Mutation category expansion

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I’d been kicking around the idea of 2-4 high-level categories, chiefly using the existing mutations. Can probably work up some of EkarusRyndren’s flavoring-ideas too. (Splitting Night Vision out among different eye-types seems worthwhile. For instance: Feline Eyes replacing the High NV in Beast. Same capabilities, different name, less crossover.)

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Potential new categories, recipes found and learned separately, all requiring Cooking 10 (planned as the peak skill level):

Alpha: First developed a week or so pre-Cata. Promises to be a subtle but stable positive, little to no downside.

ST2/DX/IN/PE2, Robust Genetics, Pretty, Nausea, Weakening, Fast Metabolism
(9+Pretty (1, balance with Ugly)/ -11 =0 net points, if you accept the wiki values)

This also has 0 Ugliness, and in fact improves one’s looks: even mutant-haters could pass/convince themselves it’s not “really” a mutation. With the (interrelated) exception of the increased nutrient requirements and GI issues–which the staff couldn’t develop workarounds for in time–there’s no downside. It’s intended to be Highly Desirable. Just a pain to find, find/make the ingredients, and actually cook.

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Elf-a: Radical boost to the Alpha pushed in the days leading up to (and possibly after) the Cataclysm. Lab notes would discuss how this is humankind’s best hope now that society’s fallen is a horrible idea no seriously! IT’S TERRIBLE. You get the idea.

ST2/DX3/IN3/PE3, Light Step, Full NV, Phelloderm, Leaves, Glorious
…
Hollow Bones, Bad Back, Vomitous, Fast Metabolism, High Thirst, Disintegration, Radioactivity, Chem Imbalance

(26+Glorious (+4, parallel with Badly Deformed -30, =0…but I think you’d rather give 'em all back? :wink: )

This one’s intended as Too Much Too Fast Too Soon. It’s an unintentionally unstable mutagen. Due to the brass’s suppressing it, hastily-reproduced copies might be more common, but tougher to actually learn from as they aren’t always legible or totally complete.

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Chimera: As the infection passed the tipping point, someone had the bright idea to create a shock-troop mutagen to fight Blob with Blob. They managed a workable cocktail of creature mutagens that creates a nasty, brutish, and short-lived biological killing machine.

ST3/DX2/PE2, Quick, Tough, Terrifying, High Adrenaline, High NV, Fangs, Light Fur, Scales, Large Talons, Hooves, Canine Ears, Club Tail, Curled Horns, Saprovore
…
Chem Imbalance, Forgetful, Mouth Flaps, Very Smelly, Grotesque, Fast Metabolism, High Thirst, Deterioration, Genetically Unstable, Carnivore, Snarling Voice, Howler

((34-4 (Hooves is technically a Disadvantage)), -42 =-12 for the privilege of having a pile of natural attacks and the stats to make use of them.

Find cells of survivors, take into custody, brainwash train, dose 'em, and drop in infested regions. They’ll kill a lot of zeds before they die.

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Raptor: One of the Chimera researchers watched a classic dinosaur flick, “Cretaceous Land” or something, and decided that focusing a bit tighter might be the better way to go. After all, mutating surviving humans into “disposable” shock troops…might eventually deplete the survivor supply?

ST/DX2/PE3, Quick, Thick-skinned, Deft, Forked Tongue, Scales, IR Vision, Large Talons (Could make a Toe Claw if there’s demand?), Long Tail

Heat Dependent, Slit Nostrils, Glass Jaw, Fast Metabolism, Carnivore, Ugly, Growling Voice, Shouter (I’m debating the value of a Vitamin Dependency disad: you need a vitamin every 24 hours or so, or your Health tanks, since your body can’t manufacture it from food. Think the lysine-contingency, but works a bit better.)

28 - 16 = 12

Focusing on Lizard + Bird, and picking up some problems with appearance and voicebox problems in the combination…works out as a marked improvement in the shock-troop line. Leastwise from the point-value perspective. Now to actually find it, seeing as the formula was developed post-Cata and probably not in the labs you’ll be able to access.

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Any thoughts?

2

I like all of these!

You’ve got my support 100%.

3

Well thought out and somewhat balanced ideas. may require tweaking, but more mutation branches is never a bad thing

4

The Alpha mutation is interesting in that it mirrors, in some ways, the new description for the Master Zombie.

5

Wow, very good proposal. I’m interested, and I don’t even LIKE mutations in general.
It’s a fairly hard thing to balance in general, unless someone points out something glaring I’d say they’re good to go as is, and we’ll just need feedback on how they play out in game.

6

Some of these mutations (Light Fur and Scales for example) are conflicting, there are a couple trees ingame now (spider being one of them) that have conflicting mutations. While it’s not a huge problem it just means that the tree is never complete, using spider as an example Chitinous Armor cancels lightly furred.

The “Long tail” mutation on the raptor while it’s effect (Balance boost) is accurate it’s description (like that of a cat) isn’t. But that’s a matter of flavor and again, not a huge issue, and frankly could be fixed with flavor mutations.

But other than that I like the sound of em. Personally tried to avoid the whole ‘elf’ thing when I was making my list because I couldn’t come up with a justification for it and “naga” was already to goddamn fantasy XD But you seem to have worked that out well.

7

Actually, I think this is utmost far-sighted and fantastic. It introduces a whole different level of comprehension; as a player character, I’d expect a more scary aftermath upon encountering a carcass of a kind, or several for that matter.
Also I’d like to offer a piece of lore to it:

The Sentinel
An abomination of terrible descent and mythos. The foremost experiment was aimed at a specific family of apes that was spotted living along with a very aggressive type of bat. The initial success of making the lower limbs bend in the opposite direction was even surpassed with elongated, strong toes designed for clinging. Sonar hypersensitivity and terrible bat-like wings occurances rushed the research team into a quick resolvement of the issues as they introduced several reptilian genome possibilities. The lifespan was corrected and the creature retained ape’s stature with an addition of several key compromises. The wings had shrunk and the legs were strenghtened, where the toes have been made more suitable for land movement. A stubby, short reptilian tail coexisting with much lower stance than of the original species and a strong, wide and lenghty jaw with small, razor-sharp teeth gave away the branching origins; but the fact that the jaws were double-jointed on top of a clumsy, swinging neck wasn’t as striking as the loss of bone structure in both arms with a significant rise in muscle structure and mass. The first successful specimen was able to swallow offered pray nearly its own size even if well-fed. Its aggressive behavior excessed when it tried to crush (constrict with arms) the alloy metal bars upon setting sights on a human. Only then it was spotted that it has a bloodthirst omen, an ancestry that keeps it at bay primarily when surrounded with reptiles and bats in a cave, or in this case - a cell-pit in a sublevel.
It’s 1.5-1.6 m tall, slightly faster than a grown human, has a pair of drawn apeish eyes behind a set of jaws. Thick skin holds little or no hair, and has boney, almost transparent wings that only shadow a bat. Muscular torso holds two boneless extended arms that can lift more that 6 or 7 times its mass, altough they lack but two clumsy fingers. Agile legs offer great speed gains at short distances - along with sonar hearing that makes it a formidable predator, unless spotted on time.

It ate papa Bear, momma Bear and the cubs so to live in their house.

8

[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:6, topic:3755”]Some of these mutations (Light Fur and Scales for example) are conflicting, there are a couple trees ingame now (spider being one of them) that have conflicting mutations. While it’s not a huge problem it just means that the tree is never complete, using spider as an example Chitinous Armor cancels lightly furred.

The “Long tail” mutation on the raptor while it’s effect (Balance boost) is accurate it’s description (like that of a cat) isn’t. But that’s a matter of flavor and again, not a huge issue, and frankly could be fixed with flavor mutations.

But other than that I like the sound of em. Personally tried to avoid the whole ‘elf’ thing when I was making my list because I couldn’t come up with a justification for it and “naga” was already to goddamn fantasy XD But you seem to have worked that out well.[/quote]

Yeah, Chimera has conflicting mutations. I noticed that when designing and decided that it wasn’t a major issue.

The raptor tail is intended to be a reskin of the Long Tail (not the same as your Lizard Tail…but I’m willing to throw that into Lizard), but yeah. Differentiating out the categories via mutations with different IDs but comparable effects seems one of the easier ways to break things up a bit. If GitHub wasn’t acting up I’d be working on them now.

Windows client just isn’t talking to the server. :-/

(As for Naga…There are serpent-based artifacts, and they can be mutagenic. Your Naga could be a decent candidate for the Nether mutations, if those are workable for the devs.)

9

[quote=“KA101, post:8, topic:3755”][quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:6, topic:3755”]Some of these mutations (Light Fur and Scales for example) are conflicting, there are a couple trees ingame now (spider being one of them) that have conflicting mutations. While it’s not a huge problem it just means that the tree is never complete, using spider as an example Chitinous Armor cancels lightly furred.

The “Long tail” mutation on the raptor while it’s effect (Balance boost) is accurate it’s description (like that of a cat) isn’t. But that’s a matter of flavor and again, not a huge issue, and frankly could be fixed with flavor mutations.

But other than that I like the sound of em. Personally tried to avoid the whole ‘elf’ thing when I was making my list because I couldn’t come up with a justification for it and “naga” was already to goddamn fantasy XD But you seem to have worked that out well.[/quote]

Yeah, Chimera has conflicting mutations. I noticed that when designing and decided that it wasn’t a major issue.

The raptor tail is intended to be a reskin of the Long Tail (not the same as your Lizard Tail…but I’m willing to throw that into Lizard), but yeah. Differentiating out the categories via mutations with different IDs but comparable effects seems one of the easier ways to break things up a bit. If GitHub wasn’t acting up I’d be working on them now.

Windows client just isn’t talking to the server. :-/

(As for Naga…There are serpent-based artifacts, and they can be mutagenic. Your Naga could be a decent candidate for the Nether mutations, if those are workable for the devs.)[/quote]

The basic gameplay difference is one is better at balancing the other is better at slapping XD

10

OK, some updates:
“Tough” is only available at chargen. Changed Chimera to Thick-Skinned.

Will make the Elf-a Full NV its own mutation, with any luck: Fey Eyes->Fey NV. (Same thing I did with Lizard and its IR vision; Raptor will get that rather than generic infravision.)

Coding is proceeding apace. Will be Fun getting the items built and wrangling it all through Git…assuming that the .NET update actually worked.

11

Doubleposting: Alpha PR.

12

Encountered the 3 new mutagen recipes recently, I’m excited to see improvements going in. I actually found all my recipes on lab scientists on the surface instead of inside a lab, was that intended?

Also in your new PR, why have separate mutations for fey vision instead of night vision instead of reusing the old values? I always thought it was cool that mutations overlapped and generally didn’t conflict, so you could easily/accidentally shift between categories or pursue multiple trees. Having it be separate mutation that conflicts could mean a lot of evolving/reverting night vision, since it will revert anytime a mutation on other tree gets selected.

13

[quote=“Brian Lefler, post:12, topic:3755”]Encountered the 3 new mutagen recipes recently, I’m excited to see improvements going in. I actually found all my recipes on lab scientists on the surface instead of inside a lab, was that intended?

Also in your new PR, why have separate mutations for fey vision instead of night vision instead of reusing the old values? I always thought it was cool that mutations overlapped and generally didn’t conflict, so you could easily/accidentally shift between categories or pursue multiple trees. Having it be separate mutation that conflicts could mean a lot of evolving/reverting night vision, since it will revert anytime a mutation on other tree gets selected.[/quote]

Medical is Rivet’s.

I put mine on scientist corpses (and other places) chiefly because ATM Lab chem rooms and School chem rooms pull from the same item list. “A scientist had a hardcopy backup when xe left/evacuated the Lab, and then died outside with it” seemed much more plausible then “extremely recent and highly classified documents somehow got into a public school”.

(I mean, teenage hackers are Uber 1337 in the movies, but Cata isn’t movie-realism. Try LCS.)

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I separated out mutations, and plan on continuing to do so, because

  1. Having everything use the same mutation makes category-strength (what influences generic Mutagen, etc mutations) difficult to gauge. Since that’s the official determination of what kind of mutant the character is, it helps to have some differences.

  2. Different flavors of eyes and tails (and teeth and claws and skin and wings and immune systems and GI tracts…you get the idea) permit different results. For instance, the Fey NV (distinct from Fey FNV) sees farther but doesn’t have as good fine-detail pickup. Lizard IR is two mutations from baseline, rather than up to four (if you didn’t start with NV), and no longer gives Full NV in the process. I suspect that if/when I start adding subsets to Beast–there’s nontrivial demand for them on the IRC–cat, dog, and bear eyes will be worth considering separately.

(Dunno if it’s worth making canine eyes turn everything grey…seems more like an Interface Screw, TBH.)

Further problem with NV in particular: player.cpp explicitly assumes that the payer only has one NV trait at a time. Unless I overhaul the NV code, which I’d rather I not do at this time, having the branches NOT be mutually exclusive would lead to Broken. If constant NV-cycling problems are a serious issue once people stary playing these, I’ll revisit the plan.

  1. Some categories should work more closely than others, IMO. Raptor is largely a combination of Lizard and Bird, with a few uniques thrown in. Chimera’s Beast, Cattle, Bird, and Lizard.

On a non-cocktail level, I don’t mind Cephalopod and Fish crossing over. Seem pretty related. Cephalopod -> Bird was a bit much to achieve with generic Mutagen, yet that’s what I got on my second drink the last time I did large-scale mutagen trials.

  1. Ultimately I’d like to have each category be in some way distinct. You can have cross-pollenation, and I encourage it. Targeted mutagens can and will hep you bridge gaps, though they’re likely to be inefficient about it thanks to category enforcement.

Sad part is that mutations as a whole tend to get grief for people going “crawling chaos” as the only way to be endgame-viable…whilst the subways and sewers go unloved. Crawling-chaos problems are why there’s code to enforce categories: if you’ve got mutations not in your strongest category, there’s a small but significant chance that mutagens will revert or clear them up.

14

This is amazing!

15

I’ve always thought that a neat way to counter the ‘crawling chaos’ problem would be to have you gain more reputation with a monster faction the more heavily-mutated you are. Like if you’re really heavily mutated into a plant, you gain the ability to befriend triffids, and a heavily mutated insectman could travel with a swarm of bees. If enemy factions fighting were implemented, you could go around fighting other enemy creatures, and turn cities into hives/groves/webs/etc. Would also balance out the regular and level 2 mutations, as they wouldn’t get you reputation with any particular faction. Although I guess Alpha/Elf might give you a boost with NPCs.

16

I really like the “mutatons as a way to join a ‘faction’” idea. I don’t think it would be all that hard to just have a chance of flipping a monster over to friendly based on your state, and then they’d automatically start following you around. If you lose the mutations, you lose the followers too. It’d be kinda neat to turn into a plant monster and go live with the triffids. Maybe you’d get “plants dominate the world” missions. Number of followers would probably discourage additional followers, so you can’t just get a little plant-y and then sleep in a triffid grove to get them all to join you.

To make this worthwhile, we need to build out an orders menu, additional levels of faction compatability could unlock more menu entries for more specific orders.

For mindless factions (triffids, fungus, animals) you’d be able to abuse it at will, since they can’t communicate with each other, unlike NPC-type factions where we need to track your reputation actively. Individual reputation can be handled just by flipping individuals over to hostile if you do something bad. So basically if you want to turn into a plant monster in order to infiltrate and destroy a triffid grobe or two, you can get away with it because they aren’t smart enough to figure out what’s happening.

If there’s an intelligent nonhuman faction (nanites?) we’d need to treat them like a NPC faction since even if you’re cyborg-y enough for them to recognize you as one of them, going around harvesting nanites for CBM repairs is just antisocial. On the other hand, you might be able to join the faction without cyborg total conversion, since they can be communicated with.

17

Aren’t the triffids smartest of three?

18

They seem about on par with insects, but not smart enough to be truly sentient. Presumably only sentient factions like the theoretical robot one would have to be treated like NPCs.

19

I could still see nearby ones at least triggering hostility if you started burning down the grove though. And don’t forget that just because fungus are friendly (which isn’t really too big of a difference, since most of them are at most indifferent to your presence as is) doesn’t mean that you are immune to the fungal spores disease. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

To be honest I hadn’t really considered the fungi faction as viable because there isn’t a fungus mutagen category. Maybe if one gets added as a high-level mutagen, it will include fungal disease immunity.