Botany needs reworking

[metalgearsloth]

Outlining my problems with it as a department and what's required to make it fun.

1. There's no gameplay loop. There's no reason to make any particular food except for gimmicky contraband stuff like deathnettle or gatfruit which shouldn't be the core focus of a role. You can just spam out apples or bananas or whatever as there's no reason to make anything in particular.
2. Related to the above there's no reason to engage in mutations whatsoever when you can just spam more seeds out faster than you can do anything with them.
3. Due to the aforementioned spam you can very easily cause server lag just from entity count.
4. There's barely any reason to engage with watering / whatever the lights are on hydro trays because it's irrelevant 90% of the time and just there to give you busy work once every blue moon.

Ideally:

• First chef would get reworked (as it has the same problem but without causing the server to shit itself) to actually be useful outside of RP.
• Seeds would no longer be unique and not get spammed out.
• Botany yields would be nerfed into the ground.
• Write up a design doc / some way to encourage actual thought into playing the department besides an afk clicking game.

[Admiral-Obvious-001]

I do think the issues with 4 can be partially fixed using the currently in place systems but making the warnings on the tray actually damage the plant.

A big problem with 2 is that swabs just do what mutations can possibly do, but straight up better and in a more controlled manner with very minimal risk.

I don't think botany needs to be gutted completely but some changes to overall spam ability of everything is probably good. The recent clipping nerf seems to have stopped you getting industrial quantities of something from one seed at least.

[deltanedas]

before any of this rewrite it to be ecs and not mountain of evil shitcode

[oqqA]

A small list of suggestions that came to mind first:

1. [1,2] Sending unusual seeds to the science department.
2. [1,2] Sending unusual fruits and seeds to the cargo department.
3. [2] Storing and searching for seeds in the seed extractor, not on the floor. Genetics threshold will drop sharply.
4. [2] DNA manipulator for gene analysis and removal.
5. [2] A small progress bar for actions such as gathering, planting, and digging. It will slow down, balance time costs, and add a sense of accomplishment.
6. [3] Collecting fruits or seeds only in the nearest botanical bag by clicking with tools, not collecting if the bag is full.
7. [3] Storing and searching for fruits in a fruit bunker, which is placed between the chef and the botanist.
8. [4] Ability to create trays from soil or compost manually. Make them more water-dependent.
9. [4] Centralized irrigation and fertilization system that operates within an N radius and annoyingly beeps when it needs to be refilled.

[Jesper-Johansson]

Thinking about point 1 -

Would we say that Botany should ideally be a proactive role?
You anticipate the station's needs in advance and try to prepare the best materials to meet those needs.

Right now the only theoretical need is "some kind of food" (but not really because there's vending machines). And there isn't any real consequence to the proactive gameplay because plants grow so fast anyway and are easy to spam.

I think the role would have more depth if:

• There is a variety of distinct, potential needs. Rarely critical needs, but often "this would at least be helpful" needs.
• The needs and their degrees depend on external variables (like other roles, what strategies are in play, the map, events, etc). That's important because it means the botanist can't just plant the same things every round (if they want to utilize the role's maximum potential).
  Being dependent on external variables also encourages communication with other facilities.
• Sometimes there could be creative ways to make use of your materials anyway even when needs you were unprepared for arise (although that could come down to how other roles decide to utilize what you've produced).

It also shouldn't be neglected that a portion of current Botany players enjoy how chill and carefree the role is. They can feel like they're doing something, but there's no pressure. Ideally that playstyle should still be fine and valid, but with lots of optional potential for skill expression and dynamic gameplay.

[K-Dynamic]

Don't forget botanists should be foraging for more exotic seeds on planets

[deltanedas]

fuck it ecs ops

[the-soy-coder]

Thinking about point 1 -

Would we say that Botany should ideally be a proactive role? You anticipate the station's needs in advance and try to prepare the best materials to meet those needs.

so, botany corn oil futures for sale? hahaha, love it

[Wolfkey-SomeoneElseTookMyUsername]

I made a design document to rework some parts of botany, and make it less of a "mindless clicker game". It probably does not solve all of the problems mentioned in this issue by itself, but it would fix some of them. space-wizards/docs#599