A Comprehensive Guide on Xenobiology

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Be warned now, this job runs solely on self-satisfaction. It'll be a cold day in hell before you do anything useful for the station.

 

Then again, SCIENCE!

 

Stage 1: Your Living Space

 

Like Virology, you're mostly separate from the rest of the station. Like Virology, you're safely tucked away behind several airlocks. Unlike Virology, however, if your containment is breached, the results are a hell of a lot more immediate.

 

Go on ahead and open the wiki to get a good grasp on the overall look. Here's what you get:

 

 

1. 6 Containment Pens: Each one should contain ONE slime, unless you're breeding (see below). Every pen comes equipped with an emergency lockdown button and a disposal outlet that lets you send slime food (monkeys) in without having to step in yourself. Also good for pushing down rogue slimes. The bottom right pen contains a separate button that opens it up to space, allowing you to effectively get rid of anything you put in there;

2. Several Biohazard closets: Technically, these are worthless, since they won't protect you against a raging adult slime. They look cool, though!

One empty gray closet: Useful for carrying around dead slimes/monkeys for processing/recycling. Spares you the trouble of individually dragging each and every one, and lets you "save up", rather than processing every time you breed;

One Water Tank: Used to fill up extinguishers;

Fire Extinguisher closets: If I have to explain what these do, you're in the wrong department;

One Monkey Recycler: Drag dead monkeys into this. 5 recycled monkeys equal one monkey cube;

One Slime Processor: Works much like the Food Processor in the Kitchen. Drop dead slimes in it, activate, and reap the benefits;

One Extract Fridge: Like a chemical fridge, but for slimes. Processed extracts go here;

One grinder and 100u worth of plasma: Place the plasma in the grinder and activate it. Used for triggering slime core reactions;

Box of Syringes and Box of Beakers

One pair of latex gloves: Pointless, but pretty;

Monkey Cube Boxes: AKA, Slime Food;

The Boombox: Will keep you sane

 

 

Stage 2: Slime Breeding

 

First of all, grab a fire extinguisher. Slimes are pretty much impervious to everything but water, and killing them is the only way you'll ever get anything done. In order to do so effectively, drag the slime into the small "airlock" space between the main room and each of the pens. It focuses the extinguisher blast, making it more powerful.

 

You start with two gray slimes. Technically, you only need one, so go ahead and kill the other one. Since they're still hostile to you at this point, grab a monkey cube from the boxes and send it down the disposal pipe. When the slime is busy eating the monkey, drag them both out, kill the slime and dump the monkey in the other slime's pen. Afterwards, process the gray slime and put the extract in the fridge.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALWAYS KEEP AT LEAST ONE GRAY EXTRACT IN THE FRIDGE. FAILURE TO DO SO CAN LEAD TO YOU RUNNING OUT OF SLIMES. AND A JOB.

 

To explain the above: gray slimes are your last resort for when you run out of supplies. Injecting blood into a gray core gives you three unwrapped monkey cubes (allowing for a full breeding cycle), while injecting plasma into one gives you a friendly baby gray slime. Remember: you can order monkey cubes. Not slimes.

 

Typical slime breeding goes like this:

 

 

1. Monkey thrown down chute;

2. Baby slime sees monkeys;

Baby slime glomps and eats monkey;

Baby slime turns into adult slime;

Second monkey thrown down chute;

Adult slime sees monkey;

Adult slime glomps and eats monkey;

Adult slime splits into 4 baby slimes of different or same colours

 

 

As is obvious, this poses a population control problem once all six pens have slimes in them. Therefore, it is recommended you don't breed more than 2 slimes at once, or you'll have a massive workload on your hands.

Also note, if a slime goes without food for too long, it'll revert back to a baby, and will take more than 2 monkeys to split.

 

The full splitting possibilities are accurately detailed in the wiki under Slime Genealogy 101. However, keep in mind the entire process is RNG based, so you can go a whole round without seeing purple slimes (which is incredibly frustrating). However, sticking to the graph is useful if you're hunting for specific slimes. Keep feeding.

 

All in all, you should start by identifying what slime types you're going after. When you've managed to breed one, isolate it in a pen and proceed from there. As such, you should have a maximum of 6 slimes, one per pen. It's good to always leave one empty in case you want to experiment with new slimes.

 

And alternative method, employed by... people of a certain mental persuasion... involves not using the pens at all, and instead breeding "free-range" slimes. This is a terrible idea. Don't do it. Slimes are hostile to everyone but the person that fed them, or anyone there at the time. The process resets at splitting, so imagine this:

 

 

1. RD steps in as you are feeding a baby slime and watches as it turns into an adult;

2. Adult slime is now friendly to Xenobiologist and RD;

RD steps out as the adult slime splits;

You now have 4 baby slimes that hate the RD

 

 

Also, those bastards are deceptively fast. And they aggro on monkeys. Do the math.

 

Stage 3: Slime Core Effects

 

Injecting plasma, blood or water into the processed slime cores produces a whole host of effects, also fully detailed in the wiki (have I mentioned the wiki? Great source of information, *wink wink*).

 

Here's a list of the useful slimes, and what injecting their cores does:

 

 

1. Gray Slimes: Injecting plasma creates a baby gray slime. Injecting blood creates 3 unwrapped monkey cubes;

2. Metal Slimes: Injecting plasma creates metal and plasteel. Yes, you're making plasteel from monkeys. Don't think too hard about it;

Silver Slimes: Injecting plasma creates random food. Injecting water creates random drinks. Useful if you never want to leave, ever;

Purple Slimes: Injecting plasma gets you slime steroid. Feeding a slime the steroid causes it to produce 3 cores instead of 1. Leading to...

Cerulean Slimes: Injecting plasma gets you an extract enhancer. Using the enhancer on a core lets it be used 3 times before being used up. In conjunction with the purple slime's steroid, this'll make slimes be usable 9 times instead of the usual 1. Bonus points if you daisy chain cerulean extracts on other ceruleans for exponential growth;

Dark Purple Slimes: Injecting plasma creates solid plasma sheets. Cargo will love you;

Pink Slimes: Injecting plasma creates a docility extract that lets you keep one slime as a pet. Literally everyone will love you for this;

Adamantine Slimes: Injecting plasma creates a golem rune. Ghosts can activate these to be brought back into the round as an adamantine golem

 

 

Do note that there are many other slimes, but their effects are either useless (10K power cells, anyone?), destructive (RANDOM XENOMORPH INVASION GO), or just plain insane.

 

To elaborate on the last point: if the only reason you want to do Xenobiology is because "lolz u can turn into slime", please eject yourself out the airlock. You're here to do SCIENCE!, not mad SCIENCE!. In a more serious note, seriously, don't. Yes, it sounds funny that you can run around as a slime, but you're leaving behind a department (and often a partner) and will probably cause a slime infestation, which are a BITCH to get rid of.

 

But really, feel free to experiment with the various slimes. Just make sure to always keep a few dark purples on hand in order to get plasma whenever you're running low, and some grays for when you need more monkey cubes.

 

Stage 4: Antag Xenobio

 

You're pretty much stuck in the ass end of nowhere, and that's your only advantage. The AI rarely looks at you, and your disposal system leads straight to space, making your department a great place to dispose of evidence.

 

A more direct approach involves sticking a bunch of slimes inside a closet, releasing them near your target and praying to the RNG that they target him/her.

 

A more drastic approach would be to use the golden slime cores to spawn random mobs. Admins are a bit finicky with this though, since it has the potential to turn any round into a Xeno round. Or using red slimes for improvised pepper spray.

 

All in all? Be creative. You're at a disadvantage.

 

[KingPhilipIII]

I don't know if you're at a disadvantage. Make golems, order them to kill your target, blame your partner. It's a process, but if it's late game with changlings or vampires with a lot of deaths, there are a lot of ghosts for minions.

[Bobalobdob]

I'm always here to do mad SCIENCE!