Knowledge gathering: plant mutations

[SamLogan]

Center

[Electroely]

Did you get a mutated grubfruit seed from the (non-spindly) grubfruit plant itself? I've been waiting 80 cycles now and I've upped the radiation at my farm to 300 rads/cycle and I haven't yet gotten a mutated grubfruit seed. 

I did manage to get a mutated mealwood from a single wheezewort, though my game crashed when it was placed in the analyzer so it didn't save.

EDIT: Right as I complain, I get a seed.

One thing that I noticed though: Despite not having analyzed any seeds so far, when the seed was harvested "+ Grubfruit Seed" text that shows up when you get a seed said "Grubfruit Seed (Juicy Fruits)." Analysis showed that text to be accurate.

[Brian.oni]

Quote

I peaked into the code:

If I understand correctly, the chance of mutation is directly proportional to radiation levels, with maximum of 33% at 500 Rads. So if you expose plant to 50 Rads you will have 3,3% chance of mutated seed

from @pether in the game update thread.

This begs the question though, how to best sustain constant & controlled high radiation levels?   Tried an infinite rad bolt set up to blast bolts through a liquid medium (figured it'd be hold the contaminants better - used water in this case w/ gel as a backstop), and a sensor to stop/start the bolts as rads approached 500.   It worked but took a while to get up to speed, and radiation actually fell off pretty quickly when the bolts stopped.   Is there a better way to maintain radiation via contaminates?   It seemed less consistent in a gas (o2), but I'm not super familiar with all the nuclear ingredients/by products and their characteristics - if there'd be another option there?   Considered rails, tiles or tempshifts, but debris seemed to not radiate at all, and tiles/plates had none or too little of output to be useful.

Another disadvantage is there'd be no chance of using worms to speed up growth, and though I run the scaffolding mod which makes it easier, there's always the risk of the dupe getting knocked out via the bolts.   Wondering if anyone else found some better ways to push that 500 rads limit?

And some extra data:   After like 15 cycles or so ended up with the following:

Total # of seeds: 86 --  Original: 67  (78%) Mutants 19 (22%)

Mutant Distribution: Leafy 5 (26%) Bountiful 4 (21%) Wildish 1 (5%) Licey 4 (21%) Blooming 1 (5%) Easy Going 1 (5%) Exuberant 1 (5%) Juicy Fruits 2 (11%)

The game crashed before I could confirm but I think I did see my farmer harvest a super specialized seed so I wouldn't assume that those last two aren't available to thimble reeds.  And though the 22% of seeds being mutations might seem off from the 33% prediction, some of those did come as the system was getting up to speed.   On one harvest where I let the plants sit a bit before harvesting I did get 8 strange seeds out of the 23 plants.

It also seemed like I didn't get any seeds mutated or otherwise out of a mutated seed I had planted despite having given my farmer 100 in agriculture.   Seems like others are seeing similar behavior so I'm guessing they might not drop seeds at all.

Final bit.   It looks like you can edit the mutation of a plant within Duplicity.. not sure if capitalization matters, but putting in bad info will definitely result in a crash on load.   See pic for where to edit and names I found, wasn't able to spawn a "specialized" seed to pin down that one 

[ghkbrew]

3 hours ago, Brian.oni said:

 Is there a better way to maintain radiation via contaminates?

You can use droplet multiplication of germs:

But, it's a little too cheaty for my tastes.

Edit: nevermind, thats been patched out.

Maybe some compressed nuclear waste would be better? Or shine bugs would be nice and scalable.

[Electroely]

3 minutes ago, ghkbrew said:

You can use droplet multiplication of germs:

But, it's a little too cheaty for my tastes.

Maybe some compressed nuclear waste would be better? Or shine bugs would be nice and scalable.

Hasn't this been since patched?

 

On 4/13/2021 at 5:41 PM, Ipsquiggle said:

Fixed issue allowing germ duplication in falling water

 

 

[Hokaeru]

On 4/30/2021 at 4:11 AM, StarvingAngler said:

means it would drop instantly

Basically removing dupes labor time for agriculture !  
Looks like superspecialized is not the best after all hehe

[sakura_sk]

14 hours ago, Electroely said:

text that shows up when you get a seed said "Grubfruit Seed (Juicy Fruits)."

But is it only the "juicy fruits" mutation that show up ?

*starts staring at plants*

Spoiler

Edit: ok... That was quick 

Spoiler

Probably all mutations show up if you look closely

 

[Rainbowdesign]

Does it make actual gameplay sense if its only temperature range and yield?

I think as soon the base has a good climate control system the plants are likely to be at the optimal temperature anyways.

Maybe it can be interesting to have specialized plants in low resouce environments, but normally food amount is only an issue early game.

I think it would be more interesting if mutations could spawn limited resources as byproduct like metals, or even exotic stuff thats required lategame.

[suicide commando]

What we need is to be able to grow even more dangerous Sporchids, maybe a carnivorous one?

 

[Rainbowdesign]

Dangerous?

Dangerous things we need are space pirates who mine the planets and carry off your metals unless you drive them away

[Red Shark]

8 hours ago, Rainbowdesign said:

Does it make actual gameplay sense if its only temperature range and yield?

I think as soon the base has a good climate control system the plants are likely to be at the optimal temperature anyways.

Maybe it can be interesting to have specialized plants in low resouce environments, but normally food amount is only an issue early game.

I think it would be more interesting if mutations could spawn limited resources as byproduct like metals, or even exotic stuff thats required lategame.

Yeah, I agree -- when I first heard the system pitched, I thought we were going to get hybrid, franken-plants that were wholly new. (I suppose "Licey" is sorta exactly that)

Micromanaging seeds to create farms doesn't feel like a good gameplay loop. If 50% of your farm is random mutations that have different input / output rates but still can survive in the same farm, with the same fertilizer -- there's not much added gameplay.

[crbd115]

23 minutes ago, Red Shark said:

Yeah, I agree -- when I first heard the system pitched, I thought we were going to get hybrid, franken-plants that were wholly new. (I suppose "Licey" is sorta exactly that)

Micromanaging seeds to create farms doesn't feel like a good gameplay loop. If 50% of your farm is random mutations that have different input / output rates but still can survive in the same farm, with the same fertilizer -- there's not much added gameplay.

I do sort of agree with this but at the same time I'm conflicted. On the one hand the system is kind of basic for what it is. It seems more like what we have done in real life with messing with genetics of plants to make better versions of the same plant. This is fine but the fact that it then needs radiation after just to live for what it does I'm undecided as to whether or not I like it. Some plant mutations it seems reasonable since they are effectively allowing you to cut down on space requirements with the same input and output of a larger farm. Others how ever seem relatively underwhelming for something that then requires radiation still to live. I do like that some of the mutations cause it to grow with germs so disinfecting food might matter but doesn't cooking it just remove the germs or am I misremembering?
I'm sure a lot of people were expecting something a bit more extreme in terms of mutations which is sort of our own fault for overhyping the idea when it was teased, but at the same time it does seem low pay off for the effort. It's still a bit early since it was only in one update so far and there's still a few weeks left of this update. They may change it even after the update is finished at some later point.

[SamLogan]

Does a mutant plant give seeds with the same mutation or it will the classic /roll?

[ghkbrew]

27 minutes ago, SamLogan said:

Does a mutant plant give seeds with the same mutation or it will the classic /roll?

I don't believe you get any seeds from mutant plants (unless you uproot them).  As it is, you have to breed mutants from classic seeds.

[Brian.oni]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:55 PM, ghkbrew said:

Side note: Are people interested in analysis of the game code?  It feels vaguely like cheating. Maybe it would be more fun to test and discover the behavior manually?

I'd certainly be interested in this.   Could also help guide the experimentation.   For example, you mentioned that it looks like the check is the current radiation exposure?   Does that mean you could disable autoharvest, let the plants grow to maturation, and then bombard it with radiation w/o worry of going a little beyond 500 (assuming the radiation can be stopped/removed) just long enough for a suited dupe to come harvest?   

[Coolthulhu]

What happens to pip-planted mutant seeds?

[sakura_sk]

17 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

What happens to pip-planted mutant seeds?

They require radiation. Otherwise, like any other wild planted seed, they need their respective temperature and atmosphere environment

Well... It seems a side effect is when an unidentified seed is planted by a pip, it "identifies" itself  (if there was a seed of the same mutation already researched once for that plant species)

[Sebastiangperez]

I got a wildish from a mealworm seed but i can't get any one, keeps outputting original seeds, i have them next to a wheezerwort

Besides , i have a dusk cap and a bristle blossom next to various wheezerwort and i don't get new seeds ... 

I'm doing something wrong ? 

[sakura_sk]

9 minutes ago, Sebastiangperez said:

I'm doing something wrong ? 

It needs high radiation levels (up to 500 rads) to achieve more mutant seed drop (up to 33%) otherwise 1 wheezewort gives around 3% chance for a mutant seed drop. 

[Sebastiangperez]

Just now, sakura_sk said:

It needs high radiation levels (up to 500 rads) to achieve more mutant seed drop (up to 33%) otherwise 1 wheezewort gives around 3% chance for a mutant seed drop. 

Uffff , this works of all the seeds ? 

Thanks 

[sakura_sk]

1 minute ago, Sebastiangperez said:

this works of all the seeds ? 

I can say it works for mealwood, dusk cap, bristle blossom, bog bucket, thimble reed, spindly grubfruit, pincha pepperplant and balm lily (also waterweed but I haven't tested it long enough to see all mutations). Sleet wheat seems that it doesn't drop mutant seeds and I didn't make a proper seed farm of arbor trees to see if they can drop mutant seeds. I also didn't test dasha saltvine, nosh sprout and gas grass but I assume they probably do drop mutant seeds (except for gas grass's exuberant mutation maybe)

[suicide commando]

My guess is, nosh beans won't drop mutant seeds either, as they're similar to sleet wheat in that their seed is also the harvest product.

 

[Sebastiangperez]

4 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

I can say it works for mealwood, dusk cap, bristle blossom, bog bucket, thimble reed, spindly grubfruit, pincha pepperplant and balm lily (also waterweed but I haven't tested it long enough to see all mutations). Sleet wheat seems that it doesn't drop mutant seeds and I didn't make a proper seed farm of arbor trees to see if they can drop mutant seeds. I also didn't test dasha saltvine, nosh sprout and gas grass but I assume they probably do drop mutant seeds (except for gas grass's exuberant mutation maybe)

Question , how many rads i need to get at least one mutant seed from any plant? is there any chart? 

 

[ghkbrew]

13 hours ago, Brian.oni said:

I'd certainly be interested in this.

Good , that seems to be the consensus.  And let's be realistic, I was never going to resist peaking under the hood, once I figured out how to decompile the game.

13 hours ago, Brian.oni said:

For example, you mentioned that it looks like the check is the current radiation exposure?   Does that mean you could disable autoharvest, let the plants grow to maturation, and then bombard it with radiation w/o worry of going a little beyond 500 (assuming the radiation can be stopped/removed) just long enough for a suited dupe to come harvest?   

That does seem to be the case.  Running a radbolt collider for just long enough to harvest the crops should work.

Will suits protect dupes from 60k rads? you might need to add some walls to bring it down to something more manageable.

[sakura_sk]

3 hours ago, Sebastiangperez said:

Question , how many rads i need to get at least one mutant seed from any plant?

Technically 1rad (1-500) but it would take... what? 500 cycles to have a mutant seed probably 

3 hours ago, Sebastiangperez said:

is there any chart?

I run a test for 100 cycles in a constant ~300rads and I still didn't get every mutation of every seed but I think it is early (update wise) to have anything more concrete 

 

I wouldn't say no to some more "peeking" @ghkbrew . I'm positive by now I would run my farms for another 100 cycles either way 

I'm curious if there are any other mechanics at play (except the constant 1-500 rad). I've seen seeds drop more frequently if the plant is not harvested immediately (but maybe I'm imagining it..?). I tried to put a collider (if we are talking about that collider) but it didn't seem to produce any mutant seeds. The plant wilted in the pop of radiation but not every time, so I may need to time it better, but there is no sensor for "harvest ready" so... I should probably time that too I guess..