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. While the novice gardener starts out with a set of Banana trees, proficient exploration of alien planets may eventually bloom the garden into a paradise of Unknown item...

Location

Each ship starts with 2 mature Banana and 1 empty HydroPot in the Hydroponic Garden, as well as 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 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 .
• Thirsty: This plant will only produce . If not watered, it will be dried out the next day.
• Dried Out: This plant will not produce fruit or . If not watered, it will be dead the next day.

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 at any cycle change. Each mature plant will produce a fruit and at the beginning of Cycle 1 provided that it is not Diseased, Thirsty or Dried Out.

The charges shown on a Young plant indicate how many cycles it has gone through in that state. Without the Botanist skill, the charges can be used to estimate when a given plant will mature. Botanists, however, can read plant properties which tell exactly when a young plant will mature. A plant maturing on Cycle 1 will also bear a fruit/ in the same cycle.

Actions

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

• 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 or 1

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

• 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 or 1
  • This is a Botanist-only action.

Important Tips

Since Young plants do not produce fruit or , 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 -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-its on the shelf in the same room as plants is recommended in order to protect hydropots from fires. They can be destroyed by fires, and once they're gone, there's no replacing them, so adding many other things to burn leaves lesser chance that plants will catch fire, especially late game when fires are frequent.

In the very late game, it is recommended that trusted crew-members hold plants in their inventory on cycle changes. Plants in inventory can never burn in a fire.