Mutation category expansion

[Logrin]

Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net

[Closet_Pankin]

So can someone tell me why hand talons were removed from the raptor tree? That’s kind of… ridiculous.

[Flashlight_Hoarder]

AKA turtle mutcat, combining siziness of cattle, shell and aquatics of cephalapod, everything epse from reptile?

Pretty much yep.

[nickspaceman]

[quote=“Logrin, post:428, topic:3755”]Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net[/quote]
is it really worth it? I’ve never tried fishing

[Azetepii]

[quote=“nickspaceman, post:431, topic:3755”][quote=“Logrin, post:428, topic:3755”]Not allot of time to contribute to the discussion at hand so I’ll just drop a mutation idea that popped into head.

Pelican Bill - Removes peck attack, makes eating slower, allows a tiny bit more volume to be carried and can be activated to fish without the use of a rod/spear/net[/quote]
is it really worth it? I’ve never tried fishing[/quote]

I didn’t know you could use a spear to fish in this game. O.o

[Stretop]

limiting bionics, possibly with slots(e.g. 1/2 muscle slots, 4/6 power system slots, 0/1 left arm)

Bad idea. As this thread shows - survivors are highly mutable. Are you going to provide them with “wings slots”, “tail slots”, more slots for their “Huge”-ness, more “arm slots” for “8 tentacles” and so on?

increasing the finiteness of resources,

Making player powerless is always a bad idea. Let’s see…

e.g. higher tech stuff is not repairable,

That’s just silly. Why would anyone (from in-world perspective) design something that cannot be repaired? Far better solution is to require more advaced tools for restoration of more advanced tech.

no alchemical transmutation of cars into steel lumps,

And into what they must be transmuted by our resident fullzombiehulk alchemists? Into plastic bags of chewing candy?

more unmanufactureable stuff,

Ans this is. Worst. Idea. Ever. At the end of the day crafting is what fuels scavenging: you scavenge resources to make tools, then scavenge another resources and use that tools to make more advanced tools (and useful items) and so on.

What you are proposing is exactly what turns rougelike into MMORPG - grinding vast number of entities for desired drops. Only here you would have to grind locations mapgen throws at you instead of mobs local spawners throw at you in MMO.

So in other words, make (some of) the current content tougher to obtain.

It would be better to make (some of) the current content require more complex and advanced player actions to obtain; not “tougher” as “you must pray harder to RNGod to gain this”.

once you’re at a high enough level, there is nothing stopping you from becoming stronger until you run out of better equipment/reach all the caps

And what is the problem with that? Isn’t it realistic, actually?

In this system, bad mutations could be the result of a Critical Failure in getting a mutation. Pure positive mutations could also be a critical success roll, rare enough that players aren’t going to grind over and over for it.

Then those critical failures and critical successes should also be dependent on skills, like pretty much any other rolls (shooting, hitting, butchering etc.). Otherwise this would simply be an invitation to more extreme grind. Grinding is the result of randomness, it cannot be fought by changing parameters of randomness, only by reducing it, making it more controllable.

[KA101]

Telling me what I need to do tends to come off more as insulting than helpful.

I’ve ground for stuff in Metroidvanias and I know that’s a pain, so grind-gating isn’t something I aim for. Made a point to try minimizing that where there’s any reasonable way to do so (mutagen recipes are tough to make widely available, unfortunately).

On enforcing caps on how many of X (skills, bionics, etc) one can have, I’ve opposed that thanks to a rotten time in GearHead2. There, characters were strictly capped to just enough skills to be a competent fighter and have one (1) hobby skill. If you wanted to try some other hobby, well, feel free to start a new character and grind that one up.

Until and unless one can have NPCs help pick up skills that the PC doesn’t have, I’m opposed to preventing chars from being able to do everything competently.

[hr]

Alpha serum is already probably the most involved thing in the game to craft. Complexity is not the issue. Bird eggs seem to be a limiting grind-factor and perhaps they could be made more common.

Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Thing is, that’s where I want it to be. Using alien/nether parasitism to alter your biology & neurology should not be an easy, predictable, or safe thing to do. Bionics are the human solution: safer, more predictable, and comes in handy labeled cans, but takes skill to make (where possible) and significant skill to install. Mutation takes (significant, for the good stuff) skill to make, but can be found, and takes no skill to use. Its label is at best a guide, not a guarantee.

[Stretop]

Telling me what I need to do tends to come off more as insulting than helpful.

Sorry, it was not intended to come off that way.

Alpha serum is already probably the most involved thing in the game to craft. Complexity is not the issue. Bird eggs seem to be a limiting grind-factor and perhaps they could be made more common.

I see no need for that. My survivor have bird mutagen measured in plastic jerrycans despite the fact that he had to constantly interrupt his egg-hunting due to thrist and hunger. And he had some delitious scrambled eggs deluxe with that. If anything making them even more common would make things unrealistic, since there are not enough birds in-game to lay so many eggs.

[Darkfirephoenix]

Hrmm mutations…

Maybe some kind of “Salamander” mutation “tree”? (talking about the fire Lizards)

It would be MOSTLY like the lizard tree but with some mayor mutation differences (something like the “alpha” for the Lizards including alpha like stat boosts):

Heat lover: Their bodies operate on much higher temperatures and they LOVE high temperatures, immunity towards heat and fire (gain morale BUFFS from getting warm/hot but some hefty debuffs if they get cold. Including: Minor regeneration if hot/slowed healing if cold) (the fire immunity could be a different mutation)

HOTblooded: Their bodies will try and keep itself (at least) in the comfortable state at all times (higher nutrient usage if “heating up” is needed [cold temperatures around and/or not enough warmth from clothes. Nutrient usage depends on the amount of heating required] and lowered usage if no “heating” is needed [the hotter the less nutrients are needed])

Alcohol usage: They are able to drink far more alcoholic drinks than other and completely immune towards alcohol addiction. The alcohol is “stored” in a second stomach for later use: Either for heating up the body (used before butrients if avaible) or for some “tricks”

Alcoholic mist: They spit out a cloud of concentrated alcohol that is intoxicating to living beeings (humans get drunk FAST in it) and highly explosive (thin coud is just burning, thick cloud is explosive). So better not use anything in it that may ignite it (unless you are protected against fire)

Minor/Fire breath: Able to spit fire thanks to some extra glands in the head and stomach which produce chemicals that react EXTREMELY if combined and extra muscles to support the “spitting”. Two kinds of usage:

1. Alcohol fueled: Alcohol form the “storage stomach” is used and ignited via the chicals while beeing spat
2. Full chemical: Only the chemicals are used to spit fire, but at the cost of a high nutrition usage
   (minor variant only supplies the “fuel”/muscles for spitting, the fire itself has to be acuired via outside means [lighter etc.])

That’s all for now… (I’m getting sleepy…)

[KA101]

Fantasy-based critters default to No. Elf-A has a lot of backstory (that’s, admittedly, not well-imparted) behind how they came to be, and it still caught a lot of flak.

[Muaddib]

I was expecting an amphibian mutation, but then it got all fantasy.

[Synthetic]

[quote=“KA101, post:434, topic:3755”]Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Thing is, that’s where I want it to be. Using alien/nether parasitism to alter your biology & neurology should not be an easy, predictable, or safe thing to do. Bionics are the human solution: safer, more predictable, and comes in handy labeled cans, but takes skill to make (where possible) and significant skill to install. Mutation takes (significant, for the good stuff) skill to make, but can be found, and takes no skill to use. Its label is at best a guide, not a guarantee.[/quote]

Does it really remove the sense of getting something good or bad by mixing them though? It does to a degree, but I don’t think it removes that entirely. Mutations are basically acquired in two different forms. There’s early game where the player gets irradiated, fails a bionic installation, finds a mutagen, or other means by which they gain a random mutation. The current system works perfectly as-is for this, as mutation becomes a gamble with the potential for great payoff. The second form is where the player carefully guides their mutation by repeatedly mutating and purifying to get something that they want. Anyone who survives long enough will reach this point. This turns the risk-reward system into a controlled grind, and all but removes the negative aspects of mutation. It almost becomes the opposite of what it was, what it should be, once the player is given control over it.

Mixed mutations don’t have to be neutral; they can lean toward good or bad. If a bad mutation also gives the player a small reward for keeping it around, they might decide to keep it around as removing it is more trouble than it is worth.
Alternatively, there could be purely bad/good mutations that develop into mixed mutations. Someone might get a bunch of good mutations, but hesitate to use more mutagen because some of them could develop downsides. Someone might also want to keep a bad mutation awhile longer because it could become something useful. Such mutations would be chaotic for both young and old survivors, offer great boons with great risk, and do so without having to restrict the player.

[Coolthulhu]

Someone wanted mutations wrapped into all-mixed a while back, and I opposed that then as it removed any sense of gaining something good or bad (devaluing Robust Genetics in the process). I’m still fairly opposed to that now, as it makes mutation rather similar to bionics and trivializes the difference. I’ve shifted the balance significantly toward payoff, rather than loss, but I’ll agree that it’s a gamble.

Robust Genetics could use a devaluation. It’s a Night Vision tier trait - better than any of the 3 point traits. It makes mutations something more likely to be good than bad, even though most badmuts are more powerful than goodmuts (for example, carnivore hurts way more than not-having low hunger).

Good mutations definitely make mutations more similar to bionics rather than less.
+2 stat mut = +2 stat bionic, +10% speed mut has equivalent bionic, bio claws and mut claws, recycler and low thirst/hunger etc.

The most interesting mutations are the ones with a significant cost and a significant gain - hooves, toe talons, ursine vision, leg tentacles, arm tentacles, antennae, huge, hollow bones, woodpecker beak and unstable genetics.
All the traits that make voluntary mutating less “OK, good set, time to stop grinding” and more “this will change my playstyle, but may be worth it” and “this would be good, but not on this character”.

[AllisonW]

I’m sympathetic to Coolthulhu’s views here. A “mixed” mutation isn’t bad if it rewards particular playstyles, akin to, say, taking Flimsy in chargen isn’t such a great idea for a melee character but can be worth the points for a gunner, whereas you don’t want to take Trigger Happy if you’re going to be a gunner (one who uses automatic firearms, at least) but it’s worth the points for a melee character. Or how if you want to go the loincloth-clad barbarian route, mutations that make you stronger and tougher but keep you from wearing armour would be just peachy. Stuff like that.

[Darkfirephoenix]

Fantasy-based critters default to No. Elf-A has a lot of backstory (that’s, admittedly, not well-imparted) behind how they came to be, and it still caught a lot of flak.

It isn’t fantasy based, it’s more some kind of other plane lifeform that has highly adapted towards fire/heat and that in a VERY possible way even in our world (their organism runs better on heat and heat activates some dormant lying abilities like minor regeneration. It’s some kind of stimulus for their organism). The chemical and biological base is existant for us, but there are no real animals that HAD to evolve that way (there are bomb beetles that spray boiling liquid in RL so the fire spitting chems aren’t that far off).

And now to the fantasy based topic: Eldrich beeings, “demons”… They ARE already here, so why is a mutation path that is even possible in our “normal” world too far off/too fantasy?

The salamanders would be “just another kind of lizard” but one that is adapted to heat/fire with a body that can withstand high tempearatures, has fire resitance (special kind of scales/breathing system) and a special way of hotbloodedness (mamals are hot blooded which means that the body will try to keep a specific temperature, salamanders work the same way but they have only a minimum for body temperature, everything above allows to their organism to reroute the given resources to other places).

[Muaddib]

Are you kidding me?

What kind of salamander likes heat and fire? No real salamander.

Fantasy salamanders like heat and fire. A real world salamander or a CataDDA human mutant-salamander should shrivel up and die when exposed to heat.

And your ideas about warmbloodedness fit better with the raptor. IIRC the raptor is running around with lizardman coldbloodedness while dinosaurs were warmblooded.

[Stretop]

Fantasy-based critters default to No. Elf-A has a lot of backstory (that’s, admittedly, not well-imparted) behind how they came to be, and it still caught a lot of flak.

Well, this fire-lizard may be another take on “mutant-shock-troops” concept (that was demonstrated with chimeras). Consider this: you have something that fights zeds for you. What’s next? The next in the order of importance is to create something that would fight all those other denizens for you. And the most convenient way to do this? Right, KILL IT WITH FIRE!

So such “salamanders” can be “mutant-shock-troops” that is mutated, implanted with some CBM Flamethrowers (real ones, not those finger-mounted lighters) and CBM Metabolic Interchange and dropped to deal with slime-pits, triffid groves, fungal towers and the like.

And as researcher probably alredy learned, that dead chimera is still a very mean critter to deal with (with so much blob-generated mutations it will almost always reanimate), dying salamanders should explode, so that there will be nothing left to reanimate and they would be taking their killers with them.

[iceball3]

Mutation trees aren’t exactly controlled, though. It is more “throw new mutagen type at test sunject, document effects, and THEN propose a purpose”. They can’t just make something happen the way they want it. Chimera was a fluke, while salamander sounds extremely specific and “engineered”, which would have not have been enough time for.

[Darkfirephoenix]

snip

Pretty much this, I imagine that there are “fire-lizards” in other planes but not to such a extreme degree as to call them a real Salamander. The researchers could have gotten some and when confronted with the zed problem created a mutagen that takes those usefull base abilities (higher resistance to heat, boiling chem spitting) and “improved” the capabilities. (the original fire lizards would be small in but the “improved” would be as big as humans [they are mutated humans after all], leading to better usability/combat ability) Those would make extremely good “soldier” for fighting zeds, nether inhabitants and mainly Triffids and Fungaloids.

A (planned) safeguard for them turning after death would be the instable chem cocktail inside the body, that would have (planned) mixed upon death (thanks to releaxing muscles keeping the chems in the glans) lead to a explosion that takes (AT LEAST) the body out (body would get pulped upon death).

[Altiumbe]

Okay, I have had a couple of ideas about mutation incubated in my head for a while, and I figured I’d dump them in this thread.
The gist of it is to segregate mutations by what they effect, e.g. mind, whole body, arms/legs, just arms, etc. and then instead of limiting the player to one type of mutant (all of the mutations do the exact same thing every time you get them, never more or less), to make it more organic, like when the game decides to give you, say, Tentacle Arms, there are a number of ways it could go, for example, maybe your arm turns into one tentacle that ends in a whole bunch of subtentacles, maybe you sprout tentacles from your back, or maybe you just get vanilla tentacle arms. Or in the slime tree, your insides could be acidic allowing you to envelop enemies, damaging their equipment, or you could get a slimy but harmless interior that you could use to store items in (maybe even get the ability to preserve foodstuffs if you get real lucky).
In essence, when you mutate, you roll a couple dice for various aspects of the trait RNGesus gave unto you, roll high and you get a trait with huge benefits and minimal (but existent) drawbacks, roll low and you get the opposite, roll in the middle and you get a superman-with-AIDS style trait.
My idea is just to add more randomness into mutation of the player-friendly and replayable variety.

One question, is this thread just for mutations, or are Starter traits ok too?
Thanks in advance.