Genetic Sequencer machine for agriculture?

  • I've been enjoying doing my best with crossbreeding my crops, but I had an idea for a machine that I'll call the Genetic Sequencer here.


    The Genetic Sequencer (GS) would have 3 modes:


    1. Harvest. Put a seed bag into the GS to destroy that seed bag and load it into memory (type and stats). Only three seed bags can be in memory at any given time, so to change any of them when you have 3 would require permanently dumping one and replacing it. I'm thinking one harvest operation should cost about as much energy as one cropnalyzer use, so 10000 EU


    2. Splice. Crossbreed the two seed bags in memory in much the same way you would with cropsticks, except there'd be no wait time. So as not to discourage traditional crossbreeding experimentation, this would only work between two seed bags of the same type and couldn't randomly mutate into a new type, so the only thing that potentially change with each generation would be the stats. This could only be done if there are exactly two seed bags in memory, as the third slot would be needed to hold the next generation. I'm thinking that this should be very energy expensive; my thought is 1000*(sum of stats from both parent seed bags) EU, so for example sequencing a 20-21-20 plant with a 22-22-21 plant would have an energy cost of 1000*(20+21+20+22+22+21) EU, or 126000 EU.


    3. Synthesize. This would create a new seed bag from one of the existing seed bags in memory. I feel this should be the most expensive EU-wise, so for this one I'm thinking that for each seed bag synthesized, the EU cost would be the 2000*(sum of stats of the bag to be synthesized)*(tier of the seed bag), so in the case of a 31-31-31 Aurelia, the EU cost would be 2000*(31+31+31)*8 or 1488000 EU.


    So that's my idea. I think it'd be a neat way to make agriculture more high-tech, and the specifics could be adjusted to keep it from being too OP. Another possible variant could be that you could have the splicing and synthesizing all be in one step, and skip the harvesting altogether. Any thoughts?


    Edit: changed the word "sequence" to "splice" in some instances to make it more sciencey.

    • Official Post

    Nice idea, although EU values should be tweaked to something like this :


    Sequencing :


    Two highest stats of parent plants * 500 (Two plants with maxed stats would be 31*31*31*31*500 = 461.760.500 EU)


    Synthetizing :


    All stats of desired plant * 10000 (Maxed stats plant would be 31*31*31*10.000 = 297.910.000 EU )

  • I like crossbreeding as is up until I try to start crossbreeding plants with growth of 24+, at that point since weed-ex doesn't stop weeds from sprouting on adjacent cropsticks it becomes a boring, babysitting nightmare. I know I COULD just not grow plants above growth of 23, but it really bugs me to take half-measures like that. I'd be thrilled to have some way of making that part suck less, even if it were an absurdly expensive machine with crazy high EU requirements.