Gardening

In the depths of space, sustaining your crew can be difficult work. Gardening helps by providing a source of oxygen as well as delicious fruit: Every mature, well-tended plant will produce both on day change.

While the novice gardener starts out with only a couple of Banana Trees, proficient exploration of alien planets and acquisition of pots may eventually bloom the garden into a paradise of alien fruits and trees.

- The best gardens can produce more than the crew uses, and yield 10-20 fresh fruits every day.

Location

Each ship starts with 2 mature Banana Trees and 1 empty HydroPot in the Hydroponic Garden, as well as 2 empty Hydropots scattered throughout the ship's Storage rooms. Plants and pots should be moved to the Laboratory so that gardeners can share the Stainproof Apron with the lab crew to avoid getting Dirty. Plants should only be moved back to the garden if the ship has completed a NERON project which makes the garden advantageous.

Additionnal HydroPots can be acquired in many ways:

• Completing the Extra Hydropots project will add 3 additional Hydropots to the garden's shelf.
• Crewmembers with a Green Thumb will each receive 2 more pots, for a maximum of 12 when Stephen copies this skill from Ian.
• Trading sometimes adds additionnal hydropots to the Bridge.
• Blowing up Traders and collect their scraps may yield hydropots.

Plant Statuses

• Thirsty: This plant can still produce on day change but no fruit. It will be dried out the next day.
• Dried Out: If left unwatered, this plant will die on day change.
• Diseased: This plant is unable to produce anything until treated.
• Young: This plant does not produce anything yet until it matures. This takes anywhere from 1-48 cycles depending on the plant type. Note: This means Young plants receive no further negative effects if left Thirsty or Diseased.

A plant's thirst status changes on day change between Cycles 8 and 1: A watered plant with no statuses will change to Thirsty, a Thirsty plant will change to Dried Out, and a Dried Out plant will die.

A plant may become Diseased randomly after any cycle change.

Charges and maturation

The charges shown on a Young plant indicate how far in the maturation process the plant is.

• Usually, it indicates how many cycles it has passed in this state, as young plants gain one charge per cycle change.
• However, if they were in the garden with the Hydroponic Incubator built, they would gain 2 charges per cycle change in this situation.

This number of charges can be used to estimate when a given plant will mature if you know the charges needed for maturation.

• A Botanist Confirm: or Polyvalent, however, can read plant properties which tell them exactly how many more cycles it will take (takes into account the incubator and current position).
• The Gold Project Nano-ladybugs (Vending Machine) reduces charges needed for maturation by two

Actions

2 / 1 Plant

• Requires: Empty HydroPot (can't be on inventory)
  
• Target: Fruit
  
• Effect: Uses a Fruit to create a Young plant of the same species on the HydroPot with 0 charges
  
• Affected by: Botanist
  
• Public log: [Character] sets about reproducing a plant created by the [Tree]. Congratulations! The young plant is in perfect health.
  

1 / 1 Water Plant

• Target: HydroPot with Thirsty or Dried Out plant
  
• Effect: Resets the plant's thirst status
  • Only one watering is needed, regardless of whether the plant is thirsty or dried out.
    
• Affected by: Botanist
  

• Private log: You water the plants lovingly.
  

2 / 1 Treat Plant

• Target: HydroPot with Diseased plant
  
• Effect: Cures a diseased plant.
  
• Affected by: Botanist
  

• Private log: You take a moment to wonder about the ventilation in the room as you apply the pink MT brand fungosecticide to your dear plant. After all it was used as successful biological and chemical warfare agent, but hey, the future of humanity is at stake.
  

2 / 1 Hybridize

• Requires: Fruit in inventory
  
• Target: HydroPot with plant
  
• Effect: If the plant is in perfect condition (not thirsty, dried out or diseased) and the character is not Dirty, the plant is replaced with a new Young plant of the fruit's type with 1 charge Bug: According to Green Thumb description only with this skill should they start with 1 charge, but apparently anyone can benefit right now. Warning: If any of these conditions is not met, the hybridizing attempt fails and both the plant and fruit are destroyed in the attempt!
  Confirm: The hybridizing attempt might fail by very bad luck
  
• Affected by: Botanist
  
• Public log: (success) What a relief, [Botanist] has successfully created a crossbreed of the [Fruit]. The little plant is doing great!
  
• Public log: (fail) What a relief... oh wait... [Botanist] has not succeeded in their attempt to crossbreed a [Fruit]. The little plant didn't grow and eventually died... Something must have contaminated the procedure.
  

Notes & Tips

• Again, Young Plants can be left Diseased and Thirsty until they mature, because they do not produce anything anyway. So water them only when Dried Out and treat only when they are about to start producing.

• Because diseases can appear throughout the day, but only matter at the end of Cycle 8, plants should always be checked in Cycle 8, if possible. It's often useful for the gardener to give an update on plant statuses early in Cycle 8 - Stating whether they are ok, or asking for assistance.

• As a Botanist, you should save for actions that cost 2 if possible. E.g. if you are planning to plant or graft a fruit later in the day, do not spend your points on watering before that. Likewise, use them on treating diseases of plants that are mature (or will be on C1) first.
  • Watering costs 1 for everyone, so it can be done by everyone. Encourage others to water plants for you during the day, especially people without special skills (like Chun). That way you will avoid stressful situations in Cycle 8, and carry over your to the next day if there is nothing but watering to do.
    • Do this especially if you are also a Biologist who gets better research value for his than unskilled people do.

• When plants die, they leave an empty HydroPot behind. However if burnt in a fire, the HydroPots are destroyed along with the plant.
  • Having other items in the room like Post-its does not help to reduce the chance of HydroPots being burnt!
  • Plants in a character's inventory are safe from fires.And they will still produce fruit and oxygen. In long-running ships, it is thus recommended that trusted crew-members eventually start to hold plants in their inventory on cycle changes.
    • Garden projects (like Heat Lamps) affect even those plants that are held in the inventory if the person holding them stays in the Hydroponic Garden on cycle changes (confirmed with Heat Lamps).

• A plant maturing on Cycle 1 will already bear a fruit / produce in that cycle, and so will the starting banana trees if the ship happens to start on D1C1. For this reason, if they will mature on Cycle 1 they should be treated and watered.
  • A Banana Tree takes 36 charges to mature, this is 4 days and 4 cycles normally. So bananas should be planted between cycles 1-4 for them to be productive at the beginning of the 5th day.
  • Bug: If a dried out young banana tree matures right on day change, it will become a thirsty adult tree rather than die.

• Plant oxygen production happens after possible asphyxiation events. So if falls under zero by cycle change losses, even if the meter might end up being positive from what the plants produced, some might still die because it technically fell under 0 first.