chemistry doesn't rely on botany at all.

Then make it so? Do you need to combine departments for this?

[oranges]

Distribution: Readd telescience but with predetermined destinations (beacons) and you can only send, not receive, and only if the "target" accepts the package. Or make disposals more robust to have a worse result but take literally 1000 times more effort to actually do, both for the programmer and the player. If we do that, we can stick departments anywhere instead of mandating that botany MUST be physically next to the kitchen. Personally I would stick this Chemistry into Cargo and then rename Cargo to Supply. That should help with the space concerns, most maps have more space adjacent to Cargo (which is always on the edge of the station) instead of the Bar (which is generally in the middle).

This is an interesting idea, but it does take away people having to travel around the station, which is something I'm keen to encourage, I want to see people using corridors to transit because it means there's more room for the random chance interactions that can make or break an ss13 round.

I'm not convinced the location of departments actually matters seriously, the reason why the chef and whoever get screwed over by botany is because there's absolutely zero that botany needs from them, and there's absolutely zero the chemist needs from botany, if there were concrete reasons for botany to provide the chef with food other than the fact they get hungry sometimes and slow down, I think we would see those issues disappear irrespective of location. To me location is mostly a convenience issue.

Some of these ideas about a shared hydroponics department that is accessible to both the chef and the new role are interesting, but that's also another pretty radical change, so I'm not sure about it, but it's maybe worth trialling.

Re: the space issue, yeah, I'm aware of that, botany is definitely something space hungry, much like cargo, although honestly, cargo is usually MASSIVE compared to what actually happens.

I could probably afford to shell out enough to get someone willing to remap maybe box and meta, but the other stations would have to make do with shared access to chemistry and botany for the new jobs until someone got around to remapping them.

PS: not gonna apologise for that, I've said for some time now we have too many maps and it's hurting feature agility.

[oranges]

chemistry doesn't rely on botany at all.

Then make it so? Do you need to combine departments for this?

It's the most realistic option to make change that doesn't require completely reworking one or the other departments.

combining two jobs with limited depth to make one job with more depth hardly seems like a particularly bad option. I'm not cutting any features, I'm not having to completely rework chemistry or botany, I'm just making some minor map changes and changing the names of some job roles.

[PotatoMasher]

Alright quick question, how will medbay's relationship with this new combined department work? Will the CMO be able to access this department like chemistry right now, or is is completely seperate?

I'm not 100% sold on this change yet, but I can see why this is being considered. Pushing buttons on a screen to make chems isn't the most interesting, and botany already dabbles into chemistry anyways.

[D&B]

Perhaps botany could also be reworked to function like a harvest moon type of farming

[MMMiracles]

I don't think a new departmental head would be needed for this, since they'd still be mostly producing plants for medical purposes with the side benefit of most of what they produce being usable by the chef. Genetics is already part of medical so it isn't a stretch to see them having a sub-department dedicated to modifying plant DNA as well.

[Shadowflame909]

I don't think a new departmental head would be needed for this, since they'd still be mostly producing plants for medical purposes with the side benefit of most of what they produce being usable by the chef. Genetics is already part of medical so it isn't a stretch to see them having a sub-department dedicated to modifying plant DNA as well.

Well IMO I think it'd be quite beneficial to have another department head.

Currently the HoP is the Supply and Service head, which means Mining and Botany. Two dangerous jobs


I always thought that considering other heads like the CMO only had Virology and the RD had Xenobiology to worry about, for really dangerous jobs. That maybe there needs to be another person who should keep watch on Botany.


Basically, Chemistry and Robotics don't have round-end potential like the big booms of their departments. But the HoP has essentially Two chaotic job roles, and he doesn't watch one of them.

[MisterPerson]

I had forgotten about autism forts and all that. Hmm... People did react positively to moving Botany next to the Kitchen originally, but maybe that says more about Chefs than Botanists? Maybe an exterior facing vendor would be enough to get the Chef what he needs? It seems to have helped Chemistry dispense healing patches and shit at least.

Shared Hydro would pretty much be the same as a public Hydro and would have all the same problems the public autolathe had imo.

[iamgoofball]

hear me out:
Genetics -> medical, old chemistry room
Robotics ->engineering, same place it was before
Chemistry/Hydro -> space previously taken by those two jobs
Two way disposal chute between kitchen/chembot

Name can be Xenohydrology

[nullbear]

Name can be Xenohydrology

Or y'know, "Xenobotany", cause you dont need to be so snowflakey that you make up a new name for a thing that baystation already has.

[IkeTG]

3) potentially a new department head for this department.

One can only begin to imagine the horrors a chief biologist would unleash upon the station, I love this idea

I agree with MMMiracles' post, having the public garden moved next to the chef could mean they could grow food, or hire assistants to grow food for them

[oranges]

yeah or maybe add a second chef and repurpose old botany for their use (barman gets access too?)

[MisterPerson]

Why not go whole hog and just make the Barman another biochemist who also has access to the Bar (can keep the gun and shit obv)? I mean when you think about it, mixology literally is chemistry and you can make vodka from potatoes just as well as you can make french fries or biofuel.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

chem has stuff from chem to make more advanced stuff (holy water omnizine koybeans ) but they are completly overshadowed by other medical mechanics

[iamgoofball]

Why not go whole hog and just make the Barman another biochemist who also has access to the Bar (can keep the gun and shit obv)? I mean when you think about it, mixology literally is chemistry and you can make vodka from potatoes just as well as you can make french fries or biofuel.

just go all out

kill science as a job entirely

turn science department into the new service department

[somerandomguy]

Why not go whole hog and just make the Barman another biochemist who also has access to the Bar (can keep the gun and shit obv)? I mean when you think about it, mixology literally is chemistry and you can make vodka from potatoes just as well as you can make french fries or biofuel.

just go all out

kill science as a job entirely

turn science department into the new service department

I can't tell if this is a shitpost or not

[bobbahbrown]

good idea

[GuyonBroadway]

The issue is botany has few unique gimicks of it's own.

Kudzu, killer tomatoes and various flavours of banana peels to name the common ones.

When the gene splicer and strange seeds were added then suddenly the ability to mass fabricate all kinds of otherwise tedious to produce chems became a thing. Basically making botany into RNGchemistry.


I say gut as much of the chems from botany as you can, give botany more unique shit that runs off a system like kudzu mutation and give the chef access to a few plant trays.

I discussed the idea for mutatable tree things with 4dplanner and he agreed it was good enough to take a stab at, dunno where he got with it but hey.

[Pizzatiger]

If we merged chemistry and hydroponics they should be given to cargo. This would allow cargo to become a full fledged production department instead of a minor one like service. This would allow cargo to produce nearly all the raw resources the station needs and sell them as the resource barons we always knew they were.

[WarbossLincoln]

Someone floated the idea of making current botany rooms into a public botany. I think that's a really good idea. Give them a seed/nutrient vendor and remove the botany specific machines that let you work with mutations and save dna to disks and whatnot. Now the chef and crew can grow normal food for the chef to cook and botany/chemistry can make more specialized/rare things and send them the chef's way.

[bombasticslacks]

Whenever I'm on Sybil every round starts with finding an engineer to make a dispenser and if I can't find one bugging the AI to let me into the board room followed by breaking into cargo to print parts so simplifying that sounds amazing. Whenever I'm playing botany and make a dispenser I always end up basically being a chemist anyways.

I don't think the argument that people will ignore making meds or making the chef food holds a lot of weight since people already don't do that. However the logistics of fitting everything on the station is valid but couldn't plant materials just be put into an ORM style machine where bartender, chef and chemist have access to the fridges. Preferably with better code to tell whats inside the plants in the fridge instead of having 30 wheat some of which has gaias blood, growth serum and space drugs.

I think making a mini department with the chemistry tools, botanist tools, a head to actually manage what the botanists are doing and at least one slot that can go to lavaland and collect plants would be really cool since never getting to see the lavaland plants because miners are too busy dying to bubblegum is kind of lame.

[WarbossLincoln]

Not to mention as long as one of the botanists is human they can just get the AI to let them in anywhere for the chem dispenser board and parts. Don't even have to break into cargo(although even when the AI let you in to print parts the cargo techs might not take kindly)

[oranges]

Okay, thanks for the feedback so far.

I'm going to make sure chef/barman have access to a growing area (probably with no mutagen), or the main grow area, so they can grow food for their cooking.

This is getting to be a pretty big department, so I want some feedback on

A) making a new department - XenoBotany, with a new Head Botanist role
B) placing the chef/barman/xenobotanists under the QM and elevating them to a full head, no longer under the HoP

Please let me know what you think of each option.

[as334]

I think Xenobotany makes more sense, since if Xenobio is being included, it doesn't make sense as part of a resource production department. Xenobio(the slime extract parts of it at least) is more about becoming a knockoff wizard with your supply of cores than about producing resources. Also because botany is crops and xenobio is livestock, and thus we'd finally have the farming department we've always dreamed of.

[zxaber]

There may be repercussions to the QM being a head during Rev rounds. Whether it's good or bad, I have no idea.

Not sure I like the name XenoBotany. It seems a bit forced, I suppose. What about Habitation Support, or just Habitation? The idea is that the department produces things mostly geared around long-term survival, rather than short-term survival (like Atmos). Move the Chef and Barman under this department, and the head becomes Head of Habitation (HoH).

[Mickyan]

B) placing the chef/barman/xenobotanists under the QM and elevating them to a full head, no longer under the HoP

Why all of them? I see the HoP as being in charge of the public front while the QM deals with the back-end of supply procurement, so chef and barman would still fall under the HoP

Botany being under the QM makes sense, at least thematically. The amount of power it would give to cargo may be a bit concerning though

[oranges]

Just so we're clear, Xenobotany is chemistry + botany, not xenobiology

[oranges]

There may be repercussions to the QM being a head during Rev rounds. Whether it's good or bad, I have no idea.

Not sure I like the name XenoBotany. It seems a bit forced, I suppose. What about Habitation Support, or just Habitation? The idea is that the department produces things mostly geared around long-term survival, rather than short-term survival (like Atmos). Move the Chef and Barman under this department, and the head becomes Head of Habitation (HoH).

Habitation is a cool name, I still like the idea of it being the Head Botanist though.

[MisterPerson]

Habitation doesn't actually describe the proposed department well since you don't actually need anything from it to keep the station habitable. Also, what would the resulting job be called, habitatists? Most jobs basically have the department name in the job name (engineer:engineering, geneticist:genetics, cargo technician:cargo, etc). I don't see any reason to move away from botany or xenobotany and botanist or xenobotanist since those names perfectly describe what you're doing: growing plants. Still, habitation is a very cool name. I would def include the word in a guidebook and/or wiki description of the department and job, that's for sure. Or if nothing else, as a line from a related vending machine.

Personally I would repurpose the QM as a head. I mean what purpose does the QM serve exactly if it's not a head but directly under another head? What makes the QM special besides being a CT with a cooler costume? Right now the QM is de facto in charge of cargo because the HoP never bothers, but obviously adding a real cargo head would disrupt that.

[zxaber]

Also, what would the resulting job be called, habitatists? Most jobs basically have the department name in the job name (engineer:engineering, geneticist:genetics, cargo technician:cargo, etc).

Most departments have one job that shares the department name, but it's not necessarily the other way around. Atmos Techs are part of Engineering, Roboticists are part of Science, Geneticists and Virologist are part of Medical. In this case, Chemists and Botanists would keep their names, but just be part of Habitation.

(And while lack of food doesn't pose survival risks in the time period of a standard round, having no food production *would* be a threat to long-term survival. Thus, botany growing food and the chef preparing it would be efforts to keep the station inhabitable).

I think the Chef and Bartender have closer ties and fulfill a role more similar to Botany than Cargo, so if they do get moved out of Service, it ought to be into whatever Botany ends up in.

(And if Chef and Bartender leave the Service department, Janitor should be rolled into Engineering, since they follow the similar goal of station upkeep. They don't necessarily need engineering access, but should at least be under the CE command.)

[Pizzatiger]

I believe that the HOP having the service and civilian sectors doesn't make sense these days since the HOP also can mess with the ID's of every other department. The HOP is more an Assistant to the captain or a second of command than a true head.The Quartermaster better fits such a title since he is the lord and ruler of both cargo and mining. This leaves us with two options we wanted to make the QM a head.

1-Demote the HOP, Give him an loyalty implant and let him embrace his role as the Captains Personal Assistant.

2-We greatly reduce the role of the HOP and make him control ONLY the civilian side of the station. This would mean that the HOP could no longer give access to other departments and instead job-changes would have to go through the various heads

I feel like giving the QM control of Chemisty, Hydroponics, The bar and kitchen is honestly a move that makes sense. This would leave the HOP with the Curator, Lawyers (lets be honest, they aren't part of security), Chaplain, Clown, Mime, Janitor, and Assistants which seems like a fair enough spread to me

[MisterPerson]

I was under the impression chemists and botanists would be merged, not kept separate but occupying the same workspace. Keeping them seperate makes no sense, especially compared to scientists who are all together in a much larger area. Are you going to call security if a chemist starts growing plants or a botanist starts doing some alchemy?

[Kryson]

I think the intentions of behind this change are good, but i think it makes little thematic sense and will fuck up botany.

I think a better approach would be adding 300u drums and dewars of base chemicals purchasable by cargo and adding more bounties for chemicals and plants.

Atmos could even liquefy gases such as oxygen and nitrogen and cram them into dewar flasks.

[MMMiracles]

A) making a new department - XenoBotany, with a new Head Botanist role

If this is becoming an entirely separate department, would you rather see it stay grafted on medical where chemistry currently is or be separate? I could see the first option working on Box due to the excess maintenance space near the custodial closet, but Meta is gonna be a lot harder to manage unless you just replace botany with it entirely. As for the gameplay part, I don't see an issue with having a new department.

B) placing the chef/barman/xenobotanists under the QM and elevating them to a full head, no longer under the HoP

The HoP might as well get a thematic change since that'd leave him with pretty much no-one to actually 'rule' over (implying he ever really did in the first place.) Genuinely might as well be the captain's right hand man since the only thing he'd have rule over is assistants or the clown, both of which would probably sooner steal his ID before listening to him.

[Kierany9]

inter departmental interaction should be about working together to acheive advanced cool stuff, as it is right now botany relies on chemistry to do anything cool and chemistry doesn't rely on botany at all.

Chef has the same issue, he relies on botany immensely (except he can go to cargo to get food if he's lucky) and there's basically nothing botany requires from them.

There isn't anything positive that will come out of these kinds of one way interactions.

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't the intent of botany always been to be a sort of provider role? The only reason why these one-way interactions are failing now is because your average botany player now has too many goals that take priority over "give the chef what he wants" due to the mechanics incentivizing powergaming and requiring chemical amounts far beyond what a single chemist is willing to quickly cook up resulting in stolen chem dispensers and the same minimum-requirement dishes every round. In fact, the same 'provider role' logic applies to chemistry, but medical chem is in such a sorry state that even if chemists made meds, nobody would use them.

[Dr_bee]

Both chem and botany should merge with cargo. Then make chem and plant production part of the main method of gaining cargo points.

That adds 3 faucets for points. and increases the relevance of the supply department.

[zxaber]

I was under the impression chemists and botanists would be merged, not kept separate but occupying the same workspace. Keeping them seperate makes no sense, especially compared to scientists who are all together in a much larger area. Are you going to call security if a chemist starts growing plants or a botanist starts doing some alchemy?

Ah, right. Then I suppose they'd be just Botanists, regardless of the department name.

[rrgarfield]

Service Overseer to watch service and xenobotany
Maybe give janitor to engineering like that guy said so the service head would only have to watch 2 chefs, 1 bartender and 3(?) xenobotanists

[4dplanner]

Why would a head botanist be needed if they're under the qm?

[WarbossLincoln]

I'm not opposed to the idea of the QM being a full head. HOP is really only head over cargo in name anyway. Hell the HOP is barely a head over the other civilian jobs. It's pretty rare for an HOP to get involved in what the kitchen is serving or what the clown has planned.

QM becomes a real head in charge of Cargo.
HOP's title gets changed? Maybe to First Officer or something? That's really what the HoP is, someone who works the ID console and is the Captain's second. This is probably a topic for another thread though.

I haven't read the entire thread admittedly but would the idea also be to make the chem dispenser weaker(less chems to make with just the dispenser) and have a lot more reagents come from plants?

Is it possible to have a plant grind to create a reagent that you wouldn't get by just eating it? For example you could grind a banana for potassium but you wouldn't get potassium in your bloodstream from eating it. Cause chems mix when injested right? You wouldn't want someone to eat a banana, drink a glass of water, and then blow up. It's been a very long time since I've done anything with chemicals so I don't know exactly how they work today.

[Recurracy]

All I want is the DNA manipulator to stay, gives me something useful and fun to do other than just handing out doobies. I always put mannitol Gaia down in the medbay, usually got some fun projects on the side, along with keeping the chef supplied.
The reason I main Botanist is because of how varied the job can be. The depth it has is what makes it fun to me, removing the DNA manipulator so I can't play god with plants anymore would make me pretty sad.

[Shardj]

Give the chef the garden, attach it to the side, this'll all require a map rework after all. Botanists never help the chef anyway.

[Farquaar]

Give the chef the garden, attach it to the side, this'll all require a map rework after all. Botanists never help the chef anyway.

I'm not for or against this change yet, as it isn't entirely fleshed out. But let's try to avoid hyperbole. I've clocked about 54 hours as chef on (mostly) Sybil since I started playing last spring, and I'd say that if there is a non-antag botanist, he'll supply me with what I ask for the vast majority of the time. Every few shifts I'll get an extra-cool botanist who will go out of there way to stock the fridge with all sorts of rare mutated goodies that I didn't even request.

Point being, is that everybody hates the botanist who screws off to grow bluespace bananas and spread them across the station. But it should be taken into account that there is still a functional botanist-chef relationship that only gets disrupted by the occasional powergamer/griefer.

[Lumbermancer]

Give the chef the garden, attach it to the side, this'll all require a map rework after all. Botanists never help the chef anyway.

You just can't make this shit up.

[WarbossLincoln]

I've never run into a time where a botanist refuses a reasonable request for things as the chef.

[terranaut]

IThat maybe there needs to be another person who should keep watch on Botany.


Basically, Chemistry and Robotics don't have round-end potential like the big booms of their departments. But the HoP has essentially Two chaotic job roles, and he doesn't watch one of them.

just make the QM a head

also robotics has mechs which can be pretty big roundenders