So i’ve played around four major (non-instadeath) cataclysm games in the past month or so, and i’m a big fan of the mutation system. I find it adds some of the biggest long-term goals my characters have. Alpha, Elf-A and many other mutagens don’t come cheap. The problem i’ve been running into though, is that even though most of my characters end up becoming master chemists fairly quickly, I have a huge amount of trouble finding the Dionne journal, which contains all the recipes for most animal targeted mutagens. Aside from the fact that this contains the majority of the mutations I usually want short term, it’s also required to create any of the advanced mutations (other than medical). This in itself is fine, but the problem is that in the time i’ve been playing, and after scavenging at least the top three floors of around eight seperate labs, i’ve only encountered Dionne ONCE. In this time, i’ve found about thirty Smythe Journals, twenty -x-|xp- journals and 5-10 of each of the unique mutagens (Chimera, Raptor, Alpha, Elf-A and Medical.)
To be clear, i’m not saying the advanced mutagens need to be more attainable. If anything, the opposite is true. The problem is that the recipes for the advanced mutagens are seemingly vastly easier to acquire than the recipes for the basic mutagens, which while it does have the effect of making the advanced mutations harder to make, effectively locks out almost the entire targeted mutagen crafting system until you find this one, exceedingly rare book. I’d love it if we could either make the book significantly more common, or add other ways of acquiring the other basic targeted mutagen recipes. I’m aware that I could just be spectacularly unlucky, but judging from my data gathered from multiple runs, it seems like the book is at the very least far, far less common than the other two basic mutagen recipe books (Smythe and x|xp). I don’t see any good reason for this, as the mutations in those books are no less or more powerful or risky than the Dionne ones.
I don’t recall intentionally making Dionne any rarer than the other ones. Will check after I’m finished with this merge.
OK, checked. Yeah, Smythe is pretty common because it can show up in the goo-fridge and dissection labs, whereas Dionne’s extra-spot is the dorms. The Nameless Journal (feel free to guess whose it was, but no fair peeking in the debug menu or code) is rarer but can show up on external scicorpses.
Oh, so they’re location specific? Good to know, though I was pretty diligent in searching dorms. Does it only appear on the lower floors? The one time I found it was on I think the third or fourth floor, which I often have difficulty reaching in the case of ice labs. That could account for it’s seemingly increased rarity. Other than that, my best guess would be that maybe it’s being crowded out by all the other dozens of low-tier books which can spawn in dorms?
No, depth doesn’t affect item spawning, and all of the journals can spawn in chem rooms, regardless if the rooms actually make their roll to spawn mutagens. (But that spawn group gets a LOT less spawns: keeps the mutant-haters happy.) You’re probably right regarding crowding, though. I’ll see about tuning its dorm-rarity a notch or two more common.
Thanks a ton. I know making mutations EASIER to get is a controversial suggestion, but it’s pretty frustrating when you have a master chemist with every single mutagen book except the single, fundamental one needed to unlock all the others. Cheers!
on the subject of item spawns, changing the spawn rate seems to also influence what items are more likely to spawn, as well as potentially hit some per map cap on items, for example on 1.5x items I find that 2 of the 6 military bunker rooms are empty, but that lockpick kits appear more. is your spawn set to 1.0 or something else?
i found a dionne lab journal in one of my games withought even ever finding a lab… i probably picked it up off of scientists corpses… but the moral penalty for reading it seems too high when you litraly cant read it cause it nukes your moral way too low… though i think a perk where you enjoy reading more than others seems like a good perk or even an opposite perk to it.
but i can’t will myself to ever use batterys or nonreplenishable resources… maybe i will get a charging station on my vehicle and rechargable battery mod on mp3 player and sit on it while i read
or even an opposite perk to it.
and sit on it while i read