Gardening

Location

Each ship starts with 2 mature banana trees and 1 empty hydropot in the Hydroponic Garden and 2 empty hydropots in the ship's storage rooms. Plants and pots should be moved to the Laboratory so that gardeners can use the stainproof apron 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.

Plant Statuses

• Young: This plant does not produce fruit or oxygen until it matures. It will mature in anywhere from 1-48 cycles depending on the plant type
• Diseased: This plant will not produce fruits or oxgyen.
• Thirsty: This plant will only produce oxygen. If not watered, it will be dried out the next day.
• Dried Out: This plant will not produce fruit or oxygen. If not watered, it will be dead the next day.

Plant thirst status changes at midnight. 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. Each plant will produce a fruit at midnight provided that it is not diseased, thirsty or dried out.

Note: The charges shown on a Young Plant indicate how many cycles it has gone through in this state, to give you a rough idea of when to expect it to mature

Actions

• Plant a fruit: Requires an empty hydropot and a fruit. Creates a young plant of the same type as the fruit.
  • Cost: 2 AP or 1 Gardening Point

• Water a plant: Resets the plant's thirst status. Only one watering is needed, regardless of whether the plant is thirsty or dried out.
  • Cost: 1 AP or 1 Gardening Point

• Treat a plant: Cures a diseased plant.
  • Cost: 2 AP or 1 Gardening Point

• Graft a fruit: Uses a fruit (must be held in inventory) to change the type of any plant. The plant becomes a young cross-breed plant. Parent plant must not be thirsty, dried out or diseased, and the person doing it must not be dirty or have any physical illness. If any of these things is the case, the plant will die and you will lose the fruit.
  • Cost: 2 AP or 1 Gardening Point

Important Tips

Since young plants do not produce fruit or oxgyen, they do not need to be treated for disease until they mature. They also do not need to be watered when thirsty, only when dried out, so every other day.

Plants can become diseased at any cycle change throughout the day. Hence, they should always be checked during cycle 8, if possible. It's often useful for the gardener to post in general chat early cycle 8 to give an update on plant statuses - that all are clear or that assistance is needed.

Gardening points should be prioritized for the most AP costly actions if possible. If you know you're going to need to graft a fruit during that day, save them for that. Use them on treating disease and planting new plants before using them on watering.

Placing many post-it notes on the shelf in the same room as plants is recommended in order to protect hydropots from fires. They can be destroyed in fires, and once they're gone, there's no replacing them, so adding more options for things to burn up first will help, especially late game when fires are frequent.

If you get Brainsync status, it is highly recommended that trusted crew-members carry a plant or two with them. Plants in inventory can never burn in a fire.