Bionics vs Mutations

Parzival · 2014-02-28T00:12:36.000Z

What do you think of making mutations and bionics mutually exclusive? It does not make much sense to be able to install metal plating inside your body and then mutate into a tentacle creature without something going horribly, horribly wrong. I propose that mutating, if you have cbms installed in your body, give a chance to eject some bionics from your body, causing lots of pain and some damage. It could also interfere with existing bionics, having a chance to turn them into malfunctioning bionics. Installing bionics on a heavily mutated character should be much more difficult if not impossible, as they are designed for humans alone. Additionally, I would like to see some more bionics that radically alter your character. Take the Fusion Blaster arm, it is very powerful but it comes with the downside of, well, arm removal. We should have more bionics that change your characters physical appearance or abilities. The only thing about this is what do we do when a way to selectively remove bionics is implemented? And if I remove my fusion blaster, should I then have no arm? I have less experience with mutagen, but a boost in the power of both bionics and mutations may want to be considered if they are to become exclusive.

HunterAlpha1 · 2014-02-28T00:49:07.000Z

+9001!!!

Great suggestions!

GrizzlyAdamz · 2014-02-28T00:59:45.000Z

Relevant thread

Parzival · 2014-02-28T01:27:39.000Z

The main reason I am suggesting bionics vs mutations is that I want more interesting choices in the game. Say you find a cool CBM, but you don’t have the skill to install it yet. So you read some books and you explore a bit and you find some mutagen. Do you take the mutagen and risk being unable to install the cbm, or do you become a cyborg and stay away from mutations? The idea is that you end up with more varied characters in the lategame rather than knowing to install everything and drink all the mutagen. Perhaps a third exclusive path could be added with a fungaloid symbiote or something. It must, however, all be carefully balanced or everyone will make the same character every time. Some similar specialization is happening in mutations right now with being locked into a mutation category, right?

KA101 · 2014-02-28T01:53:02.000Z

Parzival:

The main reason I am suggesting bionics vs mutations is that I want more interesting choices in the game. Say you find a cool CBM, but you don’t have the skill to install it yet. So you read some books and you explore a bit and you find some mutagen. Do you take the mutagen and risk being unable to install the cbm, or do you become a cyborg and stay away from mutations? The idea is that you end up with more varied characters in the lategame rather than knowing to install everything and drink all the mutagen. Perhaps a third exclusive path could be added with a fungaloid symbiote or something. It must, however, all be carefully balanced or everyone will make the same character every time. Some similar specialization is happening in mutations right now with being locked into a mutation category, right?

The Thresholds are a prerequisite for Extreme mutations in their category, true. Though the one-threshold-per-character requirement does impose exclusivity, they’re NOT designed with the intent of limiting player options, and MUTCAT_MARLOSS won’t crowd out previous mutations.

(The lore involved means that it might not get along well with standard mutagens.)

I can understand the drive to make bionics not-so-compatible with mutations, though that’s not a particularly high priority for me and I think DDA works well enough without it.

When in doubt, the PC needs to be an omni-being because xe ultimately is on xyr own. If there were NPCs who could share the load (they can’t ATM), then yeah, skill caps might be a Thing and limiting character development as you describe could work. As it is, I remember GearHead2, where “interesting choices” meant “Hope you built your character around One Hobby Skill, tops, and you’ll need to start a whole new character if you want to try out something else!”

I really didn’t like that aspect of GearHead2. Would rather not recreate it in DDA. Thanks.

Parzival · 2014-02-28T03:45:20.000Z

You would not need to start a new character though, and I said nothing about skill caps. Purifier is a thing and removing bionics will be a thing so you can try both and commit to one afterwards but not both. The idea is just that you get to create your own superhuman character with mutations or bionics and each would have pros and cons but ideally would be balanced. Skill caps are a really bad idea, this entire thing is so that characters develop fluidly but with actual decisions rather than just seeing a cool science thing and going “this is a good sciencey thing time to consume it/ perform surgery now and be better than I was before” You are not locked in. You can take purifier/remove your bionics if you really want the other on this exact character. This is mostly an excuse to make mutations and bionics more powerful, which is happening slowly right now because chars have both at the same time.

system · 2014-02-28T03:45:42.000Z

Bio mods pls.

Inadequate · 2014-02-28T04:24:39.000Z

I don’t think mutation/bionic power is currently limited by non-exclusivity, I think it’s limited by nobody having the time to rebalance/implement more powerful mutations and bionics. Making each system exclusive doesn’t really help with that.

i2amroy · 2014-02-28T04:25:59.000Z

Posting from the other thread since it’s fairly relevant.

Bionics (General balance and other issues)

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:8, topic:3657”][quote=“Klomvp, post:1, topic:3657”][size=12pt]3) Mutations and Bionics conflict/interfere with each other[/size]

This would mostly be a matter of applying the same tagging system to mutations and bionics, which would immediately make them conflict in a meaningful way. And might also replace the manually-applied conflicts in the mutation system.[/quote]
GlyphGryph had an idea (that I personally liked quite a bit) where rather than causing conflicts certain mutations can only be obtained when certain bionics are present first. For example if you have the metal plating bionic and the game attempts to mutate you a claws mutation, there is a chance that it will give you the “metal claws” mutation (and there is also a chance it could just give you the claws mutation and destroy/ruin your current bionic, or there is a chance it could just give you the claws mutation and do nothing to your bionic). I do agree that having certain mutations should make installing certain bionics more difficult, but I’m not too sure about impossible. After all just because I have tentacles doesn’t mean that I can have an integrated toolset in them, it just raises the difficult for a successful installation.[/quote]

HunterAlpha1 · 2014-02-28T04:44:58.000Z

One thing I’d like to see would be stat increasing bionics being stackable, so you can keep increasing your str/dex/int/per as long as you can find the bionics to do so. And either have them not conflict with mutations or have equivalent stackable mutations.

PoeSalesman · 2014-02-28T05:41:51.000Z

Personally, I don’t think this makes any sense with the majority of bionics. How is having a battery pack inside of you any different if you have feathers or not? Remember, you don’t shove them in whole sale, they seem to be like part/nano injectors that assemble themselves into your body. I can see it working with only a very small minority of bionics and making logical sense. I like what i2amroy posted, on the other hand, via Kevin and Glyph. Installing into nonhuman parts like tentacles should be harder, and bionics and mutations should have a chance of effecting each other to give alternate weaker or stronger versions based on both.

Zireael · 2014-02-28T07:43:14.000Z

HunterAlpha1:

One thing I’d like to see would be stat increasing bionics being stackable, so you can keep increasing your str/dex/int/per as long as you can find the bionics to do so. And either have them not conflict with mutations or have equivalent stackable mutations.

This is a great idea!
Same goes for what Kevin posted.

As for the OP, I wouldn’t like an exclusive this-or-that choice. We could have a bionic equivalent to thresholds, however.

GrizzlyAdamz · 2014-02-28T08:36:00.000Z

Restating what I was pushing for in the other thread: have a volume system for bionics.
So, say a default human torso has a measly 10 storage space.
If ‘Internal Storage’ takes up 20 space, you’d have to get an upgraded chassis before you’d be able to cram it in there.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, an ‘Automaton hulk’ artificial torso chassis would sport 200 space, which’d easily fit a furnace, expanded digestive system, redundant lifesupport systems, several battery packs, and another 5 Internal storage units to boot.
Mutations could interact with this, taking up or offering extra space; so being a beefy cow-man could have advantages for hybrid-builds, but turning your arms into slime-tentacles would completely remove the possibility of an integrated toolkit.
Perhaps it could work the opposite way too- a fully prosthetic torso doesn’t exactly mesh well with fur or a dino-heart after all.

Heh, would take a lot of work to do all that though.
-Also, as salesman said, doesn’t exactly jive with the current lore for bionics-- they assemble themselves inside your body after being injected, or something.
–Contemplating that concept, it sounds a lot like man-made mutagen. As in, like mutagen.

Sanarr · 2014-02-28T08:52:09.000Z

I would like to see some threshold-loke concept that would deal with bionics. To my mind it is not possible to add infinite amount of cbm-s in some perosns body, simply because of capacity of that body. Maybe it would be good to add some cons of overusage of cbms (something like “some of your bionics bulge under your skin giving you “ugly” trait)”).

And about - “vs” part. I, personaly, think that conflicts between cbms and mutation (especially if there are heavy disbalance of one over another) would be interesting and would add some tactical decision to characters development. If someone uses bionic to boost their hormone system to make more adrenaline - how would it interact with some rage increasing mutation? Or how would eye mutation would work on previously augmented eye? Yes, I agree tht choice system limits your freedom in some way, but pros of it overweight the cons. Its your choice whether to mutate or become android-like being. Or, if you plan your development carefuly and not forcing yor body to rapid controversal changes, both.

GrizzlyAdamz · 2014-02-28T09:05:58.000Z

Mm, perhaps a 30% overage space that’ll grant negative traits at 101, 111, & 121% capacity levels?
So at 101-110%, one would get an ‘ugly’ debuff from the stretched skin & perhaps a minor encumbering effect.
At 111-120% one would have exposed metal/circuits in a couple places, ugly would jump up to hideous, chances for disease & infection would increase and encumbering issues would be present.
At 121-130% one’s body would have exposed & protruding pieces of bionics all over the place- one’s range of movement would be extremely hampered, chances of infection & disease would be significantly higher & one’s appearance would be grotesque.

Volume can be linked to a threshold system via power: If batteries take up space & only provide so much output/second, in order to use more advanced tech (which requires higher power/second) one would have to skimp on other utilities or upgrade their chassis.

Zireael · 2014-02-28T13:02:56.000Z

Both volume and threshold sound like an overkill for me.

HunterAlpha1 · 2014-02-28T18:31:11.000Z

[quote=“Sanarr, post:14, topic:5232”]I would like to see some threshold-loke concept that would deal with bionics. To my mind it is not possible to add infinite amount of cbm-s in some perosns body, simply because of capacity of that body. Maybe it would be good to add some cons of overusage of cbms (something like “some of your bionics bulge under your skin giving you “ugly” trait)”).

And about - “vs” part. I, personaly, think that conflicts between cbms and mutation (especially if there are heavy disbalance of one over another) would be interesting and would add some tactical decision to characters development. If someone uses bionic to boost their hormone system to make more adrenaline - how would it interact with some rage increasing mutation? Or how would eye mutation would work on previously augmented eye? Yes, I agree tht choice system limits your freedom in some way, but pros of it overweight the cons. Its your choice whether to mutate or become android-like being. Or, if you plan your development carefuly and not forcing yor body to rapid controversal changes, both.[/quote]Good point. While many mutations and bionics would conflict, some would compliment each other; Full Night Vision mutation + Implanted Nigh Vision bionic = ability to see as far in the dark as you can in the daytime. Stat increasing bionic + stat increasing mutation = an extra stat point boosted.