Genetics
Every seed can carry genetics — five traits that tune how a crop performs. Genetics travel with the seed and the planted crop through planting, harvest, breaking, the Planter/Harvester, storage, and reloads.
Traits and caps
| Trait | Effect |
|---|---|
| Yield | Extra output per harvest |
| Speed | Faster growth (larger age steps) |
| Hardiness | Tolerate an otherwise hostile open-air world, up to a configured limit |
| Oxygen output | Offsets a greenhouse's nutrient upkeep |
| Food potency | Raises a food's signature effect, never above the species' own cap |
Each trait ranges 0–5, and the sum of all traits is capped at 15. These caps are enforced the instant genetics are decoded, networked, spliced, mutated, or read from a component — a hand-edited or forged value is always clamped back into range, so no trait can exceed 5 and no seed can exceed a total of 15. Hardiness relaxes only open-air hostility; it can never skip the engineered greenhouse requirement that high-tier crops have.
Genetics Station
The NF-powered Genetics Station works on seeds:
- Analyse — right-click the station with a seed in hand to print its traits and total.
- Splice — two seeds in the input slots produce one output seed whose every trait is the higher of the two parents, then clamped to the total cap.
- Upgrade — a seed plus Resource Fragment raises the seed's lowest trait by one.
All of these use the same deterministic, capped maths, so an operation can never push a seed past its caps.
See also: Breeding, Pollination.