Hydroponics Feedback

[ISaidNo]

Okay so i've been hearing some complaints about the way the new Hydro mutations system works, so what i'm probably going to do once christmas is done with is go back to Hydro and fuck around with it some more, improve things here and there. So i'm angling for feedback on what's good and bad with Hydro right now.

What i'm probably going to do:

Step 1: Mutations system will be tweaked a little bit so plants will have one "free" mutation that can occur like the old ones with any planting, but others after that will have requirements.
Example: When planting a Chili plant, Chilly Peppers might appear at any time, but Ghost Chilis will require you to science out the requirements first and keep them there until it appears.
What I may need is some kind of hints system to direct players in the right direction with the bounded mutations - hopefully having one "free" and then others after that be bounded will be the best way to try and please everyone.

Step 2: Unfuck the Seed Extractor and Seed Mutator machines. Not sure what to do with these as of yet, frankly. Feel free to spitball ideas on that.

Step 3: Look for more opportunities to make things convenient.

[Azungar]

Are we talking completely new mechanics for hydroponics or are we just talking about improving the current things?

While on it, make a couple of mutations which require a mutation. Something really secret and cool.

[neogeo0823]

Just for the curious, what exactly changed about botany that made it suck? I haven't played botany since these latest changes went through, so I'm a bit clueless on what changed to make it terrible.

As far as suggestions, more interesting/funny/useless effects from the various plants would be nice. All anyone ever grew in botany was weed, tomatoes, and sometimes chiles. Not much else was grown because the other stuff was either useless or its effect could be found elsewhere much easier. Having some wacky effects on the plants would give more reason to grow them.

Some examples would be things like kiwi fruit, which could be sliced and put on food as a topping or crushed/blended into drinks. Upon eating, it has a chance to make you grow a beard/turn you VERY hairy.

Another example could be some kind of generic bean plant. Eating the beans causes one to fart uncontrollably, with more beans in your system meaning more farts. A mutation of this plant causes it to drop tofu on harvest, which can be eaten raw or used as a meat substitute in food. Eating it turns you into a vegan, with reduced strength and a thin frame. So you hit softer, but are slightly harder to land a blow on.

A mutation of mushrooms could result in the Penis Envy mushrooms(can't seem to find the scientific name) that not only get you high as fuck, but also make you spout witty dick jokes while you do it.

Allow botany to grow wool, which can be thrown in the GM for a generic jumpsuit, then subsequently colored with dye that can be extracted from other plants in botany through the seed extractor, which would be renamed to just "extractor". This wool can also be given to the clown/cluwne, who can work their circus-y magic on it to transform it into cotton candy, which makes the person who eats it honk when they fart for a short while.

[Cogwerks]

I don't think there's anything terrible about the new system, people just like to bitch and moan whenever something changes. The jist of the change is that instead of mutations just being a random thing, they're now tied to a specific set of bounds for one of the plant's genetic strings - like a certain window of potency or endurance values.

Seems people are having a hell of a time getting there though, so I think having some intermediary hints would be useful. Visual context clues that you're starting to get into the right ballpark, and maybe have mutagen and/or radium in the pot increase do something to wildly skew the results.

[Klayboxx]

Since the system has been changed, and it is now harder to get mutations - bring omega slurry pods back. I really want them. Please.

[APARTHEID]

For the love of god, PLEASE allow mushrooms to be extracted for spores. As it is right now, it's impossible to grow psilocybin or poisonous mushrooms with the current system.

As for a more detailed breakdown of current and future Hydroponics, I'll get my thinking cap on after Christmas.

[Anticheese]

Some cues as to what the bands for mutations are would be nice.

[Karakoran]

I don't like the new pots.

[ISaidNo]

The new pots are actually hydroponic though =(

Anyway yeah what cogs said. I'll break it down real quick (more indepth later cos it's like 5 mins from christmas right now):
The old system basically had a 8% chance every time a plant mutated that it would generate a mutation. That was flat and across the board - all plants that had mutation have an 8% chance to manifest them.
I changed the coding under the hood so now the mutations are much more tweakable for coders - the chances for each individual mutation are definable case by case rather than just being a flat 8%. In addition requirements that need to be met before the mutation can occur are possible. So a mutation might occur 100% of the time when the genes are right, or maybe 25% of the time in a very wide gene range.

Here's a freebie for you for example - cannabis will always become rainbow weed whenever potency is 420 or higher. Seriously, how did none of you figure that one out?

Anyway i'ma tweak this stuff more later. Not right now, it's christmas for fucks sake.

[mozi]

Here's a freebie for you for example - cannabis will always become rainbow weed whenever potency is 420 or higher. Seriously, how did none of you figure that one out?

probably because using the gene manipulator you can only up potency maybe 30 points without frying a seed from mutation, so a 420 potency seed would be ~14th generation?

it feels like it's making an already pretty dull process even more long and tedious. that kind of change makes sense with genetics where successful results are pretty spectacular, but botany's mutated stuff (except maybe explosive tomatos) are harmless in of themselves.

[APARTHEID]

Here's a freebie for you for example - cannabis will always become rainbow weed whenever potency is 420 or higher. Seriously, how did none of you figure that one out?

Here's a quickie: I did figure this out and, christ, it takes FOREVER to get to 420 potency. I mean, you have to luck out and get an extra-long round to get that amount.

And that's just with one variant of cannabis. It was torture. More on the beat of the new system tomorrow, though!

[Val]

I support new plants + mutations.

Pretty much anything I've ever posted about hydroponics on this board is something I want to see.

Bulk of it is here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24&start=10#p361

As for how mutations work, I barely ever bother with them because of how monotonous and frustrating it is to get mutations in the first place. To see it tweaked or modified to make it more fun to try and get mutants or otherwise make it less of a hassle, would encourage me and probably several others to seek them out more.

The DNA manipulator is fine as is, but there has to be another way of getting mutants other than just zapping seeds with rads. I'm not sure, but I think some seeds may randomly mutate on their own as well or come mutated out of the vending machine and you only find out when they're planted. Unstable mutagen probably works, but no one ever asks for it.

Suggestions:
>Seed extractor should give you mutant plant seeds if you decide to extract seeds from a mutated plant, thus giving it a purpose because you otherwise have infinite seeds of anything you would ever want to grow. I don't know if it already works this way because i've never had to use it, ever.

>Plant generations should affect plant genetics. If you keep extracting seeds from the same seeded plant or using seeds from your first crops and they go on for many generations, they have improved genetics. Or inversely, they become more susceptible to mutations or means of mutation.

>Weedkiller should come in spray bottles, so you can kill weeds or poison people from a distance.

>Shipping out mutant plants gives the QM more money than shipping out normal ones.

>More mutant plant recipes/reagents. To actually give them a purpose other than to dick around with them.

[Clarks]

Hi, I am hydrobot.

stages,
off.

Running around with a watering can sucks the joy out of hydroponics.

[Clarks]

Oh, I forgot. When it is emaggede, it throws slurrypods at people. They do explode on landing, don't they?

[ISaidNo]

Well the idea is with the manipulator that radiation accumulates on a single seed - that's what the 0/10 thing is. The 1/10 is basically how likely the seed is to be destroyed - 10% chance for every point in the first number. It's essentially a gambling machine - do you want to irradiate it 1-3 times and have low risk of destroying the seed, or push it as far as you think you can get away with and risk destroying it? Radiation is cleared when a seed is planted - the next generation will have 0 radiation and you can start over.

I'm not sure I ever properly documented how that works - at any rate I don't really like the gene manipulator as it stands now, so i'm going to think of a better alternative when I go back and overhaul some of hydro's more lacking aspects. I was thinking of some kind of machine that uses mutagen or other reagents to do various things to seeds. As for hydrobots.. ive really never been keen on the idea. I could just like make a misting machine or water monitor that automatically refills nearby pots or whatever honestly. Or grow lamps like someone suggested.