Mutation category expansion

[TheFlame52]

What is insect like post-thresh?

[Rhodri]

Speaking of insects, some insects have hooked claws on the ends of their legs. I propose an insect version of the “Tentacle rakes” mutation.

[EkarusRyndren]

Random thought: Amorphous should cancel glass jaw. You don’t have a head any more.

Isn’t Amorphous a post-threshold mutation? Then again Glass Jaw is a trait… Just saying post-thresh mutations probably don’t need conflicting issues with other post-thresh mutations, since you can only pass one threshold at a time.

[Logrin]

Random thought: Amorphous should cancel glass jaw. You don't have a head any more.

Isn’t Amorphous a post-threshold mutation? Then again Glass Jaw is a trait… Just saying post-thresh mutations probably don’t need conflicting issues with other post-thresh mutations, since you can only pass one threshold at a time.

If my post-thresh blob can still have asthma I think glass jaw is fine.

Current post-thresh for insects is pretty nill, far as I can tell. Not sure if proboscis lets you drink stuff off the ground and for the record I have no idea what insect limbs or arachnid limbs actually do. Speed up crafting maybe? Insects do get some nice mutations though, like a scorpion-esque stinger (Despite scorpions being arachnids, but it’s still awesome) and the wings are very useful.

Post-Thresh though? I’ve suggested a ton of these over the course of the thread, based on things real bugs can do. Notable exerts include being as hard to swat as a fly (non CBM uncanny dodge), having beetle-like strength (Massive carrying capacity, no extra volume though), and shooting sticky-poison out of your face like a termite.

Keeping with tradition how about being able to suck blood from enemies with a mosquito proboscis? It would be a secondary attack like horns/tails but instead of just doing more damage it directly feeds your hunger/thirst bars?

Or how about molting like a cicada every time you sleep for X amount of turns? No effect but the leavings of your old chitin exterior with which to craft.

Stink bug! An activatable mutation that sends non-zombie/nether/robo creatures flee from the sheer unpleasantness of the choking fumes you release.

Leech maybe? You gain a viscous bite attack against living foes and can clean up any blood spilled on the ground in a manner similar to how cattle graze.

Hornets and Wasps, as per suggested before. Though if they deposit eggs into anything it should be corpses, and take quite some time to hatch. Would be neat if you could lay eggs in zombies before they reanimate to force them to treat you as a friendly after they rise–only to eventually erupt into a swarm of wasps.

*Wasplings should act like the bigger ones in game and chew everything up into paper walls.

Flea or grasshopper like legs mutation: Hop several spaces in a single bound. Bonus points if you don’t get to pinpoint where you land but rather activate it from the mutations menu and then travel anywhere from 3 to 7 spaces each move–can crash into objects for damage and enemies for an attack.

How about a centipede or millipede mutation that acts as a natural variant of parkour? Stacks with the trait as well.

The tiger moth jams bat sonar–dial that up a bit and we could justify a mutation that interferes with turrets and robots targeting systems. Dial it back and we could say nether creatures hunt via sound, making this stealth against horrors. ((Bonus points if nether creatures can see invisible players))

Ironclad beetles live up to their name–honestly, you absolutely could not stomp on flat like most bugs. I’d suggest insects getting the best armor but that should without contest remain the selling point of shell mutations. ((Roomy shell is awesome))

Mantis scythes? Your smaller arms could still be used for fine manipulation but for the most part you’re now limited to threshing your adversaries with massive spiked forelimbs.

Mandibles could evolve into pincers. More of the same really.

Did I mention termites have a gun for a face? Because they do. That gun shoots lethally poisonous glue. What I’m saying here is that it would be cool to give spitters a taste of their own medicine.

Dragonflys almost never fail to capture their prey. Seriously. Maybe an activatable mutation that ‘marks’ a single foe with your focus, making it nearly impossible for you to miss them.

Pheromonarch/Pheromatriarch - Through precise manipulation of pheromones you’re able to masquerade as any insect you please, making them not only friendly towards you but hostile to your foes. By activating the mutation you’ll summon any nearby ants, bees, worms or assorted bugs are nearby. Makes you look extra tasty to anything that eats bugs.

That’s all I can think of at the moment…

[Rhodri]

-super snip-

Yes. All of these things.

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“Illogical_Blox, post:377, topic:3755”]I would like to see a Snake mutation path.

• Crushing Body: Animals next to you are damaged by your sinewous body wrapping around them
• Tail Legs: Your legs have turned into a tail. You cannot wear most types of legwear, and are 20% slower, but are much quieter.
• Dislocating Jaw: You can eat faster and swallow small live animals next to you in one.

And so on. Maybe it could be part of the Lizard path.[/quote]

[KA101]

Careful, Ekarus, that might not trigger seizures but it gives me a headache.

And if I have a headache it’s tough for me to write mutations, even if they correspond to your avatar’s appearance and therefore you’d jump up and down were they in-game.

KA101 isn’t sure how a naga would jump up and down but is sure there’s a way. Spring-coiling maybe?

As for Logrin’s latest ideadump, well, if I had a good way to get the target’s blood type in melee.cpp, sure, Chimeras would be able to bite deeply and eat, and I’d accept insects draining blood. Haven’t had the chance to look into that. Jumping is planned but I didn’t have a good way to aim it.

Insect arms do provide a climbing bonus if left uncovered.

Pheromones are interesting, as are the claws. Will consider.

[Rhodri]

To see why even insect serums didn’t give me post-thresh insect mutations, I went into the debug menu and selected “mutate”.

For some reason, insect limbs require the “chitinous skin” as a prerequisite, therefore not allowing me to get them, because I have the “chitinous armor” mutation (which is also part of the insect category). And proboscis requires buging eyes as a prerequisite, and I have the compound eyes, which were recently added into the insect category.

It’s pretty clear the prerequisites need to be updated.

[KA101]

OK, wrote up the fixes for Insect. Should be updated shortly. Looking back through the topic:

Web-weaving does add hunger/thirst, but it’s pretty nominal so people don’t feel constrained with weaving. You opted for spider, so web on! (Uricating hair will be included in this one.)

Mutagens requiring eggs weren’t specifically planned that way to penalize Sheltered or other winter starts, but because eggs seem like a good source of bird DNA, etc. Feathers might be but the eggs seem stronger. I don’t feel the need to make winter starts that much easier.

My concern with egg-implantation is that folks are gonna turn it into DDA-teabagging or worse. We don’t need that.

You wanna become a Queen, sure, I approve of the sentiment, but they’re not known for mobility or adventuring. Would likely be a soft victory standard, with a text popup and allowing the game to continue in uh, rather boring fashion given your form’s cumbersome ovipositor.

[Azetepii]

Are there any plans to develop the fish line further? Just some ideas (probably already discussed). I’m ignoring mutations already coded. For example, one could attach ‘apex predator’, ‘carnivore’, and ‘nearsighted’ to the shark branch.

Shark Branch (melee/berserk/tank):
Dermal denticles: reduces cutting damage; grants electroreception (code like infrared?) of all underwater enemies.
Arrowed teeth: bite attack; shed and regrow; may extract for use (pain cost?) in arrows, tools, studded armor, traps, emergency nutrition, etc.
Murderous euphoria (adrenaline rush): damaging enemies (with blood) gives 3% chance to activate.
Cartilaginous skeleton: reduces bludgeoning damage but reduces maximum carry weight by 15%.
Olfactory nares: can detect enemies by smell (code like infrared?); however, strikes to the mouth (nose) have a 25% chance to paralyze.

Eel Branch (technically, none of these are actually eels)(crafting/bionics):
Mucosal secretions (hagfish): increases wet benefits; binding agent in crafting (a la spiders); reduces enemy grappling chance; automatically staunches wounds.
Scientists can dehydrate this skin-snot into silk for use in clothing (real).
Jawless rasp (lampreys): extracts additional nutrition from meat; may press ‘E’ over corpses to drain blood (a la cattle); heavy penalties to NPC communication.
Subdermal electroplaques (electric eels): increases cutting damage taken (thinner skin); unarmed attacks and unprotected flesh have a 7% chance to paralyze; slowly charges bionic power supply/rechargeable batteries; faster metabolism.
Filter feeder (lamprey): while underwater, nutrition and quench slowly increase.
Cartilaginous skeleton: reduces bludgeoning damage but reduces maximum carry weight by 15%.

(Bony) Fish Branch (defense/survival):
Neurotoxic spines (stonefish): 15% chance to paralyze enemies upon taking torso damage; may extract for use in envenoming weapons (high nutritional cost or once-per-day limit).
Bioluminescence (dragonfish): toggleable (at a nutritional cost); equivalent to glowstick radius.
Internal antifreeze (wolffish): high resistance to freezing temperatures (the fur mutation of the aquatic line).
Reactive stem cells (zebrafish): whenever total life is below 40% (or something), passive regeneration activates at high nutritional cost; increases metabolism while active.
Barbels (catfish): While underwater, each turn spent moving or stationary (awake) has a 2% chance to produce a fish; increases pleasure from eating (secondary taste buds).

Other recommendations: Cephalopods are actually very nice already. Limited (limb) regeneration, ink-spitting (or extracting), and camouflage could all be incorporated.

[KA101]

Someone threw a few eel things up on Git but I’m in no hurry to merge 'em as IMO there’s no point in being a Fish or Shark, and marginal point to being a Deep One, with the lack of watery things to do at present.

I recall specifically making a point to have an oxygen check when coding the vibrator, because, oh, just about every item in the game won’t let you use it underwater. One major mutation to the Shark line would be a water-adapted GI tract so you could eat underwater.

[Synthetic]

I had an Idea yesterday while thinking about a Nether creature type of mutation. Then I thought about how running into a Mi-Go before you’ve had enough time to equip yourself to survive an encounter is almost a certain death sentence.
What if Mi-Gos didn’t kill the player? What if they left them injured but alive, then implanted them with a parasite?

Imagine that they implant a parasite into the player, one that is resistant to anti-parasitic drugs. These parasites develop in phases over a period of many days. For 24 hours, there are no symptoms. After that, you feel strange. After 3 days, you start hearing voices. When it hits this stage, there is a 70% chance that the parasite will try to kill you. There is a 30% chance that the parasite will accept you as a host body. For the former, the player is warned by voices in his head. You’ll get cryptic messages every so often. you suffer a string of mostly negative mutations until eventually dying and spawning a new Mi-Go at your corpse. For the latter, you will hear a less cryptic voice. If the parasite is not purged, it will result in a string of mostly positive mutations, and eventually cross a symbiote threshold.

The parasite is immune to drugs, but is susceptible to purifier. Orally consumed purifier will weaken the parasite (resetting mutations and parasite phase timers), while serums will kill it. Failing to kill a friendly parasite may make it hostile.

As for what the exact mutation line would be like, It should feel alien, and be clearly different from the earth life based mutation trees. Short ranged bio-teleport? Natural weapons? Shapeshifting/Mimicry/? Ventriloquism? Recruit Mi-Gos? I think where other mutations are aimed at “more defensive” or “more dextrous”, This line would be aimed in the vague direction of “surviving those sudden moments when hell breaks loose.”

[Closet_Pankin]

[quote=“Synthetic, post:392, topic:3755”]I had an Idea yesterday while thinking about a Nether creature type of mutation. Then I thought about how running into a Mi-Go before you’ve had enough time to equip yourself to survive an encounter is almost a certain death sentence.
What if Mi-Gos didn’t kill the player? What if they left them injured but alive, then implanted them with a parasite?

Imagine that they implant a parasite into the player, one that is resistant to anti-parasitic drugs. These parasites develop in phases over a period of many days. For 24 hours, there are no symptoms. After that, you feel strange. After 3 days, you start hearing voices. When it hits this stage, there is a 70% chance that the parasite will try to kill you. There is a 30% chance that the parasite will accept you as a host body. For the former, the player is warned by voices in his head. You’ll get cryptic messages every so often. you suffer a string of mostly negative mutations until eventually dying and spawning a new Mi-Go at your corpse. For the latter, you will hear a less cryptic voice. If the parasite is not purged, it will result in a string of mostly positive mutations, and eventually cross a symbiote threshold.

The parasite is immune to drugs, but is susceptible to purifier. Orally consumed purifier will weaken the parasite (resetting mutations and parasite phase timers), while serums will kill it. Failing to kill a friendly parasite may make it hostile.

As for what the exact mutation line would be like, It should feel alien, and be clearly different from the earth life based mutation trees. Short ranged bio-teleport? Natural weapons? Shapeshifting/Mimicry/? Ventriloquism? Recruit Mi-Gos? I think where other mutations are aimed at “more defensive” or “more dextrous”, This line would be aimed in the vague direction of “surviving those sudden moments when hell breaks loose.”[/quote]

So it beats you to a pulp, impregnates you, then fucks off?

[Rivet]

So it beats you to a pulp, impregnates you, then fucks off?

And all without stealing your brain? Hardly seems like proper Mi-go behaviour.

[Synthetic]

Maybe they’re improper Mi-Gos. Rebels who don’t play by the rules, or they’re just lab-raised.

So it beats you to a pulp, impregnates you, then fucks off?

Pretty much, and then you die.
Or get superpowers, but you’ll probably just die.

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“Closet Pankin, post:393, topic:3755”][quote=“Synthetic, post:392, topic:3755”]I had an Idea yesterday while thinking about a Nether creature type of mutation. Then I thought about how running into a Mi-Go before you’ve had enough time to equip yourself to survive an encounter is almost a certain death sentence.
What if Mi-Gos didn’t kill the player? What if they left them injured but alive, then implanted them with a parasite?

Imagine that they implant a parasite into the player, one that is resistant to anti-parasitic drugs. These parasites develop in phases over a period of many days. For 24 hours, there are no symptoms. After that, you feel strange. After 3 days, you start hearing voices. When it hits this stage, there is a 70% chance that the parasite will try to kill you. There is a 30% chance that the parasite will accept you as a host body. For the former, the player is warned by voices in his head. You’ll get cryptic messages every so often. you suffer a string of mostly negative mutations until eventually dying and spawning a new Mi-Go at your corpse. For the latter, you will hear a less cryptic voice. If the parasite is not purged, it will result in a string of mostly positive mutations, and eventually cross a symbiote threshold.

The parasite is immune to drugs, but is susceptible to purifier. Orally consumed purifier will weaken the parasite (resetting mutations and parasite phase timers), while serums will kill it. Failing to kill a friendly parasite may make it hostile.

As for what the exact mutation line would be like, It should feel alien, and be clearly different from the earth life based mutation trees. Short ranged bio-teleport? Natural weapons? Shapeshifting/Mimicry/? Ventriloquism? Recruit Mi-Gos? I think where other mutations are aimed at “more defensive” or “more dextrous”, This line would be aimed in the vague direction of “surviving those sudden moments when hell breaks loose.”[/quote]

So it beats you to a pulp, impregnates you, then fucks off?[/quote]

Least it could do is buy me a drink first…

Then again it’d be nice to have skin thick enough to deflect poorly-aimed shots from the barrett…

[Llamageddon]

Imagine that they implant a parasite into the player, one that is resistant to anti-parasitic drugs. These parasites develop in phases over a period of many days. For 24 hours, there are no symptoms. After that, you feel strange. After 3 days, you start hearing voices. When it hits this stage, there is a 70% chance that the parasite will try to kill you. There is a 30% chance that the parasite will accept you as a host body. For the former, the player is warned by voices in his head. You’ll get cryptic messages every so often. you suffer a string of mostly negative mutations until eventually dying and spawning a new Mi-Go at your corpse. For the latter, you will hear a less cryptic voice. If the parasite is not purged, it will result in a string of mostly positive mutations, and eventually cross a symbiote threshold.

No, that isn’t a good idea. Being killed with a delay is one of the worst things you can put in a game. It’s pretty much telling the player to throw their character away, and punishing those who don’t with killing it off.

[Valpo]

Well he said you could purge it. So its not a deffinit delayed kill.

Only unavoidable delayed kills are gringeworthy.

Now it would depend on how commen this affliction is and how hard it is to avoid / the medcine is to get.

[Muaddib]

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a couple of “you’re probably going to die” mutation categories. As long as they carry a value. Think of say… devil deals in the Binding of Isaac. Sacrifice your health in the early game for the possibility of transforming in Guppy later, becoming an unstoppable death machine.

[AllisonW]

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a couple of “you’re probably going to die” mutation categories. As long as they carry a value.

Aren’t those Chimera and Elf-A?