Mutagens acting 'over time'

Im proposing that consuming mutagens will cause you to mutate over time, as in a single injection will cause future mutations and that taking more mutagens will cause the process of mutating to speed up.

Purifier would slow it down or stop the slow mutations.

Robust genetics would slow the process down, as a well a provide reduced amount of buffering as it does now wrt positive/negative traits.

this way, players could stop creating 70 flasks of mutagen and all that tedium. You take the mutagens, you consign yourself to a mutagenic rollercoaster. You slowly change over days into something else, and it stops over time, as your body cleanses it out of the system much like food or alcohol or w.e. Multiple mutagen shots would speed up the change, and make it last longer.

So like genetically unstable / genetic chaos?

except if you take targeted mutagen it would stay on that track. so one dose of medical mutagen would send you rolling along the mutations of that track.

How exactly would you want this to be implemented? And where would be the differense between mutagen and mutagen serum as well as purifier to purifier serum? What about targeted and untargeted mutagen?

Hm…

Can I double down here?

Unstable Brew/Serum: Always gives Genetically Unstable/Chaos respectively, and gives a long lasting buff, that future brews extend. When the brew expires, it removes the trait (unless it’s a core character trait already, in which case it reverts it).

Make it hard to make, since we don’t want end game mutation sprees being too easy, and have a small chance of showing up as a random lab drop.

That should provide your desired goal of a mutation over time mechanic.

The second thought, which your suggestion made me think of, is slightly different, and shares a lot in common with ADOM’s corruption mechanic.

1: Player has a Mutation stat. Various things increase this.
2: They develop mutations at set intervals with scaling costs. So 10 mutation, 21, 33 and so on.
3: Mutations are randomly checked or not checked every hour or so - having 100 mutation means you will mutate four or five times before you “catch up” to your mutation score, but doing so may happen over the course of days or weeks.
3b: Things like Mutagen and Purifier change your stat, then force one instant check, potentially changing you instantly, potentially causing change over time.
3c: Checks either add, or remove, a randomly selected mutation to you.
4: Specific types of serum add a status effect to your character, making it more likely that any mutation will be in this category - This effect overlaps, so taking Elf + Alpha means that the next time you mutate is most likely to give you a trait that both share, second most likely to be traits that one possesses, and finally any other trait.

The player will gain mutation with mutagen et cetera, but will need more and more mutagen to “progress”, and more and purifier to revert.

Part two:

After you reach a certain number of mutations, you cross the threshold.

1: Threshold is based on your currently possessed mutations (since you can only have, say, 20 in the more restrictive system this is easier to sort).
2: From here, Threshold gives explicit changes to existing mutations, rather than adding new mutations. You’re not bouncing around haphazardly anymore, the blob has settled down and given you a new existence (much like brutes do not spontaneously become spitters, they progress on to hulks).
3: Threshold is irreversible without a specific high end treatment, and at this point is now self-perpetuating. You might slow the process by taking purifier (for example, if you currently like where your character’s mutations are at, and going further probably involves more body hair than you’d like), but as your mutation stat now increases on its own you will eventually continue to mutate.

So your character is mutating away from humanity, towards something new. They pick up 8 plant mutations, 5 beast mutations, 7 other mutations from various sources.

They hit maximum inhumanity and change. Primary Plant + secondary Beast = Druid threshold, player’s mutations emphasise plant-ness and beast-ness. Mutations like a vine tail, vines from the body, fangs and so forth begin to advance and improve to their most advanced state.

More mutagen to progress realy doesn t sound good to me.

There are only a few mutations which are good endgame.

All others pretty much suck by then.
Maybe it makes sense to make it hard to get the good threshold with some mechanic . But why would we want to make it hard to get “bad” mutations?

Unless you want to rework all mutation trees so they all become good endgame…
Imagine a survivor finding some targeted mutagen by chance from say a dead scientist.
Taking it would solve some of his immediat problems. Like maybe figthing abillity or food.
But it would also put him down a path which might be Detrimental to his overall survivabillity later on.
So making that serum take you down a mutation path completely eventually sounds better to me.
Make it so that the actuall good serums can not be found outside.
A labfinal maybe?
Also make purifier as rare too. So that you can t stop the mutation you commited to earlier that easily.
Make it a meaningful decision .

Ps:

purge all mutants.

i keep hear ‘suck’ when you mean ‘not as powerful’.

crap starts are bragged about
crap mutations are shunned?

Crap starts aren t permanently cripling.

And the crap mutations are good at start when you do not have lategame resources.
Therefor it would be less to brag about.

Chosing to lose your humanity later on to get weaker? Who in his right mind would do that?

[quote=“Valpo, post:6, topic:12477”]More mutagen to progress realy doesn t sound good to me.

There are only a few mutations which are good endgame.

All others pretty much suck by then.
Maybe it makes sense to make it hard to get the good threshold with some mechanic . But why would we want to make it hard to get “bad” mutations?

Unless you want to rework all mutation trees so they all become good endgame…
Imagine a survivor finding some targeted mutagen by chance from say a dead scientist.
Taking it would solve some of his immediat problems. Like maybe figthing abillity or food.
But it would also put him down a path which might be Detrimental to his overall survivabillity later on.
So making that serum take you down a mutation path completely eventually sounds better to me.
Make it so that the actuall good serums can not be found outside.
A labfinal maybe?
Also make purifier as rare too. So that you can t stop the mutation you commited to earlier that easily.
Make it a meaningful decision .

Ps:

purge all mutants.[/quote]

I’m fairly certain that mutations are already slated to be reworked heavily, with the majority of mutations having good and bad qualities together. Reworking it so that mutations from all trees are viable should be a direct result of that.

So consider things like Fat Deposits or Hollow Bones. They both have positive and negative aspects.

Fat Deposits is a “minor” mutation that you’d be more likely to pick up early in your mutation path,

Hollow Bones is a major mutation with extensive physiological changes (and may be a natural evolution of another early “light bones” mutation).

Fat deposits might later advance to Corpulent, with the benefits increasing (you can swim around in winter without a swim suit, get out and roll in the snow, slip over and bounce off a rock, all without hurting yourself), and the penalties increasing alongside (you are as graceful and quick as a dolphin. On land).

Likewise, Hollow Bones might progress even further to [Avian Build]: “Your bones, while still hollow like a bird’s, have developed the necessary supporting structures to maintain them, with may bones fusing together as a result”. Retain the benefits, decrease (but do not eliminate) the disadvantages back down to Light Bones level.

Meanwhile, something that is currently entirely beneficial, like Fast Healer, would tie in directly with having a Fast Metabolism to fuel that advantage. High thirst lets species flush out toxins more easily, and expend water on things like pheremones and sweat (and high thirst would provide the opposite). Even paws could progress to something like “You can move on four legs, becoming faster, taking less energy to walk, and can jump several squares - potentially pouncing on prey for an advantage.”

With this mutation becomes less “cherry pick and savescum around whatever’s best” and more “here’s sort of what you want to be like, take as much as you can put up with in return for what you want”.

Balancing all mutations will be very hard for sure.
Especialy when you take gear into account.

Mutations haven t realy seen any change ever since the addition of mycus.

What you say sounds promissing though.

I agree that there are less ‘sucky’ mutations right now, the former ‘sucky’ ones being given some benefits and/or more use (case in point: water gills)

Most mutation paths are still a bad choice.