Xenobotany

[Spacemanspark]

Hi yes welcome to my Ted Talk

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, Paradise used to have a subdepartment for science called 'xeno botany'. 

What did it do? 

Well, it's just like scichem to chemistry. One can focus on providing items to help the station, while the other can freely experiment with potentially very dangerous things that shouldn't get out onto the station. 

I think this would be something really great to add back to the server. Players that want to toy about with dangerous plants rather than provide the chef with ingredients can freely do so, and those on the opposite end of the spectrum don't have to worry about Bill Nye the plant guy rising from a nearby bluespace explosive death nettle plant and biting their arm off. 

It would also be a better replacement for the experimentor, I think, as it's hardly used and mostly just taking up space. 

[thatdanguy23]

love this idea, absolutely.

 

i think it should be separated into its own scientist role though, if it gets implemented - as, honestly, so should the rest of science, but that's a different kettle of fish.

[Carthusia]

2 hours ago, Spacemanspark said:

cichem to chemistry. One can focus on providing items to help the station, while the other can freely experiment with potentially very dangerous things that shouldn't get out onto the station. 

 

Love the idea, buuuuut this just made me imagine an army of killer tomatos breaking out of xeno to flood the station with their delicious goodness and nashing teeth...and i love it.

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by BlackDog

[Eler00]

Maybe you could bundle it with xenobiology and create a separate job for those two?

[Spacemanspark]

Hrm, maybe. Xenobiology would likely become incredibly cramped, but a 'xenoscience' job wouldn't be bad.

[Eler00]

Well I imagine there would be some remapping involved.

[MarsMond]

How well would they be able to interact and help each other? Both will want to get gaia trays, both will want to have a few traits like perennial, both would want to have mutagen, botany for a few more food plants like meatwheat and mutating yield or potency.

[Leanfrog]

I like this idea but IMO science and botany are both incredibly powerful in the right hands, this would pretty much be merging them into one super job that can manage any threat or become a threat bigger than any other

[McRamon]

I know that waiting for botany to make rnd plants is frustrating sometimes, but having 1 less communication between departments is not good i think. 

[Spacemanspark]

19 minutes ago, McRamon said:

I know that waiting for botany to make rnd plants is frustrating sometimes, but having 1 less communication between departments is not good i think. 

This is less about RnD, who really doesn't need plants to do their job, and more about the chef getting food out for the crew, while also letting players experiment more freely without killing people. 

I suppose it does give science a bit of a buff in that regard, but it's fairly minimal. 

2 hours ago, MarsMond said:

How well would they be able to interact and help each other? Both will want to get gaia trays, both will want to have a few traits like perennial, both would want to have mutagen, botany for a few more food plants like meatwheat and mutating yield or potency.

Perhaps botany would largely just grow food related plants with maybe some exceptions to get a few 'necessary' traits, and xenobotany could take care of the rest. Gaia trays, things for mutations, et cetera. 

 

Or they could be considered two entirely different things on their own. Let both grow Gaia, normal botany grow things that benefits their production of food related stuff, and xenobotany can play with all the fancy toys and not really give a damn about xenobiology. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Spacemanspark

[ConfectionCore]

Giving this a +1. Botany can be a crowded workplace, with some people there to chill and grow plants, and some people there to find and experiment with every mutation possible with plants, often using it as a ghetto scichem. It can also be rather frantic, having people trying to share trays between the chef providers, the science providers, and the mad scientists themselves. Having this would allow botanists in the service department to keep being botanists, where botanists who currently act as pseudo scientists can fulfil their dreams and plant what they desire. 

[Eler00]

2 hours ago, Leanfrog said:

I like this idea but IMO science and botany are both incredibly powerful in the right hands, this would pretty much be merging them into one super job that can manage any threat or become a threat bigger than any other

That's why I suggest splitting off xenobio together with it into a separate job. It would mean golem production, slimecores and xenobio creature spam would be separate from RnD powergaming.

[Sampaiii]

I like this, and also like the idea of splitting it into a new job paired with xenobio

It is a little strange that science has several different areas but almost no sub-departmental jobs with specific accesses (or whatever you'd call them)

But also I like messing with weird plants moreso than doing normal botany and itd be nice to be able to do that as crew instead of having to look for the terrarium lavaland ghost role

[Ionward]

This was one of the nicest things I found about the OLD OLD OLD science outpost. You could go mess with plants and the only people who would mess with you would be potential antagonists trying for offstation stuff, but if you were far enough into your plants you'd just dunk em.

 

Memories aside, I've stopped playing regular botany because of how exhausting it is to try and teach hatchet-thirsty baldies how to plant stuff before they run off and get banned for murder. Too few rounds where multiple "xenobotanists" end up in botany and it gets frustrating to try and do advanced stuff while your partners ignore you and plant all the trays with wheat.