User:Nullaurelian/Guide To Botany ErisEN Draft
What is Botany
Botany is the care of plants on the CEV Eris. While these plants are mostly consumed for food, there are some that can be ground up for medicinal or recreational chemicals.
Basic Botany
To grow plants you will need the following:
- Seeds
- A bucket of water
- A tool with shoveling quality 10 or greater
- EZ Grow or another fertilizer chemical
- A patch of soil
To grow the plants you will need to use a packet of seeds on an empty patch of soil. As the plant grows you may need to add water, fertilizer or remove weeds from the soil patch. You can find out what your plant needs to grow by examining it.
If there is a plant growing in a plot you don't want it in, you can kill the plant by attacking it, or by digging it up in the Aggressive stance.
When the plant finally matures, the plant icon should look like it has the crops on it. You can pick the fruits of your labors with you hands, or with a produce bag. Note that harvesting certain plants removes them from the tray. Luckily, the Seed Extractor machine can transmute one of your crops into multiple seeds for further planting.
Need images for the Mega Seed Servitor, soil plot, Nutrimax, and seed extractor
Advanced Botany
Scientists and Agrolytes both have access to more advanced equipment to maximize the yields of their plants.
- Hydroponics Trays
- Lysis-Isolation Centrifuge
- Bioballistic Delivery System
- Plant Analyzer
These tools, when properly used, can improve your crop yields by a noticeable margin.
Hydroponics
The hydroponics trays and the plant analyzer tool allow for a more fine-tuned approach to growing plants. By using a plant analyzer on a planted plot or tray, you can find out:
- What plant species is growing in the plot
- Ideal growing light
- Ideal temperature
- Nutrient requirements
- Water requirements
The hydroponics trays allow you to modify the plant's local environment by setting the tray's light level and sealing the tray with a lid to pump in air of a different temperature.
Hydroponics trays also have a visual UI to allow the grower an at-a-glance update as to what the plant needs to thrive.
| Light | Plant ... |
|---|---|
| Blinking Red | ... needs to be weeded |
| Yellow | ... needs additional nutrients |
| Blue | ... needs additional water |
| Green | ... is ready for harvest |
| Red | ... is in poor health and may die if left further unattended |
Modified Crops
Explain modifying crops
| Plant Characteristic | Effect |
|---|---|
| Vigour | How long the plant takes to mature and produce fruit. How much fruit it produces. Whether it can spread out of its tray(vine). |
| Biochemistry | Which reagents the fruit contains; which gases the plant generates. |
| Fruit | Whether the fruit is juicy and will splatter when thrown; whether the plant has stinging spines and will inject its reagents into anyone coming in contact with it. |
| Diet | Whether the plant consumes gases in its environment; whether the plant is carnivorous (eats pests) or eats tray weeds; how much water and fertilizer it consumes. |
| Metabolism | Whether the plant requires water or fertilizer. Whether it alters the ambient temperature. |
| Environment | Plant's preferred temperature and light levels, and how much tolerance it has for changes in light level. |
| Atmosphere | The plant's tolerance for changes in temperature and pressure away from its preferred levels. |
| Output | Whether the plant produces electrical power or bioluminescent light. |
| Appearance | The "shape" of the plant. Also affects whether it can be harvested only once or multiple times. |
| Pigment | The color of the plant and its fruit; the color of any bioluminescence. |
| Special | The ability to teleport the thrower or target when thrown. |
Mysterious Plants
On occasion special mushrooms or plants may start growing from cracks in the floor or from burrows. These plants, or more specifically the mushrooms can generate chemicals not normally found in growable plants and can potentially make interesting genetic donors for your super plants. To harvest seeds from these plants, use a tool with a cutting attribute in a non-Aggressive stance to gather a sample of the plant. This sample can be used to grow a tamed version of the fungus for testing purposes.
Tips
- One of the biggest boosts to plant productivity is a Farming Robot.
- Buckets (and all containers) can have the transfer amount set via the dropdown menu. Setting the transfer amount to the full 200u will allow for you to 1-click refill a soil plot or hydroponics tray.
- Not satisfied with the options available in the Mega Seed Servitor? You can hack it to give you a wider range of seeds for planting. Do so at your own risk!
