lilahnovi Posted February 17, 2023 Posted February 17, 2023 (edited) Hi Everybody! I sort of wanted to share this less as an outright suggestion to be changed right away (because it's a ton of work), and more as a gauge of how possible it would be to implement these ideas or start to include them. I will try to make how I explain things as simple as possible. In my real life, I am a plant scientist. I actually do make plant transformations that do all kinds of cool stuff, like glow! It's a lot of proof-of-concept work. My first real round as Xenobotanist, I made potatoes that could be multi-harvested. I was so proud of myself, and taking notes about how I did it! I even tested to potatoes by grinding them and comparing them and eating them, just to make sure they really were a potato. Excited, I delivered this potato to the kitchen and the gardener, and then asked for ideas on what would be an 'ideal' plant for them to have. Some ideas were like, "spicy tomatoes!" or "Chantarelles with more nutriments to make a better soup!" I thought, wow, this is pretty cool, and kind of a fun concept. Why didn't anybody ever play this job...? And then I found out the genes were re-randomized every round. Womp womp... I can understand the reason *why* it is like this - it's research, after all, so you're supposed to do discovery. But it's still a little rough, and starting at square one makes the "dump mutagen on plants until they wriggle into monsters" more appealing. So, I had a 'there's got to be a better way!' moment, and considered how my real work could essentially be gamified to make Xenobotany more 1. useful to crew (instead of just making danger plants), and 2. enjoyable for the player, feeling like you're doing something productive. Here is the idea I have for a general brainstorm and flow. General Ideas: - In my mind, the purpose of science is to research things and, if possible, generate 'deliverables'. That is, items that can be of use to whoever has the interest. In this case, the biggest use would probably be to support hydroponics in enhancing their yields or making things easier for them. It could also be useful in making medicinal components or whatever, but I don't view this as a major focus. - Gene constructs should be buildable like in real life. For example, in my work, when we need to construct a gene, we literally use a program that helps us know what components should be involved. (Picture included of irl program): ) The potential idea flow of the job (based on IRL plant transformation): 1. Build a gene from 'puzzle pieces' (Read the 'making a gene' section below for what I mean by this). You use a computer program or machine in game to predict which two or three 'pieces' need to come together to get the gene of interest, and what percentage chance you have of success. 2. You have to introduce the constructed gene to bacteria. irl, we introduce the gene to the bacteria and zap them with a little electricity, which causes them to take in the plasmid/gene. 3. You have to grow that bacteria on a petri dish. irl, it would be grown with selective media that would kill off any bacteria that didn't have the gene construct. However, this seems a little too complex for right now. 4. You take a bit of bacteria once grown from that dish and put it into liquid media to make liquid culture that needs to be incubated in a shaker. The purpose of this is to make A LOT of the gene! 4. You have to 'infect' your plant somehow. You can just pour the grown liquid culture into the tray like a fertilizer. IRL, we dip the plant flowers into the bacterial culture and expose it to a vacuum. 5. Then maybe only 1 out of 5 of the fruits you harvest will have your gene of interest. You have to scan to find it, and then make seeds from that specific fruit. IRL, it's more like 1 in 1000 seeds have the gene of interest, and we have to grow them on special media that kills any plant without said gene. Too complex for Spacemans. Making a gene example: - You select your gene construct "Multi-harvest" - You select the plant in question "Potato" Then it gives you possible components* you can put together to make a gene that might do that. *(Special chems [maybe in a vial rack or something] that when combined, give you the target gene. The names can be like A1, or B4, or if you want to get fancy/realistic, PYR1, or COR23. You may also be able to extract these chemical components from another plant) And you mix and match, say, up to 3 different components, and the computer spits back at you the percentage chance of getting at least 1 fruit that will have your gene of interest. Maybe certain genes are easy, only need 2 components, and the percentage of getting at least 1 fruit is way high. Maybe certain genes are way harder, need 3 components, and the percentage can be smaller. Anyway, that's my idea. Thanks for reading! If I knew byond code like the back of my hand, this would instantly become my personal passion project LOL But alas... I only just figured out how to get a new pair of shoes into a loadout. I would love to talk more about the difficulty of actually making the potential flow work through the code. I'm curious what the hardest part would be code-wise. Edited February 17, 2023 by lilahnovi Didn't finish a sentence! 9
Recommended Posts