Goonhub
03-17-2023, 02:47 PM
We're currently in a feature freeze, but I'd like to propose an idea born out of the mechcomp ideas thread elsewhere on this holy forum. Before I do, though, let me paint a picture for you:
It's 30 minutes through the shift on Goon1, and you're a botanist. Your colleagues have gotten picked off, one by one, having hobbled over to medbay to cure their THC addictions or food poisoning and never returning. Before they left, however, they made sure to spend every last unit of saltpetre in botany on the 3 separate strains of Rainbow Weed they were working on. Most of the potash and ammonia is gone, too. Over the radio, you hear that the only QM just got "linged," although the captain had already embezzled the station's entire budget. The trays are full of half-dead plants, most of which aren't yours. What do you do?
From my personal experience, I can say this is the point when I stop being a botanist and start being a staff assistant with access to botany. Once all the nutrients are gone, your job gets a lot harder, by virtue of being unable to effectively improve the stats of your plants to make produce that's actually worth eating.
I'd like to propose that having plants at high health or very high health (corresponding to the text examines of "The plant glistens with good health!" and "The plant is flourishing!") does more than to just give good harvests; it should also slowly increase the plants stats, up to a point. As an addendum to this, how quickly these plant stats increase should be improved by having Compost in the tray, giving that much-maligned and somewhat unhelpful nutrient more of a use.
The thought is that having a plant at high health ("The plant glistens with good health!") would have a chance to increase plant stats every plant life cycle, but only if the stats are at or below 30 points for a given stat. Maturation rate, production rate, potency, yield, and endurance would each have a 5% chance to increase by 1 point, and lifespan - a stat that you cannot directly increase by any means besides luck when mutating a plant - would have a 2% to increase by 1 point. If a stat has reached 30 points or higher, it will get no bonuses from being at high health. If there is compost in the tray, the chance for these stats to increase per life cycle is doubled (along with compost's normal healing effect).
Having a plant at very high health ("The plant is flourishing!") would up these chances to 10% for maturation rate, production rate, potency, yield, and endurance, and put lifespan at 4%. Additionally, stats could continue to increase above 30 potency, but with the reduced chances associated with the lower health bracket. Again, compost would double the chance for a stat to be improved per life cycle.
Why is this needed? 2 reasons. For one, it allows for botanists that have next to no nutrients to still grow improved plants, if they're willing to wait for their health and stats to increase before they get harvested. Secondarily, it gives Compost more utility by having it conditionally boost all plant stats. If a botanist is flush with nutrients, they're probably not going to bother with this method; they'd have to wait for a long time with a plant that's likely ready to be harvested, when they could just infuse with nutrients to do the same thing instantly or add the nutrients in-tray for much faster effects and higher produce turnover. As such, I don't think this is terribly overpowered change. Note that the values that I've listed here are just suggestions off of the top of my head - with group consensus we can decide if they should be higher or lower.
It's 30 minutes through the shift on Goon1, and you're a botanist. Your colleagues have gotten picked off, one by one, having hobbled over to medbay to cure their THC addictions or food poisoning and never returning. Before they left, however, they made sure to spend every last unit of saltpetre in botany on the 3 separate strains of Rainbow Weed they were working on. Most of the potash and ammonia is gone, too. Over the radio, you hear that the only QM just got "linged," although the captain had already embezzled the station's entire budget. The trays are full of half-dead plants, most of which aren't yours. What do you do?
From my personal experience, I can say this is the point when I stop being a botanist and start being a staff assistant with access to botany. Once all the nutrients are gone, your job gets a lot harder, by virtue of being unable to effectively improve the stats of your plants to make produce that's actually worth eating.
I'd like to propose that having plants at high health or very high health (corresponding to the text examines of "The plant glistens with good health!" and "The plant is flourishing!") does more than to just give good harvests; it should also slowly increase the plants stats, up to a point. As an addendum to this, how quickly these plant stats increase should be improved by having Compost in the tray, giving that much-maligned and somewhat unhelpful nutrient more of a use.
The thought is that having a plant at high health ("The plant glistens with good health!") would have a chance to increase plant stats every plant life cycle, but only if the stats are at or below 30 points for a given stat. Maturation rate, production rate, potency, yield, and endurance would each have a 5% chance to increase by 1 point, and lifespan - a stat that you cannot directly increase by any means besides luck when mutating a plant - would have a 2% to increase by 1 point. If a stat has reached 30 points or higher, it will get no bonuses from being at high health. If there is compost in the tray, the chance for these stats to increase per life cycle is doubled (along with compost's normal healing effect).
Having a plant at very high health ("The plant is flourishing!") would up these chances to 10% for maturation rate, production rate, potency, yield, and endurance, and put lifespan at 4%. Additionally, stats could continue to increase above 30 potency, but with the reduced chances associated with the lower health bracket. Again, compost would double the chance for a stat to be improved per life cycle.
Why is this needed? 2 reasons. For one, it allows for botanists that have next to no nutrients to still grow improved plants, if they're willing to wait for their health and stats to increase before they get harvested. Secondarily, it gives Compost more utility by having it conditionally boost all plant stats. If a botanist is flush with nutrients, they're probably not going to bother with this method; they'd have to wait for a long time with a plant that's likely ready to be harvested, when they could just infuse with nutrients to do the same thing instantly or add the nutrients in-tray for much faster effects and higher produce turnover. As such, I don't think this is terribly overpowered change. Note that the values that I've listed here are just suggestions off of the top of my head - with group consensus we can decide if they should be higher or lower.
