Botanist
 Botanist |
Superiors: Head of Personnel
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Department head:
Head of Personnel
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Plants
For the full chart with plant types, what they look like, and what they do, please check out the Guide to hydroponics.
Fertilizer Types
EZ Nutrient: The standard, keeps plants alive. Not needed for weeds.
Left-4-Zed: Increases the potency by a large amount, but takes forever to harvest. Switch to another fertilizer if it takes too long.
Robust Harvest: The amount harvested increases dramatically.
Seeds
The seed storage gives you seeds to start growing. There's a couple of hidden seeds too if you get the tools to hack it, but remember that it's very slightly illegal.
The Chef
Take your vegetables to the chef, then have him cook them up! There are many different foods the chef can make from different foods you grow. Or, as an alternative, have him blend different things for you. Blended foods provide a concentration of various materials that can be separated from nutriment reagents.
Tools of the Trade
You get a few fun tools as a botanist that will make your life so easy when growing plants:
| Item | Description | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hatchet |
A rather robust small cutting tool used to | |||
 Cultivator |
Used for cutting away weeds that grew in the hydroponics trays, alternatively it makes for a | |||
 Plant-b-Gone Spray bottle |
Kills hydroponic plants, kills kudzu weeds, kills alien weeds too, can be filled with other chemicals. Does minor toxin damage, but absolutely devastates plant people if its sprayed on them. | |||
 Plant analyzer |
A handy tool that will tell you everything that you need to know about the plant you just scanned. Stats listed in the scan result will include things like the plant its: Potency, Yield, Age, Lifespan and much more. See the Guide to hydroponics for more information | |||
 Backpack irrigation system |
A backpack similar to the janitor their backpack water tank, this one used to make watering the plants much less annoying and tedious. 
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 Bucket |
Used to water plants or hold other reagents, chemicals can be mixed in these so they can double as beakers! These can be worn on your head as a helmet aswell. | |||
 Chemical grinder |
A handy piece of machinery that can help you greatly in extracting chemicals from plants. Materials like plasma can also be ground up into a dust using this! | |||
 Wirecutters |
These can be used to connect the irrigation pipes between the hydroponic trays. Allowing you to setup a more effecient irrigation system. | |||
 Wrench |
Can be used to unsecure the trays and move them around if you want to re-arrange your workspace. | |||
 Multitool |
Used to hack the vendors in your department to gain access to all of those sweet illegal plants. If you can't get one, use two signallers or ask an engineer. They can also be printed at the autolathe. | |||
 Toxin medkit |
Because sometimes you can get too high on your own supply or when you happen to have a little accident and eat the wrong plant. | |||
 Insulated Gloves |
To make sure that hacking those vendors wont be your death. | |||
 An Engineer |
Because you completely forgot how hacking the vendors worked in the first place and you would rather not shock yourself to death. | |||
 Chemdispenser |
Generally a handy machine to have around for some specific chemicals to truly elevate your botanical business. | |||
Chemicals
Beg the chemist to make you stuff, namely unstable mutagen. You will go through this stuff fast, so make sure they aren't stingy. If chemistry is helpful they can also give you a dropper for more precise mutations. A generous chemist might even lend you a spare chem dispenser if you ask nicely.
Different chemicals do different things to your plants when injected. Experiment until you find a blend you like!
Most of your crops can be blended down into chemicals themselves. You can also put these crops directly into hydroponics trays if dosage specificity isn't an issue.
An alternative to chemicals is a floral somatoray. You can get it from the scientists unless they and/or the shaft miners are being lazy fucks (which is always). It is a gun that shoots mutation rays that either increases yield or tries to change the plant's stats. (Guide to hydroponics).
Ammonia is a much better fertilizer than EZ-Grow, and unstable mutagens can cause some interesting plant variations.
Most chemicals can be requested from the Chemist, but you're quite low down on the list of people who need them, so try giving them some useful plants to blend.
Different chemicals do different things to your plants when injected. Feel free to experiment until you find a blend you like!
Pod Cloning
A almost always forgotten alternative to cloning. See the Guide to Hydroponics for more details.
Dirt
If you happen to come across a Shaft Miner that hasn't taken a hardsuit and gone off to explore space, then you're halfway there. Get some sand, use it to make sandstone, then take three sandstone to make dirt. Another method is to grow grass in your existing hydroponics trays, then plant the grass tiles and dig them up with the spade found in the back room! This will dig up some sand. Congratulations, you are no longer restricted to tiny water tubs for growing now! Be warned though, it is not the most efficient method of planting, as there are no lights to indicate needs for water, fertilizer, etc. Have fun surrounding the theatre with bananas and watching the clown collapse in sheer joy.
Tips
- Your bottles are better then regular bottles and can put in 1 2 5 10 15 30 doses. Droppers aren't as mandatory as they once were.
- You can fertilize your trays via applying harvested plants to a Hydroponics Tray with something already planted in it.
- The biogenerator can be used to fabricate gloves, belts, Botany chemicals, and even kitchen products such as meat and milk.
- Instead of growing wheat, you may find it less time consuming to throw some spare plants in the biogenerator to get a whole bag of flour. No grinding needed!
- Remember you can boost a plant back to health long past its normal lifespan by providing lots of nutriment or healing chemicals.
- Hatchets are extremely effective against space vines. Similarly, scythes will destroy them in a 3x3 radius.
- Goats will instantly consume any space vines they may walk into, or be pushed into.
- The plant products in the Garden and Chapel all have 50 potency, greater then any seeds found at the start of the round.
- The EZ-Nutrient, Left-4-Zed and Robust Harvest bottles all hold 50 units and can be set to have a transfer amount of 1, 2, 5 or more units; fill an empty bottle with unstable mutagen and you can use it for precise mutations.