Botany mutation changes

[Lord_earthfire]

One big problem I have with infusions and stat based mutations, is that there is no way to know what numbers or chem you need, unless you go check the wiki or straight up code dive. I don't think thats great.

I think botany could really need a companion book of sorts. The guide botanists start with is more or less absolutely useless. The rancher guide in comparison is great and i even look at it from time to time to decide what i gonna do.

With this out of the way, stat boosting would come from tray chemistry and gene strains. You want that Omega weed ? You are going to need a potent tray mixture and do some gene splicing. Do some bloody botany work instead of mindlessly pumping bottles of saltpetre into the machine.

I really like the thoughts behind this, but i simply got a major concern: time and work

If we want to improve the systems, we have to carefully decide how much time and upkeep reaching certain goals should take

Plant homeopathy gives a way to go hands off of the trays and focus on other, more important, parts of the game, like interacting with the crew.  Or traitoring.  Botany is a very secluded department already.

And if i understand you correctly, your proposal would switch the roles of infusion and tray chemistry, with infusions buffing plants over time without much effort, while tray chemistry would consume chems to increase them more effectively. And i think this could work out well, if the numbers are adjusted accordingly.

In that vein, if we wanna brainstorm ideas for it, how about plants that boost stats by their own nature? Like potato plants gradually increasing in potency and decreasing in yield over time (bound to the plant and no gene). Or golden peas having a potential gene that pumps ammonia in the tray? Something like this would give an incentive to splice for stats, which is generally unwanted.