"A pair of horns erupt from your head", A traitors guide to genetics.

[Frank]

Good day.

I am Diesel/Frank, and this is my traitor genetics guide. This guide is based on my past experiences as both geneticist traitor and regular geneticist, and I made this for people who have done some genetics before but doesn't know how to do it efficiently or what some of the powers do. This is a traitors guide to genetics because a lot of the powers are far more useful to a traitor than to a regular crewmember. The wiki also has some detailed descriptions on what the powers do but it doesn't explain how it can be used to your advantage. My English is not perfect and I hope you will not be annoyed by it. During my playtime I have done a lot of genetics but I am probably not the best one. Most of my past experiences I have gotten from someone else as people are very helpful here. So I will have a small “Thank you” section on the bottom of my guide.

If you are playing as geneticist for the first time and you have this guide up, I suggest you check out the wiki first to learn the basics: https://www.paradisestation.org/wiki/index.php/Guide_to_Genetics. After you have learned the basics, come check this guide up so you can learn efficiency and how to use the powers to your gain. Before you start using this guide, you should know about the following:

• How to work the DNA machine (I will give some tips and tricks on this, but learn the basics).
• Gene 55, the humanizing of a monkey.
• How to make a clean S.E. without any disabilities.
• How to activate genes by changing the values of S.E. numbers.
• Saving S.E on transfer buffers, using block injectors and S.E. injectors.

If you know the things above, congratulations! You have a basic knowledge of genetics. So let's get started on the more advanced stuff. Time to work fast, work safe, kick some ass and most importantly: get that greentext, have fun!

 

"My way", how to be fast at genetics:

To begin this guide, I will talk about efficiency and productivity.  At the start of the shift before you do anything else grab the following:

One radiation suit and a geiger counter. These are found in the southern part of medbay next to the psych office and are very important. After the radiation and the SM engine update, the DNA machines no longer have radiation shielding. This means if you use Nokko's method, you receive heavy radiation from your subject until it dies. So don't be stubborn and wear a damn rad suit. This will save you a great deal of pain.

1-2 pills of mutadone. These are found in the nanomeds and used to clean your genes up in case you accidently activate too many and get unstable. If you feel like you have things under control and have a clean S.E. on hand, just relax and inject that instead.

1-3 bottles of potassium ionide. These are found in the nanomeds and used to lower your level of radiation. Check it regularly with your geiger counter. Once you start to get on levels above 500, drink a bottle and relax for a minute, then keep working. If chemistry has made pentetic acid, use this instead. Pentetic acid is at least 5 times more efficient but will harm you a little, so grab some saline as well.

After you have this, it's time to bother your neighbor the chemist. If you haven't heard about Nokko's method, you can check it out at this point: 

 

Explained in short, Nokko's method is about forcefeeding your subject 400u of unstable mutagen. Unstable mutagen when forcefed or injected will activate bad mutations. Around 350-400u is enough to activate all of them. This is extremely helpful to you as its way faster instead of changing the genes to the value of activation manually. I don't need to add a lot of stuff to this as this still works wonders to this day despite being over a year old guide. However you can inject the unstable mutagen with IV bags instead of forcefeeding it, so just ask the chemist to make two IV bags of unstable mutagen instead of four large beakers or eight small beakers. This will save them some trouble while making it and it will also save you some time while giving it to the subject. Humanize your subject, drag it into the middle of the lab and set the IV bags to inject (by using it in your hand). Then right click on the IV bag and set the transfer value to 10u (highest possible), then use it on your humanized subject to start injecting.

Examine the bags after about 2-3 minutes to figure out how much unstable mutagen you have left. If you have around 50u left (doesn't have to be exact), you can stop injecting and start noting down disabilities by checking the S.E. of the subject on the DNA machine. Now you want to note down ALL genes above the value of 802 in notepad or word, as they are the disabilities.

 

Emitters:

At this point in the shift, you have now noted down all the disabilities and you're now ready to start checking out them good genes. First of all, set the emitters. On the bottom of the S.E. part of the DNA machine window, there are options for setting them. Always set the intensity to max and the time to 1. As you are working on a non-sentient subject, you don't have to worry about it dying. This will make your work somewhat faster. If the subject gets turned into a skeleton (happens after a while to all corpses that are not voxes), just grab a new monkey, humanize it and keep going. If you absolutely do not want that happening you can also ask the coroner to use some formaldehyde on your dead subject. Do take note that if you are testing on a crewmember, set the intensity to 1 and the time to 1 so that you don't harm them too much. If they get too high radiation, take a break and use some pentetic acid.

 

Picking the "right" DNA machine:

In the start of the shift, pick the RIGHT DNA machine. Why? Well this will allow you to install a second console next to your DNA manipulator, which lets you print syringes even faster. It turns out that you can install four consoles for one DNA manipulator. This is however restricted by how much space you have in your lab.  Building the second console is very easy if you know how to make consoles in general. If you don’t know how, check this:

1.     Around 15-20 minutes into the shift, go check over at RND if they have built an autolathe. If they have, grab one wrench and one screwdriver.

2.     Go bug RND for a “DNA machine” board. Grab 5 metal, 2 glass and a cable coil while you’re in there.

3.     Remove the damn table next to your DNA manipulator with a wrench.

4.     Use the 5 metal you picked up in your hand and create a computer frame.

5.     Pick up the wrench and use it on the computer frame. Use the DNA board on it and then fasten it with a screwdriver.

6.     Use the wire you picked up on the console and then the glass. Finish up with screwdriver.

7.     You now have a second console that you can use to print even more syringes!

8.     Turn the entire station into hulks.

Do take note that this will not always be possible. If RND is staffed by two monkeys and a traitor RD, it’s very unlikely that you will get anyone to print you a DNA machine board. Normally this is not the case, so you can go ahead and ask.

 

Activation/deactivation of genes:

When you start testing, you should have two S.E. strains saved on the transfer buffer part of your console. On the top S.E. you should have the strain you’re changing all the time for testing. The second one should be your clean S.E as shown below.

Activating and deactivating genes are easily done by using block injectors. If you inject S.E. block number 16 and you start speaking Swedish, dø nøt panic bork bork! This is not the end. No need to suicide with console commands. Go on the console and pick block injector again, but this time from the clean S.E. instead. Print and inject the corresponding gene and it will deactivate. Now you can støp eating surstrømming børk børk move on as if it never happened. This is also something you can use on the field when you’re not in the lab.

Let’s say you have picked a combination for your traitorous needs. You found polymorph, a very useful gene for a traitor, but you don’t want to have it in your combination due to the instability cost. If polymorph is S.E. number 21, print and label one. Then print the same block from your clean S.E. and you can activate and then deactivate it on the go. This can be done with all genes, but do take note that some genes are hard to activate as described further below.

 

Gene isolation:

So you have finally managed to change a gene into activation value. You pick the block injector, print the syringe, inject it and…

This does not mean that you lose. A gene that does nothing when injected is not necessarily a bad thing. This can be caused by three things:

1.     The value that you set the gene to is not high enough.

2.     The gene is empty.

3.     You found one of the genes that are hard to activate.

If the gene already has a value of DAC, don’t bother to start injecting it over and over again to see what it does. Write down the S.E. number as unknown and keep going. Unless it’s empty, it will activate later.

These genes are hard to activate:

·       Hulk

·       Telekinesis

·       No breathing

·       Chameleon

·       Cloak of darkness

·       X-ray

If you activate one of these, go over your notes and check the genes that did nothing earlier. Take note of which gene you injected when it activated. All other genes other than these will activate immediately when injected if they have the correct value.

Example 1: You’re on S.E. number 31, you inject it and it does absolutely nothing. So you move on, change S.E. number 32 into a value of DAC or higher. You inject S.E. number 32 and you get telepathy and chameleon. This means that S.E. number 32 is telepathy, as telepathy activates every time you inject it with a value of DAC/CAD or higher. Chameleon should then be S.E. number 31, unless you already injected some genes earlier that did nothing.

Clean your genes every now and then by using a clean S.E. syringe. This should be done for every 4-6 genes you inject. Do again take note of the ones that did nothing and reapply these if they were one of the last you injected.

Example 2: You inject 6 genes.

1.     Heat resistance

2.     Nothing

3.     Telepathy

4.     Sober

5.     Buff

6.     Nothing

The S.E. number of the 2nd gene you injected is likely empty. Clean yourself up, and inject the 6th one again, keep inject more genes.

7.     6th gene (Nothing)

8.     Shock resistance

9.     Cold resistance and hulk.

Stop here; remember the S.E. number of the 6th gene you injected. The S.E. number of the 9th is cold resistance. By deactivating the 6th gene you find out the correct S.E. number of hulk.

 

Teamwork is the only way:

There are two job slots for geneticist. This means you will most of the time be working together with someone else. If you’re a traitor geneticist, time is a factor. Genetics is very time consuming, so if you find yourself working with someone, try to be a team player until it’s time to go do your objectives. Be nice, share the genes you find, buy your partner a coffee. Unless you happen to be working with a total asshole or someone that doesn’t know what they are doing, chances are they will share what they find with you as well. This will without doubt make your work a lot easier.

If you have someone next to you that are willing to work with you, checking the genes that didn't activate on the first try is a lot easier as well. If you inject a gene and it doesn't activate, the gene and the value of it is still in your DNA.

1. Inject yourself with the gene that you want to check or activate. Ask your parther to save your S.E.
2. Doublecheck emitters to make sure the intensity is not on max or you will get very irradiated.
3. If your S.E. is saved correctly, ask your partner to just spam change one gene (can be any gene except for the one you're trying to activate). After some activations and deactivations, you will have activated the gene you want unless it's empty.
4. Inject yourself with the S.E. that you saved earlier with only the testing/activation gene. This will clean all the other random mutations you recieved during the procedure.

 

Customer service:

While genetics is not the most useful job on the station, people will come by to worship you in hopes of getting some free superpowers. During a normal geneticist shift, giving out some powers to graytiders, engineers and explorers are acceptable. Just make sure you ask the RD for permission first have common sense when giving them out and everything will be fine.

However, if you’re a traitor, you are ON THE CLOCK. If you have a partner in your lab, just leave the customers to them. If they ask you directly, be polite and decline. You don’t have time for that shit, as you’re going to get telekinesis and X-ray so you can steal that hypospray. If you get invaded by a bunch of people who refuse to take no for an answer, beat them to death with a fire extinguisher call security and ask them to remove them for you. Do not resort to violence unless it’s self-defense.

 

The genes:

Here at the end, I will list up and describe all the superpowers you can find when working as a mad scientist who likes to play god geneticist. It’s not that easy to know what “your fingers feel numb” even means. Did you just turn diabetic? Is this cryokinesis???

Do note that while I will rate them on a scale, nearly all genes can be A-tier in the right situation.

 

"You notice a strange cold tingle in your fingertips."

"You suddenly notice more about others than you did before."

"Your muscles hurt."

"Your leg muscles feel taut and strong."

"You feel hungry."

"Everything around you seems bigger now..."

"You feel no need to breathe."

"Your fingers feel numb."

"Your mind feels closed."

"You feel smarter."

"You feel one with your surroundings."

"You begin to fade into the shadows."

"Your body is filled with warmth."

"Your skin is icy to the touch."

"Your skin feels dry and unreactive."

"Your body feels if can alter its appearance."

"You don't feel entirely like yourself somehow."

"Your wounds start healing."

"Your mind can see things from afar."

"You feel you can project your thoughts."

"The walls suddenly disappear."

"You feel swift and unencumbered."

"You feel unusually sober."

"You feel buff!"

 

Balancing:

Balance is always important when it comes to making a combination. This is because if you don't have it, you will take small burn damage every now and then, warp, or warp to death based on how unstable you are. To create the perfect balance, you will need to mix some disabilities in with your abilities. Most of them are very annoying, and I have therefore made a list that you can use.

• Fat: GIves -5 instability. This one is just lovely as you can use swift for free, and swift is always useful.
• Nearsightedness: Gives -10 instability. Get some glasses from the medical reception and this turns into a free -10.
• Hallucinate: Gives -10 instability. Doesn't activate too often unless you're extremely unlucky, and sometimes it's just scary sounds. 
• Radioactive: Gives -15 instability. Useful if you have rad meds such as pentetic acid, and don't mind of you accidently go bald.
• Tourettes: FUCK
• Colorblindness: Gives -10 instability. Can be used if it's not as annoying to you as it is to me (and I am colorblind already).
• Mute: Gives -10 instability. It's nice if you don't plan on saying anything while murdering the head of security.
• Dizzy: Gives -5 instability, and it's just not worth it. No. Don't use this.
• Clumsiness: Gives -5 instability. I wouldn't use this one either.
• Unintelligble: GIVES!! -5!! INSTABILITY!! IT!! OK!!
• Epilepsy: Gives -10 instability. It's OK to use as a hulk as hulks don't care about being incapacitated. Otherwise it's very risky.
• Coughing: Gives -5 instability. It's very annoying, and you do drop objects while coughing. I don't like it.
• Blindness: Gives -15 instability. If you like playing on hard mode.
• Deafness: Gives -15 instability. You shouldn't listen to what everyone says anyway.
• Swedish: GIves 0 instability. Bork bork!

 

Thank you:

This is the end of the guide. I hope you have had fun happy time reading it. As I promised I am making a thank you page, because some people love to teach others and I couldn't have written this guide without you. I have been working on this guide for a long time. My exams were done this week and I could finally finish it.

Vicente S. IG: Vikente Djtovtchz. Told me a lot when I was new to genetics.

MomoBerry. IG: Ser Koksure. Also told me a lot of stuff that I didn't know.

Nokko. IG: Not sure. He wrote a very good guide on how to do genetics faster.

Not sure about ckey, but Feasel Easel in game. Helped me test some of the genes.

 

You are great!

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Frank
Fixed some errors

[ConfectionCore]

This is really entertaining to read, and also very informative! Well done! 

[Viz]

Disagree on a few ratings here. Cold res is essential for spaceproofing, and EVA capable antags are almost impossible to catch if they're smart. Similarly Dwarf is trespass galore and lets you use places like cargo or R&D for escapes that Security can cry about at most. 

Really cool guide otherwise, though. I'm sure it'll come in handy for a lot of tator tots! :)

[S34N]

Man, no S rating for chav, or mention of chav at all? Sad :(

[Frank]

4 hours ago, gangelwaefre said:

This is really entertaining to read, and also very informative! Well done! 

Why thank you. Happy you enjoyed it.

 

2 hours ago, Woje said:

Disagree on a few ratings here. Cold res is essential for spaceproofing, and EVA capable antags are almost impossible to catch if they're smart. Similarly Dwarf is trespass galore and lets you use places like cargo or R&D for escapes that Security can cry about at most. 

Really cool guide otherwise, though. I'm sure it'll come in handy for a lot of tator tots! :)

While I absolutely love cold res, I made the rating based on the price of it compared to the other genes and how easy it is to work around not having it. I know the feeling of being a badass walking into space with a hoodie and a gas mask, but when you have a gene that removes all slowdowns at the cost of 5 instability it pales a little in comparison. You have no idea how many times I have asked the AI to open EVA storage for me because I'm "going fishing in space". I feel like they open it every time I ask, so space suits are not so hard to get at least not for me. It's not that I feel like cold resistance is bad, but more like the ones I put on A and B tier are just way too good.

So uh about dwarf. I haven't used it a lot, so I might change the description and rating later if I get a lot of feedback. A lot of people tend to ask me for it so they can become "smol", so I've always considered it as kind of a joke-gene. I will do some testing and see how it is to use when evading the police.

 

56 minutes ago, S34N said:

Man, no S rating for chav, or mention of chav at all? Sad :(

u wot m8

In all seriousness, I did consider making a picture text thing for the disabilities as well and rate them to how hard it is to work around them when you use them in a build. I might do it later but I am very busy.

[Viz]

8 minutes ago, Frank said:

so I've always considered it as kind of a joke-gene

Everybody gangsta until dwarf instantly hops over HoP desk, prods them, and takes their ID :^)

[Charliminator]

Great guide! But no breathing is worse than space proofing. Internals are much more common than being space proof and you can pull off some stupid combos with space proofing. Evidence, reactive armour + being space proof + syndie teleporter. You become the slipperiest person on earth. 

 

Also I am pretty sure shock immunity makes you immune to tesla shocks so it has to be atleast like... D tier. Outside of those tier nitpicks, good guide.

[Frank]

25 minutes ago, Charliminator said:

Great guide! But no breathing is worse than space proofing. Internals are much more common than being space proof and you can pull off some stupid combos with space proofing. Evidence, reactive armour + being space proof + syndie teleporter. You become the slipperiest person on earth.

Hi there!

I'd like to mention that no breathing equals way more than just not having to use internals. Removing suffocation damage completely has a huge set of advantages on its own. I gave this A-tier for the sheer amount of bulkyness and additional survivability it provides you. As mentioned in the guide, this gene will allow you to not fall into hard crit when sustaining injuries that other crewmembers would have died from long ago. Having low blood doesn't affect you at all until you reach the death cap. 

Feasel Easel also tested what happens when you remove the heart while having this gene. He concluded that you can survive without a heart, but you cannot move. You don't need lungs either, so you can just ignore ruptured lungs. Being able to stay at 100% health when you have less than 50% blood is no joke. This is the Rambo gene, and I believe SOOs have it when they spawn in (correct me if I'm wrong here).

42 minutes ago, Charliminator said:

Also I am pretty sure shock immunity makes you immune to tesla shocks so it has to be atleast like... D tier.

When it comes to shock immunity I think it provides the same amount of tesla shock immunity as insuls. Tesla is also not something you see every shift.  I would have given it a D tier if it didn't add 10 instability. It should be a little cheaper considering that it's basically the fancy yellow glove gene.

45 minutes ago, Charliminator said:

Outside of those tier nitpicks, good guide.

Thanks mane!

[Esenno]

17 hours ago, Frank said:

(Banned)

Pardon me for asking but uh... Why was their status in terms of their ability to play on the server even included? I don't exactly think this violates rules but you have to admit that's a really weird thing to add to your guide. 

[Frank]

2 minutes ago, Esenno said:

Pardon me for asking but uh... Why was their status in terms of their ability to play on the server even included? I don't exactly think this violates rules but you have to admit that's a really weird thing to add to your guide. 

So I have been playing geneticist for a while, and I have learned from a lot of different genetics maints. After a while writing this guide, I wondered what happen to them as I had not seen them on the server for a while. After doing some searching and stuff I found out they had been banned. I will not go into detail about why and it's a little funny and sad at the same time. People who main or play geneticist tend to become power hungry and end up getting banned. I realized this one time when I was playing botany and I got murdered by a vampire, and I thought "wow this never would have happened if I was a geneticist with a lot of kick-ass powers". Later my attitude changed, and the game became less about winning and more about doing the unexpected and having fun.

I didn't mean to provoke anyone, and if you feel like it is in bad taste or in violation of rules I will remove it. I did it mostly for me because while I completely understand that they are banned I want people to remember them and know that they are gone. Maybe they can learn from their mistakes and not do the same thing. Genetics is extremely tedious, and seeing people willing to main it is very rare nowadays.

[Charliminator]

I didn't know about the low blood thing.... that is kinda insane.

[Esenno]

2 hours ago, Frank said:

I didn't mean to provoke anyone, and if you feel like it is in bad taste or in violation of rules I will remove it.

I don't think any one is provoked, I previously stated I don't think it directly breaks any rules, and as to whether or not it's in bad taste could potentially be debated ad nauseum. But I do feel, as I said, it was a rather odd inclusion to the guide. Though uh... Probably would be in your best interest to ask the relevant parties if they're ok with you posting that.

[Frank]

4 minutes ago, Esenno said:

Though uh... Probably would be in your best interest to ask the relevant parties if they're ok with you posting that.

Gotta agree with you there. While I personally wouldn't mind, I don't know how they would feel if they saw it. I'll remove it for now seeing as I have no way of contacting them.

[JackoMallows]

Solid guide, thanks for sharing! Always looking to up my genetics game. I've been familiar with + trying out Nokko's method for a while now, but I wasn't aware of the IV bags, so that's a game changer for sure.

[S34N]

On 6/10/2021 at 4:59 PM, Esenno said:

Pardon me for asking but uh... Why was their status in terms of their ability to play on the server even included? I don't exactly think this violates rules but you have to admit that's a really weird thing to add to your guide. 

To be fair, Esseno, ban statuses (for anyone with a linked forum/discord account) and appeal history are public. If it serves as a cautionary tale against powergaming geneticists being a 'gateway dug' into bannable behaviour, what's the problem? I don't remember how it was worded in the original post, but if it was intended as a warning to future geneticists, I think that's fair enough.

 

Edit: Sorry if this is off-topic, feel free to hide the post if you think it is :)

Edited June 12, 2021 by S34N