Let's improve Plant Mutations

[Dracian]

Hi there !

I'm creating this topic in order to gather your opinions about Plant Mutations and maybe how to improve them.

For my part, I really like the system. Bonuses given are not overpowered but interesting enough to be worthwhile... Most of the time. The main problem I see are the additional conditions in order to grow mutated seeds. Here's a list of my thoughts about each mutation :

• Blooming : I never use them since I never need the Decoration bonus. Maybe adding a Floral Scent similar to the Bristle Blossom's one would increase its usefulness
• Bountiful : No problem with this one. Feels really balanced for me.
• Easygoing : Same, no problem with this one. Though I wouldn't mind seeing it split between Hot and Cold versions. Hot mutation would be adapted to hot temperatures and unable to grow in cold temperatures. Cold would be the opposite.
• Exuberant : The Food Poisoning on crop feels really useless, since Radiations easily kill germs. Increasing germs in order to see them survive long enough the Radiations and be a real hindrance would balance a little bit this mutation. Or maybe reducing the Life Cycle bonus from -75% to -50%
• Juicyfruit : It's a nice bonus, but the fertilizer requirement feels 'too much'. Let's not forget mutated plants need 250+ rads/cycle. +10% Fertilizer would feel more balanced.
• Leafy : 1000 lux. Please, this needs to be nerfed. Reducing that requirement to even 900 lux would be enough (more options with a Ceiling Lamp)
• Licey : Feels good to me
• Specialized : Same, feels good
• Superspecialized : Tough to grow, but feels nonetheless good. Reducing the temperature range penalty from -80% to -75% would be nice, though
• Wildish : this one should never be planted, unless you don't have access to Pips. Sure, the -90% Fertilizer is nice, but the +350% Life Cycle means that, no matter the plant, it's Life Cycle will be greater than the one of a non-mutated wild plant (which has a +300% Life Cycle compared to domestic plant). There again, let's not forget mutated plants need 250+ rads/cycle. A viable solution would be to reduce the Life Cycle penalty from +350% to +250%. Or reduce it to +300% and remove the Fertilizer needs

Anyway, those were my thoughts. Feel free to comment

Cheers,

Dracian.

[Primalflower]

I largely agree with you. My thoughts on the matter are just that I think that "needing to mutate a plant to get this" should be taken into account when balancing these as the developer, and with that, I feel like Juicyfruits doesn't really provide enough of a bonus to even need a downside past "you need to mutate a plant to get to this".

[pether]

The biggest issue with mutation is the fact that you cannot establish working plantation soon enough - it takes plenty of time and radiation to maybe get one random mutation. and maybe the one you don't like... By the time you could do something more, the game is already finished, you have milions of calories from other sources and you don't really need more...

We would need to get some building that allow researchers to mutate seeds with given mutation. The requirement could be to unlock the same mutation previously with natural method. This would allow to quickly get more of the seeds and start growing those mutants...

[Farsight]

Yeah, getting one mutation you want is hard enough. Getting an entire farm of a particular mutation is just painful.

After getting the achievement, I have -never- bothered with mutating plants. And I -like- the concept!

[pether]

8 hours ago, Farsight said:

After getting the achievement, I have -never- bothered with mutating plants. And I -like- the concept!

yeah, same here

[Knurek]

Set up a farm for mutated seeds and put original plants in there. With time you will have all the mutated seeds you need. Not much of an effort, just wait.

 

[Primalflower]

Mutating plants isn't hard. What is difficult is correcting the auto pilot that my brain is bound to fall into when doing my Nth colony, and reminding myself to set it up on some crashed satellites sooner rather than hundreds of cycles in. I guess you cant really fix that, its just a side effect of being a long-time player.

[Dracian]

Yes, mutating plants is not the biggest problem. It's long, especially with 'rare' plants (Gas Grass for example), but not impossible. It feels OK, for me.

The problem is mainly the additional conditions to grow mutated plants. 250+ rads per cycle is already an additional condition that should be taken in consideration : if you don't have Crashed Satellites or set up your mutated farms on the Superconductive or Moomoo asteroids, it will require you fair amounts of Uranium Ore and/or Wheezeworts/Phosphorite. This is not that neutral in terms of game design.

If a mutated plant is considered a bonus (which I think they are), then the additional requirements should not be incredibly hard or detrimental to grow the plant. Wildish mutation is especially blatant : why should I bother with this one ? It needs rads and fertilizers and takes longer to grow than a wild plant, without having a greater yield. It's completely useless.

Another option could be that mutated plants bonus be unique. That's why I like how the Licey and Exuberant mutations works : they give something that feels 'unique', and not just a greater yield. Sure Lice and Rot Pile are not particularly interesting but it's not the point. The point is : here's a mutation that gives something the plant can't give under normal conditions. Why not creating other mutation that would make plants produce a little bit of Wood or Reed fibers or even Plastic ? Or Tonic roots ? Or even Algae or Slime, why not, after all ?

[Sasza22]

The radiation requirement is ok for some of the plants but not for all. Why would you want extra decor in a radiation area. You don`t want dupes to spend time there anyway. It`s also hard to get the right of amount of radiation for a plant farm to be meaningful (especially on higher hunger settings) unless you got the sattelites or a lot of uranium ore. It would be much better if you could use refined uranium for the rad lamps which would have a much higher efficiency or if there was a rad lamp that could be powered via radbolts.

[gigamoi]

Yeah. My biggest gripe with plant mutations is how hard it is to get enough good seeds to make the endeavor worthwhile. For that reason, the only plant I have ever bothered to mutate and plan a mutated farm with is sleet wheat, thanks to it's ability to provide 18 of the same specimen at a time. Given how powerful some can be, I don't think it should be easier to get random mutations, but given the genetic abominations gravitas was able to create, mutations duplication should be doable even in the dire conditions of an asteroid.

 

That being said, even though some mutations are very good, it is true that others are complete duds. Perhaps the radiation requirement should be dropped on those as to balance them out.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

For me, main problem was getting enough seeds to even start mutated farm, that's the reason why i only bothered with sleet wheat farm and only once in my playthroughs.

What I would like to see is to use radiation and farms to produce mutated seed as they do now but then work differently. These mutated seeds would be analyzed in Botanical Analyzer, however that would kind of unlock these particular mutation for these seeds in analyzer "library" (ofc shared between all planetoids on same save). So next time you would be able to either use seeds with same mutation produced again by the farm or "order" mutated seeds in Analyzer, where dupes would produce them from regular seeds.

This way it would kind of mimic RL plant cutting methods.

Just now in my head popped idea to be able to identify mutations once and then have them unlocked for all playthroughs, however that would be too OP i suppose.

[gigamoi]

I was thinking about how the devs are making the moo interesting gameplay-wise on the current testing branch and an idea occurred to me. We seem to all agree that a seed duplication mechanic is required. Perhaps shinebugs should be involved in some way.

(I don't know. "Milk" them for "rad-enzymes", "genetic ooze" or something, but I don't like the idea of tacking in a new ultraspecialized item/material for every new thing. Better, have them directly participate in the geneticist work through some special building in the stable maybe. We already know that they are somewhat intelligent since they use Morse code with their light to communicate. Perhaps they can do the same with their rads making them small, precise, brain controlled rad sources you can train. The process could be exhausting for the bug with the loooooooong chain of morphs being better and better at it making their breeding relevant. (I just got those ideas on the fly while typing.))

The reasoning behind this idea is that shine bugs, much like moos, are currently not very relevant gameplay wise and could use an update IMO. I went from corralling them away from bedroom in base game to actively seek and kill them in SO because of their unwanted and unpractical rads. The only useful thing I have seen them being used for recently is shine bug reactors, and even that seems a bit derived. Like other things, they currently feel like a vestigial idea from a previous iteration of the game that is still in but ultimately doesn't work well and is not used much aside from the meme. Like I said, they are not unique in that regard, but the need for a mutation duplication mechanic creates a niche that seems like a perfect fit for them.

 

edit: Just to be sure I am well understood. By "seed duplication mechanic", I mean mutation duplication mechanic. For balance, I think the process should also consume at least one original seed as well.

[Knurek]

With the new Move Tool it's even easier to start making mutated seeds if you have a couple of Shine Bugs at your starting biome. Make a ranch to breed them and move some eggs to 1 tile room placed above farm tiles and there you go. Free radiation without high tech or satellites. All you then need is a dupe with high farming skill to increase the  chance of getting seeds and before you research the botanical analyzer and get your lead suits you're going to have some mutated seeds ready.

That being said I really like the idea of improving Shine Bug morphs radiation and light output that came from @Charletrom. It would help with getting mutated seeds and give morphs a reason to be used.

 

[pether]

13 hours ago, Knurek said:

before you research the botanical analyzer and get your lead suits you're going to have some mutated seeds ready.

with amout of radiation shine bugs give, you will get around 2-3 mutations, random on top of that, with no way to make consistent farm out of them... 

[Knurek]

6 hours ago, pether said:

with amout of radiation shine bugs give

That's why I mentioned morphs should give more radiation to make it easier and make them worthwhile.

6 hours ago, pether said:

you will get around 2-3 mutations, random on top of that, with no way to make consistent farm out of them... 

If you use 2 Shine Bugs and don't start the game with a dedicated high skilled farmer then sure.. You can stack more bugs to get more radiation and a higher chance of mutated seed, but you know that. I had more than 2-3 mutants before digging to satellites just from a single Shine Bug ranch where I've put my blossom farm for 5 dupes and bugs roamed freely with no egg management. I would have many more if I made more ranches and took all excess eggs to the farm, but honestly I was just lazy. I should have started with a dupe with mechatronics skill, built more ranches and make egg delivery automatic from the start. Should've also removed the grooming station from the farm (or replace it with farm station to speed up seeds production) and lowered the height of the room to 2 tiles to keep the bugs closer to the plants. I could then also supply the farmer with rad pills and finally make use of medicine! Lessons learned for my next colony 

It's all about the priorities that you have when playing and how you chose to play the game. Some people lock on research, some try to dig as far as they can, some try to reach space asap and some race for ranching hatches and complain about barbeque. There are many, many ways to play. Try to focus on mutating plants from the beginning once, seriously. Start with a good farmer, make as many Shine Bugs as possible, use space radiation to your advantage, make satellites and lead suits your number one priority etc. Lots of fun.

Or don't, but then please don't say it needs a fix if you've never tried it past the achievement.