Guide to xenobiology
Xenobiology is the breeding and harvesting of slimes and their extracts for scientific purposes. This all takes place in the xenobiology lab where you spawn, and is arguably more dangerous than making bombs if you don't know what you are doing. Which is a good reason to read this!
Home on the Range
As a Xenobiologist, you’re not going to get out much ever. You’re the most autonomous area on the entire station if you know what you're doing, and nobody ever bothers you (usually).
First, get familiar with your new home.
The workplace in the center includes a closet with a bio-hazard suit, a monkey recycling machine, a slime processor, and an All-In-One Grinder with several sheets of plasma. Also included is a smartfridge modified to hold slime extracts within easy arm reach from the slime processor. If, however, you don't like where the fridge/proccessor are, you can move them with a wrench. The eastern disposals goes directly to space, while the leftmost ones go to their own pens. Near the bottom most pen is your best friend: the slime console.
The upper and the middle pens start with your two slimes.
Due to not being a research station, the Aetherwhisp does not have a larger secure storage pen. Instead each pen has it's own blast doors, letting you hide whatever hellspawn is stored inside them.
Genocide Now: The Slime Console and You
The Slime Console is a semi-new addition to the Xenobiology scene that makes your job roughly a hundred million times easier. With it you can move slimes, kill them, feed them, and process dead monkeys with mere clicks of a button!
If you're using the console, I'd strongly advise acquiring a wrench and moving the fridge and slime processor within close range of the console you're using as to cut out a lot of unnecessary movement. Alternatively, moving the processor next to the kill room lets you suck in slimes through the wall via wizardry bluespace teleportation.
General Advice on how to Not Get Eaten
Before you start breeding the slimes, make sure you have a fire extinguisher in your backpack. You'll rarely meet a ravenous, hungry slime if you're using the console, but it still happens and having an extinguisher could very well be the difference between a dead slime and a dead you.
If you are on the NSV Astraeus, then this goes doubly so as you'll have to kill slimes manually. While they're normally docile towards you whom are effectively their God, they occasionally grow resentful for their species' exploitation and try to kill you for no particular reason. In that case, kill the blasphemers with a clear conscience, DEUS VULT!
Exploiting Lesser Species Optimally: A Guide
You should always have 1-3 slimes, depending on how many pens you are using. More and you can't control them properly. Less and your job is inefficient.
It Hungers... For More!
Insert the monkey cubes from the box into the console. The console can now teleport monkeys directly inside the slime pens! Slimes need one monkey to become an adult and another to split.
- You can send both monkeys at once into a baby slime's pen, so you don't have to think about it until they split.
- Do NOT enter the pen and bash the monkey, the only thing that will happen is slime will get less food.
Slaughter Time
Time to kill your darlings.
Decide which baby slimes you don't want to keep and proceed to warp them up with the console. It can hold up to 5 slimes at a time. Teleport them onto the kill pen; it's the one connected to a freezer. The sharp cold will kill the slimes quickly: when they stop moving, they're definitely dead. To kill slimes fast on the Astraeus, put the slimes into their airlock pen. Walk into the airlock with any not-help intent to push the slime against the far door, then spray them down with the extinguisher. This should kill them in a single spray.
Rip My Heart Out
Collect the dead slimes from the freezer room(You are able to use the slime teleporter on them still) and drop them above the slime grinder. It will automatically suck in the slimes; when it's done, activate it to grind them. It will, after a while, drop a slime core of the respective color for each slime grinded. Upgrading the grinder will make it go faster and give more cores per slime. A Bio Bag from any biohazard locker can mass-collect slime cores and easily drop them into the fridge for easy access.
Genocide?
If all the slimes are dead, job's over man, job's over hope you have a grey slime extract, if not, then job's over man, job's over!
Friendship and Slimes
If you've been following the guide and diligently breeding and culling the slimes, you may have noticed that while the slimes very quickly attack and eat the monkeys you offer them, they have little to no interest in eating you. This is because you've become their "friend", a status that can be earned by hanging around line of sight of the slime and feeding it. It's a bit strange sometimes, slimes will rarely attack you for seemingly no reason, but if you're doing a good job you won't need to work for this.
There are, however, some commands you can issue as a slime's friend, including "follow", "stop" and "attack". Keep in mind however, these commands are exceedingly finicky, and are rarely used for a reason. Slimes will not attack other slimes or friends.
THEY'RE EATING HER... AND THEN THEY'RE GOING TO EAT ME! OH MY GOOOOOOOOD!
So either by you not feeding the slime enough, the slime being an dick, or reasons, a slime has tried to kill you. If the slime is a baby, this is annoying. If the slime is an adult, you may die if you don't know what you're doing.
Slimes have two attacks: A glomp that does brute damage with adults dealing more and a chance to stun, and the far more dangerous 'feeding' attack which deals clone damage and empowers the slime, a rare and very difficult to heal type of damage. If a slime starts feeding on you, wrestle it off with disarm intent and spray it down with an extinguisher (You DID get an extinguisher, right?) when you get it off until it dies. After that, hobble off to medbay for healing.
While this is generally more a tip for you when NOT playing Xenobiologist, in the event of a very rare slime outbreak, perhaps of sentient slimes, get an extinguisher and hide. A horde of angry slimes can multiply fast, and while slimes are normally unintelligent and docile, outbreaks of them are nearly always done on purpose by someone wanting to destroy the station, and are thus paired with usage of red extracts enraging slimes and/or light pink or black extracts making very deadly intelligent slimes. Pray that the AI is able to stop them, and that the xenobiologist who released the slimes doesn't follow up with something worse.
Gotta Catch Em' All!
There are several a fuckload of different flavors of slime. You begin with two grey slimes but, you can breed them to catch all the pokèmon! slimes! Each kind of slime has its own powers from its extract.
Every time a slime splits by being fed enough, it has a chance to mutate based on it's individual mutation chance, a stat discovered by taking a slime scanner from the fridge and using it on the slime. It usually varies between 25% and 35%, but sometimes you will encounter slimes whose mutation chance is more like 15% to 17.5%. Choose carefully which slimes to keep! If you're breeding greys for monkeys, you'll want less chance of mutations, and if you want to get adamantines, you want to evolve them a lot! Keep in mind however that slime scanners are utterly useless if you're using the console, as the console has no scanner function.
NOTE: You can increase a slime's chance of mutation by injecting it with slime mutation potions from red slimes and decrease it with slime stability potions from blue slimes.
This flowchart shows the results of each slime's mutations when splitting, with options labeled "2x" having twice the chance of occurring.
Formulas
All injections require one unit of reagent. Dropper is your friend. You can also dilute your plasma by, for example, filling a beaker with 40u of water and 10u of plasma; a syringe will collect exactly one unit of plasma this way.
Tier 0
Grey Slime
- Extract creates a grey slime when injected with plasma. Useful as a backup grey slime.
- Extract creates three monkey-cubes when injected with blood. Useful if you want to do your job for more than five minutes.
- Extract creates Epinephrine when injected with water.
Tier 1
Orange Slime
- Extract creates a small plasma fire when injected with plasma. Also increases the pressure of the air a fair amount.
- Extract creates capsaicin (pepper-spray) when injected with blood. Usable as a 'ghetto stun' if you can find a good way to apply it to to your
victimtest subject.
Purple Slime
- Extract creates a bottle of slime steroid when injected with plasma. Slime steroid is a potent chemical mix that will cause a slime to produce one more extract when processed, for a maximum of five. Useful when used on dark purple slimes for that plasma or grey slimes for monkeys. The extract only works on live slimes.
- Extract creates slime jelly, a highly toxic substance, when injected with sugar. Useful if you are a slimeperson and want to split faster.
Blue Slime
- Extract creates frost oil when injected with plasma.
- Extract creates slime stabilizer when injected with blood. Reduces a slime's mutation chance by 15%, and carries through across generations.
Metal Slime
- Extract creates 5 sheets of plasteel and 15 sheets of metal when injected with plasma. Expect the roboticists to want the products.
Tier 2
Yellow Slime
- Extracts become 10k Charge Powercells when injected with plasma. These cells are self-charging, and very useful for cyborgs or APCs, for example. Valuable for R&D.
- Extract creates an EMP when injected with blood. It's a quite big blast as well, useful if that AI is onto your tricks.
- Extracts emit light when injected with water. They can be squeezed to increase the light emitted.
Dark Purple Slime
- Extract creates 3 sheets of Solid Plasma when injected with plasma. Yessir, NT can link anything to the production of plasma. Also useful for further experimenting.
Dark Blue Slime
- Extract creates a burst of cold when injected with plasma. Useful for countering those red slimes. Will kill most slimes dead, if you have 'population issues'.
- Extract creates a three-use chill potion when injected with water, which fireproofs anything it's used on. Be a firebug without looking like one! Miners can make good use of this, as it will make them storm-proof.
Silver Slime
- Extract creates a small amount of random food when injected with plasma, bork bork bork. Expect anything from a roburger to death berries.
- Extract creates a small amount of random drinks when injected with water, bork bork bork.
Tier 2.5
Bluespace Slime
- Extract will, if injected with plasma, spawn a Bluespace Crystal. They will teleport you when crushed in your hand and teleport anyone you throw it at. It also has some good research levels.
- Extract will, if injected with blood, create 25 Bluespace Floor Tiles, which speed up movement drastically.
Sepia Slime
- Extract stops time when injected with plasma. How?
SpessSlime Magic! - Extract creates some Film and a Camera when injected with water. Fuck this is so useless.
- Extract creates 25 Sepia Floor Tiles when injected with blood. They slow movement speed above them.
Cerulean Slime
- Extract creates a bottle of extract enhancer when injected with plasma. When used on a extract it adds one use to it. You can start laughing madly now.
- Extract creates a one-use blueprint when injected with blood. Renaming an area with it will turn the floor blue. Renaming an area to Xenobiology Lab will let the console work on that area.
Pyrite Slime
- Extract creates a can of paint when injected with plasma. For the love of all that is holy,
don'tgive it to the clown!
Tier 3
Red Slime
- Extract creates a bottle of slime mutation potion when injected with plasma. Makes slimes 12% more likely to mutate, the opposite of the slime stabilizer.
- Extract makes nearby slimes rabid when injected with blood. Has some fun uses.
- Extract creates a bottle of speed potion when injected with water. The speed potion will negate slowdown from any item of clothing or vehicle it is applied to.
Green Slime
- Extract creates some mutation toxin when injected with plasma. Injecting yourself with it will turn you into a slimeperson. This has several pros and cons, but what is important to xenobiology is that slimes will never attack you and your blood is not valid for blood-based reactions.
- Injecting the extract with radium creates some unstable mutation toxin instead. Injecting someone with it will change his race randomly. Possible results are golems, abductors, or lizardmen.
Pink Slime
- Extract creates a bottle of docility potion when injected with plasma, a potent chemical mix that will nullify a slime's hunger, causing it to become docile and tame, and will let you name it. You too can have your own pet, just like the HoP!
Gold Slime
- Extract spawns five random dnagerous hostile mobs when injected with plasma.
- Extract spawns three random dangerous mobs when injected with blood. These mobs are not immediately hostile, but may be provoked by certain actions, proximity to other creatures (such as your slimes) or if they encounter a construct or mech. You can also spawn magicarps and changeling headslugs!
- Extract spawns one random friendly critter when injected with water. Now you can fill xenobiology with mobs even if you're a giant pussy!
Tier 4
Oil Slime
- Extract creates an explosion after a moment when injected with plasma.
Black Slime
- Extract creates some advanced mutation toxin when injected with plasma. Turns you, or others, into a sentient baby slime. Beware, slimes are still not harmless. This mutation can be prevented with frost oil, if you are quick enough.
Light Pink Slime
- Extract creates a bottle of sentience potion when injected with plasma, a potent chemical mix that will bring human level intelligence to any animal, slime, monster or generally active thing you feed it to. Make Ian sentient! Create an army of gold slime minions! The possibilities are limited only by your own deviousness and the number of ghosts in the round.
Adamantine Slime
- Extract creates an Adamantine Golem rune when injected with Plasma. A ghost may stand on top of it, which will turn it green. If you use it at that point, it will spawn a golem. It will follow its creator's orders above anything else.
Special Slimes
Rainbow Slime
To attain this rare slime you must breed a slime with a 100% mutation chance!
- Extract will spawn a random slime when injected with plasma.
- Extract will generate a mind transference potion when injected with blood. You can use it to transfer your mind into a creature.
So You're a Traitor
What you can get here that can't be gotten easier elsewhere is an EMP and random hostile animals which include a few very deadly ones BEACONS SPACE BEARS ALIUMS SPIDERS HIVEBOTS PINE TREES OH GOD IT'S HORRIFYING. Releasing the slimes is somewhat viable, but you will likely get caught doing so, and baby slimes are rather tame (Unless you have Red Slime Essence. Then it's a party.)
On the plus side, you do have a disposal chute that goes directly to space. Pretty handy for disposing of evidence, or people.
Also remember the havoc with grenades and bombs you can cause! If you can get access to chemistry as well you can make some interesting grenades. Advanced mutation toxin with sugar in one beaker, phosphorus and potassium in the other. Set a timer in the Medbay and drop it and listen to all the people turning into Slimes. This is when you laugh to yourself and realize it backfires when all the slimes attack you.
A full guide to ruining someone's day with slimes:
- Red - Makes all slimes within sight range hyper aggressive. Also makes glycerol with blood in case you want to make a stupidly large hole in the station with a bluespace beaker grenade.
- Green - Produces 1 unit of a chemical that turns people into different races including slime persons. Use it on someone and convince the AI that they're a danger to humanity. Needs at least 5 units for it to work in a smoke grenade.
- Black - Turns people into actual slimes, no fort save. Again, 5 units in a smoke grenade will make for a very interesting shuttle flight.
- Orange - Ignites a large fire.
- Yellow - Huge EMP.
- Silver - Only way to get real roburgers (with nanites), kudzu seeds, and motherfucking GATFRUIT.
- Gold - We all know what this does.
- Sepia - Stops time in a small radius, allowing you to wreak many kinds of havoc.
- Oil - Explosion. Pretty meh considering there's materials for IEDs everywhere.
- Adamantium - Makes golems that can be converted to the cult/soul shard/revved. They have to follow orders given to them by their creator so feel free to make them suicide bomb with gold slime cores.
- Light pink - Enables you to make sentient beings, including anything a gold slime extract can produce. Magicarps included.
