Giving botany a mutagen dispenser

[severepwnage]

Here are the reasons why

-The botanists no longer have to break into the engineering secure storage (the most important part)
-Botany being a threat because they have a whole chemlab inside maintenance is less likely.
-Botanists can finally keep up with the constant demand of mutagen without begging the chemistry for obscene amounts of it. (Chemistry can sometimes be unmanned and if not most of the time will be overencumbered to keep up with producing obscene amounts of mutagen or can just be dicks and refuse)

And here are the reasons why I think its balanced

-Virology gets something similar (the virus food dispenser) and they dont have to fight to death with the chef for the extremely limited supply of milk
-Most departments already receive enough equipment so they don't have to trespass into anywhere or beg someone else to continue production until mid-late shift
-No, mutagen smoke grenades are just as likely to happen as the very unlikely fucking massive capcaisin grenades (reminder, all security posts have 1000u condensed capcaisin dispensers in them, even the arrivals customs which most security mains don't even know exist)

So yeah, just make a green-colored dispenser on the wall inside hydroponics. Thats literally it.

[GuyonBroadway]

Just add a mutagen recipie to the biogenerator, that way they can produce shit themselves but they at least need to put a little effort in to get mutagen production going.

Hippie has had it for ages along with other botanical chems... that being said, the occasional smoothbrain STILL tries to steal the dispenser because its "quicker!"

[oranges]

no

[Dr_bee]

no

[Super Aggro Crag]

put this retard on post approval

[Shaps-cloud]

Botany has been coddled for too long, someone get the shears and the pesticides

[severepwnage]

put this retard on post approval

wonderful input. too bad I can't point how wonderful it is since I will get silenced for it.

[Super Aggro Crag]

i guess the real severepwnage was what oranges did to you

[NoxVS]

the problem with botany isnt that they have to beg chemistry for mutagen, its that 90% of the time botany provides nothing of value to the station and chemistry doesn't benefit from tossing them mutagen when they ask for it.

[Davidchan]

Problem with botany is of the chems that are useful to them for plant growing, they can't produce or ghetto chem them without having mutagen first. L4Z and EZ are too slow and harmful as they are helpful and blumpkins require mutagen to produce.

Big issue here is even if they play good boi and make useful plants and fuckloads of food they get nothing for it. Since Techwebs science has no use for plants and won't research botany items, medical is entirely self reliant and doesn't need plants when chemistry can already make more potent and useful shit and this won't trade or give beakers and chem dispensers, cargo cant export plants for profit save for chopped wood and a few biogenerator products so they have little reason to work with botany. Security only cares if botany is growing drugs or murder plants, beyond that they don't give a shit if people break in and loot it. Science rarely upgrades their shit and because RPEDa and machine parts are not in tech lathes they have to beg for parts or break into areas that have them just to do their job without hassle.

So you wonder why people who play a thankless job that is slightly more effective than vending machines and pizza crates from cargo mostly do it for tator workshop or seeing what dumb concoction they can make?

[deedubya]

no

why not

[Kryson]

medical is entirely self reliant and doesn't need plants

This is arguably true since rezadone is pretty much obsoleted by upgrading cloning and once earthblood becomes available botany will just distribute it themselves en masse. Omnizine is both too slow to be a bulk healing chem currently and enough is available round start in order to make strange reagent.

Other reagents such a coniine and glycerol might be attractive to battle chemists though.

I plan to focus on adding some more pharmaceutical intermediates to plants while Cobby is remaking the base healing chems, since it seems we agree that premium C3 chems needs to be gated behind non-dispenser reagents.

[gallowsCalibrator]

Seeing more inter-departmental interaction for botany would be pretty nice- I've been playing it a lot recently, and while it's fun on its own, more of that would be good- you run out of things to do pretty early, I think. Also, what do you mean by C3 chems?

[cacogen]

Just add a mutagen recipie to the biogenerator, that way they can produce shit themselves but they at least need to put a little effort in to get mutagen production going.

Hippie has had it for ages along with other botanical chems... that being said, the occasional smoothbrain STILL tries to steal the dispenser because its "quicker!"

exactly

otherwise we'll just keep raiding tech storage for the chem dispenser board and have one of our own in three minutes

[PKPenguin321]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

[cacogen]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

yes, it does
the whole job revolves around chemicals like unstable mutagen and saltpetre and chemistry cannot and has never been able to keep up with botany's demand for chemicals

and in what way is botany overpowered? i don't think you even play it

[Davidchan]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??[/quote
Nobody needs anything from botany so they have no reason to actually give them things that make their job possible. The only job that cares if botany is active is the chef. Nobody else would care if botany was replaced with a hole into space so long as vending machines still shucked out raisins.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Just add a mutagen recipie to the biogenerator, that way they can produce shit themselves but they at least need to put a little effort in to get mutagen production going.

Hippie has had it for ages along with other botanical chems... that being said, the occasional smoothbrain STILL tries to steal the dispenser because its "quicker!"

exactly

otherwise we'll just keep raiding tech storage for the chem dispenser board and have one of our own in three minutes

"GIVE ME WHAT I WANT OR I'LL GREY TIDE AND STEAL IT" doesnt really motivate people to help you. It'll just get people to treat your entire job class like a pack of assholes.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

[CPTANT]

no

Didn't you post several times that you were going to remove people that didn't contribute meaningfully to debates?




Anyway, The botany/chemistry relationship isn't really interesting because it is required every round and it doesn't cost chemistry anything to make it except time. Not having the interaction is not an option for botanists which makes it stale very fast. Botany balance as a whole leaves a lot to be desired but gating mutagen seems a rather ineffective way of balancing it.

[PKPenguin321]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??[/quote
Nobody needs anything from botany so they have no reason to actually give them things that make their job possible. The only job that cares if botany is active is the chef. Nobody else would care if botany was replaced with a hole into space so long as vending machines still shucked out raisins.

Botany having no meaningful reason to exist sounds like a bit bigger of an issue than them having to ask for mutagen

[PKPenguin321]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

yes, it does
the whole job revolves around chemicals like unstable mutagen and saltpetre and chemistry cannot and has never been able to keep up with botany's demand for chemicals

and in what way is botany overpowered? i don't think you even play it

You can do botany without any of those things, you'll just be locked out of a few meme plants like 100-second-slip bluespace tomatoes
Back in my day botanists could basically just print 1000 better-eswords by just planting deathnettle and shit out more slipping objects than any other job on the station by just planting bananas (and occasionally they could grow revolvers). Even back then it was pretty bullshit but now they also have that DNA machine and like 20 chems/plants that exist specifically to make other plants grow even faster than before, plus there's shit like the grenade plants you can get now that are frankly just silly. Botany doesn't need a buff

[actioninja]

Do none of you realize that botany already can produce mutagen in facility without a chem dispenser at all?
If you're impatient you need some mutagen to get blumpkins but the rest is roundstart for the needed chems.

[cacogen]

Do none of you realize that botany already can produce mutagen in facility without a chem dispenser at all?
If you're impatient you need some mutagen to get blumpkins but the rest is roundstart for the needed chems.

even with a chem dispenser it's a struggle to reach your goal before the shift ends. not sure why you think hydroponics should have to resort to these obscure meta strats to get the chemicals they need.

[deedubya]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

Compare botany to literally any other autism craft on the station.
Xenobio? Completely independent. They have access to the protolathe as well so they can upgrade their own machines and print off plasma.
Chem? Completely independent. They can benefit from an inducer and upgrades, but it's not a big deal if they don't get it.
Viro? Completely independent.
Genetics? Completely independent.
Toxins? Completely independent.
Nanites? Completely independent.
Engineering? Completely independent. They can build any autism project they could dream of with no outside help. Only exceptions are the station projects, and PA based engines.
Botany? Fucked without mutagen. Nobody signs up to botany to churn out nothing but wheat and potatoes for the chef. Just like nobody slaves away in xenobio to do nothing but churn out charged yellow cores for robotics.

If you don't want to give botanists their own dispenser - or a modified dispenser that only dispenses mutagen - give them chem access, much like other jobs have access to an additional department where it makes sense for them to have it.

[cacogen]

it doesn't even need to be a chem dispenser, just put it in the biogenerator like hippie. if it's solely a mutagen dispenser then how will botany get chemicals like saltpetre without the same shit of having to leave your plants unattended and hope there's an active chemist willing to help you in a timely fashion before they die. and as with mutagen you need quite a bit of saltpetre to maximise potency.

[actioninja]

even with a chem dispenser it's a struggle to reach your goal before the shift ends. not sure why you think hydroponics should have to resort to these obscure meta strats to get the chemicals they need.

???
Making plants that produce chems is literally the entire reason people play botany, how is something that every competent botanist knows how to do "an obscure meta strat"

[oranges]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

Compare botany to literally any other autism craft on the station.
Xenobio? Completely independent. They have access to the protolathe as well so they can upgrade their own machines and print off plasma.
Chem? Completely independent. They can benefit from an inducer and upgrades, but it's not a big deal if they don't get it.
Viro? Completely independent.
Genetics? Completely independent.
Toxins? Completely independent.
Nanites? Completely independent.
Engineering? Completely independent. They can build any autism project they could dream of with no outside help. Only exceptions are the station projects, and PA based engines.
Botany? Fucked without mutagen. Nobody signs up to botany to churn out nothing but wheat and potatoes for the chef. Just like nobody slaves away in xenobio to do nothing but churn out charged yellow cores for robotics.

If you don't want to give botanists their own dispenser - or a modified dispenser that only dispenses mutagen - give them chem access, much like other jobs have access to an additional department where it makes sense for them to have it.

Mistakes of the past that I have no intention of repeating.

[wesoda25]

I’d like to put it out that you don’t even need mutagen to be a good botanist. Strictly speaking the job entails making food for chef and occasionally rising to whatever demand the crew has (this kinda requires mutagen tho). Sorry you don’t get your crazy killer plants dude without asking chemistry dudes.

[PKPenguin321]

no

why not

botany doesnt need it
how can anybody honestly think botany needs not only less crew interaction, but also more buffs??

Compare botany to literally any other autism craft on the station.
Xenobio? Completely independent. They have access to the protolathe as well so they can upgrade their own machines and print off plasma.
Chem? Completely independent. They can benefit from an inducer and upgrades, but it's not a big deal if they don't get it.
Viro? Completely independent.
Genetics? Completely independent.
Toxins? Completely independent.
Nanites? Completely independent.
Engineering? Completely independent. They can build any autism project they could dream of with no outside help. Only exceptions are the station projects, and PA based engines.
Botany? Fucked without mutagen. Nobody signs up to botany to churn out nothing but wheat and potatoes for the chef. Just like nobody slaves away in xenobio to do nothing but churn out charged yellow cores for robotics.

If you don't want to give botanists their own dispenser - or a modified dispenser that only dispenses mutagen - give them chem access, much like other jobs have access to an additional department where it makes sense for them to have it.

see

Do none of you realize that botany already can produce mutagen in facility without a chem dispenser at all?
If you're impatient you need some mutagen to get blumpkins but the rest is roundstart for the needed chems.

also,
Viro? needs rare mining materials to access maybe half of their content (the good parts)
Genetics? needs to run around scanning people to break genomes with more than 2 X pairs
Toxins? good luck actually doing this unless youre a traitor, if you are then bro you can do so much shit on your own, why even compare this? if you arent then you need to go through sec or mining to get your bombs anywhere useful
Engineering? Engineering???? seriously? you might as well say Assistants are completely independent because they don't HAVE to interact with anybody, and they can do basically everything an autism-fort-building engi can (which they are, it's just that it does not follow that botany should therefore be 100% independent)
botany doesnt even need the mutagen from chem and you're bitching as though the entire department is completely 100% disabled and gimped without constant mutagen being fed through a goddamn IV at all hours of the day. you immediately toss out people who actually want to work with the chef (which do exist) and conveniently ignore alternatives like the blumpkin strat above. your "comparisons" to other solo departments dont even MEAN anything, youre just going "but he does it!!!" which isn't even an assertion! are you arguing that it's unfair to botany that they can't just jack themselves off in a corner for 20 years then waltz out at round end with the botanical equivalent of nukes? holy shit. sorry but you struck a nerve

[cacogen]

even with a chem dispenser it's a struggle to reach your goal before the shift ends. not sure why you think hydroponics should have to resort to these obscure meta strats to get the chemicals they need.

???
Making plants that produce chems is literally the entire reason people play botany, how is something that every competent botanist knows how to do "an obscure meta strat"

People play botany to make fun plants. Most people don't know the strategy you described. It shouldn't be necessary to get what you need to do your job anyway.

Mistakes of the past that I have no intention of repeating.

This is dumb. It's not realistic to think chemistry can keep up with botany's demand. They have never been able or willing to. It's also unfair to expect that botanists can leave their departments frequently without their plants dying.

How often do you actually play, and how much of that time is spent playing botanist? I don't think much. You're turning into Aran/old coderbus in general where you need to control every aspect of the game even when you don't have the firsthand experience needed to judge a change and aren't affected by it because you barely play.

[MMMiracles]

if you need more than a roundstart beaker of mutagen from chemistry then you're either a bad botanist or EXTREMELY unlucky with mutations. Mutagen blumpkins should be your first project and only take a few minutes.

[teepeepee]

if I don't get blumpkins with my first mutagen batch I just suicide or grow enough biomatter for a greytide suit to tide all shift
simple as

[Tlaltecuhtli]

you dont even need mutagen to kickstart, 10u radium (from glowshrooms) can mutate plants

[deedubya]

you immediately toss out people who actually want to work with the chef (which do exist)

I don't, I even defended that in another thread. Most botanists are more than happy to grow you more food than you'll ever know what to do with as a chef.

and conveniently ignore alternatives like the blumpkin strat above. your "comparisons" to other solo departments dont even MEAN anything, youre just going "but he does it!!!" which isn't even an assertion! are you arguing that it's unfair to botany that they can't just jack themselves off in a corner for 20 years then waltz out at round end with the botanical equivalent of nukes? holy shit. sorry but you struck a nerve

"but he does it!!" is a valid argument when you consider the most comparable analogue to botany, that being xenobio.
Both are long term autism projects that take time and knowledge to do correctly. Both have methods that experienced players will use to be more self sufficient and get ahead much faster. Both generally function for their own benefit, rarely giving much thought to other departments unless they're prodded to do so. The big difference between the two is that xenobio has access to all the things that speed up/accelerate their progress significantly(parts upgrades, any machine board they could want, plasma from the ORM), botany has no legitimate way to get that same acceleration without having to beg for or steal it. It's hard to defend when such a direct analogue exists to compare it to.

[PKPenguin321]

you immediately toss out people who actually want to work with the chef (which do exist)

I don't, I even defended that in another thread. Most botanists are more than happy to grow you more food than you'll ever know what to do with as a chef.

and conveniently ignore alternatives like the blumpkin strat above. your "comparisons" to other solo departments dont even MEAN anything, youre just going "but he does it!!!" which isn't even an assertion! are you arguing that it's unfair to botany that they can't just jack themselves off in a corner for 20 years then waltz out at round end with the botanical equivalent of nukes? holy shit. sorry but you struck a nerve

"but he does it!!" is a valid argument when you consider the most comparable analogue to botany, that being xenobio.
Both are long term autism projects that take time and knowledge to do correctly. Both have methods that experienced players will use to be more self sufficient and get ahead much faster. Both generally function for their own benefit, rarely giving much thought to other departments unless they're prodded to do so. The big difference between the two is that xenobio has access to all the things that speed up/accelerate their progress significantly(parts upgrades, any machine board they could want, plasma from the ORM), botany has no legitimate way to get that same acceleration without having to beg for or steal it.

But do you not see how this fails to actually make a claim that xenobio is superior to botany from a gameplay perspective? None of that indicates that botany is inherently worse. Worse at being optimal, sure, but departmental interaction has always been viewed as a positive for game design, because the whole point of the game is to generate cool stories from player interactions. If the argument was whether or not botany and xenobio are similar, you'd have won it, but it isn't and you haven't.

[cacogen]

if you need more than a roundstart beaker of mutagen from chemistry then you're either a bad botanist or EXTREMELY unlucky with mutations. Mutagen blumpkins should be your first project and only take a few minutes.

I never see this in-game. This is yet another case of expectations vs. reality. Most people don't know about this strategy. And why should they have to to enjoy the perks of the job? It's just stupid. I don't even know what all this anti-botany sentiment is based on.

but departmental interaction has always been viewed as a positive for game design, because the whole point of the game is to generate cool stories from player interactions

Well firstly you have interactions with the cook and anybody who comes by asking for plants or collecting plants you've laid out on the desk. Secondly, there's nothing cool or fun about having to interrupt the chemist for the third time to get more 30u bottles of mutagen.

[deedubya]

But do you not see how this fails to actually make a claim that xenobio is superior to botany from a gameplay perspective? None of that indicates that botany is inherently worse. Worse at being optimal, sure, but departmental interaction has always been viewed as a positive for game design, because the whole point of the game is to generate cool stories from player interactions. If the argument was whether or not botany and xenobio are similar, you'd have won it, but it isn't and you haven't.

How does it not make the argument that either botany is too weak or that xenobio is too strong? Since they're so easily comparable, you can see the glaring shortcomings by simply directly comparing the two. Hell, even if you did give botany their own mutagen dispenser, they'd still be far weaker than xenobio just from the difference in potential they have. Yet, not a single botanist would whine or cry for more buffs, they'd just be happy with their mutagen. I feel like you missed the point of the post(possibly on purpose) if all you thought I was doing was comparing the two to go "see look how identical they are!"

[PKPenguin321]

But do you not see how this fails to actually make a claim that xenobio is superior to botany from a gameplay perspective? None of that indicates that botany is inherently worse. Worse at being optimal, sure, but departmental interaction has always been viewed as a positive for game design, because the whole point of the game is to generate cool stories from player interactions. If the argument was whether or not botany and xenobio are similar, you'd have won it, but it isn't and you haven't.

How does it not make the argument that either botany is too weak or that xenobio is too strong? Since they're so easily comparable, you can see the glaring shortcomings by simply directly comparing the two. Hell, even if you did give botany their own mutagen dispenser, they'd still be far weaker than xenobio just from the difference in potential they have. Yet, not a single botanist would whine or cry for more buffs, they'd just be happy with their mutagen. I feel like you missed the point of the post(possibly on purpose) if all you thought I was doing was comparing the two to go "see look how identical they are!"

Let me break it down from you with your own post:

"but he does it!!" is a valid argument when you consider the most comparable analogue to botany, that being xenobio.

in other words, you are going to show that botany and xenobio can be compared

Both are long term autism projects that take time and knowledge to do correctly. Both have methods that experienced players will use to be more self sufficient and get ahead much faster. Both generally function for their own benefit, rarely giving much thought to other departments unless they're prodded to do so.

here you argue that they are similar (i never even said they weren't so i don't even know why you're doing this)

The big difference between the two

ah? a potential relevant point?

is that xenobio has access to all the things that speed up/accelerate their progress significantly(parts upgrades, any machine board they could want, plasma from the ORM), botany has no legitimate way to get that same acceleration without having to beg for or steal it.

...okay? so they have a difference, which you just assume is inherently a flaw with botany? why do you assume this is a problem with botany? is xenobio your golden standard for a department that's interesting to the round as a whole? a great deal of people would disagree if that's the case; xenobio usually sits around doing nothing all round, with basically no crew interaction. this assumption you make is where your argument immediately drops dead, because it's a false assumption (or really it's the part that you should be arguing for).
and then you double down:

It's hard to defend when such a direct analogue exists to compare it to.

"They are similar, therefore botany bad!"
do you see why this is flawed?

[actioninja]

I never see this in-game. This is yet another case of expectations vs. reality. Most people don't know about this strategy. And why should they have to to enjoy the perks of the job? It's just stupid. I don't even know what all this anti-botany sentiment is based on.

When I still mained botanist I ran this strat exclusively up until the point I discovered the secret strat of grabbing the chem board from tech storage.
Either way, botany has zero reason to powercreep in a mutagen dispenser. They can get it already if they know what they're doing, we shouldn't be hugboxing even more just because some other departments have brain dead design.

[cacogen]

So I did the blumpkin strategy last round. It's a sound strategy. But it's not intuitive for new players, it's a meta strat by advanced players that spreads by word of mouth, and it takes ages just to get the mutagen to do your job. Even with a roundstart chem dispenser it's a struggle to get the plants you want before the shuttle arrives. Bear in mind too that the plant gene modifier was nerfed by Cobby I believe, which means it won't be until late round (or never) that you'll be able to get plants with decent stats barring access to chems.

And the fact botany already has roundstart access to a chem dispenser via tech storage (and everybody is happy to let you in) should make it preferable from your point of view for botany to have an in-department way of accessing the chems they need. I don't see what's wrong balancewise with having them in the biogenerator. From there it would be very easy to tweak the biomass values to get them where you want them.

[teepeepee]

So I did the blumpkin strategy last round. It's a sound strategy. But it's not intuitive for new players, it's a meta strat by advanced players that spreads by word of mouth, and it takes ages just to get the mutagen to do your job. Even with a roundstart chem dispenser it's a struggle to get the plants you want before the shuttle arrives.

players must have become really retarded lately, botany was one of my first jobs and I was taught this in like my 10th round
the mutagen mechanics are already available at the wiki, before knowing I'd just aim at a mutated plant like coffee robusta for the ephedrine and make a drug farm

Bear in mind too that the plant gene modifier was nerfed by Cobby I believe, which means it won't be until late round (or never) that you'll be able to get plants with decent stats barring access to chems.

just set up your mutagen farm and put 1-2u of mutagen on your plant until you roll your desired stats, won't take long since you have infinite mutagen by now
that's how I earned a note for planting 100 potency 10 yield 1 production time shadowshrooms and made the whole station blackout station
the gene machine I just use to keep good stats once I have them and to add chems/traits, having them upgraded is too much of a hassle and not needed

And the fact botany already has roundstart access to a chem dispenser via tech storage (and everybody is happy to let you in)

wrong, I and many other bagilite officers have fun enforcing access restrictions to plant cucks and disposal their chem board after finding them tresspassing into tech storage
all the energy they couldn't put to playing botanist on ez mode they use it to tide and make for a more engaging round

[confused rock]

imagine a universe just like ours except botanists use left 4 zed to make mutations instead of mutagen

[MisterPerson]

So I did the blumpkin strategy last round. It's a sound strategy. But it's not intuitive for new players, it's a meta strat by advanced players that spreads by word of mouth...

If it's a knowledge problem, that can be corrected, like say with a computer that lists available mutations and what they do. Or we can change botany to be more of a tech tree so people HAVE to make blumpkins before they can proceed with whatever else they want to do.

[MMMiracles]

yo what if we just port the botania mod from minecraft

[MisterPerson]

yo what if we just port the botania mod from minecraft

yo what if some of us haven't played that mod and don't know what it do

[John_Gobbel]

yo what if we just port the botania mod from minecraft

yo what if some of us haven't played that mod and don't know what it do

You learn it 4head.

[NecromancerAnne]

I mean if botany cannot produce anything at reasonable pace before a chem dispenser is provided than the current situation of 'tide for the dispenser every round' is going to continue whether change happens or not. It's not particularly hard to get into tech storage, easier on Box and Delta than Meta or Pubby (Pubby starts with some mutagen anyway), and isn't reliant on the department which currently suffers from a playerbase that takes the role to do literally nothing productive except blow themselves up. Since we don't punish people for wasting roles like that consistently we won't punish people for breaking into tech storage.

I guess this is the magical 'conflict' everyone talks about in effect. Yes I do like it when security sees fit to perma me for removing a wall or an engineer killing me for being in a room. Magical conflict there, I felt the immersion.

Obviously there is a core problem with botany's design that causes this problem. It's either the over effectiveness of various chems or the fact that chems are eaten en-masse to produce anything. I don't get why the core method of changing plants or mutations requires drowning plants in chems. That makes absolutely no sense from a functional standpoint and it means botany really does literally need a chem dispenser of its own to produce meaningful goods. I go through a whole dispenser just getting to Gaia and then Earthblood Eheat and that's on Saltpetre alone. Mutagen barely makes a dent. It's saltpetre that matters more.

Maybe we should look into having fertilizers be retained in the soil upon application (with negative effects for drowning the plants in a chem), applying their effects as changes to the plants over time so botany is still partly reliant on the chems but can make smaller amounts of the chems go further while slowing their productivity to however long mixing the chems into the fertilizer will take to alter the plants. At least then it makes more sense from a botanical standpoint.

[cacogen]

I'm going to quote mine even though it looks terrible and is a pain in the ass to read.

players must have become really retarded lately

even if the blumpkin strategy were written on a piece of paper that spawned in botany, it still wouldn't be a time efficient way of getting mutagen when you consider the length of the average /tg/station round

just set up your mutagen farm and put 1-2u of mutagen on your plant until you roll your desired stats, won't take long since you have infinite mutagen by now

it's entirely random. a random stat is changed, and it can go up or down by a small, random amount of points. it could take a very long time to get your desired stats using this technique.

that's how I earned a note for planting 100 potency 10 yield 1 production time shadowshrooms and made the whole station blackout station

it sounds like you got lucky both with mutations and with the amount of time you had that round

the gene machine I just use to keep good stats once I have them and to add chems/traits, having them upgraded is too much of a hassle and not needed

you can't keep good stats when the gene machine isn't upgraded because saved stats are downgraded to the point they aren't good anymore. this is why everyone uses wheat because it starts with a production speed of 1 which you can't get without an upgraded machine

I and many other bagilite officers have fun enforcing access restrictions to plant cucks and disposal their chem board after finding them tresspassing into tech storage

I have done this strategy tens of times and I've never had trouble from anyone. Engineers going past usually let me in and even the CE has. If no one is available the AI is always happy to help. Nobody reports you to security, nobody interferes. Nobody cares because they know it's harmless. Not sure why you'd play spitefully like this anyway (assuming you've ever actually done this).

all the energy they couldn't put to playing botanist on ez mode they use it to tide and make for a more engaging round

Not only is that a stupid thing to want for the game, it also doesn't happen. There are other, back-up methods of getting mutagen.

[WarbossLincoln]

I don't know if it's really necessary when there's a chem dispenser board in tech storage. The first thing I do as AI is go to tech storage and wait for the botanist to show up so he doesn't even have to order me to open it. Just order the AI to let you in, done. If both botanists are non-human then ask nicely and hope the AI player isn't a complete dick.