Plant potency, nutrients, and environmental tolerances rework

src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -278,6 +278,7 @@ Space Station 14
 
 		- [Proposals]()
 			- [Plant Genetics](en/space-station-14/departments/service/proposals/plant-genetics.md)
+  			- [Plant Nutrients](en/space-station-14/departments/service/proposals/plant_nutrients.md)
    		- [Librarian Gameplay](en/space-station-14/departments/service/proposals/theshued-librarian-gameplay.md)
       - [Joker Roles](en/space-station-14/departments/service/proposals/joker_roles.md)
 	- [Silicon](en/space-station-14/departments/silicon.md)

src/en/space-station-14/departments/service/proposals/plant_nutrients.md

@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+# Plant nutrient rework
+
+| Designers | Coders | Implemented | GitHub Links |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Wolfkey-SomeoneElseTookMyUsername | Wolfkey-SomeoneElseTookMyUsername | :x: No | TBD |
+
+## Overview
+
+A rework of the potency, nutrient, water, and environmental tolerance mechanics of botany. Instead of having a potency value that decides the amount of reagents a plant generates, it will instead be decided by the amount of, and type of nutrients in the plant. 
+More powerful reagents require nutrients that are harder to obtain, or have other downsides to their use. Some reagents will also change the environmental requirements of the plant that contains them, such as a cryogenics related reagent causing a plant to require colder temperatures to survive.
+
+This is not a full rework of the botany department, so some issues with its current implementation, such as ones relating to the mutation system will not be addressed here, due to being out of scope.
+
+All examples listed here do not have to be implemented as they are described, they merely exist to help explain how the base mechanics can be used.
+
+## Background
+
+The current botany nutrient system is a nutrient ouroboros where you can infinitely feed a plant with its own products, and the only other resource used is infinitely generated by sinks.
+Mass producing chemicals like omnizine is incredibly easy, as it uses the same resources that are needed to grow basic food plants like wheat.
+If a botanist knows what they are doing, the potency of an unmutated plant will always be either 27-30, or 50.
+Pest killer is useless, as the only way for a plant to gain pests is by adding chemicals to a plant that have no good reason to be added to plants.
+
+## Features to be added
+### Nutrient requirements
+
+The basic water, nutrient, and potency values on plants are removed.
+
+Reagents grown with plants now come with nutrient requirements, meeting more of the nutrient requirements increases the amount of reagent obtained by grinding the plant's produce.
+Nutrients are added to the plant via pouring a reagent that contains the nutrient into the tray/soil, or having a gas that contains the nutrient in the atmosphere.
+When the plant is harvested, nutrients are used up to fulfill the plant's nutrient requirements.
+
+Nutrients can be specific elements, like carbon or oxygen; or more vague categories, like flammable, cold, or clown-related.
+
+Some reagents contain multiple types of nutrient, for example:
+- Blue blood containing large amounts of the "blood" and "water" nutrients, and small amounts of the "meat" and "copper" nutrients.
+- Banana honk containing the "nutrient", "clown", "water", "sugar", and "ethanol" nutrients.
+- Oil containing large amounts of the "flammable" nutrient, and smaller amounts of the "carbon" nutrient.
+
+Some nutrients (radioactive, toxic, etc.) lower the health of plants that don't have them as nutrient requirements.
+
+The reagents that contain a nutrient may also have extra unwanted effects on a plant, which may have to be worked around by the botanist.
+For example:
+ - Uranium, radium, and other reagents containing radioactive nutrients can randomly mutate plants they are added to.
+ - Sugar, syrup, apple juice, and other reagents containing sugar nutrients increase the amount of weeds and pests of plants they are added to.
+ - Honk, laughter, and other reagents containing clown nutrients causing "funny" mutations to the plants they are added to, such as screaming or being slippery.
+
+Plants whose produce can be used for purposes other than grinding (such as steelcaps and glasstle) may have extra nutrient requirements to be harvested.
+
+### Environmental tolerances
+
+Some reagents will change the environmental tolerances, or other stats of the plant that contains them in their produce.
+
+For example:
+- Flammable reagents like welding fuel and oil lowering a plant's tolerance to high temperatures.
+- Temperature-stablizing reagents like leporazine raising a plant's tolerance to both high and low temperatures.
+- Polypyrlium oligimers lowering the pressure requirement of a plant so much that it can survive in space, but no longer can survive earth-like air pressure.
+
+The environmental tolerances of a plant can also be temporarily modified by adding certain reagents to the plant.
+For example:
+- Ice and other cold reagents raising the high temperature tolerance, but lowering the low temperature tolerance of plants it's added to.
+- Bruisine and other brute healing reagents increasing the high and low pressure tolerances of plants it's added to.
+- Dylovene and other poison healing reagents increasing the resistance to toxic nutrients of plants it's added to.
+
+
+## Game Design Rationale
+
+The productivity of botanists should generally be decided by intelligent decision making based off of the current state of the round, instead of the constant micromanagement of weeds, nutrients and harvesting.
+
+The increased difficulty of making chemicals like omnizine encourages botanists to experiment and grow a variety of plants, instead of just mass producing the most powerful/versatile reagents.
+
+Which plants are grown can be carefully considered based off which chemicals the botanist has access to, and what the station needs.
+
+Botanists can choose to take risks by growing more difficult plants, and are rewarded with produce that contains more useful chemicals, or have other unique uses.
+
+Due to most plant mutations not being objectively positive or negative, the mutation system can be changed to give botanists more freedom, without having as much of an effect on the department's balance.
+
+### Balance
+
+The most difficult nutrient requirements and environmental tolerances should not be required for botanists to do their job, instead, these should be extra goals for the most ambitious of botanists.
+
+Most plants should be able to survive unsupervised long enough for a botanist to visit other departments to deliver produce, and request materials, reagents, and equipment.
+
+## Roundflow & Player interaction
+### Standard roundflow
+
+Botanists will generally begin rounds by planting basic medicinal and food plants.
+After requesting and/or being given access to new nutrients from chemistry, salvage, or atmospherics, they will begin planting & mutating new plants, choosing which ones to grow based off of which nutrients they have or lack access to.
+As the round progresses, and antagonist activity increases, botanists can choose to grow specific plants for the station based off of the current situation, such as growing ingredients for ambusol during a zombie outbreak, or growing burn medication after a traitor causes a plasma fire.
+In the most severe disasters, botanists may choose to grow plants purely to help with their own survival instead of the benefit of the station.
+
+### Interdepartmental interactions
+
+Botanists may need to interact with many other departments to get access to the nutrients they desire:
+- Cargo and salvage can provide raw materials to grind and use as nutrients, such as gold, uranium, plasma, and bananium.
+- Chefs can provide blood and uncooked animal protein from butchered animals.
+- Atmospheric technicians can fill the botany room with gasses to provide nutrients.
+
+### Desired gameplay:
+- A plant has iron as one of its nutrient requirements, so the botanist grows steelcaps and grinds them for iron.
+- A plant has blood as one of its nutrient requirements, so the botanist goes around the station and asks people to donate blood.
+- A plant requires low temperatures to survive, so the botanist builds a glass box, and uses a space heater to cool it down.
+- A plant requires incredibly high temperatures and pressures to survive, so the botanist asks an atmos tech to plant it in a burn chamber.
+- A plant contains a reagent that the botanist does not need, so they intentionally avoid meeting its nutrient requirements.
+
+### Undesired gameplay:
+- A botanist creates a single plant containing all the reagents they need at the start of the shift, then spends the rest of the shift growing only that plant.
+- A botanist asks the chemist for mutagen at the start of the shift, then never interacts with another person for the rest of the shift.
+- An optimal solution for botany is discovered, which can be reliably done every shift, and produces everything other departments need from botany.
+
+# Technical Considerations
+
+Nutrient requirements and plant stat modifiers could be made a part of the SeedChemQuantity struct.
+
+The guidebook will have to be updated to tell players which plant nutrients reagents contain.
+
+The nutrient requirements of plants and their reagents will have to be communicated to the players in some way. This could be done by expanding the examination text of hydroponics trays, adding a menu for them, or adding plant analyzers.