[quote=“Nighthawk, post:18, topic:4451”]The point of mutagen if you want to have the best character possible is to collect craploads of it, along with craploads of purifier, drink a mutagen, check your traits, and if you got any bad ones, go back a step, rinse, repeat.
Basically, keep mutating until you mutate only for the better, purifying if you don’t and continuing if you do. I’m pretty sure that’s the most effective way to use them (of course it requires, as I said, tons of both mutagen and purifier).[/quote]
In other words, it’s a total pain in the ass. I’ve used mutagen pretty extensively in the past so I have a few tips for when you make it.
Be sure to reduce your bleach to oxidizer powder before you use it for mutagen, otherwise you will be only producing mutagen at half efficiency. And get the joint torsion bionic to save energy. Keep an eye out for zombie bears, as they have a lot of tainted meat and don’t ever run out like zombies. Also purifier is even more expensive unless you can find royal jelly. Always have robust genetics for every character.
Really there is an order you can go in to get the best mutations possible:
regular mutagen(risky but you can get something not in the next two trees)
bird mutagen(less risky)
beast mutagen(least risky so take it last in the lineup)
That’s pretty much how I saved on purifier. I was thinking about adding plant and troglobyte to the lineup but decided against it, they still seem too risky to be worth working with. If you ever get heat dependent start over because that’s a really nasty one and has the biggest effect on gameplay(other than the disintegration tree but those don’t happen with the selective mutagens). I never tried alpha but it doesn’t look all that great.
I used to have like 3 or 4 gallon jugs of mutagen lined up in rows to use and almost always half of it just ends up being purifier anyway because of bad luck. The most important rule of mutagen in cataclysm right now is to know when to stop, otherwise you can screw up a really good build by being greedy.
@Netosco: It’s cataclysm, you will probably be able to one shot everything by the 3rd day. Really the only purpose of mutations is having something to do. I don’t think any of them are really all that great that they are a necessity. By the point in the game you are making them it’s just vanity really. The whole system is purely luck so you have a point with the “just go with it” thing but that is can also be a pretty frustrating way to do it(depending on your chances).