Botany mutation changes

[Munien]

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and it's something I wanted to get some feedback or input on as I know a few people I've talked to have thought about the same sort of thing a lot, and while I'm not on the discord currently I wanted to reach out here as I know it's been discussed a bit.

The recent change to tree mutations (https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/11229) is what I believe to be a very good step in the right direction and something I was wanting to do for a while. Anyone who plays botany knows the struggle of random mutations and the seed/trowel spam RNG game, and I think there is a general consensus that this is not fun or engaging gameplay. There's been other suggestions such as making mutagen more useful for mutations in Scaltras thread here, and new mutations generally seem to be infusion or stat-based. I wanted to make a general thread to get ideas or suggestions to making the mutations more fun to get for better QoL in botany.

Until something more major is reworked to make the system more engaging, my main idea would be make all mutations stat or infusion-based, especially since this can help with inter-departmental cooperation, though I'm not sure if this change would be necessarily desired by other players or developers.

Please give any suggestions or feedback that comes to mind!

[Ikea]

Id just remove the passive mutation chance on plants however make tray chems actually deplete so you can properly dose the plant with mutagen, and also make mutagen work.

[Lord_earthfire]

I'm a fan of scaltra's idea in the previous thread. Just remove the rng and make a mutation guaranteed if you plant a plant in the tray with mutagen. This would seriously help Rancher as well.

Id just remove the passive mutation chance on plants however make tray chems actually deplete so you can properly dose the plant with mutagen, and also make mutagen work.

Making trays deplete their chems would just destroy tray chemistry without some mayor upside. I don't see a way in changing that without rework. And tray chemistry is already inferior in comparison to infusion when you want to boost stats.

Mutagen is one if those chens you never use in the tray and instead use for infusions. And there are only a few plants where i would consider mutagen (radweed and mushrooms).

Botany and especially the rancher don't need a speed bump or more rng. They need their results to go out of their department and interact with the crew.

Until something more major is reworked to make the system more engaging, my main idea would be make all mutations stat or infusion-based, especially since this can help with inter-departmental cooperation, though I'm not sure if this change would be necessarily desired by other players or developers.

I'm alao all for making more mutations infusion- or stat-based. With a caveat. There are some plant mutations that create the recources to infuse mutate other plants, like burning commol. I would just look to keep these stat-based and not lock them behind infusions, simply because of how important they are when other departments don't do their work.

But beyond that, i'm all for it!

[Decarcassor]

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.

Now I agree that random planting mutations is a bit of a dumb system right now. But the reason its the preferable method is because mutagen and by extent mutadone, are terrible and annoying. Mutagen can take forever to get any result and while mutadone can fix stats to some extant I can't deal with the undesirable gene strains.

I would also be for the removal of plant homeopathy, but this would require a big rethink of the benefits of tray chemistry vs infusion and how much product botanists would need on an average shift. Thats not a small amount of work. But depleting trays could be compensated by having stronger effects, essentialy.

I like the idea of making mutation trays, havesting wonky mutant seeds and then replanting them in healthier trays for growth and stats/gene adjustment. And the more I think about it, the less I like the notion of infusion for stat growth, as it encourage silly busywork and just clicking the same button over and over in the plantmaster computer. Infusions should be about triggering special mutations and possible gene strains, with only incidental effects on stats (in a non desirable way mainly). For instance what if infusing ammonia had a far greater chance of inducing the accelerator gene but would greatly reduce potency ? Thats what I'm thinking about right now.

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.

Thats where my thought are at right now anyway.

[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.

[Scaltra]

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"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."

One thought I have always had about this is if we removed plant homeopathy we should also make the amount in tray just matter. Not just capping the minimum amount of a reagent the tray can have before it is gone. So you could dump in 200 units of saltpetre and whenever the plant "drinks" it gains the appropriate stats based on how much it absorbed

Also, something like what whiteweed can do for mutating plants or lite lotus can do would be pretty cool in that same vain of plants that are good for plants! Or mutations for stats. (Whiteweed can mutate plants around it without hitting it with rads and lite lotus can act as a UV lamp of sorts)

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I feel like moving to infusions for a lot of things would be pretty nice especially. A lot of stuff in botany is admittedly just free if you are willing to sit there spamming seeds.

Silver infusion for syreline comes to mind as a way to make that consistent as well as require an outside hand for something that basically breaks the QM economy once you get it going.

I don't  think all plants need to be solely infusion but I also think any plant that can have a sensible one...should. it is easy to code and feels really nice to have a consistent and surefire way to induce a mutation.

If we remove spam planting, a really simple change to give options for more generalized mutations could be having mutagen in tray give gene strains and infusion cause mutations. Basically spliting and boosting the effects it has currently. Then have mutadone deplete mutagen in tray.

I feel like that would need to be a whole new chem change though because the tray just acts as a beaker of sorts. So mutadone would be coded like a charcoal for mutagenics.
Not an outlandish change and might be slightly appreciated as an added effect for mutadone aside from shutting down gene nerds or removing an accent.

Just a few ideas I had for what we could do with mutations specifically.