¶ Botanist
Your mind tingles. The plants speak to you. You already know what you must do.
Grow.
And Plant.
Until it is done.
The Botanist is a service role under management of the Head of Personnel (HoP). Sometimes called Hydroponics, Hydro, Botany, or Bot, the Botanist's job is to grow plants and distribute produce to the station. All members of the crew may request items from Botany, though as a Botanist, you are not required to oblige their requests. The most common departments that request items are the Kitchen and Chemistry, with occasional visits from Epistemics and Cargo. Ranging from traditional produce you might find at your local NanoTrasen grocery store to mutated vegetables that will just kill you, the Botanist is equipped with all the jobs for the job.
¶ Equipment
To first become a good Botanist, one must first understand the tools of the Trade. Nanotrasen provides basic tools within the Nutrimax Vending Machine, all of which are useful in it's own way.
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Spade | The trusty tool of any self-respecting Botanist. Smells and tastes like freshly fertilized dirt. Removes a plant from it's Hydroponic Tray. |
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Mini Hoe | Not to be confused with Hoe. The Mini-Hoe removes any weeds that may be growing in your hydroponic trays. Useful for removing Kudzu remnants. |
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Plant Clippers | The poor-man's seed packet. Useful for obtaining seed packets from seedless plants. Overuse will kill your plant. |
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Hatchet | The classic hatchet, useful for self-defense in a pinch. Harvest's a plant's produce when used. Does NOT chop trees. |
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Scythe | The edgier hatchet, with much less damage. Harvest's a plant's produce when used; best catered towards wheat. May be used for cosplay. |
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Plant Bag | The sidekick of any good Botanist, the Plant Bag makes the storage of produce a breeze. Each plant bag only takes up a 1x2 storage place, and can be dumped onto the ground for quick and easy deliveries. |
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Weed Spray | Does not contain cannabis. Kills weeds within hydroponic trays, but also poisons the plant. Use the Mini-Hoe instead. |
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Plant-B-Gone Spray | A spray bottle containing Plant-B-Gone. Instantly kills kudzu formation when sprayed. Useful for large Kudzu infestations. |
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Pest Spray | A spray bottle containing chemicals to kill pests within your hydroponics tray. Useful for killing pests, but poisons the plant. |
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Plant Analyzer | The most important tool of any good Botanist's arsenal, it displays the stats of a hydroponic tray and it's plant. Useful for obtaining information on whether or not it's missing any of its core components like water or nutrients or is suffering from weeds or poison. Additionally, also displays useful information on plant's name, age, and health, alongside what chemicals it contains. |
¶ Chemicals
For advanced manipulation of your plants.
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Robust Harvest | Robust Harvest, a dark brown chemical that greatly enhances a plant's flower size, at the cost of it's seed capabilities. Can be obtained from the Nutri-vend. Can increase flower sizes up the Gigantic, after which obscene amounts of Robust Harvests are needed to increase its size further. Diona's may use Robust Harvests as a “discount” Omnizine, healing nearly all forms of common blunt damage. |
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Ammonia | An effective fertilizer made from Hydrogen and Nitrogen. Gives plant's nutrients. Do not drink. |
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Diethylamine | An extremely potent fertilizer, made from Ammonia and Ethanol. Gives nutrients, kills pests, and sometimes speeds growth. Very useful for rushing several plants after ignoring cargo's bounty requests for half the shift. |
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Left-4-Zed | A unique mutagenic compound that has a chance to increase mutation severity. Left-4-Zed should be used in conjunction with Unstable Mutagens, though it's results may vary. Use at your own risk. |
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Unstable Mutagen | The most essential chemical within a Botanist's arsenal. Randomly mutates genes of a plant, randomly changing any part of the plant, ranging from flower size, flower count, any of the mutated traits, as well as mutating the plant into a new variant. Caution must be exercised when utilizing Unstable Mutagens, as mutations may render plants unviable or seedless, as well as turning it into Kudzu. Bug your local chemist for Unstable Mutagens. |
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Sedin | Sedin is a niche chemical that allows a plant to regain it's seeds from produce, allowing seeds to be extracted from it's produce. However, this comes at the cost of decreasing plant flower size. Best used in small units, and is heavily recommended to use 1u at a time. Bug your local chemist for Sedin. |
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Phalaximine | The second most essential chemical within a Botanist's arsenal. Poisons the plant when used but removes the “death gene” or “unviability” from the plant. This allows the plant to grow again and not continuously lose health over time. Bug your local chemist for Phalaximine atop of the traditional Unstable Mutagens. |
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Sterile Swabs | An innocuous swab capable of marvelous things. Sterile Swabs are capable of transfer plant traits and chemicals to other plants, allowing exceptionally robust Botanists to transfer highly sought after chemicals, like Omnizine, into other plants. Remember the golden rule of Sterility; if you don't remember if you had swabbed it, THROW IT OUT. |
¶ NT-Guide to a Robust Botanist
In order to fully maximize your potential as an aspiring Botanist, you must always remember that mutations and swabbing are always random. You may not get what trait or chemicals you wish within a shift, and that is okay. Below is an example of “Medical-Maxxing”, which includes an example of swabbing.
- Bug your Chemist for Mutagens and Phalaximine. It should take them only a few minutes to mix everything. Make sure to always bring TWO buckets from the Nutrivend before you do, so that your chemist won't be giving away their precious beakers.
- Plant Ambrosia Vulgaris, taking the seeds from the MegaSeed Vendor. Dose each Vulgaris tray with 5u Unstable Mutagen each.
- Remove any Vulgaris that mutate into Kudzu. If your Vulgaris mutates into an Ambrosia Deus, immediately swab the Deus. Should the Deus be Unviable, dose the Hydroponic Tray with 5u of Phalaximine.
- Swab the Deus.
- Plant apples. Dose each apple plant with 5u each of Unstable Mutagens.
- Repeat step 3 for each of the apples. Should your apples mutate into Golden Apples, remove all other apple trees unless the crew asks for apples.
- Make sure to clip and plant a “Control” Golden Apple tree. This will be your backup. You may also wait for the Golden Apple tree to flower and extract seeds from the Golden Apples.
- Using the now unsterile swab with pollen from the Deus plant, carefully swab and dust the Golden Apple tree.
- Using your Plant Analyzer, make sure the Golden Apple has the following chemicals at minimum: Doctor's Delight and Omnizine. Should the apples no longer produce seeds, add Sedin.
- Grow two Towercap shrooms. Swab the Omnizine and Doctor's Delight apples to the Towercap shrooms. Should the Towercaps no longer have 5 flowers, utilize a new swab to move the 5 flower trait back to the Doctor's Delight and Omnizine Towercaps. The seedless trait should be ignored as it can be easily fixed.
- Should luck favor you and all prior steps are done correctly, swab the now 5-flower Omnizine and Doctor's Delight Towercaps back to the Golden Apple tree.
- Congratulations. You have now acquired a 5-flower Omnizine and Doctor's Delight Golden Apple. You may utilize additional Mutagens or Robust Harvests to increase flower size.