Ionward's Botany Tier Guide

[Ionward]

I'm sure you know the spiel by now, everyone's making tier lists for roles and it sounded fun to me to try. I bring this to you with a massive yet unknown amount of hours in the garden, so I might know what I'm talking about! Lets get right into it.

F : Oooh, hatchets?

• Has never seen a plant grow and never will
• Thinks hatchets are top-tier weapon and the station is stupid for leaving all of them out
• Usually bald
• Will usually SSD after being brigged, bwoinked, or finding no victims to attempt to dice

D : Farmer John

• Plants nothing but unmodified food for the chef
• Does not understand the biomass generator
• Unwilling or unready to learn the slightly more advanced side of roles
• The garden usually turns to a bunch of wheat then dies/overgrows as the farmer gets bored

C : Memers

• Knows about plant gene modification but only uses it for one thing: usually Bluespace Activity
• Only understands plant potency stat, everything else is pointless to them
• Only slightly better than previous tiers because they've begun learning the role but not when to go ham with plants.
• They probably know how to get and produce Cannabis. Do they know how to mutate it? Maybe. Do they know about CBD's usefulness? Probably not. God help you if they find Omega weed.
• Some advanced members of the F tier will sneak into C tier by discovering Death Nettles and using those inplace of hatchets. They are only slightly higher tier because they use some game mechanics to be a turd.

B: Botanical Researcher

• May not understand the specifics of each trait and stat, but understands the platform to modify them and is willing to learn
• Makes helpful things (but typically mundane, like wood or leather goods) for the crew and is generally friendly
• Knows about Earthsblood, and that its used for making trays self sufficient, but aside from that is unsure of its properties.
• Knows how to hack their vendor but may mess up and need an engineer's help.
• Churns out food from reharvestable plants for the chef. Mass fields of wheat are a thing of the past!

A: Phytomancer

• Plants bend to your will. You know what every trait, chem, and style of plant can do, and know how to implement them.
• Earthsblood + Mannitol mixes for medbay
• Meatwheat for the Cloner's biomass and Kitchen
• 400k battery cells for robotics + anyone else
• Durathread factory + armory
• Plants that recharge the cells on your person allowing for instant e-gun refills
• You even know what the mining flora does, even if no miners ever bring you any.

S+: Kudzu

• You know how to obtain Kudzu, how to wrangle it, and use it for either horrifying biohazard purposes or for farming massive amounts of rare materials. You've learned all there is to know about plants, have fun!

 

As with all of these tier lists, they're mostly meant to be a silly guide. I'm sure there's some small things I've overlooked but I hope you had a giggle, and if anyone has any actual questions about botany I'd be happy to answer!

Edited May 6, 2020 by Ionward
Editted C tier to be more accurate: its just MEMES

[Gatchapod]

Well, I'm a phytomancer with a twist or two. If you ever approach my hydroponics, you'll think "Farmer John", because there's nothing interesting in there. It's entirely possible that even my vendors are not hacked and I'm using L4Z to mutate my plants.
Now why would I do that, you ask. Why would someone with the power to change the station grow unnaturally filling wheat and sunflowers that seem to do nothing, in the slowest and most inefficient way imaginable? Why would they even use L4Z when my mentor told me to never use it?

Because phytomancy is a boring chore of a powergamer. Nothing interesting comes from using the full extent of your knowledge every single round. Instead, I actually employ interdepartmental dependency.
I request engineering to hack my vendors and if they don't do it, I'll simply play without it.
With a bit of luck and supplies, I could get you all the research samples 10 minutes into the round, even ones you didn't know hold value for RnD. Sadly, I am not an RnD guy, so I don't know which plants you want. You have to ask me.
You need omnizine? Earthsblood? Growth serum? Corn oil? Morphine? Sure. If you ask, that is.

 

On a related note, you can sometimes find phytomancers among ash walkers. If a tribe has enough brain cells to at least listen to their shaman, miners should be wary. They're basically immortal unless you get a lucky internal bleeding on them. And even then, it's quite likely said shaman will also know ghetto surgery well enough to patch a patient up.

[Veterankyl]

Oh god, A+ botany traitors are terrifying. To sum up how an encounter with one goes, you get a tomato thrown in your face that instantly incapacitates you with every drug and poison known to man with death following in seconds. They're up there with chemist/science traitors.

[Dalmat]

If you think Kuzdu was S+ I guess your missing the final form for botany. lets just say it involves honey.

[Veterankyl]

Not the bees! Ahhhhhh!

[MarsMond]

On 5/7/2020 at 3:40 AM, Veterankyl said:

Oh god, A+ botany traitors are terrifying. To sum up how an encounter with one goes, you get a tomato thrown in your face that instantly incapacitates you with every drug and poison known to man with death following in seconds. They're up there with chemist/science traitors.

Hijack botany traitor is even more terrifying. Let's just say making doctor bees envy them is the least they do. And even without using the plants as weapons, they'll be unstoppable. Every possible anti-stun and healing chemical you would want, extra-strong burn and trauma kits, won't need a recharger for any stolen weapon, if they don't already have infinite .357 and are just using that. It would even not cost them too much storage capacity to carry around everything they would need to make a new place to make a refill of everything.
I think the most self-sufficient department is botany, if they know how. The Lifebringers are basically that, although they do have a few boosts that would need department cooperation for the stations hydoponics to have. But in the end, it's somewhat just QoL, like needing to harvest and extract seeds from less, or having to gamble less with mutagen to get the stats in the right ballpark.

[Mr.FancyPants]

I'm firmly a B because I still have no idea how to accurately modify stats in a positive manner so I actually produce something useful. I can mutate with mutagen and use Robust Harvest but it seems like I always end up with a bunch of low yield low potency whatevers. Plus I always get bored of Botany after about half an hour, having to constantly monitor weed/pest growth even after you've treated the trays with Gaia always pisses me off.

 

[BryanR]

Apparently I'm S+.

Fear me.

[Homtoh]

Hijack ?

- Get amanitin from Amanita

- Put it in wheat, tomatoes, or whatever goes to the chef

- Watch as people die after some minutes without knowing why

- Hack your vendor so that it shoots its seeds (make sure to have one seed of important stuff in your plant bag)

- Blame atmos for the toxins damage if interrogated, and act innocent: oh, one amanita seed taken from the vending machine ?  No I haven't used it, the machine is broken, the seed's missing because it's shooting them around (bribe other botanist with infinite knowledge of plants and chemicals, he'll like it)

- Bonus points if you find gaseous decomposition: put fluorosulphuric acid, mercury, cyanide, densified and liquid contents and throw everywhere.  Use wheat for maximum speed of harvest

- Redtext because you forgot and ate the poisonous food

[Pewtershmitz]

I'll admit my ignorance here and say I'm on the Phytomancer range, but "Plants that recharge the cells on your person allowing for instant e-gun refills" leaves me confused.
Any experts want to impart some wisdom so I may reach my full potencial?

[Pewtershmitz]

I have reached enlightenment! I am now a solid A+ Phytomancer!

 

Thanks for the guide!

[Bestmannnnn]

I ususally can make kudzu, But i just can't be bothered to, same with A, I CAN do it, just cant be bothered