I’m playing experimental at the moment. I usually use both, but to my understanding, they’ve balanced it out a bit more in the new version, and certain things aren’t compatible (tentacles and fusion blaster arm, for example).
So what do you guys prefer? I feel like bionics are superior at the moment, due to very low risk and high reward, and you always know what you’re going to get. If you take caffeine and adderall beforehand, it’s pretty much a guaranteed successful install unless you have bad luck.
That being said, i’ve been thinking of giving mutations another try. I’m using a martial arts character, using krav maga for the most part, with guns and explosives for tougher situations. I think some mutations increase melee damage, so I was wondering if that might be worth doing this time around. I recall Beast mutation path being pretty great, but having some serious drawbacks too, like huge intelligence loss.
I was also considering Alpha mutation, which is probably my best bet.
What is Medical though? I’ve never understood what it does, same with chimera.
Medical is mutating to, effectively, constantly be making drugs in yourself. Pain is a non issue (if not pleasurable), and stuff like that. The down side is that you become addicted to mutagen (which is bad and incurable)
Chimera is a mutation tree that takes a little bit from every animal mutation type. The massive downside is that you’re either constantly losing health or radioactive (not sure which).
I prefer bionics, personally. When it comes to luck of the draw, you can safely bet I’ll lose.
Targeted mutagens can be very powerful and effective, with very manageable downsides for the most part. If you’re trying to minimize risk while maximising gain as an unarmed character, i’d recommend feline. The two biggest downsides are the irritating but not hugely damaging Carnivore, and the Paws mutation, which prevents you from wearing the better gloves and, irritatingly, power armor (I think that’s going to be fixed at some point though). The main reason I recommend it is that most of it’s primary benefits are pre-threshold, so you can avoid Serums entirely and preserve your ability to flush your mutations should you get a really bad one. Make sure you have a safe place and a lot of food and water stockpiled before you do this though (and preferably something to read while you wait for the pain to die down.)
Paws are going to stay incompatible with powered armor. It’s built for humans, not human-sized cats. Fusion blaster arm needs buffed before I make it incompatible with tentacles/arm mutations, as it’s Lousy enough as is that nobody seems to take it.
I know it’s staying incompatible, but I thought there was talk about seperating the powered armor into modules for each body segment, so you can just not wear the gloves?
Regarding the fusion blaster, yeeeeah, I just tried that for the first time yesteday. After it took me around thirty five shots to kill a MilSpec turret from seven tiles away while I had a barrett 50 cal sitting in my car, I was thoroughly unimpressed. I was expecting something closer to the fusion cannon than the dinky laser pistol it actually gives you.
Bionics, many of the bad mutations are not so much game ending, but at least annoying. If you are half smart you should never end up with a bad bionic, however with mutations its always a crapshoot. Many of the bionics are also what I put in my ‘must have’ categories. Blood filter and analysis, integrated toolkit, recycler, expanded digestive system, wall phasing, aero evaporator. None is essential kit, but they all make life much easier in the late game. Mutations I think of more as a bonus than essential gear.
I dont play with robust genetics though, maybe if I used it id be more serious about going for a great mutation combo, but as it is, I go for 2-3 good mutations I like with maybe 1 non annoying bad mutation. Just keep purifying back to normal till im happy with what ive got.
i prefer bionic augmentation but mutation is good too sometimes i raided sarphofagus and looted some mutagen and weed now i have scales high night vision and wooden skin(i do not rember name of mutation) i just used one purifer to remove some mutations (sunlight indepedance, tentacle arms and legs) only junk food intolerance is anyoing because half of my food is junk food
Bionics, though some mutations are really great. Mostly Full Night Vision.
But, in the end, Bionics are more worth it, especially as soon as you can build Power Storage MK-II. Disassemble a whole Lab and you never have power issues again, except you’re stuck somewhere you can’t move and got no sunlight … and no batteries left.
[quote=“prytoclasm, post:9, topic:7028”]Bionics, though some mutations are really great. Mostly Full Night Vision.
But, in the end, Bionics are more worth it, especially as soon as you can build Power Storage MK-II. Disassemble a whole Lab and you never have power issues again, except you’re stuck somewhere you can’t move and got no sunlight … and no batteries left.[/quote]
at least you can eat some fire extinguishers or other useless crap
Bionics are by far superior. No downsides at all and abilities which far extend beyond anything a mutation can offer.
Full night vision? I rather activate my night vision bionic and see twice as far.
Bionic I dont want? I can easily remove it in any stage of the game, while passing the thereshold for a mutation means that im stuck with it.
In addition, bionics will NEVER have any downsides (besides the fusion blaster arm), while mutations will.
The only weakness is managing power, which can be handled fairly well if you have a nice storage and the ability to eat two by fours to replenish your supply.
[quote=“GroeneAppel, post:11, topic:7028”]Bionics are by far superior. No downsides at all and abilities which far extend beyond anything a mutation can offer.
Full night vision? I rather activate my night vision bionic and see twice as far.
Bionic I dont want? I can easily remove it in any stage of the game, while passing the thereshold for a mutation means that im stuck with it.
In addition, bionics will NEVER have any downsides (besides the fusion blaster arm), while mutations will.
The only weakness is managing power, which can be handled fairly well if you have a nice storage and the ability to eat two by fours to replenish your supply.[/quote]
downside of bionics is chance to fail instalation if someone have lack of skill and/or inteligence
I usually do both. Bionics offer less bonuses but are more reliable. (Integrated toolset, though, is a must for any char.) And considerable stat bonuses can be acquired only from mutations. Also, portal berry mutation heavily outweighs any bionic.
The trick with optimizing mutations is either using targeted mutagens or brewing up liters of regular mutagen, then drinking it a lot until the benefits outweigh the downsides. In any case, one can always use purifier to revert to square one. This is done much much easier with Robust Genetics, and should be avoided without.
Obviously, doing all this requires raiding a couple of labs and having cooking trained to 8-10. So this comes later in game, compared to bionics.
Also, with enough time, tools, and zombie hordes (or a slime pit nearby) you can make mutagen from zombies/blobs, wood and water (logs --> charcoal --> lye --> salt --> salt water --> bleach; bleach + lye + tainted meat/blob glob = mutagen). So go ahead, cut up some trees, weld a couple of charcoal kilns and prepare for fun.
One can also go nuts and waltz around hazmat sarcophagi with Robust Genetics and hope for the best, but good luck shedding all these rads after.
My preferred mutation sets are bird (for pure ranged builds), lizard, cephalopod (for melee brawlers) and alpha. Medical is fine too, but some post-threshold stuff ruins it. Btw, crafting alpha is heavily nerfed in trunk and requires, like, twice as much materials to brew, though it offers a pretty nice quest (going to fungaloids for tainted veggy or triffid groves for buds, and finding a waste treatment plant or a slime pit).
sarcophagi underground have big suppy of weed and mutagen (and other crap like galon jugs and tools) too just dig downstairs (do not look for code i never saw it)
the fusion blaster rifle might be the culprit, it is crazy good compared to the other plasma weapons. Ammo isn’t really in short supply for any of them, but 40 energy per shot for that kind of damage is insane(on par with the laser rifle for cost, but the laser rifle likewise gets a 5x burst fire mode that can take down HARDTOHIT enemies quickly). likewise losing the arm is probably a bit too stiff a penalty, arm encumbrance and armor for one arm would probably be enough.
As far as the mutations go, I think alpha is probably too much compared to everyone else, despite its cost. its post threshold stuff is absurd(permenant +7 to all stats if you pick the base stats that can’t be purified away while all the “negatives” can be). the other categories should get some kind of boost, maybe a post threshold awesome str/int/dex/per that gives +10 so that the various beast trees would actually have more strength if you want to build that kind of character. The post threshold stuff for the other categories seems kind of lackluster.
(going to fungaloids for tainted veggy or triffid groves for buds, and finding a waste treatment plant or a slime pit).
ant larvae curiously enough give tainted veggies as well.
I think mutations are far more interesting than CBMs (I know most bionics by the nametag) yet bionics function like most of other, game content items - they’re insta-choice, and you can plan ahead according to your total ammount of power and therefore consumption. It’s as simple as this – You haven’t thought about DDA if you hadn’t thought about zolves, zombears and tentacles.
[quote=“Nathan_, post:15, topic:7028”]As far as the mutations go, I think alpha is probably too much compared to everyone else, despite its cost. its post threshold stuff is absurd(permenant +7 to all stats if you pick the base stats that can’t be purified away while all the “negatives” can be).[/quote]It’s not quite that good. Instead of +7, it sets your stats to 15, so any extra points you put in them at chargen stop being useful. The actual +7 mutations are much better (except that you can’t get more than two of them).