Guide to Genetics

The Department

Ready to play God? Good! Because it's about to get very interesting.

The Genetics department is in Medbay. It has different sets of animal cubes to use as test subjects, some cloning equipment, and a couple of DNA modifiers for experiments. This is where you'll be spending most of your time.

Cloning

Cloning is one of the main aspects of your job. Bringing people back from the dead is a delicate science, so read on. The Chief Medical Officer has the final say about what happens here, rather than the Research Director.

You can clone people from scans made while they are alive and well (which is preferred), or from a corpse (which happens more often than not). Feel free to call people to get their backups made, especially for Heads of Staff.

Cloning consumes biomass, 150 points per clone. The cloning pod starts with 150 points and you can get more biomass by feeding meat to the machine (any type of meat works). Each meat slab adds 50 points.

Typically you want to bother a Chemist for Cryoxadone, which can be used to make synthetic meat when combined with blood.

Scan

The first thing that a clone needs is a record in the cloning console. Scanning requires a dead or live human body with its brain still in place (monkeys or decapitated corpses won't work), whereas making the actual clone requires the person to be dead. Dead people will get a message when you try to clone their corpse, it is therefore wise to give people a chance to re-enter their dead body, and to give the scan a few tries.

1. Make sure the person is not wearing anything. (Optional)
   • If the person is alive, have them strip.
   • If the person is dead, click+drag their body onto yours to bring up their clothing window, then click on the links identifying each piece of clothing to remove it.
2. Grab the person.
3. Click on the DNA scanner to place them inside.
4. Click on the cloning console to bring up its menu.
5. Click Scan.
6. Click View Records to make sure their record is listed in the cloning database.

Making the Clone

Remember, a clone can only be made when the person you're making a clone for is dead and logged in. If they aren't dead or have logged out, you'll see an "Unable to initiate cloning cycle" error in the Cloning System Control.

1. Head to the cloning console beside the cloning pod, and click on it to open its menu.
2. Click View Records, select the person you wish to clone, then click Clone.
3. Make sure the cloning pod has enough biomass to produce a clone. Each clone consumes 150 biomass points.
   • Note: After clicking "Clone" the dead person will get a message if their spirit is currently outside their body. Their ghost must be inside their corpse or the scanner will give an error.
   • Note #2: When a new clone is made, that person's record is deleted from the database, so they must be scanned again if they are to be cloned a second time. You can use a diskette to save a record of their backup.

Finishing a New Clone

1. Grab the new clone and take it to Cryo, the room with large File:Cryo.gif cryo cells.
2. Click on one of the cells to place the clone inside and set the Cryo status to On.
3. Take a nearby beaker filled with Cryoxadone and then click on the same cell you placed the clone in to load the beaker into the cell. Note that it's wise to have a small supply of Mutadone nearby to heal the patient of any disabilities. Get some from the Chemist.
4. Use the nearby wrench on both O2 canisters to secure them (if they aren't already).
5. Set the freezer's Target gas temperature to its lowest amount by clicking on the far-left "-" until the number in the center no longer decreases.
6. Set the freezer to On.
   • Note: At this point, the clone will begin to heal slowly if cryo was set up correctly, shown by the increasing health indication in the cryo cell's menu.
7. Click on the cryo cell to check on your clone. When its health reaches 100, it is considered finished and can then be ejected (right-click > Eject Occupant).
8. Don't forget! when you're done with the cryo room, turn the cryo cells to Off so you don't waste Oxygen! Also, if you still have their old body, drag it to the morgue to prevent Clone Memory Disorder (which is purely for role-play purposes).
9. Clones may often suffer from brain damages, once they're removed from the cryo cell, make sure to inject them with Mannitol if they suffer from this. A Chemist can produce this as well.

Cloning "Unclonable" Species

Some species can't be cloned due to various reasons. Plasmamen will burst into flames before cloning is finished, and Vox and Slime People will simply be rejected by the machine. There are two ways of cloning these races back.

To clone those who die before cloning can be completed,

1. Perform the normal steps for cloning first
2. Wait for the dead body to be rejected by the cloner
3. Place the person in whatever environment is required for them to live in
4. Heal them of burn / brute damage with Synthflesh or the equivalent (as touch-based healing chemicals work on dead bodies).
5. Defibrillate them, and place them in a cryo tube.

To clone those who cannot be cloned normally,

1. Have genetics create a human body from a monkey
2. Scan the dead body's UI and save it
3. Have a Medical Doctor transplant the dead body's brain into the human-monkey's body.
4. Clone the human body.
5. Transfer the UI of the old body to the new one.

DNA Modification, getting started

The following will help you get started with your shift. The actual science of modifying genes to unlock powers will be described later.

• NOTE As a geneticist, you will often have a co-worker in your office. It is wise to make an arrangement on who works on which blocks before you do anything. This typically means one geneticist working his way up from block 1 and the other working his way down from block 54.

1. Get a monkey cube from the box of monkey cubes on your nearby desk. (Or whichever other animal you wish to torment with your experiments)
2. Unwrap the monkey cube and hold it under the sink in the nearby pen.
3. Grab whichever animal you have.
4. Click on a DNA Modifier to stuff the animal inside.
5. Click on the DNA Modifier Access Console to open its menu.
6. Click Modify S.E. (S.E. meaning Structural Enzymes).
   • In this menu you will see 55 seperate blocks. The first sub-block of block 55 dictates whether an animal is a lower lifeform or humanoid.
7. Click the first sub-block of block 55 and use irradiate block to irradiate it.
   • This step will need to be repeated until the first sub-block has a value that is under 8, then one above 8 then one below 8 again.
   • (Optional) After this step is done, you can right-click the DNA Modifier and Eject DNA Scanner to remove the test subject. If everything was done correctly, it should be a humanoid. Try to keep the test subject out of the modifier as shortly as possible as the effects of DNA modification may have caused it to become irradiated.
8. Have a look at the first sub-block of all blocks, 1 to 54. Make sure all values are below 8.
   • If they are not, modify the first sub-block until they are all of a value 8 or below.
9. Once all the first sub-blocks from blocks 1 to 54 are below a value of 8, go to the transfer buffers menu.
   • You want to save Subject S.E. in buffer one of the three available buffers.
10. Click the text next to Label: and set it to Clean S.E.
    • Congratulations, you now made a fail safe should you inject yourself with one of the many disabilities!
    • NOTE: This clean S.E. can also be used to treat certain disabilities in newly cloned crewmembers.
    • NOTE: You can also use a block injector of your clean S.E. to clear a specific disability block.
11. Click Injector to create a syringe with the test subject's S.E. inside it.
    • The syringe will spawn on top of the DNA Modifier Access Console. Click on it to pick it up. Or if it spawned under it for some reason, right click the DNA Modifier, move your mouse over the syringe and pick it up like that.
12. Store your syringe in your workplace or on you. It is best to have a complete clean S.E. around at all times.

Notes:

1. To inject yourself, simply put the injector in an open hand and click on yourself.
2. As you modify DNA, whatever you are working on has a chance to be irradiated. A well-prepared Geneticist makes sure to keep an irradiated subject within the DNA Modifier and to keep a modest stash of charcoal around to treat the inevitable toxin damage.
3. A block injector will only inject the block you select. For example, Block 24 is Mute and Block 25 is Xray vision. If you use a normal injector, you will be mute and have Xray vision. However if you use a block injector and select Block 25, you will have Xray vision and NOT be mute. It's a great way to stack all the overpowered powers and seemingly ignore the subject's crippling defects!

Hexadecimals

The number format in each block is a Hexadecimal. In summary, the numbers and letters are organized like this, from lowest to highest:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

Each block has 3 sub-blocks of hexadecimals. For the purpose of this instruction, saying to set a specific block "below 800" means that the first sub-block of that block must be less than 8 - the other two characters in that block don't matter. In another example, setting a block to "above DAC" means:

• The first sub-block must be equal to or higher than D (E or F)
• The second sub-block must be equal to or higher than A (B, C, D, E, or F)
• The third sub-block must be equal to or higher than C (D, E, or F)

Note: If the first sub-block is E or F, the potential of the entire block will already be active, it will not require the editing of the second or third sub-block.

Unique Identifiers (UI)

Unique Identifiers are your cosmetic details - eye color, skin color, hair style, hair color and gender. All colors are in RGB, with 0 meaning absence of that color, and F meaning the highest value of that color.

Although all species have the same number of Unique Identifiers, some blocks will have no effect on certain species. For example, only species with scales or fur will be affected by changes to blocks 8-10 while block 7 only applies to species with varying skin tones such as humans.

Blocks 1-3

1 - Hair Color R
2 - Hair Color G
3 - Hair Color B

Blocks 4-6

4 - Beard Color R
5 - Beard Color G
6 - Beard Color B

Block 7

7 - Skin tone 1(0)-220(F)

Blocks 8-10

8 - Fur/Scale Color R
9 - Fur/Scale Color G
10 - Fur/Scale Color B

Block 11-13

11 - Eye Color R
12 - Eye Color G
13 - Eye Color B

Block 14

14 - Gender

• < 800 = Male
• > 800 = Female

Block 15-16

15 - Beard Style
16 - Hair Style

Unique Enzymes (UE)

Unique enzymes determine your identity, basically the name that people see you as when they examine you, and when you talk. These are separate from unique identifiers, but usually changed together.

Structural Enzymes (SE)

Structural Enzymes contain data relevant to your genetic structure. This governs your race, powers, and disabilities. For those that handle genes with care, however, great benefits are to be had.

Blocks 1 - 54

These are all randomized powers (minor and major) or disabilities.

Block 55

This block governs whether the subject is a humanoid or not. Currently there is a bug where dropping the block below 800 will not 'humanize' the subject. If you raise the value above 800 and drop it again, the subject will be humanized. Injecting someone with an SE from a non-humanized subject with a block 55 value of less than 800 will NOT make the recipient a monkey, however.

• Humanoid = below 800
• Animal = above 800

Powers and Disabilities

Any of blocks 1-55 may be the block for a special power or disability. Powers and disabilities are calculated at round-start, thus are not different for each person. Some blocks don't have powers and will give nothing even if FFF on the sub-blocks; there are more blocks then disabilities/powers.

Minor Powers

Minor Powers require a block of BEA or higher to have a chance activate

• Morphing: Your body feels funny. You can change your skin tone, hair, and styles at will. Everything you can do by clicking on a mirror with the addition of skin tone.
• Quickness: Your Leg Muscles begin to Pulsate. You are unencumbered by space suits or anything else that slows you down; does not increase your base movement speed.
• Regeneration: You feel better. Doubles your nutritional health regeneration. So when you eat you heal more.
• Remote Viewing: Your mind expands. You can remotely observe other people.
• Telepathic Communication: You expand your mind outwards. You can talk to people through their minds over long distances.
• Cold Resistance (30%): Your body feels warm. You aren't affected by Cold. This, combined with "No Breathing", means you only need a hardsuit to protect against pressure, in space. Cannot be used with Heat Resistance.
• Heat Resistance : Your skin is icy to the touch. You aren't affected by Heat, and glow visibly. This is particularly useful during fires, as when combined with a firesuit you are nearly invulnerable to heat. Cannot be used with Cold Resistance.
• X-Ray Vision (30%): The walls suddenly disappear. You can see everything in your sight range, even through walls.

Major Powers

These require a block of DAC or higher to have a chance to activate.

• Hulk (5%): Your muscles hurt. You turn green and become super strong. You can't be stunned and your punches can break through reinforced walls. You will lose this power and can collapse if you get below 25% health. Cannot be used with Midget.
• No Breathing: You feel no need to breathe. You do not need to breathe.
• No Prints: Your fingers feel numb. You leave no fingerprints.
• Midget: Your skin feels rubbery. You walk over tables as if they were floor tiles. Cannot be used with Hulk.
• Shock Immunity (50%): Your skin feels strange. You are immune to shocks.
• Telekinesis (15%): You feel smarter. Allows you to move objects with your mind and affect things in your sight range. Cannot be used with Remote Viewing.

Unknown Powers

These powers are activated for sure when over DAC But may be activatable lower.

• Chameleon: You feel one with your surroundings. You become mostly invisible while not moving. Cannot be used in tandem with Cloak of Darkness.
• Cloak Of Darkness: You begin to fade into the shadows. You are completely invisible in the slightest of shadows. Cannot be used in tandem with Chameleon.
• Cryokinesis: You notice a strange cold tingle in your fingertips. Basically burns the target to death with cold.
• Empath: You suddenly notice more about others than you did before. Tells you the pain-level, Intent, and random thoughts of another human.
• Incendiary Mitochondria: You suddenly feel rather hot. Sets yourself on fire as if you were a mixtape.
• Jumpy: Your leg muscles feel taut and strong. Allows you to leap roughly a screen and 1/4.
• Matter Eater: You feel hungry. Allows you to eat almost everything, Including humans.
• Polymorph: You don't feel entirely like yourself somehow. Allows you to mimic the appearance of others, a bit like a changeling without the death.
• Psy-Resist: Your mind feels closed. You cannot be telepathically spoken to, and Empaths cannot read you.
• Sober: You feel unusually sober. Cannot become drunk.
• Superfart: You feel bloated and gassy. Doing the fart command (Say "*fart) will make you squat and unleash a tremendous shock wave knocking anyone over in the vicinity. Really fun to annoy others and deadly with toxic farts.

Disabilities

As tempting as those powers may seem, there is also a very high chance of you getting a disability. These always manifest when the block is at 802 or higher.

• Blindness: You can't seem to see anything. Your vision is nearly non-existent and restricted to an extremely tiny area.
• Chav: Ye feel like a reet prat like, innit? A number of words are replaced.
• Clownism: Uh Oh! Your text becomes comic sans, and you may eventually turn into a clown.
• Coughing: You start coughing. You cough a lot and drop things when you do so.
• Clumsiness: You feel lightheaded. You drop things a lot, are generally clumsy, and guns explode in your face.
• Deafness: It's kinda quiet.. You can't hear anything.
• Epilepsy: You get a headache You randomly have seizures.
• Fat: You feel blubbery and lethargic. You become fat.
• Hallucinations: Your mind says "Hello". You start to hallucinate.
• Horns: A pair of horns erupt from your head. Causes you to have horns on your sprite.
• Lisp: Thomething doethn't feel right. Replaces all 's' with 'th'.
• Melt: You feel strange and jiggly. When used, causes you to explode into a pile of gibs.
• Mute: You feel unable to express yourself at all. You cannot speak.
• Radioactive: You feel a strange sickness permeate your whole body. You start to gain radiation sickness and cause the same to all organics near you. This can become quite lethal.
• Short Sightedness: Your eyes feel weird... You have reduced vision, and require glasses, medicine, carrots or surgery to see better.
• Stammering: You feel nervous. You stammer when you talk.
• Strangeness: You feel strange. You start randomly mutating, which can change your blocks numbers.
• Strong: You feel buff! Does absolutely nothing at all.
• Swedish: You feel Swedish, However that works. W's are replaced with V's, and you occasionally say 'Bork Bork Bork!'.
• Tourette's Syndrome: You twitch. You twitch and swear randomly. Every twitch and swear paralyzes you for a while. This can be debilitating, as it tends to happen often-- giving you little to no time to move.
• Toxic Farts: Your stomach grumbles unpleasantly. Randomly produces a gas when farting, Usually harmful.
• Unintelligable: You can't seem to form any coherent thoughts! Rearranges your speech.

Radiation

Continuing from the above practical example with the monkey (that now looks human) still inside the DNA Modifier, you have a few options on how to change the monkey's genes:

• Radiation Emitter Settings
  • Change how long and how harshly the monkey gets blasted by radiation. Default settings are adequate.
• Pulse Radiation (Main Menu)
  • Inaccurately and randomly modify any of the monkey's UI or SE with a single pulse.
• Radiation (Inside the Modify Unique Identifier or Modify Structural Enzymes sub-menus).
  • Accurately modify a single sub-block.

The idea is to start at Block 1 of the Structural Enzymes and radiate that block until the number is "DAC" or higher. Then, remove your monkey and see if anything seems strange with him. The catch is - not all disabilities or powers are easily visible. For a dangerous disability like Blindness, you can check your monkey's eyes to make sure their pupils narrow with the penlight you should have:

1. Move the penlight to an open hand.
2. Click on the penlight to turn it "On".
3. Click on the Damage Zone in the top-right corner of your HUD to indicate that you want to target the eyes.
4. Click on the monkey to "direct the penlight" into their eyes.
   • If you see "pupils narrow", the monkey's eyes are normal. An "eerie glow" means X-Ray Vision, and "no reaction" means the monkey is blind.

If you notice something wrong with your monkey, like twitching, you know that block is a disability. Make a note of it, then Radiation that block until it's back below 800 to make it normal again. You can also use your injector, or Transfer Buffer > Transfer to > Occupant. Both the injector and occupant-transfer cause a small amount of toxin damage (about 4-5, which can be identified by the occupant's Health %) and between 20-50% radiation (identified by the Radiation Level %). The radiation level can be reduced by using Inject Rejuvenators, and the toxin damage can be cured by using the pills or syringes contained within the File:First aid anti toxin.png Anti-Toxin First Aid kit on your subject.

Then, continue down the line of blocks until you have a structural enzyme string of only powers with zero disabilities. Saving this buffer is highly recommended unless you don't want someone else to find it (in which case, you could edit the label to something like "All disabilities" to fool people).

Example Scenario

1. Block 1 is radiated to DAC
2. Monkey is removed to check for disabilities, but appears to be clean.
3. Geneticist saves the monkey's SE, outputs it into an injector, and injects himself to see what the block does.
4. Nothing happens.

Notes: This is a good sign. Because disabilities have a 100% of manifesting above 800, having nothing happen means two things: A) The block is either a minor or major power, and B) You will find the power if you continue to radiate block 1 above DAC. See the above percentage chances that a power will manifest while continuing to radiate that same block above the required hexadecimal.

Random Mutations

At all times, there is a chance that radiating a specific sub-block will not work. Instead, a different random sub-block will be radiated. Furthermore, this chance increases as your subject's Radiation Level increases. This is most identifiable then you radiate a sub-block, but it doesn't change, in which case either:

• (Likely) A different, random sub-block of either Unique Identifiers or Structural Enzymes has been modified.
• (Unlikely) The radiated sub-block just happened to land on the same number.

This can be easier to control by using Inject Rejuvenators, which will slowly lower the monkey's Radiation Level. Only 90 units of rejuvenation are allowed in the subject. Rejuvenator overdoses do not negatively affect the subject at this time, so it is recommended to keep your subject on Rejuvenators while radiating them to ensure that radiation levels immediately and continuously decrease.

Due to this chance of random mutations, you must get in the habit of "cleaning the SE", which involves reading over the first sub-block of every block in the Structural Enzymes to make sure that no other blocks are over 800. For example, if you're testing block 1 and you finally got it above DAC, your process to do so may have inadvertently modified block 2 to 900 (which would cause a disability or a minor power). This would make it difficult to determine what block 1 is doing to your monkey.

Cleaning

In order to "clean" a subject of unwanted disabilities or powers, the key is to make ALL of the Structural Enzymes blocks that you want to be normal less than 800. Unfortunately, this can be challenging, as radiating the subject too much will likely cause random blocks to change, making your effort infinite if their radiation level is not kept in check with Rejuvenators.

Transfer Buffer

The Transfer Buffer is a useful tool for saving your work, though it is always recommended that you take written notes on each block as you modify them. Furthermore, as stated in the practical example, it is highly recommended to keep a clean buffer saved just in case.

• Save
  • UI (Unique Identifiers)
  • UI+UE (Unique Identifiers and Unique Enzymes)
  • SE (Structural Enzymes)
• Transfer To
  • Occupant - Transfers the saved data from that buffer into your subject in the DNA Modifier. Causes a large amount of radiation to blast the subject.
  • Injector - Creates a syringe that you can carry around with you to inject yourself or others. Causes a small amount of toxin damage, but requires time to produce new injectors..
• Disk - Take a disk from the nearby Diskette Box and click on the DNA Modifier Access Console to load it.
  • Save To - Saves the data from that buffer to the disk.
  • Load From - Loads data from an existing disk into the DNA Modifier Access Console.
  • Eject Disk (Main Menu) - Remove the disk.