Guide to Hydroponics

Welcome to Botany, sometimes also referred to as Hydroponics, and not to be confused with the Garden on the surface level. This is where a Botanist or two would reside to watch grass grow grow produce and synthesize useful tidbits with their biogenerator for the station to use. This guide will cover how to do all of that and more!

Hydroponics workplace


The hydroponics bay is located on the main floor south of medical and north of the kitchen and bar. Your main work area contains:


 * Hydroponics Trays - Plant your plants here. LED sensors light up to show plant status.
 * Garden Seed Storage - Stores seeds and mushroom spores.
 * NutriMax - Dispenses fertilizer, pest spray, syringes, and plant bags.
 * Seed Extractor - Insert produce to extract its seeds. Typically yields anywhere between two to seven seeds.
 * Water Tank, Sink, Bucket, & Hydro Tank - For watering the plants.
 * ChemMaster 3000 - Used to separate chemicals from a reagent container into bottles.
 * Chemical Dispenser - Yours is empty, but you can add cartridges to it to dispense their chemicals into containers. You also have empty reagent containers to fill with reagents from your plants.
 * Drying Rack - Add produce to the rack to dry it and make it smokeable.
 * Biogenerator - Add produce to it and process it to create biomass, which can be processed into a wide variety of products.
 * SmartFridge - Shared with the chef. Put produce here to make it available to the kitchen.
 * Hydroponics Crate containing the materials for Apiculture.
 * Botanist's Locker - Contains your equipment:
 * Plant Clippers - For taking samples from a plant, which you can grow into new plants.
 * Mini Hoe - Removes weeds.
 * Steel Hatchet - Chops down plants, so you can remove them and grow something else.
 * Plant Analyzer - Tells you the status of a plant or the traits of a piece of produce.
 * Backpack Water Tank - Wear it as a backpack; right-click with an empty hand to activate the mister. Fill with water and use to water plants.
 * Plant Bag - Click on a tile or a piece of produce to automatically load all produce into the bag. Click on a SmartFridge, Drying Rack, or All-In-One Grinder to empty your produce into it.
 * Plant-B-Gone - Weed killer. Also kills wallrot mold.

Growing plants
Plants need water and nutrients, and they need to be grown at the right temperature and lumens (light level). For you, none of this will be a big deal; only Xenobotany really deals with plants that require very exotic conditions to grow. The plants in your seed vendor will be happy with the same temperature as the standard on the station; if you are growing a plant far enough away from a light bulb that it needs more light, just close the tray lid (alt+click) and set the light level (right-click) to the plant's preferred level. Water and nutrient are added to the tray manually.

You can always check these variables, and even the plant's status, by examining the tray, which will probably look something like this:

That's a tray (#68).

Apples are growing here. Water: 100/100 Nutrient: 10/10 The tray's sensor suite is reporting a light level of 7.21463 lumens and a temperature of 293.152K.

Trays have indicator lights that show the plant's status.
 * Green Light: Ready for harvest - Click empty handed or with a plant satchel to harvest.
 * Blue Light: Low water - Click with a container that holds water to refill.
 * Yellow Light: Low nutrients - Click with container that holds nutrients (E-Z-Nutrient, Robust Harvest, etc.) to refill.
 * Red Light: Low health - Ensure the plant has water and nutrients, isn't ready for harvest, is at the right light level, and doesn't have pests or weeds draining its health.
 * Flashing Red Light: Weeds - Click with your mini-hoe to get rid of weeds. If this isn't done, the weeds will take over the tray.

Plant Chart Mouse over any white-box text to view that trait's corresponding gene for Xenobotany. Yi = Yield. Determines how many products per harvest. Ma = Maturation time. A lower number means faster maturation time. Pr = Produce time. A lower number means faster product growth. Po = Potency. Determines the amount of reagents, and strength of special effects.(Needs confirmation)

Plant Care and Maintenance
As mentioned above, plants can have a variety of issues affecting their growth if you're not tentative to their needs. What exactly does a plant need? Well, that depends on the plant! As a general rule fungus-type plants (reishi, chanterelle, plump helmet, fly amanita) only need nutrients, weed-type plants (nettles) only require water and true plants will require a mixture of both depending on their species. Nutrients (also called fertilizer) can be retrieved from the NutriMax - there are multiple types that each have their own effects, these will be covered later - and will vend in the form of a bottle, just pour some of this into the tray and examine your plant, once it's at a level the plant will be happy with, you're good! To water your plants, just take a bucket and fill it by clicking on a water tank or sink until you get a message that the bucket is full, then pour it into the tray until it's at a comfortable water level. Do note that the water level variable does not change the moment you fill it with water.

Along with nutrient and water, plants also have a requirement for light and temperature preferences too. All of the plants you'll be growing in hydroponics will thrive at a temperature of 293 kelvin, which is room temperature - don't worry about this! Light is still relevant to you however, and is measured in 'lumens', which demonstrate how much visible light is being emitted. While being at the wrong lumen level won't kill plants, correctly lighting their trays will make them grow faster and stay healthier overall. Use a plant analyzer on a seed or plant growing in a tray/mound to to determine how much light they need.

The plant analyzer is an important tool because it allows you to know what temperature, lumens, nutrient and water your plants need, as well as gives you general information on the plant's reagents (if any), and stats. The only stats that are relevant to you are a plants requirements and maturation time - these tell you what your plant needs to be healthy and how long it'll take to grow! As an example, an apple tree should be kept at room temperature, given four lumens, have roughly the same level of water for the duration of it's growth, and 10/10 nutrients at all times to be the healthiest it can be.

To set a plant's lumen level, all you have to do is alt-click (or, if you prefer, right click and choose Toggle-Tray-Lid) on the tray. This will lower the lid and turn on the lights to a level that you can set. Right-clicking a tray with a closed lid will give you the option to 'set lights', at which point you can select how many lumens you would like the tray to receive. Make sure you raise the lid when you go to harvest the plant, as you can't harvest from a closed tray. You can, however, pour water and nutrients into a tray while it's closed.

Now, what if your plant becomes infested with weeds - or worse, unhealthy! Don't fear, you're given (almost) all the tools you need to keep your plants in peak condition. If a tray becomes infested with weeds all you have to do is click on it with your gardening hoe, but what about if they become unhealthy? You have a couple options for improving their health all of which are liquid/chemical in nature, the most basic treatment however is nutriment (not to be confused with nutrients), which is found in all food stuffs, so start grinding up those pizzas or tomatoes and pouring the juice into your tray!

If your plants die they'll go an off-grey or brown color and have to be removed from the tray with a single click. Before re-planting, make sure you top up the tray's nutrients and water (lack of these probably killed the plant) and to click your hoe on the tray a few times to ensure there's no leftover weeds that took advantage of the dead plant. If you want or need to kill your plants - you can use your hatchet to hack it down after a few swings or you can spray Plant-B-Gone into the tray. Plant-B-Gone can be found in the botany lockers, but kills more slowly unless you spray a lot onto the plant.

If you didn't kill off your plants by now, you probably have a lot of produce on your hands! Go ahead and use your plant satchel on any trays with green lights, and load the bag into the kitchen smartfridge.

Advanced Hydroponics
Bedsides simply planting seeds and growing them, there are several other things you can do within hydroponics that will supplement your farming work. This includes becoming an apiarist, generating various items from plant-matter, and further propagating your plants.

Hydroponics Machines
Seed Extractor The seed storage only has a finite amount of seeds, three per plant type to be exact (barring Nifberries and Earthen-Roots), as such the seed extractor is used to gain more seeds. To use the seed extractor you must take a fully grown plant and click the extractor with it. Once placed in the seed extractor, the plant will be replaced with multiple packets of seeds of the same plant type. Using the seed extractor means you can have a virtually infinite supply of seeds, as long as you always have at least one of said fully grown plant. Make sure you don't let the chef use your last potato!

Biogenerator The biogenerator is a machine which takes fully grown plants and turns them into biomass. Biomass can then be converted into food, condiments, plant nutrients, and various leather products. To use the biogenerator just place a stock of grown plants into the machine and then open up the interface. Much like the smartfridge, you can use a plant satchel on the generator to dump plants into it instead of feeding it all in by hand. The interface will tell you how many biomass points are currently in the generator, and how much biomass various items will require to produce. An in-depth look into what you can produce will be covered in the Biogeneration section below.

ChemMaster 3000 A ChemMaster stolen from Chemistry that allows you to separate various individual reagents into other sections of the machine, which lets you make bottles or pills out of them. Of particular use would be the ability to grind up potatoes in your reagent grinder and making bottles of ketchup - or, perhaps, a condiment paste/sauce of some other fruit/vegetable.

Reagent Grinder An all-in-one grinder that you can throw stuff into to grind down into reagents. In particular, you'll want to toss plants and produce into it to grind down into nutrients and juice for medical or even the bar.

Biogeneration
The biogenerator is perhaps one of the greatest tools you'll be using to do more than just watching grass grow. Besides one useful feature of it being able to turn plants into meat (or at least a weird and smelly synthetic version of it), it can also make a number of other things with biomass. Below you'll find a list of what it can make.

Apiculture
Apiculture, or 'beekeeping', is a fun additional activity you can carry out while working in hydroponics. Bees provide a double benefit; they generate wax and honey in their combs and they increase the health of all nearby plants. But how do you start a colony?

At the entrance to the hydroponics bay on the right is a crate of beekeeping supplies. In here, you'll find a hive assembly, a single queen bee packet, two beehive frames, a net, and a smoking device. You'll also need the crowbar from your tool box and the honey extractor machine nearby.


 * 1) Fill your bee smoker with welding fuel; or, resign yourself to bee stings.
 * 2) Pick up your beehive assembly and click on it to assemble it.
 * 3) Put the two beehive frames into your hive. You may craft more beehive frames (and more beehives) with wooden planks, which you can craft by cutting up tower cap logs with your hatchet.
 * 4) Load the Bee Pack into the hive.
 * 5) Close the beehive by clicking it with your crowbar.
 * 6) The hive has five indicators, each representing one frame. If the indicator is dark, there is no frame in that space; if it is yellow, the frame is empty; if green, the frame is full. Wait until the indicators turn green.
 * 7) Open the hive again by clicking it with your crowbar.
 * 8) Optionally, smoke the hive to calm down the bees.
 * 9) Click the hive with an empty hand to remove the filled frames.
 * 10) Put the frames, one by one, into the honey extractor. The extractor will spit out beeswax and empty frames.
 * 11) Collect honey by clicking on the extractor with a container.

If your bees escape the hive, use the net to collect them and put them back.

Chemicals: Good and Bad
A variety of chemicals will have different effects on your plants if you inject them or pour them into a tray. Some of them will have beneficial effects such as healing them, increasing their nutrient count or making them more potent, but others will mutate, damage or kill your plants! The two primary chemicals a botanist should be concerned with however are ammonia and diethylamine.

Ammonia and diethylamine are both effective fertilizers, better than the three standard nutrients you have available to you in the Hydroponics Vending Machine. To get these chemicals however, you'll need to ask chemistry, as none is available to you at round start. If you're going to be growing a lot, these chemicals can be helpful. But if there's no chemists, a few other chemicals can also keep your plants healthy on top of using nutrients. Below is a chart of both beneficial, and harmful chemicals that interact with plants in various ways - some of them are blatantly obvious, while others may not be.