Praxis' and Jacob's Guide To Genetics (OUTDATED)

[SkyPing]

 

Introduction

 

So, me and Jacob both agreed that the genetics guide on the wiki sort of made sense, but was a bit hard to read/understand. Thus, we wrote this guide that both

1. Retread the points stated in the original genetics guide so that they were easier to comprehend.

2. Let’s us share our little tips and tricks to make your life much easier working in this field.

 

The Medical Side

 

 

Your job here is to clone people and make sure the cloner is stocked. Realistically, you will likely never need to clone people (unless it’s a major disaster) because using the cloning machine is the EASIEST THING ON THE FUCKING PLANET. Doctors that have an unrevivable dead body will likely never call you over to the cloning machine for cloning, and they will do it themselves.

 

However, you also need to make sure that the cloner is stocked. The cloner needs meat stored into it to make the new bodies. The easiest way to stock the cloner is to use Synthmeat, which is a combination between Cryoxadone and Blood. Doctors will likely scream at you for leaving the machine empty, so I always spend the first 5 minutes of my shift stocking the cloner.

 

You’ll need:

-1 Animal for your blood. Refer to later on in the guide if you don’t know how your cubes work.

-Cryox. Chemistry should be making it, but for now you can just take some from the Cryotubes (Don’t worry, no one will notice). Grab a beaker from a Nanovend, eject the Cryox beakers in the tubes, and pour about 10 units from each Cryo beaker into your new beaker. You should now have 3 beakers, each carrying 20u of Cryox. Take one and store the other two back into the tubes.

-An IV drip. They’re on the other side of medbay near the sleepers.

-A roller bed to pin your animal down so they can’t move Alternatively you can just break the animal's legsWe at the Praxis Guides team are upstanding citizens that treat our subjects with the utmost care and responsibility, and we never harm or abuse any of our subjects.

 

 

1. Attach your Cryox beaker to your IV.

2. Place down the roller bed (Use it in your hand) and then buckle the monkey to it (Drag the monkey sprite onto the bed)

3. Drag over your IV and attach the IV to your monkey.

4. Right click the IV and switch its mode so that it sucks in blood.

5. Profit.

 

 

As a side note, you can use this method as any job; it’s just easiest with Geneticists since you have monkeys by default.

 

Alright, and that’s about all you’ll be contributing to medical for now. Let’s move on to the bulk of your work; discovering them fucking powers!

 

The Science Side

 

 

Your job is to radiate individual blocks in a monkeys DNA to try and find the sweet super powers hidden within them. This requires you to radiate and change the value of each block inside each person's DNA. When you manage to set a block to a certain hexadecimal number (DAC), then the power inside that block will activate. You discover the actual modifications by radiating a monkey, and once you get a block which you think has a power in it, you apply that block to yourself to see if there’s anything cool in it.

 

DNA is made up of three specific branches: UI, UE, and SE.

 

Unique Identifiers (UI)

This stuff makes up your appearance: the color of your hair and facial hair, your skin tone, your gender, etc. Essentially all of the cosmetic stuff. You can use these to make yourself or a monkey look however they want. In practice, you will likely never mess with these, since we live in a perfect world where everyone can look exactly the way they want by default.

 

Unique Enzymes (UE)

This stuff makes up your identity, essentially your name. Not only will you never have to use these during your job, you physically CAN’T adjust them. The only way to store and create UE’s is by copying someone else's already existing UE.

 

Structural Enzymes (SE)

THESE are the things that you’re going to spend your time with. This modifies the practical DNA of your subject and where all of your powers are hidden. Your job is to keep radiating the blocks in these Structural Enzymes to a high enough number to activate its power. Jacob’s section will go into more details about this.

 

All of these blocks use a hexadecimal system: one of the EASIEST THINGS to fuck up if you don’t understand how it works. So, I’ll quickly explain how they work in the most concise way I can.

 

 

We count 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. After it passes 9, we add a new digit and continue, for example, 9 becomes 10. Of course you know this. Now then, Hexadecimal works the exact same way, except it goes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F, and then we add a new digit and continue. For example, 20 is higher than 1F, F0 is higher than EE, and DAC is higher than DA4.

 

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE NEW GENETICISTS MAKE IS MAKING ALL THREE DIGIT GO ABOVE DAC. That is wrong, because DAC represents ONE NUMBER. The easiest way to imagine this is by visualising it with normal numbers. Imagine that DAC is 413. That means that ANY number that is 5XX is going to be bigger than 413. Therefore, you can activate powers instantly if you get an E or F as your first digit.

 

THE BLOCK IS A THREE DIGIT NUMBER, NOT THREE ONE DIGIT NUMBERS.

 

Let’s repeat that again.

 

THE BLOCK IS A THREE DIGIT NUMBER, NOT THREE ONE DIGIT NUMBERS.

 

ALRIGHT, LET’S TORTURE THE EVERLIVING SHIT OUT OF ANIMALS!

 

But of course, we can’t actually DO any modifications if we don’t have anything to modify! Fortunately, NanoTrasen provides you with monkeys to do all of your sadistic testing on.

 

Step one: Grab an animal cube from the table. They’re in the boxes. You can get Monkeys, Farwas, Stok, Wolpin, or Nearas. They all work the exact same, except they represent different species (Monkeys are animalized Humans, Farwas are animalized Tajaran, etc.) They’re all living beings, and they all have their own separate DNA code, and that DNA can be applied to humans!

 

Step two: Bring your… thing, back to life. You’ll notice that your monkey cube isn’t actually a monkey. All you have to do is add water to it though! Unwrap the monkey cube and put it under your sink, and the cube will grow into a monkey! Just like Looney Tunes.

 

Step three: Toss that thing into your DNA modifier! Just pull it out of your pen and drag it’s sprite into your machine. Boom, you can now radiate it to your hearts content.

 

BEFORE YOU GO ALL TRIGGER HAPPY THOUGH, YOU NEED A CLEAN SE

 

A clean SE is a buffer that is entirely normal and has absolutely no powers or disabilities whatsoever. It’s just normal, regular old human DNA. They’re important to have because if you get a disability that you don’t want, you can just pull up your clean S.E. and fix it up real nice!

 

We can get our clean SE from our monkey, but there’s one slight problem. The monkeys a monkey. If we inject ourselves with that monkey’s SE we, too, will turn into a monkey. That’s really bad. So, the first step we have to do is turn that monkey human!

 

All of the blocks in the SE of a person are randomized, but block 55 will ALWAYS be the monkey block. If the block is below 800, then that person's a human. If the block is above 800, that person’s an animal. Once you have block 55 below 800, save that SE to any buffer you like for later use.

 

 

Can I Test this Block Yet?

 

Each block contains a series of three hexadecimal digits. Possible digits from least to greatest is 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F.

When irradiating a block, always start with the left most digit of the the block which is the most significant digit.

 

These are some sure fire steps you can take to determine whether a block is considered active or not.

1. Irradiate the left most digit of a block. Keep irradiating the digit until you have a value of D, E, or F.

-Is the digit's value E or F? If so you are done! Skip step 2 and test that block.

-Is the digit's value D? If so move on to the middle digit of the block and start irradiating that.

2. Irradiate the middle digit of the same block. Keep irradiating the digit until you have a value of B, C, D, E, or F.

-Did you get any of these values? Good! You can now test the block.

 

The maximum value that any block will need to activate a gene is DAC. However it is slightly easier to get a value of B or higher for the second digit than it is to get a C or higher in the third digit. Knowing this, there should never been a reason for you to irradiate the rightmost digit of a block if you want to follow this method.

 

Now we get to use block injectors, stabbing yourself with these is the main purpose of your job. Save a copy of your test subject’s SE into one of the buffers that does not contain the clean SE that you created earlier. When printing a block injector, you will receive a pop up of all 55 SE blocks and the value of each. Find the block you were modifying, select it, and print it out. The resulting injector will change only that specific block when injected into a person, meaning you can directly correlate the block you tested to a power/disability.

 

Once injected, you will likely get a message in the chat telling you a new feeling you have after the injection. Blue messages indicate good traits you have just unlocked and red messages indicate negative or harmless traits. Should you get a negative trait from an injector, you can create a block injector from your clean SE buffer (which you still should have saved) to fix it without wiping out any powers you may have found earlier.

 

Another important thing that you’ll notice is that every time you inject yourself with a genetic modification syringe, your toxin damage goes slightly up. Always make sure you have charcoal on hand to inject yourself with. You start out with a bit in your locker, and if you run out you can run over to a nanomed to get new ones.

 

For the BEST results, ask robotics (you have sciences channel after all) to make you your own personal medibot, and fill it up with a bottle of charcoal! It’ll automatically heal you when you take too much radiation damage and is significantly more efficient than healing yourself as you will need to heal off your toxin damage every second or third injector. Having your genetic console upgraded by the science department will also lower the amount of toxins you take per injector, so it doesn’t hurt to ask if you know they are out upgrading things. Another solution is to collaborate with the virologist (if you trust them that is) to try to get a virus which neutralizes toxins. Go ahead and give that virus to your monkey subject as well and you will never have to worry about toxin build up again.

 

This doesn't seem so b- *you twitch violently*

 

Genetics testing can be fun, but there are a few defects out there that will really ruin your day. Here's a list of me venting on some of the most debilitating ones in my opinion:

 

1. Tourettes 'you twitch.': This is the worse disability, by a huge margin. Getting twitch means that you have a 10% chance every clock cycle to get paralyzed, drop whatever you are holding, and if you are unlucky shout a random curse over comms like a complete maniac. If you are really unlucky, the twitches can trigger in a way where they chain together, leaving you unable to move while you scream the most tactful of words over comms for minutes on end. Either get someone to help you fix this or attempt to fix it yourself during the times you are not completely helpless.

 

2. Radioactive ‘You feel a strange sickness permeate your whole body.’: This lovely gene will slowly build up radiation in your system causing you to take toxin damage over time. It also has this effect on every person immediately next to you for added fun. Easy enough to fix on your own however it can activate on it’s own in your test monkey as well which makes moving the monkey anywhere a pain as well until it is fixed.

 

3. Epilepsy 'you get a headache.': This gene causes seizures, but the chance of it occurring while you have the disability active is much smaller than the tourettes gene. If you are not able to fix this gene before it triggers, you will remain shaking for bit, even after deactivating the block. You should have no trouble curing this yourself when it occurs.

 

4. Unintelligible 'You can't seem to form any coherent thoughts!': More of a nuisance than an actually dangerous gene. Unintelligible makes it pretty impossible to communicate with anyone. For example, let's say Baldy McViolent breaks into your office and starts wailing on you with a toolbox. You may try to call out, "Excuse me fellow crewmembers, I require assistance in Genetics to stop this assailant". This gene would make you instead say something like, "ME CREWMEMBER FELLOW!! GENETICS STOP I REQUIRE IN THIS ASSAILANT!!". Pretty clear right? Really unless you are actively trying to talk to someone, this is a non-issue disability which can be fixed easily.

 

Genetics sure does sound terrible, I'm just gonna go back to safer jobs

 

But wait, there's more! Some of the powers out there that you can find are life savers in a huge number of situations. To offest me whining about defects I hate, here's a list of some of my favorite powers:

 

1. X-ray Vision 'The walls suddenly disappear.': X-ray vision is never a bad thing to have and its almost universally loved. You can see everything, that CMO who locked himself in his office, the inside of the vault, and Baldy McViolent beating on someone in the next room over. Combine this with a Health HUD and you can see everyone's health as well. Combine it with telekinesis and you can safely beat on monsters like xenomorphs from the safety of a different room (don't actually do this because the second a xenomorph figures out what you are doing, they will find and curb stomp you).

 

2. Jumpy 'Your leg muscles feel taut and strong.': This is another gene that is always great to have. Each jump saves you almost an entire screen of walking and the cooldown on the power is very low. Need to respond to call for help? Just jump. Only have a few seconds until the evac shuttle launches? Just jump. Baldy McViolent somehow found a gun and wants you dead? Just jump away like a true heroic coward.

 

3. Remote View 'Your mind expands.': Ever been frustrated trying to find someone because they didn't turn there sensors on? Then this is the gene for you. So long as the person doesn't have the pys-resist gene, isn't off station, and isn't dead you should be able to locate them. Great for finding that guy who just screamed help without giving a location or for spying on that shady coworker who isn't doing his job and refuses to answer over comms.

KERO NOTES - A recent patch made it so you can only Remote View other people who ALSO have Remote View. Suuuuuuucks.

Kero is right, death to the remote view!

 

3. Telekinesis 'You feel smarter.': Move objects with your mind. Most useful when combined with the X-ray Vision gene. People do tend to get angry if they are constantly being smacked by flying objects, and most of them are smart enough to look for the guy with a glowing blue telekinetic aura around his head. A pretty simple and handy power to have.

 

4. Shock Immunity 'Your skin feels strange.': Shock Immunity is quickly becoming one of my favorite genes to find. Tired of malf AI's shocking doors, revenants shooting lightning at you, and the loose tesla engine literally killing everyone? I'm unsure how well known this is since I've seen geneticist shrug this power off as just so-so; this gene prevents all of those. Not lessens damage or makes you recover faster, you cannot be harmed by these events anymore and that has saved my life so many times. Go up and take a selfie with the rampaging tesla if you want, it can't stop you.

 

Tutorial Writer! I followed this guide and now everyone hates me! Help!

 

Well, did you do something to make everyone mad at you? The fastest way to turn the crew against you is to run around with the hulk gene on punching things or to telekinesis items into people at random. Even having hulk on without a good reason will cause most sensible people to have seconds thoughts about your intentions. To keep people happy and stop them from forming a lynch mob, here are some do-s and don't-s of being a good geneticist. Some of this is rehashing of points we made earlier, so feel free to just skim this if it seems pretty common sense.

 

DO watch after the cloner. Yes, it is not in your direct line of sight but you work 10 steps away from the thing. If you see or hear about bodies piling up go lend a hand, I promise you the genetic lab computers are not going to get up and run away while you are gone. Swarmers might eat it though, those things are basically flying mouths that eat anything, including all your hard work.

 

DO fill the cloner with biomass when asked. Again yes, any doctor can do this but you will likely be asked to do it plus you have a massive supply of blood in the form of monkey cubes. Just do this if someone asks you to or if you really want to make medbay happy, do it without being asked.

 

DO respond to anyone trying to contact you over comms. This is more of a general 'do this' but I've seen geneticists who ignore comms. If someone in medical or science is asking for something, respond to them because they aren't going to enjoy having to go searching for you because you aren't talking. You are also a link between the science and medical departments so if there is pertinent information to pass between the two, do it to save everyone some time.

 

DO offer to give copies of what you have discovered to Command Staff and, if the RD allows, Security Staff. This is a great way to show them that you are a responsible crew member and can even help clear your name as proof that you were doing your job today.

 

DON'T use your powers 'because I was bored'. In case the opening blurb of this section wasn't clear enough: abusing your powers is wrong. People WILL be mad if you are breaking into places as a hulk and people WILL be mad if you are beating people randomly with a telekinesis'd locker. Just don't do these things, please.

 

DON'T give genes out to every person you come across. This is especially bad if the person you are giving them to is our dear friend Baldy McViolent from earlier. Nothing will incite a riot against you faster than the station being overrun by superpowered civilians.

 

DON'T throw dead monkeys down disposals. Unless your intention is to scare Cargo by piling corpses up in the garbage, don't do this. Cargo will call medical to deal with the bodies, medical will confirm that they are in fact dead monkeys, and then everyone will turn towards the most likely cause of dead monkeys in the trash, which is you.

 

DON'T go hunting for criminals. If you see someone who needs help, of course you should then go help them if you can. This is different than running around the station as some kind of a vigilante. You are still a doctor remember, not space batman. In certain cases (like on red alert or with RD approval) you are allowed to give security genetic powers so let them handle whatever the threat of the day may be. If you want to hunt down antags play Security instead.

 

Why does this Vox keep saying "Is has no breaths?" to me?

 

This is a good thing! Part of being a functioning member of the crew as a geneticist is helping species who could benefit from a genetic boost. Certain species can often better survive with the help of some of the powers you are able to find. Most of these are considered harmless enough that no one will get upset with you and in most cases the gene being active is not even noticeable to a passerby. You don't have to go out of your way to get these genes to people, but these are things I've been asked for before and if they come to you there is (normally) no issue with assisting them. It's always a good idea to let the RD know what you are handing out as well. Here's a list of some of the common requests that you might get from your non-human crewmates.

 

Vox 'No Breathing': This is the most common one you will deal with just based on the large number of vox around most shifts. Vox love their voxygen tanks, but they love not having to lug them around even more. Giving them this will allow a Vox to run around without a tank and gas mask.

 

Plasmamen 'No Breathing': Same reasoning here as with Vox, Plasmen can't breath without there special plasma tank unless they have this gene. As an added bonus, they will no longer burst into flames with their hardsuit off making them much easier to clone/defib should they need it.

 

Diona 'Super Speed': This one is slightly more iffy than the others. Dionas are already built like tanks whenever they are in well lit areas and giving them this makes them nearly as quick on their feet as everyone else. Be sparing with your distribution of this and you should be fine.

 

Grey 'Telepathy': This is more of a note to make sure anything you do give a Grey has telepathy on it. You know those big headed monochrome fellows you rarely see around? Those are Greys, and they by default have telepathy. Giving a Grey an injector that does not have telepathy on it is not a good idea, so just remember to be considerate in this case.

 

Skrell 'Sobriety': Nobody gets drunk quite as fast a Skrell can. Imagine a lightweight drinker, then double that. That's the alcohol tolerance level of a Skrell. Giving a Skrell this will at least slightly improve a Skrell's chance of not drinking themselves silly, but it will still probably happen.

 

Additional care should be taken in regards to the next four situations. All temperature resistance genes cause the user to have a glowing aura around them, meaning that anyone and everyone will know that they could have other genetic powers active as well. Additionally, these genes can provide bonuses to a species that would be considered above just improving their quality of life on station and should be used sparingly.

 

Tajaran 'Heat Resistance': This is something you will very rarely if ever be asked about. Tajs have a lower temperature at which they overheat, and this gene will counteract that.

 

Unathi 'Cold Resistance': This one is even more rare than being asked for a heat resistance gene. Unathis are your cold-blooded reptile friends, so they are more susceptible to low temperatures.

 

Slime People 'Cold Resistance': Same argument as with Unathis, Slimes will freeze to death quicker than other species. You will probably never get a request from any of these last three mentioned groups but in case you ever do this is what they are likely ask about.

 

Vox ‘Cold Resistance’: While Vox are capable of traveling in space without hardsuits they do suffer a fairly severe slowdown from the cold. Although this can be counteracted by wearing heavy clothing like a firesuit it can also be nullified with the cold resistance gene which is considerably more convenient than wearing cumbersome clothing.

 

Job-Specific Powers

Before I go into detail about jobs that can benefit from genetic powers I want to reiterate that you need to get permission from the RD first. As was stated above do not go handing out powers to everyone you see and expect to keep your job for very long.

 

Any crew member that regularly wears a hardsuit on the job will love you if you provide them with the ‘Super Speed’ gene. Miners can gather ores faster, engineers can move around the station more quickly without worrying about lugging their hardsuit in one hand. The paramedic, too, could benefit for those times when they have to bring a dying person in from space and forget to take off their EVA suit. Security armor has a very slight slow-down effect, as does the Captain’s carapace armor so it doesn’t hurt to include this genetic enhancement when buffing Command and Security with powers.

 

‘No Breathing’ is another godsend for crew members who regularly have to leave the station. Miners and engineers, pod pilots, mechanics, paramedics, and even scientists who want to mess around with telescience.

 

Credits

 

Written by Praxis Chailer and Jacob Ryals (SkyPing and Paranoid Sofa)

 

Edited by Maxwell Edison (Keroman)

 

Edited July 10, 2016 by Guest

[FlattestGuitar]

Sometimes it's more efficient to test out an injector without hitting DAC. I'd mention the specific thresholds you can have for mutations. Otherwise I rate 8/8.