Botany: mutagen, mutadone and QoL changes

[Scaltra]

I would love to hear ideas and suggestions on how to better improve how botany plays and improvements to mutagens(of all types) and mutadone as well as quality of life improvements. Doesn't need to be thoughts on what I am working on or how we could do it but those comments are very much appreciated especially for mutadone. This is a rough framework of some of the things I have been thinking about

Currently, I am working on a PR to change mutagen to be the main source of non-infusion mutations by boosting their chance to mutate to 100% or near that. On that same note, I will probably be removing plants' chance to mutate on planting to further facilitate reliance on mutagens to mutate your plants. Spam planting seeds has been the most consistent way to get plants to mutate quickly and easily. It has barely any downside, is tedious, and is very unintuitive. 

I also set out in the PR to have mutagen be more interesting in general, the idea I had was having stable mutagen be what you mainly use for mutations or gene strains, adding it as a new chem to the vendors. having it only mildly alter stats while still mutating and/ or gene strains (splice enabler etc). Unstable mutagen would be a stronger step up from that, mutating the plant, the gene strains, and decently messing with stats. While glowing slurry would be the be-all end-all of mutagens for botany, messing with stats a lot, a coin flip(or guaranteed?) chance of giving the unstable gene trait as well as mutating the plant wildly in every way. These could also be locked behind tiers of mutation for all non-infusion plants. further giving people options to balance their plant PRs and the like behind if it can show up from the lower strength mutagens or the higher strength.

For mutadone I am less sure, mostly because of all the ideas I have for it I am unsure of how to implement it or if I have the know-how to do so. My current idea was reverting mutations and gene strains you may pick up from plants that you do not want. As well as a chance of giving the plant the stabilizer gene strain. 

My goals for my changes are to improve the QoL in botany while simultaneously making mutagen and mutadone something people want to use in botany. As said before it would also make it more intuitive and better match what mentors and in-game material tries to say is the best way to get plant mutations. 

[Decarcassor]

Moving away from spontaneous mutation to relying on mutagen is no small endeavor. This affect the entirety of how botany works right now.

Toughts:

If mutagen is to successfully mutate plants 100% of the time, I really don't see the point of having 3 variants (stable, unstable and slurry). Especially if all the variants bring is higher stat randomization and the possibility of annoying genes.

The unstable gene is currently in a weird place where its a pain in the butt for plants that have many mutations while doing absolutly nothing for thoses who have only one or can only mutate on specific infusions.

Mutadone being able to undo gene strains is something that should already be in the game and its weird that its not. About it giving the stabilizer gene I'm less convinced, since the whole point of mutadone is to remove such things.

There is also the whole question of tray vs. infusion. So lets say mutagen in the tray enable mutations, what would the infusion do ? The same things ? Then why would you ever use it in tray if the infusion always work ?

I don't want all of this to sound too negative. I like the idea. But there is a lot of ramifications to think about here.

[Glamurio]

Generally like the idea, it makes the process more simple and streamlines it. Since we're on the topic of QoL changes, one my personal biggest grievances with Botany is how ludicrous the amount of produce can get, and if you or your colleagues aren't using produce satchels for everything, the whole place turns into a shithole barely 30 minutes into a shift. Not to mention that satchels have low storage and it can get confusing very quickly what's in each satchel since there's no way to look inside, and sure you can label them, but will your colleagues?

A very simple, albeit only partial fix, could be that satchels would allow you to see the contents similar to how you would see the contents of liquids in beakers with scanner goggles. I don't know if botanists would need some scanner goggles, but if that's what it takes I'm all for it.

[George_Manning]

The 100% mutate chance sounds nice too. I can recall times I have tried to use mutagen and even on fast growing plants didn’t get a mutation for like 20 minutes because RNG

[Scaltra]

Generally like the idea, it makes the process more simple and streamlines it. Since we're on the topic of QoL changes, one my personal biggest grievances with Botany is how ludicrous the amount of produce can get, and if you or your colleagues aren't using produce satchels for everything, the whole place turns into a shithole barely 30 minutes into a shift. Not to mention that satchels have low storage and it can get confusing very quickly what's in each satchel since there's no way to look inside, and sure you can label them, but will your colleagues?

A very simple, albeit only partial fix, could be that satchels would allow you to see the contents similar to how you would see the contents of liquids in beakers with scanner goggles. I don't know if botanists would need some scanner goggles, but if that's what it takes I'm all for it.

It is not a very well-known feature and isn't referenced anywhere but you can see the contents in a satchel and specifically grab one item if you use grab intent when you click it. Maybe it would be possible to make a produce satchel say " satchel of ____ " where blank is the most common produce

[George_Manning]

If you really wanted to make it obvious you could put a little png sprite of the plant on the satchel so you can tell what it is when it’s on the ground

[Scaltra]

Moving away from spontaneous mutation to relying on mutagen is no small endeavor. This affect the entirety of how botany works right now.

Toughts:

If mutagen is to successfully mutate plants 100% of the time, I really don't see the point of having 3 variants (stable, unstable and slurry). Especially if all the variants bring is higher stat randomization and the possibility of annoying genes.

The unstable gene is currently in a weird place where its a pain in the butt for plants that have many mutations while doing absolutly nothing for thoses who have only one or can only mutate on specific infusions.

Mutadone being able to undo gene strains is something that should already be in the game and its weird that its not. About it giving the stabilizer gene I'm less convinced, since the whole point of mutadone is to remove such things.

There is also the whole question of tray vs. infusion. So lets say mutagen in the tray enable mutations, what would the infusion do ? The same things ? Then why would you ever use it in tray if the infusion always work ?

I don't want all of this to sound too negative. I like the idea. But there is a lot of ramifications to think about here.

Yeah, I totally agree that there is a lot to think about here. It is a big change and I really want to make sure we get it right. I planned on play testing and working through stuff till I feel like it is in a comfortable spot. 

Yeahhhh If it is a 100% that only leaves stat randomization, it was something I considered, My thought was it would be fun to bounce back and forth between raising and lowering the stats and have mutadone be used to sort of keep the good value you get while throwing out the bad. Whether that be mutations brought on by the mutagen or just the stats. That part isn't super thought out yet.

My main goal and what I know I mainly want to do is, to make mutagen and mutadone better, Make seed plant spam not a thing. That is the only thing I am sure of thus far. 

As for tray stuff, I do plan to compensate and try to figure out how those will work as well. I want tray chems for these to be cooler than how they currently work but I wanted to focus on the infusion side first because that is a bit easier with my current knowledge and it is a lot easier to grasp the impact of non-chance-based effects. That being said I think mutadone being in a tray preventing mutations could be cool for stopping unstable or after a tray of mutagen mutates something it keeps it from going further, or something akin to that. Not sure just yet as I have been focusing more on infusions but I have a few ideas of things that could be fun to mess with. 

I probably should have mentioned unstable would probably be changed. If I did do that? Really I was just thinking of cool hindrances to add along the way so it isn't just seamless for botanists. Stabilizer on mutadone was more so something that fit and was a big maybe, that one was thrown out there because thematically it fits but I don't think it would work without a lot of changes to a lot of things to make sense mechanically.

No, I totally get it! I don't think this would change the balance of botany drastically but it will affect it and it will certainly affect the pace and flow of botany. This is all still a W.I.P! I plan to work with people and hash this all out as well as playtest it till it feels good and it is honed in on a particular decision that hasn't been honed in on yet. The only thing I am certain of as I said is making mutagen better, mutadone better, and probably doing away with the spam planting meta. 

ohh and if you have any ideas you do want to share please do! even if it is small or unrelated to my idea.

[TDHooligan]

while simultaneously making mutagen and mutadone something people want to use in botany

i don't know what's going on that makes you think people don't want to use these, for any capable botanist you'll easily be burning through both of these to get a nice set of gene strains on your desired plants. I personally get through several watering cans quite regularly. The reason you don't PLANT in mutagen is because it fucks up your plant stats, then just as you're about to harvest it it swaps species to something you don't want.

species rolling is basically free through planting, so perhaps it's worth adding an irradiation button to the plantmaster that simply damages a seed and rolls new species on it.

the main issue youll find with rebalancing is that everything uses unstable mutagen and RNG. I think the balance is fine right now, and editing the effects of the commonly used mutagens aren't going to improve things that much. Increasing the odds of new species on mutagen will make gene strain hunting harder.

mutadone is fine, it has its purpose (fix bad plant stats, including awkward ones caused by mutagen like -lifespan), there is a gene strain for handling passive mutation over time which is deliberately made more difficult to obtain. planting stuff in mutagen is just cheap infusion and should probably stay inferior to infusion.

nobody uses slurry or stable mutagen outside of slurry's secret use. if you really want to make it cool, make stable mutagen roll plant stats with an upwards bias & no chance for strain or species change. maybe make it negatively impact plant health. it's a pain in the butt for botanists to make so make it worth it as a god-fertiliser. Stable mutagen on round-start is a no go, unless you want every botanist to 3 copies of one person every round

[Scaltra]

while simultaneously making mutagen and mutadone something people want to use in botany

i don't know what's going on that makes you think people don't want to use these, for any capable botanist you'll easily be burning through both of these to get a nice set of gene strains on your desired plants. I personally get through several watering cans quite regularly. The reason you don't PLANT in mutagen is because it fucks up your plant stats, then just as you're about to harvest it it swaps species to something you don't want.

species rolling is basically free through planting, so perhaps it's worth adding an irradiation button to the plantmaster that simply damages a seed and rolls new species on it.

the main issue youll find with rebalancing is that everything uses unstable mutagen and RNG. I think the balance is fine right now, and editing the effects of the commonly used mutagens aren't going to improve things that much. Increasing the odds of new species on mutagen will make gene strain hunting harder.

mutadone is fine, it has its purpose (fix bad plant stats, including awkward ones caused by mutagen like -lifespan), there is a gene strain for handling passive mutation over time which is deliberately made more difficult to obtain. planting stuff in mutagen is just cheap infusion and should probably stay inferior to infusion.

nobody uses slurry or stable mutagen outside of slurry's secret use. if you really want to make it cool, make stable mutagen roll plant stats with an upwards bias & no chance for strain or species change. maybe make it negatively impact plant health. it's a pain in the butt for botanists to make so make it worth it as a god-fertiliser. Stable mutagen on round-start is a no go, unless you want every botanist to 3 copies of one person every round

Because of spam planting seeds until you get the gene strains or mutations you want seed-spam effectively removes the need for mutagen at all aside from something like radweed that needs to be mutated before splicing or planting. I haven't seen anyone who knew about spam planting ever using mutagen personally, it is just even more tedious and unpredictable. Still messes up stats on infusion, which is fine but it is just a hit or miss endeavor where you go through a bunch of mutagen infusing, either messing up the stats too much to care for it or the seed mutates in a decent amount of time and RNG was gentle. 

I would like a resource cost to mutating plants, not high but I think giving botanists more reasons to go to cargo is good for job relations. 

What about upping the mutation rate for different mutagens would make it harder to obtain gene strains?  I agree it might make it harder to get gene strains while avoiding mutations but that has always been a thing. I wouldn't mind having there be a specific chem we could use for causing gene strains to crop up though. Or maybe having it be a tray thing for mutagens. Although I rather like being about to get them through infusion. Planting them and putting in some mutagen and waiting for a gene strain to show up sounds even more tedious. If we did go that route 

I find that mutadone is boring and barely worth ever using even in its infusion.  its infusion is...okay and does increase lifespan if it is below 0 but lifespan is a mostly dead stat either made obsolete by making something immortal or by just replanting the plant(of course maturation rate plays a role in that part but). Lifespan does even less for some plants over others because they are limited in harvests in code to normally only a single harvest. Lifespan isn't a very important stat because of ways to circumvent it when it matters and when it doesn't matter it just doesn't. In tray...gosh mutadone in the tray so so so awful. Mutadone in the tray can shunt the plant back down to its baby stage on its proc and just makes plants take so much longer to grow for what? balancing stats that are probably already all above positive because of all the other plant-increasing chems you either spiked the water with or put in the tray. 

Don't even get me started on plant homeopathy though. 

I want tray chems to be more of a passive buff or something temporary and only in the tray. Whereas infusion has always been about permanent change in plants at the higher cost of reagents and only being able to do it so much, so quickly. 

Making stable mutagen have positive weight would be interesting, at first I thought thematically it would be strange but stable mutagen could be thought of as more direct so I can get behind that. I do think if that is the case it especially shouldn't be in at the start though. I was thinking having stable mutagen already ready could be a cool thing for botanists (in gimmicks and the like) but I think you are right with that part. I always underestimate people's ability to just use the crap out of something if it starts premade. That being said it isn't hard for botanists to get it, the only thing they would need to make it that they can't make/get themselves is lithium. More chem requests sound sick.

I do think it would be nice if there was a specific way to get gene strains if that is a thing some people want to do without mutating the plant as well. Maybe stable mutagen can still do that for people who want that as an option without mutating the plant itself. Just changing stats and adding gene strains

I used to use glowing slurry for mutating plants when I really wanted them to just mutate. It has a tray effect that guarantees mutation when it rolls, unlike the others. So I would wait for it to mature, put in a tiny bit, and then harvest it when it mutated. That being said, it is all just made practically pointless because of spam planting existing.

I forgot to mention, I do think the balance in botany right now is fine in terms of this. I don't hate playing it or anything like that. I just think spam planting is Something that turns off a lot of people with its tedious repetitive nature and the alternative being not nearly as fast or efficient. I just want a less tedious and more intuitive way to go about obtaining mutations than spam planting and I think changing mutagenic-related reagents to be a bit better to compensate would be pretty cool.