Editing Guide to hydroponics (section)

== Other Notes ==


=== [[file:Bottle.png]] Growing your own mutagen ===

Not robust enough to steal a chem dispenser? Try this out.

* First, plant pumpkins and mutate them into blumpkins.
* Now, insert their Chlorine production [[#Traits|trait]] into glowshrooms and remove the Nutriment one.
* That's it! You now have a plant that grows unstable mutagen - just pop the produce into the grinder.
* You might want to add Densified Chemicals from Redbeets as well as Perennial Growth to optimize your harvest.

=== [[File:Dispenser.png]] Other ways to mutagen ===

Chemistry is <s>busy curing the plague</s> too high to help you out? 

* Bad idea: Steal a chem dispenser. This will start a blood feud and is one of the biggest reasons why Botanists are hated by some. Think of it as someone stealing all your plant trays.
* Better: Ask Medbay to print you a spare chem dispenser board. After very basic research (Biological Technology), the medical protolathe is able to print chem dispenser boards.
* Or: Grab the spare chem dispenser board from tech storage. The AI, silicons and all members of the Engineering department can let you in.
* For stock parts: Print them from a public autolathe (if such has been built) or ask RnD/Engineering for a part replacer with stock parts. The parts are:<br> 2 matter bins, 1 capacitor, 1 micro-manipulator, 1 power cell, 1 glass sheet. 
* For stock parts you can also disassemble a hydroponics tray and a cell charger. A cell can then be found or gotten from disassembling a cyborg recharger.

=== [[file:Ambrosia_gaia.png]] Upgrading plant trays ===

Composting enough plants that contain Earthsblood (for example [[#Ambrosia gaia|Ambrosia Gaia]]) into a tray will give it a golden shine. Now it will no longer require water, fertilizer or weed/pest removal.

This is great in combination with plants that have the Perennial Growth [[#Traits|trait]]! A lot of Botanists will upgrade their trays before getting started with actual hydroponics.

Upgraded trays permanently contain the last fertilizer you used before the upgrade. Robust Harvest is usually the best choice.

Instead of keeping the original Gaia plant that most likely has gimped stats - insert the Earthsblood production [[#Traits|trait]] into a more robust plant.

If your DNA extractor hasn't been upgraded yet: Wheat has a production speed of 1 and good overall stats. If you're lucky, your station will have 50 potency Wheat bushels just lying around at roundstart.

You can speed up the process by removing all contents but Earthsblood production and adding the Densified Chemicals (Redbeet) [[#Traits|trait]].

=== [[file:Replicapodplant.png]] Replica Pod Cloning ===

Replica pods can be used to grow dead people back to life - even when their brain and head are missing. 

To clone someone, follow these simple steps:

* Take a blood sample from the body using a syringe.
* Inject it into the bag of seeds.
* Plant the seeds.
* Let the plant grow and then harvest it.
* If the ghost of the corpse is still online, and did not turn on "Do not Resuscitate", that person will be cloned as a [[Podman]]. 
* If there was no ghost available, the resulting harvest will simply produce a new pack of seeds. 

The [[Podman|podmen]] are a little different from normal humans. E.g. they regenerate in light but suffer in darkness and don't get attacked by bees.

Cabbage can be mutated into Replica Pod.

===Strange Seeds===

Strange seeds (from hacked vendors or cargo crates) have completely random reagents and [[#Traits|traits]]. 

Notable examples are:
* Gaseous Decomposition
* Nitroglycerin
* Microbes (Fungal Tuberculosis)
* Any drink, like Gin Tonic or Beepsky Smash
* Glitter
* Plasmaman Mutation Toxin
* Hell Water

Of course, this is pretty gimmicky and unreliable.

=== [[file:Kudzuplant.png]] Kudzu {{anchor|Kudzu}} ===

Kudzu is a weed that can appear when adding 5u [[Guide_to_chemistry#Unstable Mutagen|Unstable Mutagen]] to a tray with a weed level of 5 or above. The tray version of kudzu will grow normally in its tray. When harvested it will produce kudzu pods. The kudzu pod is like any other fruit/vegetable and can be eaten or grinded. To create wild-spreading kudzu, you must put a kudzu pod into a seed extractor, which will create packs of kudzu seeds. Then activate a kudzu seed in your hand to start planting wild-spreading kudzu on the floor. <br>

Some plant stats will affect the wild-spreading version of kudzu in specific ways:

* Potency of the seed will make kudzu mutate more on spread, the chance to mutate on each new piece is '''[potency / 10]'''
* Production will affect how fast the kudzu can spread, usual kudzu spreads at a rate of 20% of the amount of pieces per tick but no more than 30, production changes the cap '''[30 * production / 50]''' and the percent of processed pieces per tick '''[20 * (production / 50)]'''

Killing the last piece of kudzu will create a kudzu seed in its place with all the ackumulated mutations saved in the seed. So if you reactivate it, the new kudzu on the floor will have all the same mutations the seed had, and will spread it to all its progenitors. You can examine a wild kudzu to see what mutations it has. When mutating it typically changes color. <br>

Kudzu can gain mutations only on spread, here is the list of all of them:
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
Click expand to see Kudzu [[#Traits|traits]] and mutations:
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
* '''CO2 consumption''' - ''positive'' mutation, consumes CO2 from the air
* <s>'''Space covering''' - ''positive'' mutation, makes vines grow vine floors over space</s> Removed as of August 23 2017.
* '''Light''' - ''positive'' mutation, about 40% of the vines with this mutation emit light slightly more powerful than PDA
* '''Transparency''' - ''positive'' mutation, makes vines look-through
* '''Toxins consumption''' - ''positive'' mutation, absorbs plasma from the air
* <s>'''Bluespace vines''' - ''minor negative'' mutation, makes vines be able to grow through anything</s> Removed as of August 23 2017.
* '''Explosive''' - ''minor negative'' mutation, on death vines with this mutation explode with 0,0,2 power, so clusters of this vine will chain-explode one after another
* '''Fire resistant''' - ''minor negative'' mutation, makes vines ignore fire damage, be it plasma fires or welders
* '''Vine eating''' - ''minor negative'' mutation, vines with this mutation will eat vines without it
* '''Toxicity''' - ''negative'' mutation, eating vine with this mutation or walking thought it will cause you toxin damage
* '''Aggressive spreading''' - ''negative'' mutation, on spreading vines will cause effect of mini-explosion on the tile they spread to, mobs buckled by this vine will also experience effects akin to minor explosion
* '''O2 consumption''' - ''negative'' mutation, absorbs O2 from the air around
* '''N2 consumption''' - ''negative'' mutation, absorbs N2 from the air
* '''Thorns''' - ''negative'' mutation, makes mobs touching or going through vines recieve physical damage
* '''Hardening''' - ''negative'' mutation, makes vines not die fast from sharp objects, but makes non-sharp objects(hands included) be more effective agaisnt them, on the full maturation block the passage
* '''Flowering''' - ''negative'' mutation, makes vines very entangly and spawns harmful flowers occasionally, flowers after destruction spawn flower mob that is agressive and attacks


Adding special chemicals to the tray when the seeds are growing will affect the specific kudzu mutations:
* Adding ''5u'' of '''welding fuel''' will remove random ''positive'' mutation with a ''20%'' probability
* Adding ''5u'' of '''phenol''' will remove a random ''minor negative'' mutation with a ''20%'' probability
* Adding ''5u'' of '''sterilizine''' will remove a random ''negative'' mutation with a ''20%'' probability
* Adding ''15u'' of '''blood''' will change the production value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-5 to +15''
* Adding ''5u'' of '''amatoxin''' will change the production value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-15 to +5''
* Adding ''5u'' of '''plasma''' will change the potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-15 to +5''
* Adding ''10u'' of '''holy water''' will change a potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from ''-5 to +15''
</div>
</div>

=== Sandstone and Soil ===

If you pick up the grass and use it (click on it in your hand), you will prepare astroturf. Get a crowbar and remove some floor tiles, then place astroturf in their place. In addition to looking nice, it can be used to get some sand. Just dig it with your spade and you'll get two piles. Now, pick up the sand and use it; you will make a sandstone brick. Using three bricks, you can make a soil plot, which is like a tray, except you can walk over it and there are no lights. You can also build a sandstone door with 10 bricks.

Science can [[Guide_to_advanced_construction#Hydroponics_Tray|build]] hydroponics trays. They can also upgrade them by replacing the matter bins, and this increases the water and nutrient capacity of the tray.

=== Wood and Drying Racks ===

First you need to get some tower-caps, grow them and harvest them. You can then use hatchet (and some other things, but it's not important) on the logs to chop some planks. They have many uses: you can make chairs, tables, wooden floors and so on. A unique thing here is a drying rack. You can use it to dry a plant, and then smoke it. First, build a rack with 10 planks. Then, grab a plant you want to dry and put it in the rack. Click on the rack and toggle drying so that the red arrows light up. Give it a few seconds and it's done.

Note: you can dry ''any'' plant, and smoking it will give you all chemicals that were in it. You can smoke dried apples if you want, and get nutriment from them.


===[[File:Wooden_barrel.png]] Fermentation Barrel===
You can craft wooden barrels with the crafting menu (under tribal), which requires 30 wood planks [[File:Planks.png]]. Clicking it will toggle it between open and closed. When open you can insert plants or liquid. When closed you can draw liquid by using a container on it. <br>

Inserting a plant into the barrel will ferment the plant after a few seconds (even if not closing it). This will grind the plant, adding all the plant's contained reagents to the barrel. But it can also add an additional reagent depending on plant used. Most plants will create a special [[Guide_to_food_and_drinks#Wine|wine]] with varied boozepower depending on plant used. Some plants will create other reagents than wine, and some plants will not work at all.

=== Things You Can Make Out of Your Plants ===

* <s>Separated Chemicals + Liquid Contents lets you grow grenades. Glow-berry Uranium + Towercap Iron = EMP. Watermelon Water + Banana Potassium = Boom.</s> ''Separated chems [[#Traits|trait]] removed january 2019.''
* Add some cable to a potato to make a potato battery. Botany cells have potential to be better than bluespace cells.
* Glowberries and glowshrooms, as the name suggests, glow.
* You can carve a pumpkin with a hatchet. Carved pumpkins can be worn and you can toggle them to emit a weak light.
* You can make a cob-pipe out of a corn cob.
* You can carve a carrot with a hatchet to make a shiv. It's not very strong but it's good at slicing things.
* Flowers and ambrosia can be worn on your head.
* Add dried ambrosia, wheat, tea aspera tips or tobacco leaves to a tower cap log to make a torch.
* Dried ambrosia, tobacco or any mutations of those are able to be smoked from wrapping paper, found in smoking vending machines. You can also grind them and put the liquid in an e-cig.