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 below toxins mixing 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!

Familiarize Yourself

First, get familiar with your new home.

The workspace in the centre includes a couple of closets with bio-hazard suits, an operating table, a monkey recycling machine, and a slime processor. Also included is a smartfridge modified to hold slime extracts within easy arm reach from the slime processor. To the western end is a disposal unit that leads to space.

To the south is the slime containment area with six pens. Two of these pens start with a baby grey slime.

To the north is a special containment pen that's larger, more secure and better equipped than the rest. This is ideal for containing and experimenting on other alien lifeforms should the station manage to capture one.

Get equipped

Before you start breeding the slimes, make sure you have a fire extinguisher in your backpack or hand and a water-tank ready nearby. Both of which are luckily available right here in Xenobiology!

In addition, you also want a supply of monkeys, available through the monkey-cubes on the table. Simply unwrap them, spray with water and shove into the disposal tube into the pen.

Gotta catch em' all!

There are several different types of slime. You begin with two 'grey slimes', but, you can breed them to catch all the ~~pokèmon!~~ slimes! Each kind of slime has it's own powers from it's extract.

When well fed an adult slime will split into 4 slimes with a 30% chance of mutating each. In theory, this means a ~76% chance of at least one mutation, but this is not something you should count on. This flowchart shows the results of each slime's mutations when splitting, with options labeled "2x" having twice the chance of occurring.

Recommended Slimes

While this part is purely optional to follow, it is HIGHLY recommended to breed at least one or two dark purple slimes as fast as you can for additional plasma (Or you can yell at the miners...)

In addition, making sure to keep at least one pen producing grey slimes is a very good idea in order to have a sustainable monkey flow.

Purple slimes are a likely by-product of trying to get Dark Purple slimes and have the added benefit of that injecting the slime steroids into the Greys and the Dark Purples will significantly increase plasma/monkey amounts gained. Try out harvesting one baby purple and then using the steroids from it on a second baby purple! Repeat as necessary.

A slightly harder but very much worth it alternative to Purple slimes would be Cerulean slimes. They have two primary benefits:

They do not evolve further, meaning you are assured without using steroids or enhancers three cerulean extracts and one breeding slime.
The result of injecting their extract with plasma is extract enhancer, which allows three uses of any given extract. The benefit of this is that you do not need to decide ahead of time which extracts you want more uses of like steroids. And combined WITH Steroids, a single slime can give nine uses.

Population Control

THIS IS GOING TO BE YOUR BEST FRIEND, HAVE ONE AT ALL TIMES

You should always have 1-6 slimes, depending on how many pens you are using. More and you can't control them properly. Less and your job is over.

Decide how many you can handle at once, keeping in mind the adults split into four when sated.

All slimes dead

~~Job's over, man. Job's over!~~ Hope you have a grey slime extract, if not, then your job's over, man. Job's over!

1-6 baby slimes

If you need more extracts put one monkey in the disposal and wait for the slime(s) to grow, then another and wait for the slime(s) to split. As tempting as it may be, do not send in two monkeys at once. The slime might decide the second is a friend and refuse to eat it! You might want to make sure to stay in sight of the slimes to keep a eye on when they grow and split.

Adult slimes have split

Time to kill one (or more). Warning: This is the part of the job that's most likely to get you killed.

Ideally, you want to do this the EXACT moment after the slime in the pen (You ARE keeping only one adult slime per pen, right?) has split.

Select which slime(s) you want to breed (If multiple, put in a empty pen or make room in a occupied one) and proceed to drag the ones you want to cull into the tiny 'airlock' of the pen with you.

Do not worry, as long as you are regarded as a 'friend' (Which you should be, if you feed it and kept in sight) and they are not extremely hungry, the slimes should not feed on you. They might still cause some brute damage if you take too long though.

Once you have them there, simply spray with water. Once the ones you don't want are dead, feed the remaining slimes, harvesting extracts as needed.

A slime wants to be your special friend

So you managed to piss it off, eh? Your safest bet here is to push it off (Help or Disarm Intent on the Slime) you and leg it, quite simply. Hide in a locker and yell for help if you can't get out of xenobiology itself.

Extract Harvesting

Grab the dead slime, click on the slime processor and then click on it again to turn on the processor.

Formulas

Grey Slime

Extracts creates a grey slime when injected with plasma, could be useful if you have to many slimes, but want to make sure you don't run out of them.
Extracts creates three monkey-cubes when injected with blood.

Green Slime

Extracts creates one unit of mutation toxin when injected with plasma. Injecting yourself with it will turn you into a slime-(wo)man which results in the slimes never attacking you. Keep in mind though that you are no longer technically 'human' as far as the AI and Cyborgs are concerned. The toxin is found in the used extract.

Blue Slime

Extracts creates frost oil when injected with plasma.

Orange Slime

Extracts creates a small fire when injected with plasma. Also increases the pressure of the air a fair amount.
Extracts creates capsaicin (pepper-spray) when injected with blood. Usuable as a 'ghetto stun' if you can find a good way to apply it to to your ~~victim~~ test subject.

Oil Slime

Extracts creates a explosion after a moment when injected with Plasma.

Black Slime

Extracts creates one unit of advanced mutation toxin when injected with plasma. Turns you into a baby slime.

Adamantine Slime

Extracts creates a Adamantine golem when injected with Plasma. It will follow its creator's orders much like a construct.

Red Slime

Extracts creates Slime Glycerol when injected with plasma.
Extracts makes nearby slimes rabid when injected with blood. Has some fun uses.

Dark Blue Slime

Extracts creates a burst of cold when injected with plasma. Useful for countering those red slimes.

Purple Slime

Extracts creates a bottle of slime steroid when injected with plasma, a potent chemical mix that will cause a slime to generate more extract. Useful when used on dark purple slimes for that plasma or grey slimes for monkeys.
Extracts creates slime jelly when injected with sugar, a highly toxic substance.

Dark Purple Slime

Extracts creates several sheets of plasma when injected with plasma. Yessir, NT can link anything to the production of plasma. Also useful for further experimenting.

Yellow Slime

Extracts become 10k Charge Powercells when injected with plasma.
Extracts 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.

Pink Slime

Extracts creates a bottle of docility potion when injected with plasma, a potent chemical mix that will nullify a baby slime's powers, causing it to become docile and tame. You too can have your own pet, just like the HoP!

Light Pink Slime

Extracts creates a bottle of docility potion when injected with plasma, a potent chemical mix that will nullify a adult slime's powers, causing it to become docile and tame. Your pet is bigger than the HoP's!

Metal Slime

Extracts creates several sheets of plasteel and metal when injected with plasma. Expect the roboticists to want the products.

Silver Slime

Extracts creates a small amount of random food when injected with plasma, bork bork bork. Expect anything from a robo-burger to death berries.
Extracts creates a small amount of random drinks when injected with water, bork bork bork.

Gold Slime

Extracts spawns a few random hostile mobs when injected with plasma. Aliens are common from this reaction, so you might be able to fill xenobiology with actual xenomorphs!
Extracts spawns one random mob when injected with blood. These mobs are not immediately hostile, but may be provoked by certain actions or if they encounter a construct or mech. NOW you might be able to fill xenobiology with actual xenomorphs without killing yourself!

Bluespace Slime

Extracts will teleport anything in the room not nailed down to a random beacon in the world when injected with plasma.

Pyrite Slime

Extracts creates some paint when injected with plasma. For the love of all that is holy, don't give it to the clown!

Sepia Slime

Extracts creates a camera when injected with plasma. How? ~~Spess~~Slime Magic!
Extracts creates some film for a camera when injected with blood.

Cerulean Slime

Extracts creates a bottle of extract enhancer when injected with plasma. When used on a extract it triples the amount of uses it has. You can start laughing madly now.

How to make an efficient slime farm

First of all: Get that extinguisher and kill one of the two baby grey slimes. This ensures that in the case your slimes die, you are assured to have a backup grey slime extract avaliable to start over. Then, bring a monkey cube over and soak it in water, and place the monkey in disposals. Engage the disposal and ENTER THE PEN QUICKLY. Don't panic now, instead, bring the monkey over to the slime and knock it out. This will ensure the slime and further ones that come from it will not attack you, as you will be in their "friend" list (this list is also copied down to slimes that are born from it). However, in the case it attacks you shortly after feeding it, RUN OUT OF THAT PEN AND GET ANOTHER MONKEY CUBE. Soak the cube in water, place it in disposal, engage, run back in. Give the slime the monkey again and knock it out. MAKE SURE YOU COLLECT THOSE DEAD MONKEYS AND RECYCLE THEM. Congratulations, you are now 100% assured to never be attacked by your minions!

So You're a Traitor

Sadly, 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, and also for throwing in anyone who has been stuck with a parapen.

If you have a gold slime, you can try unleashing xenomorphs somewhere and hoping that either they end up killing your target or giving you the distraction you need to break into important places. This, however, may backfire and end up turning you into a xeno or preventing your escape. If you're feeling particularly lucky, you could take multiple gold cores (a full backpack or so) OR one or two cores, and a few Cerulean Cores, and inject them all simultaneously, releasing a torrent of horrifying creatures upon an unsuspecting crew.

Also, Bluespace Slime Cores can be used for a quick getaway, as long as you don't mind taking half of the room you're in with you.