The Planet Crafter drops you off in the center of a barren planet devoid of plants, animals, bugs, and even bacteria. In order to complete your quests and make the planet habitable, you will need a variety of machines, from machine optimizers to recycling machines to nuclear power plants. One of the many you will want to make to fill your planet with life is a DNA Manipulator. This is a fairly late-game item, but using it is important for making new insects, animals, and plants.

Planet Crafter Procedural Wreck
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How to Unlock the DNA Manipulator in The Planet Crafter

The DNA Manipulator Machine unlocks in the Terraformation Blueprints menu. It requires that you get to 700 MTi in Terraformation before it will automatically be available in your Q menu. This can be built using one Super Alloy, one Bioplastic Nugget, one Explosive Powder, one Zeolite, and one Osmium.

How to Use the DNA Manipulator in The Planet Crafter

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In order to use this machine, you will need one Tree Bark from the Biodome, one Mutagen, and a plant seed. You can make tree seeds this way; here are all the recipes for tree seeds in The Planet Crafter.

  • Lirma seeds make Soleus trees.
  • Shanga seeds make Linifolia trees. There are also some Linifolia trees hidden in shipwrecks as well.
  • Pestera seeds make Aleatus trees.
  • Nulna seeds make Cernea trees in this cozy sci-fi game.
  • Tuska seeds make Elegea trees.
  • Orema seeds make Humelora trees.
  • Volnus seeds make Aemora trees.
  • Golden seeds make Pleom trees.
  • Mutagen T2 makes Shreox trees.
  • There is also a single Iterra seed that can be found in the wreck that brought Ikhlas to the planet. It's hidden behind a wall that you can destroy with your deconstruction tool in The Planet Crafter.

To use this machine, you will need to interact with the screen with the DNA helix on it; the other screen is a recipe screen. The DNA menu will have three slots inside. You will need to add one Mutagen, one Tree Bark, and one seed that is in your recipe list. You will not have all the recipes above to start with.

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The DNA Manipulator takes a few minutes to work, but just find something else to do for a bit. When you come back, you will have a fresh tree seed waiting for you inside the DNA screen. This can be used in a Tree Spreader, which unlocks at 45.00t Biomass, right after the T2 Food Grower. You can also get a T2 Tree Spreader at 6ppm Oxygen.