Editing Guide to hydroponics (section)

=== Using the DNA manipulator ===

1. Go to the locker in the back and take out the box of plant data disks.<br>
2. Load a disk into the machine along with any seed of choice.<br>
3. Extract any gene, this will destroy the seed and save it to the disk.<br>
4. Put in another seed.<br>
5. You can now modify the seed's stats and genes based on what's on the plant data disk.<br>

Obviously, this can be quite powerful in the right hands, and even for more basic tasks it can be a major boon.

It is worth noting, however, that the DNA manipulator has an upper limit on how high a stat can be when you try to extract it and save it to disk, and any stats higher than that will be brought down to that cap. Though these caps can be lowered or eliminated if you can get RnD to upgrade your machine, at round-start the caps are very bad, with certain stats like production speed being capped at a level worse than what nearly every plant has initially. [[#Traits|Traits]], on the other hand, can be extracted just fine no matter what parts are used. 

Useful genes from default seeds:
* Wheat has a production speed of 1, the fastest possible.
* Tower-caps have very long lifespans (around 80), as well as potency and endurance stats of 50.
* Tobacco plants have a yield of 10, the cap for that stat.
* Apples have the perennial growth [[#Traits|trait]], which allows for you to get multiple harvests from a single plant.
* Watermelon has an endurance nearly on par with tower-caps, making it a good substitute when starting out so you can avoid using up all of your starting tower-cap seeds.
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