[Ron] Xenobiology Improvements

[Azande]

Xenobiology could be made better by giving xenobiologists something to do aside from working with the same slimes they've been working with for five years.

The idea is this, a Xenobiological RED , or Reverse Engineering Device. Most creatures (Cave dwellers, xenomorphs, mimics, some slimes, giant spiders, tindalos, diynaab, etc) would have some sort of biological data in them, or a few pieces of it, that can be reverse engineered by this stationary, large device.

So, the idea would be you kill a spider, drag it down to xenobiology, the xenobiologist hooks it up to this machine, which then would analyze the creature, say some fluff texts like 'Extracting DNA' 'Probing Atoms' 'Testing Elasticity', and then ping, the creature, if it was alive when hooked to the machine, dies, and a data disk pops out.

You can take this disk and RnD would be able to plug it into their computer, this would allow them to produce things based on the reverse engineered data.

So... Scan a spider? Maybe RnD's protolathe can now make an ingredient necessary for anti-venom, aka anti-toxin but works better on spider venom. Or, scan a Cave Dweller, and you can upgrade security's tasers by plugging them into the protolathe to have a better stun/recharge rate.

yeah, that's my final suggestion for today.

[Zundy]

100% this. I'd build on it and say perhaps different organs can be removed and researched as above, alongside booking a live creature up to a machine.

I'd also say you should be able to do this with the player species mwhahahah.

[Kaed]

I'd also say you should be able to do this with the player species mwhahahah.

 

But that would be illegal. And no one ever does illegal things on the Aurora

I wish I'd come up with this idea myself, it's a good one. A way to synthesize carptoxin, , make bluespace bear repellent, or any number of other things would definitely give xenobiology more to do than incompetently die to slimes every other round and hardly ever leave their department.

[Butterrobber202]

make bluespace bear repellent

 

BE CLEANSED YOU FLITHY FUCKING PEASANTS

[Kaed]

make bluespace bear repellent

 

BE CLEANSED YOU FLITHY FUCKING PEASANTS

 

That isn't a very constructive response. Could you elaborate please?

[Ron]

I'll be doing this. If you have anymore ideas about xenobiology please feel free to post them on this thread, I'll be actively looking at it.

[Azande]

But that would be illegal. And no one ever does illegal things on the Aurora

I wish I'd come up with this idea myself, it's a good one. A way to synthesize carptoxin, , make bluespace bear repellent, or any number of other things would definitely give xenobiology more to do than incompetently die to slimes every other round and hardly ever leave their department.

Luckily, it's not illegal if you sign a personal release form <3

ALSO RON THANK YOU FOR ACCEPTING MY SUGGESTION. If I have anymore ideas, I'll share.

[Bygonehero]

Mechanics-

Xenobiologists start with a Slime Mutagen Doclier gun.

This Slime Mutagen Doclier uses an ammo system of slime cores to replicate the Doclier effect.

Each different mob only responds when a certain slime core is loaded and used by the Doclier. This is determined randomly at the start of the round.

Example: Spider mob- takes GREEN slime core. Load GREEN slime core into Doclier gun, use on Spider to make Spider Docile and or similar to an attack dog as far as commands go.

This makes a pretty nifty research system of trial and error where the xenobiologist can use slime cores to tame other creatures. You may even add a system to determine what color slime core a mob needs to become docile.

[DrHobo]

So I'm all for a xenbio overhaul; Firstly, I think genetics should be moved down there and stuck in a corner, this will help down the line for the advent of Xenogenetics soon. One of the biggest fields of biology is genetics after all!

Now I've been doing an IC study on the reagent content of meat from any creature I can butcher and grind, which is taking ages to acquire all the different samples even though I could just go through the code and finish it in a fraction of the time but where's the fun in that. So what about adding some new reagents for their respective DNA samples? Like "chicken DNA", "corgi DNA", "diyaab DNA", "cavern dweller" etc. Then could inject them into a new "phylogenetic analyzer" machine or something similar to the xenobotany DNA machines, instead of the protolathe which will then compile a database of all the acquired samples.

As for what you can do with these samples, maybe print off domestication injectors (like DNA injectors) which could work like Bygone's Doclier gun instead of slime cores? So that it becomes a specialized syringe gun that just accepts the new injectors? Slimes themselves could then be easily domesticated with "grey slime DNA" or "purple slime DNA", etc.

Also I'd be in favour of making gold slimes just produce 1 random mob so they'd be easier to work with, could use a syringe gun of water to activate them from a distance (I keep meaning to test if that works). So that way folks would be able to get random creatures to study, and also more DNA samples for domesticating them? Could then farm gold slimes to farm other creatures?

Maybe have the domestication require the DNA and a blood sample or even just an ID from the xenobiologist so they're just friendly to them? It'll be dangerous but slimes have always been a bit risky if you don't know how to handle them properly.

Instead of butchering the creatures with kitchen knives (totally not scientific) could allow any creature to be dissected like a slime on the table, with some nice flavor text. It'll still end up with the meat being produced at the moment and even specialized organs down the line.

[LanceLynxx]

I'd also add that Lazarus Injector could be a researchable item by R&D. It would have multiple uses, but need recharging after each use, or need cartridges for each injection that you would also print from R&D.

Furthermore, have SOME mob crates be orderable from Cargo as another way, instead of just gold slimes, just like you can order cows, cats, monkey cubes, etc. But keep some rare/special ones obtainable only by gold slimes

(ideally mobs would be on the asteroid just like cave dwellers, you could go out there to try to catch them like spess pokemon, but I think Arrow said the guy that was developing mining 2.0 abandoned the dev team or something)