Negative mutations are inevitable when you foray into genetic modification - play with fire, bound to be burned. But, are they all that bad? Some of them can be a lot of fun, forcing you to play in a unique or at least notably different way; some of them might not even be ‘bad’, depending on how you work them. So, what are your favorites?
My top three, in no particular order, are:
Heat Dependent -> Ectothermic
Carnivore
Animal Discord
I think Carnivore especially adds a fun challenge to the game, and makes me feel more attached to my character from a role play aspect (since I now need to think about what they can actually eat, and how to acquire more, plus it moves me towards new goals like learning to can/preserve meats, and actively hunting out animals).
Heat Dependent I like for similar role play reasons; it mixes things up not only in combat but also in normal play, and can actually end up benefiting you for packing on clothing outside of winter.
Animal Discord is a bit less personal; I just think it’s fun to see beavers and lemmings and whatnot run up like they wanna act tough, it’s a funny idea to me.
I like Carnivore since it negates your need for vitamin C, and it’s easy to stockpile meat past early game. It’s nice not having to farm or gather veggies, just kill things and preserve the meat. With a vehicle-mounted dehydrator you could easily stockpile hundreds of units of meat.
Toe Talons, available from the Experiment and Lab Challenge scenarios. It’s classed as negative since it prevents you from wearing shoes but it also provides a devastating melee attack. Cutting damage equal to 4 times your strength, capped at 60. It’s a serious game changer since you deal so much more damage for the stamina you spend.
One I’ve never seen anyone talk about is Weakening. It cools you down, which gives you more leeway for layering on armor that would make you uncomfortably warm otherwise, and doesn’t require a threshold unlike Ectothermic. The damage and reduced healing are pretty inconsequential.
Imperceptive Healer and Squeamish are my must haves. I can’t tolerate hordes magically popping into existence so this is part of my higher difficulty fix, I guess.
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The ‘Light sensitive’ mutations. I’ve always found that they can be worked around for the most part but can still be quite a pain at the wrong times / places.
From a purely mechanical point of view any of the high metabolism ones I view as more of a benefit then a hindrance, for game play I like impreceptive since it ratches up the challenge factor but for pure flavour I like schizophrenic. Nothing quite beats your weapon giving you emotional support or a sandwich you just made talking to you, even if the topic of choice is a bit grim.
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I just took schizo for the first time on an island prison break, it’s definitely up there already. My axe tried to run away from me while I was cutting down trees!
I’ll take poor healer since my runs usually tend to not last very long, and the Sapiovore mutation. I like to lure those hairless apes away from the only place they think is safe, then turn them into a fine meal.
…Hey, at least they’re feeding a human, and not those mindless husks.
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The ones I have in real life…
plus the fav positive ones are…
The ones I have in real life…
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