Guide to Hydroponics

Flower Power
Hydroponics and the Botanists (alternatively named Hydroponicists) who work there are important people on the station, especially in longer rounds. Botanists grow plants, obviously. Without plants, the Chef cannot make many types of food. Without those types of food, the denizens of the station will either have to live off of beef jerky and space twinkies, or starve to death. Now that you understand why this is important, let's get started!

Plants
Here is a chart with the types of plants you can grow, in case you forgot.

Growing The Afforementioned Plants
First, locate the hydroponics trays, sometimes referred to as "planting pots". this is where you will be planting the seeds. Take a seed in your hand, and click the pot. You will then get a message saying "you plant the seed in the pot.", or something along those lines. You can only plant one seed per pot. If you click the pot with an empty hand, you will get a basic analysis of the plant, and the nutrient and water level of the pot. Here is an example:

This pot has [plant] planted.

Water: 75/100

Nutrients: 8/10

This is an easy way to identify the plant, if you are not familiar with what they look like. It is also a good way to check on new species that have found their way into the "farm". If this happens, you will get a red message that says soemthing like "hydroponics tray has been overtaken by [plant]!". This can be good, bad, or a combination of both. Best case: a few Liberty Cap spores lodge themselves in the tray, and you get super duper high. Worst case: generic weeds. These grow very fast and serve no purpose as of now. All they do is take up space (get it? cause you're growing stuff on a space station?). An example of a useful weed (not the smokable kind), is the humble nettle. Nettles are a very useful plant, and a powerful weapon if grown properly. If you play the Botanist and get picked to be a Traitor, then do not fret. Just wait for some nettles to show up in your garden and kill those targets with FLOWER POWER! nettles are poisonous to begin with, but with skillful harvesting and increases of the Potency level, the nettles can deal a lot of damage, and have a very high knockout chance.

Caring for your Vegetable Friends
Mushrooms: Just feed these fertilizer, don't need to water them.

Weeds: Just water them, they don't need plant food. Nettles are considered weeds.

Everything else: Feed them water AND Fertilizer.

The hydroponics tray will warn you of any issues with your plants with colored lights.


 * Green Light: Ready for harvest
 * Blue Light: Low water
 * Yellow Light: Low nutrients
 * Red Light: Low health
 * Red Flashing Light: Alert: Weeds

To fix the water problem, take your bucket, fill it with water at one of the water tanks inside the farm or the hydroponics sink, and pour the appropriate amount of water onto the plant. If a pot is full of water, you will not be able to add any more and the excess will splash onto the floor. If you run out of water tanks, you can always order some from cargo or "borrow" from somewhere on the station.

To fix the nutrients, first take one of the bottles from the botany supplies vendor, be it EZnutrient, Robustharvest or Left4Zed. Then, either transfer it into a bucket (preferably empty) or use a syringe to extract it out of the bottle. Apply it to the tray or soil.

One should avoid replacing the solution while there is still plenty left. Excess fertilizer disappears forever, and the dispenser has a finite supply. However, you can use the biogenerator to produce more bottles of fertilizer. The ability to produce five at once makes it practical. The usage of the generator should be intuitive, but to make it work, you'll need to fill it up with biomass. You can get some by taking excess (cabbage), useless (weeds) or illegal (ambrosia) produce and putting it inside the generator. After that, just grind it up. The grinding process will take a few seconds.

Weeds can be removed by clicking on the tray while holding a mini-hoe in your hand. Keep clicking until you see the message "This plot is completely devoid of weeds. It doesn't need uprooting.".

If a plant is dead, a single click will empty it from the tray. If your tray decides to sprout some annoying harebell or unwanted crops, a few sprays with the Plant-Be-Gone will kill it, albeit rather slowly.

Hacking at a plant with a Hatchet will gradually kill it, allowing you to remove the plant from the tray and replant.

Chemicals, Wonderful Chemicals
Certain chemicals do special effects on plants and mushrooms. Either it kills, heals, feeds, or mutates the plant.

Go Forth and Procreate
This section is about making new plants from existing ones. Remember, the seed dispenser will run dry very early into the round. And if you ask the QM for a seed crate, he will most likely laugh in your face and kick you in the dick for being stupid. So to make more seeds, you will need the help of Mr. Seed Extractor. This little box (located next to the NutriMax) is your best friend in long rounds. It is possible to use your leet Hacking skills on the seed dispenser to get more, but these are all either poisonous or full of space drugs. To extract seeds from a plant, pick up a plant product (Fruit, Vegetables, Shrooms, etc.). Then, click the seed extractor. You will then get 1-4 bags of seeds or mycellium from the product. Then, dump out the contents of one of those shiny hydroponics crates you have, and put the extra seeds inside. This will keep them neat and organized. If you don't want to waste one of your pretty green boxes, steal a crate from the Cargo Bay, or those pointless rooms right next to the mining dock. If a new species sprouts in your farm, keep it alive so you can make seeds from it and grow more.

Soil
Soil is an alternative to trays. Get some sand, use it to make sandstone, then take three sandstones to make soil. Sand can be dug by Shaft Miners on the Asteroids, alternatively you can grow grass in your existing hydroponics trays, then plant the grass tiles and dig them up with the spade (found in the back room), this will dig up some sand. Congratulations, you are no longer restricted to trays for growing now. Be warned though, it is not the most efficient method of planting, as there are no lights to indicate needs for water, fertilizer, etc. Removing soil is done with a shovel or spade.

Analyzing the Analysis
Upon selecting the Botanist, you will find that your apron contains a handy-dandy Plant Analyzer. You use this to get a highly detailed analysis of the targeted plant. The readout looks like this:

The analyzer also shows you the status of the pot. Toxicity is important for shrooms, because it tells you how deadly it is. The water and nutrition levels are self-explanatory.

Other dank things
As a botanist, you also have access to animals; cows, chickens and bees. They produce milk, eggs and honey respectively. If you lose your two starting animals or want some bees, you will have to ask cargo. Bees are considered problematic due to the mechanics surrounding them and it's very hard to keep them contained inside botany.

Tower Caps are an important source of construction wood for the station.

Mutating plants is an important part of being a botanist. If you want to do it, your best bet is to ask a chemistry for some radium or unstable mutagen. Due to their deadly nature, the aquisition of chemicals is a regulated process and might require a permission from the respective Heads of Staff. Once you have it, just apply it to the tray using a syringe until you get results. Try experimenting.

You can construct a smoking pipe using a corn cob and a hatchet.

Ambrosia and other narcotic or poison containing plants are not allowed to be destributed around Aurora. If any are found outside hydroponics, a security response is guaranteed. You or the chef are not allowed to use it either.