Guide to Genetics
Geneticists have access to GeneTek consoles and scanners. These devices can, with enough patience, reward you with superpowers, crippling disabilities, or just amusing mutations.
GenTek Console
File:Genescan-off.gif GenTek console and GenTek scanner are machines that help Geneticists find Mutations. Click the GenTek console to start doing genetics.
Research Menu
When you click the Research Menu the GenTek console will show:
- Purchase Additional Materials - Buy Research Materials using the Research Budget at 50 credits for 1 Research Material.
- Available Research - Shows Research. GenTek Consoles share Research.
- Research in Progress - Shows how long until a Research or DNA sequencing finishes.
- Researched Mutations - Shows researched Mutations.
- Stored Mutations - Shows Stored Mutations. Each GenTek Console has its own storage.
- Stored Chromosomes - Shows stored Chromosomes. Each GenTek Console has its own storage.
- View DNA Samples - View crew member DNA.
- Finished Research - View finished Research.
Equipment Cooldowns
After you complete certain Research the GenTek console will show:
- Analyzer - Gene Sequence Checker cooldown.
- Emitter - Radiation Emitters cooldown.
- Reclaimer - DNA Reclaimer cooldown.
- Activators/Injectors - DNA Activator or DNA Injector creation cooldown. Injectors have a longer cooldown than Activators.
All cooldowns are measured in seconds.
Scanner Occupant
When the GenTek scanner is occupied, the GeneTek console will show:
- Health - Show you the occupant's Health.
- Stability - Show you the occupant's genetic stability.
- Potential - Where you scramble DNA and view, research, activate or reclaim Mutations.
- Mutations - Lists activated Mutations of occupant.
- Appearance - Where you change the occupant's body appearance.
- Body - Where you change the occupant's race.
To insert an occupant:
- Click them with Grab intent and click on the GeneTek scanner
- Drag and drop their sprite onto the GenTek scanner sprite
To eject an occupant:
- Right click on the GenTek scanner and choose Eject Occupant
- Drag and drop the GenTek scanner sprite onto the floor
To lock an occupant inside the GenTek scanner right click on the GenTek scanner and choose Scanner Lock. The occupant can sometimes break out by flipping (R).
There is a finite amount of air in the GenTek scanner.
Low Stability can have detrimental effects.
Research
You can buy extra features and upgrades through Available Research.
All Research Material costs are reduced for every two filled DNA Activators put into a GeneTek console.
In return for slowing down the cloning process with Advanced Genetic Analysis enabled on the cloner all Research cooldowns are reduced by 5%. Up to two active cloners will reduce the cooldown.
Research | Tier | Requires | Time | Cost | Effect |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Radiation Emitters | 1 | Nothing | 90 | 80 | Re-roll the pool of all Mutations of an occupant. This will cause severe radiation poisoning that will have to be treated. This can not be used on dead organisms and has a cooldown time of three minutes. You use these via Scramble DNA when you click on the Potential. |
Gene Sequence Checker | 1 | Nothing | 90 | 50 | Checks how many base pairs are stable. It has a cooldown of one minute. Correct DNA pairs will turn green and incorrect pairs red. |
Gene Booth | 1 | Nothing | 60 | 50 | Lets you sell Mutations at the Gene Booth. When you access an occupant's Mutations or Stored Mutations and click on a Mutation, you can choose Sell at Gene Booth to send 5 applications of the Mutation to the Gene Booth for 30 Research Materials. It'll prompt you to set a price and a description. Gene Booth sales go towards the Research budget. You can swipe your ID card on the GeneTek console to siphon a portion of the proceeds to your own account. |
Advanced Mutation Research | 1 | Mutations Researched: 20 | 90 | 50 | Halves the base cost and time of researching a mutation and enables the ability to see, research, and activate advanced mutations. Advanced mutations are generally very powerful and/or unique. |
Biotic Cooling Mechanisms | 1 | Fire, Cold and SMES Resistance | 90 | 150 | Halve the cooldown times for all equipment. |
Complex DNA Research Efficiency | 1 | High Complexity DNA | 120 | 50 | Research costs and time decrease by 15%. |
Complex DNA Mutation Storage | 1 | High Complexity DNA | 120 | 50 |
Adds five saving slots for storing mutations. |
Complex Material Storage | 1 | High Complexity DNA | 120 | 50 | Increases maximum materials storage by 50. |
DNA Reclaimer | 2 | Gene Sequence Checker | 240 | 100 | Allows unwanted genes to be converted into research materials. It has a two minute cooldown and has a chance to fail depending on what gene is being reclaimed. |
Radiation Dampeners | 2 | Radiation Emitters | 180 | 80 | Halves the amount of harmful radiation caused by Radiation Emitters. |
DNA Injectors | 2 | Mutations Researched: 20 | 240 | 120 | Allows the manufacture of Injector syringes that can insert Mutations into other subjects. Injectors cost 40 Research Materials to manufacture. |
Emitter Coolant System | 2 | Radiation Emitters | 180 | 120 | Reduces the amount of time required for Radiation Emitters to cool down. |
Mutation Storage | 3 | DNA Reclaimer | 300 | 100 | Allows for storage of up to three genes in each GeneTek console's Stored Mutations for the purposes of combination or transference into new recipients. The Mutations must be researched and activated before storage. Combining stored Mutations can produce rare or unique mutations! Experiment! |
Precision Radiation Emitters | 3 | Radiation Dampeners, Emitter Coolant System | 300 | 150 | Upgrades the Radiation Emitters in the scanner so they can target single Mutations at a time. The Mutations must have been researched first, and doing this has a longer cooldown and greater irradiation amount than regular DNA scrambling. |
Improved Material Storage | 3 | DNA Reclaimer | 300 | 125 | Increases the maximum number of research materials to 150. |
Biotic Radiation Dampeners | 3 | Radiation Dampeners, Radiation Resistance, Radioactive | 250 | 100 | Completely removes the harmful effects of the Radiation Emitters. |
Expanded Mutation Storage | 4 | Mutation Storage | 450 | 120 | Adds two additional saving slots for Mutations. |
Mutations
When you activate a Potential it becomes a Mutation. There are a wide variety of Mutations, some commonplace and simple, some extremely powerful and rare. Some are beneficial, some are detrimental, some are situational, and some are just wacky and fun. There are more mutations than those listed here, so feel free to sequence and find Mutations on your own!
Clicking the blue ABIL tab on your hotbar will toggle between standard options and your available mutation powers.
While you keep your genetic potential, you lose active mutations when you die, so you'll have to regain them after getting revived. For the cloner in particular, you can also enable the Advanced Genetic Analysis option, so clones keep any genetic effects they had active when they were scanned; this is especially handy for those trying to stick with a certain body-type mutation. You can also choose to spawn with things like these, called Traits.
Stability
Fiddling with your genes is not free! Every time you use your active powers, there is a risk that your powers will horribly backfire, causing a Bad Thing happen. The chance you avert this and successfully use your powers is called genetic stability. You start out with 100 genetic stability, i.e. a 100% success rate, and if you are Injected with mutations not in your genetic potential, this number will increase and decrease by a set amount, depending on the mutation. Typically speaking, the more powerful the mutation injected, the bigger the stability penalty. Some genetic mutations, usually the debilitating ones, can actually increase your stability instead.
If you reach sufficiently low levels of stability, extremely bad things are extremely likely to end up happening, up to and including spontaneous gibbing and/or petrification. Some mutations also "degrade" into opposites. For example, Toxic Resistance becomes Blood Toxification, while Alcohol Resistance becomes Ethanol Production.
Activating mutations from your Potential pool doesn't affect Stability at all; it only happens with Injected mutations. In other words, stability loss really only occurs with DNA Injectors; DNA Activators, by their very nature, do not incur stability penalties since they can't activate mutations that aren't in your potential.
Certain chromosomes can change the effects of certain mutations, such as removing the stability penalty, making otherwise harmful mutations harmless, or making them more powerful. Experiment!
High Complexity DNA
This is a unique, rare mutation which cannot be researched or activated using an activator. It can also only be worked on if the carrier is physically in the scanner. When activated and stored using the Mutation Storage research, it serves as a wildcard for combining stored mutations, so you can very easily get some fascinating and rare mutations this way.
Combining Mutations
Once you have researched Mutation Storage, active mutations can be stored and combined to yield new and more useful mutations. Some of these are only available via combination, whereas others may appear (rarely) as potentials. There isn't any penalty to getting an invalid combo, so feel free to experiment and see what results you get!
Possible Mutations
Power | Message | Danger Level | Stability | Effect |
---|---|---|---|---|
Blindness | You can't see anything. | Harmful | +20 | You no longer see action messages about what you and other people are doing and cannot see anything beyond a very small distance from you. You can still interact with things via right-click menu, and you can click on pills/patches/auto-injectors in-hand to use them on yourself, but you otherwise can't do much. To fix this without modifying DNA, you can equip a pair of VISOR Goggles. |
Frontal Gyrus Suspension | You are unable to express yourself. | Harmful | +20 | You become mute, you are unable to speak. The Mime gimmick job starts with this, as an enforced vow of silence. Mutadone cannot cure this if it is caused by admins--it was given for a reason! |
Deafness | It's quiet. Too quiet. | Harmful | +20 | You can't hear anything and are immune to most forms of ear damage. Blessed silence may come as a relief once you've gotten sick of the regular radio chatter. To fix this without modifying DNA, you can equip an auditory headset. |
Radioactive | You feel a strange sickness permeate your whole body | Harmful | -10 | You suffer from radiation sickness and cause the same to nearby people. May also give you more bad mutations. |
Dyspraxia | You feel kind of off-balance and disoriented. | Harmful | +5 | In short, you're clumsy. Several actions have a flat chance to comically backfire, often harming you or causing extra damage. For example, you might accidentally start cuffing yourself when cuffing others, jab yourself while using a fork, and shoot yourself when firing a gun. Conducting surgery and handling grenades and guns become particularly dangerous. The Clown spawns with a variant of this mutation that cannot be cured. Different from the "Dyspraxia" caused by the Wizard spell Clown's Revenge. |
Glowy | Your skin begins to glow softly. | Harmless | 0 | You permanently emit a light with a random color and intensity. |
Tourettes | Your thoughts become disorderly and hard to control. | Harmless | +5 | Your speech will often come out as excited shouts in ALL CAPS, be horribly misspelled, and instead of saying "say" before everything you, well... say, it will say that you "gibbered". Also, sometimes things you say will be broadcast over the radio if you are wearing one, in all its CAPS filled glory, whether you want it to or not. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type N | Y-you f.. feel a.. a bit n-n-nervous. | Porky but Harmless | 0 | Your speech stutters and falters like Porky the Pig. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-S | You feel like you want to smile and smile and smile forever :) | Happily Harmless | 0 | You somehow say colon parthesis (:)) after everything you say. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-E | You feel funky. | Elvisously Harmless | 0 | You talk like a king...a king of rock and roll! You extend your vowels the same way Elvis does. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-C | Ye feel like a reet prat like, innit? | Hermless, mate | 0 | You speak like a middle-class English chav. You are the charmingly ugly lovechild of at least ten cultural accents and pack sounds together like black pudding. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-B | You feel Swedish, however that works. | Tootelly Hermless, bork bork! | 0 | You speak Swedish,Bork Bork Bork! You extend your vowels to long e's and o's, and randomly add "Bork"'s like you add Swedish meatballs. The chef will commonly spawn with this accent. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-T | You feel torn apart! | Moestly Hahwleess | 0 | You have Tommy Wiseau's Joisey accent. Your speech is an audio disaster. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-CS | You feel great!! | Comically Harmless | 0 | You somehow speak in Comic Sans. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-D | You feel like your tongue's made out of lead. | Compleffely Harmleshsh | 0 | You slur your speech like a drunkard. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-R | .sdrawkcab tib a leef uoY | .sselmrah, tub gnisufnoC | 0 | You talk backwards. Pro-tip: Put your ; or :prefix at the end to talk over the radio. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-O | You feel a bit tongue-tied. | Mstly Hrmlss | 0 | All your vowels get replaced with a random vowel. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-F | Och aye! You feel like a true Scot! | Skaithless | 0 | You speak with a Scottish accent. You do weird things with vowels, and, unlike other accents, you use entirely different words for things. You call a butt a "dowp", a jumpsuit a "carsakie", things like that. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-FI | Sauna and birch beatings! Hyvä! | Arrmless | 0 | You speak like the space Finns, the sauna-loving, people-hating neighbors of Sweden. You double up on your i's and r's, pronounce g-vowel pairs at the beginning of words as k-vowel, chop w's into v's, have a peculiar inability to say h's, say sh as ch, and switch up your b's with p's and vice versa. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-Q | You feel that your province is a nation, however that works. | 'armless | 0 | You speak the accent of the space separatist Space Quebeckers of Space Canada. You say "le" instead of "the", contract h's at the beginning of words, and pepper your sentences with curious profanity. In addition to the stereotypical "th"->"z", you also have:
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Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-Y | You feel like you're on Ilkley Moor without a hat. | 'armless | 0 | You speak with the somewhat impenetrable Tyke accent of the Space Yorkies of Space England. Similar to the Scottish accent, you have a different vocabulary, e.g. "arse" for "butt", "gaffer" for "captain", "tha" for "you", "t'" for "the", and many more. You chop off the "g" in "ng", drop the "h" from beginnning of words, transform "ight" to "eet", and a bunch more:
In short, you might not think it's English, but it is. You can fault the Space Danes and their Space Viking raids of the past for this one. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-BT | Your breath smells like a fart. | Butt | +10 | You speak like a buttbot. When you talk, some of your words are replaced by "butt". |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-SD | You feel like you've got some work to do now. | Harmful | 0 | You speak like Scooby-Doo, a talking dog from the children's mystery cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo. In short, lots of lots of R's. Like Scots, you also have a different vocabulary, which mechanics-wise means you replace some words with different ones. For example, instead of AI, you say "rehrhai". Werewolves have this when transformed. |
Frontal Gyrus Alteration Type-X | You can't seem to form any coherent thoughts! | Harmful | +10 | Your speech becomes unintelligible, as every consonant is randomized. Vowels are unaffected. |
Hemochromia Type-U | You feel like you're out of breath. | Harmless | -5 | A volatile mutation with 12 known stable alternatives. Will quickly break down into one of them if you exit the scanner. |
Hemochromia Type-R | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a scarlet coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-B | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a copper coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-G | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a brass coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-L | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a chartreuse coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-O | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a verdant coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-J | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a emerald coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-T | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a cyan coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-C | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a cerulean coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-I | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a azure coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-P | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a lavander coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-V | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a plum coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Hemochromia Type-F | You feel a bit less soft. | Beneficial | -5 | Your blood takes on a magenta coloration. You also regenerate 2 more units of blood per second while there's less than 500 units of it in you. |
Achromia | N/A | Harmless | 0 | Your skin becomes completely grayscale. |
Noir | You feel chromatic pain. | Beneficial | -5 | Your whole body, including any held and worn items, become completely grayscale. |
Yee | Yee | Nee. | 0 | Makes all your words into "yee". It is only available through yee reagent and admin shenanigans; you cannot find this in the genepools of monkeys, humans, and other carbon-based life-forms. |
Cranial Keratin Formation | A pair of horns erupt from your head. | Harmless | 0 | You look (more) like a doofus. |
Apocrine Enhancement | You feel sweaty. | Harmless | 0 | You get a serious case of the stinks, causing people nearby to get wonderful messages about how nice the room smells. |
Fire Resistance | You feel cold. | Beneficial | -10 | You are immune to high temperature and fire. You have a noticeable orange aura. |
Cold Resistance | You feel warm. | Beneficial | -10 | You are immune to low temperature and ice. While your body temperature can still drop to freezing and below (allowing you still benefit from cryoxadone), you won't be slowed down. You have a noticeable blue aura. |
Thermal Resistance | N/A | Beneficial | -10 | You are immune to all changes in temperature, fire and ice. You gain an aura which flicks between orange and blue. |
Alcohol resistance | You feel unusually sober. | Beneficial | 0 | You do not suffer most of the effects of alcohol, e.g. the blurred vision and mistepping, though you'll still have drunkenly slurred speech. You can also drink Bo Jack Daniel's without passing out. At the start of the round, the detective, HoS and barman will normally spawn with this mutation as a trait. |
Radiation Resistance | N/A | Beneficial | -15 | You are immune to ionizing radiation, period. While you'll still get the Irradiated status effect, you don't suffer the resulting mutations or the associated TOX and BURN damage. |
SMES Human | Your hair stands on end. | Beneficial (Mostly) | -15 | You are protected from electrical energy. Useful when the AI is shocking everything or a malicious Engineer has hotwired the engine and you are lacking insulated gloves. You will also resist shocks from stun batons, but not the more concentrated electric bursts of energy guns and tasers. On the flip side however, this includes defibrillators. |
Jumpy | Your leg muscles feel strong and taut. | Beneficial | -5 | You gain a jump that moves you half a screen in no time at all. Just make sure you don't use it while inside a container/vehicle of some sort, or you won't like the result... |
Chameleon | You feel at one with your surroundings. | Beneficial | -20 | When toggled on, you become invisible while standing still ; you'll know you've become invisible because you'll see a faint light blue aura around you. The AI, Cyborgs, people wearing optical thermal scanners or construction visualizers, and people with X-Ray Vision can still see you. This can work against you in more ways than one. |
Cloak of Darkness | You meld into the shadows. | Beneficial | -20 | Activate this ability, and now you're invisible while in the dark. You can tell if it's dark enough if you have a dark grey aura around you; generally ill-lit maintenance sections and rooms where the lights are broken/have been turned off are dark enough to hide in. This does not work in Space or the Seafloor. The AI, Cyborgs, people wearing optical thermal scanners or construction visualizers, and people with X-Ray Vision can still see you. Vampires get this power for their Bat Form Mk II ability. |
High-pressure intestines | You feel bloated and gassy. | Beneficial | -15 | Blow away your foes with your tremendous farts! Beware: if Empowered, you will not just blow away your foes, but also yourself. |
Cryokinesis | You notice a strange cold tingle in your fingertips. | Beneficial | -10 | You gain the ability to cool people down significantly by firing a ball of ice at them, and to get on everyone's nerves by creating patches of slippery ice on the floor. The Discount Superhero Spooktober job can sometimes spawn with an Empowered variant. |
Telepathy | You can hear your own voice echoing in your mind. | Beneficial | -5 | You gain the ability to communicate telepathically. Telepathic messages show up to the recipient as "A psychic voice echoes, "[TEXT]"" in hotpink. Don't use this to impersonate the admins. |
Optic Energizer | Your eyes ache and burn. | Beneficial | -10 | You gain an "Eyebeams" ability that fires laser beams from your eyes, even if there's something blocking your eyes (e.g. a blindfold). These are different from the ones used by energy guns and their ilk; these do only 20 BURN and only very slightly heat up objects they pass over (they can still ignite plasma though). The Discount Superhero Spooktober job has a chance to spawn with a nonlethal version that drains 80 Stamina, on par with a taser. |
Meta-Neural Enhancement | Your mind feels closed. | Beneficial | 0 | You cannot be mind-read or telepathically spoken to. Doesn't affect the admin's telepathy, obviously. |
Empathic Thought | You suddenly notice more about others than you did before. | Beneficial | -5 | You gain an ability that lets you read the minds of others, telling you a random thought of no significance and clues about their current intent (as in Disarm, Grab, etc., not necessarily the player's actual intent), current health, and their PIN number and other notes. |
Matter Eater | You feel hungry. | Beneficial | -5 | You can eat many more items than normal, like weapons from disarmed opponents, or even your own body parts! Just remember that you need certain body parts to live... |
Telekinetic Pull | You feel your consciousness expand outwards. | Beneficial | -15 | You can send unanchored items flying from afar by click-dragging them from one tile to another. You can also perform a Telekinetic Smash, which throws all unanchored objects near to a location into it. Works great with X-ray vision. |
Gamma Ray Exposure | You feel your muscles swell to an immense size. | Beneficial | -25 | Your skin turns green, and your punches knock people away from you and do more damage. Your fists can instantly break tables, asteroid rock, wooden doors (but not any other doors), and grilles if they've fairly low health, and they can break windows, walls, and clown cars with enough time. You can pull corpses, people you've grabbed, people who aren't on Help intent, and things that contain either with no slowdown. Watch your health; if you get too hurt, your muscles will shrink back down. |
X-Ray vision | You suddenly seem to be able to see through everything. | Beneficial | -30 | Basically wearing Optical Meson Scanners and Optical Thermal Scanners at the same time, as it lets you can see through walls and see through the invisibilty cloak from cloaking devices, Chameleon, and Cloak of Darkness. Doesn't decrease or remove darkness, but it also doesn't increase the darkness of areas beyond your normal line of sight, unlike mesons. |
High Decay Digestion | Your stomach grumbles unpleasantly. | Harmful | -10 | Your farts create clouds of jenkem, which goes straight into the bloodstream of anyone who breathes it in. |
Obesity | You feel bloated and lethargic. | Harmful | +5 | Is fat. You are so fat that people may struggle to push your fat ass out of the way. You also can't wear most jumpsuits and exosuit/outerwear items besides the generic jumpsuits due to your extreme girth. Also makes it harder to find your neck. |
Self Biomass Manipulation | Your skin and joints feel loose. | Harmful | -5 | You can turn yourself into a liquid that can phase through walls and other solid objects, sort of like a genetic version of the wizard's Phase Shift. If it doesn't have the Synchronized chromosome, your clothes won't come with you, so you come out naked; if it is Synchronized, they do! If it misfires due to insufficient stability, you drop a random clothing item you were wearing if it was Synchronized, and if it wasn't, you drop an random internal organ (not limbs or brain, but does include heart).
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Incendiary Mitochondria | You feel like you are burning up. | Harmful | -10 | You set yourself on fire and become a human torch. This is a very bad thing if you don't want to burn alive. If you have Heat Resistance this will instead fizzle and do nothing. |
Epilepsy | You twitch. | Harmful | +10 | You will occasionally have seizures, being stunned on the floor for the duration of them. You will shake violently, and due to a bug the twitching will persist even after the mutation is removed. |
Chronic Cough | You feel an irritating itch in your throat. | Harmful | 0 | You occasionally cough, dropping anything in your hands. |
Diminished Optic Nerves | Your vision blurs. | Harmful | +5 | Your vision becomes blurred, and darkened outside a small radius. Can be counteracted with Prescription Glasses. |
Adrenaline Rush | You feel hype! | Beneficial | -5 | You get an activated ability that allows you to recover from stuns by putting various stimulating and painkilling drugs in your bloodstream. Also one of the only genetic mutations that can be used while incapacitated. |
Anaerobic Metabolism | Your lungs feel strangely empty. | Beneficial | -40 | Prevents you from taking any damage from lack of oxygen and inhaling harmful gases like plasma, but not chemical smokes--you still need a gas mask, gloves & biosuit for those!. |
Apidae Metabolism | You feel buzzed. | Harmless | 0 | Doesn't seem to do anything at first. However, if sugar is put into the bloodstream through any means, it has...interesting effects. |
Booster Gene | N/A | ? | ? | Booster Genes are a group of mysterious genetic mutations that, on their own, do absolutely nothing. However, they interact with other mutations, latent AND activated, in various and interesting ways. There are three variants, with a special fourth one that doesn't interact with other genes but does have its own unique effects and that normally cannot be found in the genes of humans, monkeys, and other mobs. |
Constricted Larynx | ...you feel like being quiet... | Harmless | 0 | Your text becomes really, really small. |
Corprolalia | You can't seem to shut up! | Harmless | 0 | You randomly shout random swear words. |
Dactyl Crystalization | Your fingers and toes turn transparent and crystalline. | Harmless | 0 | Changes your snap and slap noises. This doesn't mean you can't still snap your fingers off! |
Dermal Glitter | Your skin looks all blinged out. | Harmless | 0 | You sparkle as if you're carrying an item made of gold. |
Dimensional Shift | You begin to see a small blue light... | Beneficial | -20 | You can enter a pocket dimension, rendering you immune to any and all outside events, but you're unable to move while within this space until you exit. Basically, an indestructible, incorporeal closet on command. Any effects that are doing damage to you such as a heart attack or damage from poison still happen. |
Ethanol Production | You feel drunk! | Harmful | 0 | You constantly produce ethanol in your bloodstream, slowly making you extremely drunk. |
Healing Touch | Your hands radiate a comforting aura. | Beneficial | -10 | You gain an ability that can heal an adjacent human for a small amount of damage. |
High-Pressure Larynx | YOU SUDDENLY FEEL LIKE SHOUTING A WHOLE LOT!!! | Harmless | 0 | YOUR TEXT BECOMES REALLY LARGE |
Irritable Bowels | Your guts are rumbling. | Harmless | 0 | You automatically and intermittently fart. |
Meta-Neural Antenna | Your head is full of odd chatter. | Beneficial | -5 | You can hear all radio channels (excluding syndicate) without a headset. |
Midas Touch | Your hands sparkle and gleam. | Beneficial | -5 | You gain the ability to turn certain items into solid gold! This includes your own butt (and other limbs). Just don't expect to get super-rich from selling your transmuted gold bars; the traders can tell that it wasn't originally genuine gold. There's also a chance you're just turn items in flesh (Grody!) instead of gold; the less stability you have, the more likely this'll happen. |
Motor Neuron Signal Enhancement | One of your limbs feels a bit strange and twitchy. | Harmful | +20 | A random limb, chosen upon mutation acquirement, proceeds to strangle you, kick you in the head, and do various other harmful actions. |
Musculature Enhancement | You feel buff! | Beneficial | 0 | You gain a slight strength bonus to mining. Also negates the speed penalty from pulling objects somewhat. Maybe it has other uses... |
Narcolepsy | You feel sleepy. | Harmful | +5 | You randomly to fall asleep. |
Natural Anti-Toxins | Your pulse seems to relax. | Beneficial | -15 | Increases the depletion rate of all chemicals in your bloodstream. Note that this is not exclusive to poisons; it affects all chemicals. |
Paranoia | They're out to get you! | Harmless | 0 | You automatically and intermittently scream. |
Photokinesis | Everything seems too dark! | Beneficial | -5 | You can create a radiant point of light. |
Polymorphism | You don't feel entirely like yourself somehow. | Beneficial | -15 | You can take on the appearance and name of a crewmember by touching them. |
Pseudonecrosis | N/A | Harmful | -5 | You are recognized as dead by all medical scanners and machinery. |
Regeneration | Your skin feels tingly and shifty. | Beneficial | -40 | You slowly regenerate brute and burn damage and regain lost limbs, eyes, hearts, brains, lungs, and other organs over time. |
Spatial Destabilization | You feel a bit out of place. | Harmful | -15 | You teleport at random. Fortunately you can't teleport onto space tiles. Unfortunately you can teleport onto things covering space tiles, like catwalks. |
Toxic Resistance | You feel refreshed and clean. | Beneficial | -40 | You are immune to toxin damage, though you'll still have to heal up any toxin damage you had before acquiring the mutation. You will still be susceptible to any other effects of poisons, such as radiation, burn damage, stuns, and suffocation. |
Unstable Refraction | N/A | Harmful | -15 | You randomly flicker in and out of invisibility at random. (Unable to get currently) |
Meta-Neural Haze | N/A | Harmful | -5 | Your character can't be Examined. |
Brown Note | You feel mischievous! | Harmless (Mostly) | -15 | You get a "Brown Note" ability that produces a sound that makes up to 7 people (10 if empowered) around you fart. Be careful around bibles! |
Mass Emesis | You feel sick. | Beneficial | -10 | You can expel whatever chemicals were in your bloodstream as a beam of vomit. Anyone caught in the beam absorbs the chems. |
Ink Glands | You feel artistic. | Beneficial | -2 | You gain the ability to paint nearby people and objects a random color. |
Fire Breath | Your throat is burning! | Beneficial | -10 | You can exhale fire. |
Erebokinesis | Everything seems too bright! | Beneficial | -5 | You can snuff out all light in an area, akin to a darkness artifact. |
Mutagenic Field | Your flesh begins to warp and contort weirdly! | Harmful | -50 | You occasionally spontaneously mutate and may cause others nearby to do the same, with a higher chance of receiving bad mutations than good. |
Blood Toxification | You feel really sick... | Harmful | +20 | You occasionally (10% chance every few seconds) suffer one unit of toxin damage. |
Monkeyspeak | You feel one with the jungle! | Beneficial | 0 | You can understand the chimpering of monkeys. |
Night Vision | Everything suddenly appears oddly lit. | Beneficial | -25 | Darkness is greatly reduced. Pitch-black areas will still appear dim, though not enough to significantly reduce visibility. |
Hemopoiesis Overdrive | You feel like being stabbed isn't such a big deal anymore. | Beneficial | -15 | When you have less than 500 units of blood in you, you regenerate blood faster than usual at around 6 units per second. Stacks with filgrastim's blood regen. |
Tinnitus | You hear a ringing in your ears. | Harmful | +5 | Occasionally, you hear a ringing sound in your ears, similar to that of a phone ringing. It persists even if you are deaf. |
Physically Unfit | You feel slightly less energetic. | Harmful | +5 | Your max stamina is reduced by 30, and your stamina regen is reduced by 2. |
Physically Fit | You feel slightly more energetic. | Beneficial | -5 | Your max stamina is increased by 30, and your stamina regen is increased by 2. |
Nectar Perspiration | Your guts are rumbling | Harmful | +10 | A swarm of tiny lil' bees surrounds you. These bees sometimes sting those who attack you in melee, injecting them with a little bit of histamine, but they also can sting you at any time, giving you histamine. In either case, wearing armor (or any other form of protection) does not prevent from being stung. |
Electromagnetic Field | None. | Harmful | +10 | Tiny, 1 tile, EMP bursts occasionally occur within a 2-tile radius around you. These EMPs can and often do hit the tile you're on, and they cause the same effects as the EMP grenades (radios malfunctioning, batteries draining, etc.) |
Polycythemia | Your breathing quickens. | Harmful | +5 | If you have less than 600 units of blood in you, you regain blood at an accelerated rate (3 units per second, compared to just 1 per second), until you reach 600 units. Doesn't seem too bad, until you starting developing hypertension from your heart having to pump to all that blood... |
Anemia | You feel lightheaded. | Harmful | +5 | Your body can now accommodate only 400 units of blood, and if it goes over that, it quickly loses it. As a result, you'll often be at risk of entering shock, and bleeding out is more dangerous. |
Vestigial Ballistics | You feel intense pressure in your hip and shoulder joints. | Harmful | +15 | Lets you launch a random arm or leg of yours at someone, dealing a fair chunk of brute damage. This hurts you a bit if it's not Synchronized, and it does more damage if it's Empowered. Explosions also have a higher chance to delimb you. The Discount Superhero Spooktober job randomly gets a "weaponized" variant that also makes the limbs knock the target down and stun them for a fair amount of time; if this happens, they also get regeneration to complement it. |
Chronal Additive Inversement | You feel as if you're impossibly young. | Harmless | -10 | Flips the sign of your age, essentially making it negative if it was positive or positive if it was somehow negative, e.g. 30 becomes -30. (In fact, "additive inversement" is just a fancy way of saying sign change). If removed, flips it again, hopefully setting you back to normal. This causes some...interesting effects on the pitch of your voice clips. |
Temporal Displacement | You feel as if you're impossibly young. | Harmless | -10 | Every few seconds, sets your age to random number between -80 and 80, indirectly shifting the pitch of your voice clips. |
Chronic Sneezing | You feel an irritating itch in your nose. | Harmful | 0 | You sometimes sneeze, causing you to drop whatever you where holding. |
Protanopia | Everything starts looking a lot more yellow. | Harmful | 0 | You can't see the color red and, to some extent, green. Instead you see yellow. Werewolves have this when transformed. |
Body Type Genetics
These are harmless and mostly cosmetic mutations that make your character look like various things such as a lizard person or a giant roach. You can only have one active at a time. They have no stability penalty. Once you've researched them, you can activate these through the Body menu, in addition to the activators and DNA block methods.
Take note that not all of these mutations keep the character human, but it is universally agreed that they are still protected by the Rules. That means it is not acceptable to kill them just because they're a lizardperson or whatever, unlike other servers.
Power | Message | Effect |
---|---|---|
Dwarfism | Did everything just get bigger? | You are smaller. At the start of the round, Miners may spawn with this mutation. |
Bioluminecent Overdrive | Your skin begins flashing! | Your skin begins to rapidly flash different colors, similar to GBS' symptom but without any of the deadliness. |
Melanin Stimulator | N/A | Turns your skin and hair EXTREMELY dark. |
Melanin Suppressor | N/A | Turns your hair and skin to an extremely light shade and makes your eyes red. Essentially albinism. |
Melanin Eraser | You feel oddly plain. | Turns your hair and skin EXTREMELY light. Essentially vampire/pale look. |
Saurian Genetics | Your skin feels oddly dry. | You turn part lizard/reptile, complete with scales and tail, a belly spot, and/or head crest. The colors used are darker than those used for appearance details in your character preferences, but the game tries to avoid using extremely bright and extremely dark colors. Top detail color influences scales and tail color, the middle detail the belly spot and tail underside, and the top detail the crest; if you don't have anything for a certain layer, it's not drawn at all. Currently, hair dye and genetics cannot change colors. You also get a tail, like a T-rex and extend every s into a hiss, like a snake. |
Ossification | You feel kinda thin. | All your meat and organs squish into your bones, turning you into a very spooky living skeleton who can make certain hotdogs hop and drink milk to heal a little bit of all damage. Don't think about it too much, and try not to get addicted to the satisfaction that comes with making spaghetti. |
Aquatic Genetics | You feel wet and squishy. | You turn part squidperson/ithillid/starspawn. Your skin turns purple-pink, your eyes turn yellow, and you grow mini-tenacles and fins on your head that allow you move through liquids without slowing down. And, yes, you can breathe underwater. |
Blattodean Genetics | You feel like crawling into somewhere nice and dark. | You turn part cockroach, though some say it's more like those ants from A Bug's Life but brown. A pair of antenna grow on your head, chitin plates grow all over your body, and you get this weird thorax thing where your butt is. All purely cosmetic, as usual, though you do see slightly better (as in, just one tile further) in the dark than usual. |
Primal Genetics | You go bananas! | You become a Monkey. |
Bovine Genetics | You feel like you're ready for some Cow RP. | You become a cowperson. Specifically, you look like a Holstein Friesian cow, complete with horns that change color depending on the color you set for Bottom Detail in character preferences. You have funny *screams, extend your m's a lot, and say "human" instead of "cow", because deep down, you truly think you are one.
As a cow, your blood is milk, though all the other blood-related chemicals still function as normal, and drinking milk does not restore blood. You can also *milk (no hotkey, so you must do say "*milk or similar, like other emotes) to produce milk into a container you're holding or onto the floor, if you aren't holding one. Yes, this means you're actually pouring out your blood, so milking too much can kill you, though you can't *milk if you have less than 250 units of blood/milk in you. |
Potential
Every organism has Potential, Unknown Mutation, incomplete and inactive. Each organism will have a different Potential each round, but within a round, their Potential will always be the same even after cloning, barring Stable Mutagen antics. The overarching goal of genetics is to research and activate Potential among the crew.
Each Unknown Mutation only needs to be researched once. The base Research Material cost of every Unknown Mutation research is 20.
Research is conducted by spending research materials, which are slowly regained over time at 1 Material every few seconds. If the cloner's Advanced Genetic Analysis option is enabled, when the clonepod is active (i.e. cloning someone, rather than simply being on), this is boosted to 2 Materials, and having another active clonepod increases it to 3, with no more additional gains beyond that. This also comes at the cost of increasing cloning time slightly. Additional research materials can be obtained by redeeming DNA Activators on humans and spending money from the station's research budget.
Mutations are composed of a series of paired blocks, representing some block of genetic code. Each block contains the values G, A, C, T (Guanine, Adenine, Cytosine, and Thymine respectively) or is empty. In each pair of blocks, a G block always links to a C block, and a T block always links to an A block, but the order in which these appear in the block can vary.
All of this is done through either the Potential page, if you've inserted someone into the GeneTek scanner or the View DNA Samples page, which is accessed through the Research page.
At the Potential page, you'll find ten squares that form a horizontal strand of DNA (distinct from the smaller, DNA blocks that form a mutation). At roundstart, all these blocks will be greyed out. If you click on one of the greyed out blocks, the console will show that it's an Unknown Mutation, meaning the console doesn't know what it does.
Researching them is simple enough. When you're looking at an Unknown Mutation, simply click on the curiously named Research required link to have the GeneTek analyze its effects. After around half a minute or so, the square will light up, and you'll get the mutation's name and short, sweet description of what it does.
Now, knowing what a latent mutation does when you activate it is one thing, actually activating those mutations is another. There are two main ways of filling in the missing bits and activating the latent mutations:
- Completing their DNA code: While someone's in the scanner, you with a minigame where you fill in missing blocks. This takes some time and skill, but once you get the hang of it and complete for few puzzles for a few mutations, you can activate them en-masse relatively quickly.
- Vending a DNA activator: You use the machine to produce an activator that'll give someone a mutation in their potential. It's quick, and it's easy (or at least easier), but you're stuck on a cooldown, and reducing it requires either high-tier upgrades or having a cloner with Advanced Genetic Analysis enable currently cloning someone.
For both, if you activate the mutation on a living human (e.g. not a monkey or a corpse), you can get a lot of rewards:
- Extra research materials.
- A free unlock for a locked pair.
- A random chromosome.
So activating mutations on real people makes both methods easier, e.g. completing the code gives you unlocks that make completing the code easier and materials that allow you to research unknown mutations so you can activate them with activators. Both systems are otherwise relatively independent of each other, e.g. vending an activator doesn't fill in blocks for the code puzzle, and filling in blocks doesn't affect cooldown on activators, at least not directly.
Completing the Code
In this method, you manually add the missing bits to the latent mutation, which the GeneTek represents as a bunch of lettered blocks with empty spaces for you to fill in. Some sections can be figured out immediately, while others need simple guesswork as you go through each possible combination. Once the correct arrangement and combination of blocks is entered, you can then activate the mutation. It will then be removed from Potential and relocate to the Mutations section, where all the active mutations are displayed, and if activate it on a living human controlled by a player, you'll get a free unlock for locked pairs, a random chromosome, and some materials, currency for research.
There are two advantages to the first method: The correct sequence of blocks will directly be stored in the GeneTek, letting you instantly activate the gene without guessing or waiting for activator creation to cool down, and you can activate the gene without letting the target out of the scanner, which may be beneficial if doing so would result in bodily damage, like that monkey you just made into a fire-breathing crime against nature.
Within a round, all subjects with a specific mutation will have the exact same combinations and arrangement of DNA blocks required to unlock it. Once you've activated a mutation the slow way once, an autocomplete button will appear in Potential, letting you instantly activate that mutation on a target in the scanner. If you have a lot of people with need a certain mutation activated, you can make bank real quickly.
This also means that if, for example, one human has half the code for Fire Resist and another has the other half, you can simply put the two together to figure out the full code. By clicking on the green vertical line connecting pairs of blocks, you can highlight that pair, which is useful for marking parts of the mutation which haven't been figured out yet.
Walkthrough - Completing the Code
One of the two ways to activate a mutation is to have the subject be in the scanner and fill out the blocks until the correct combination and arrangement of bases is achieved. This section will walk you through this task using a simple example.
Though in this example we've researched the mutation by clicking the Research required link, you do not have to research a mutation to start filling in the blocks and activating the mutation this way. It is, however, highly recommended that you do. (In the time you complete the code, you'll probably get back the materials anyway. )
Start off by filling up any half-filled pairs. A goes with T, G goes with C.
Next, start working on the unfilled pairs. CG is different from GC, and AT is different from TA, so each unfilled pair has four different possible arrangements. Luckily, there's only one unfilled pair here, so in total, there are four different combinations we need to try. Let's start with GC.
Hint: Choosing the swap options (e.g. A->T, C->G) will fill both blocks, much quicker than individually filling blocks.
GC doesn't do anything, so we'll try CG next.
CG doesn't do anything either. What about AT?
Success! Click "Activate" and you're done!
This is quite a simple example, and we did not have to go through many combinations to get to the correct pattern. However, once you get into multiple empty pairs (which is rather common), the amount of combinations you'll have to try can quickly escalate. Luckily, one of the first upgrades you can buy, Gene Sequence Checker, can make this go by much quicker. With this upgrade, you can fill all the unfilled pairs with one pair, use the checker, swap out all the ones marked wrong with a different pair, wait for the checker to cooldown, and rinse and repeat.
Locked pairs
You may notice some pairs have a little lock between them, click on them to begin a game:
SCANNER ALERT: Encryption is a 2-character code. Possible characters in this code: G C
A specific chain of letters must be entered to unlock the pair of blocks. The only possible combinations here are GG, GC, CG and CC.
If your answer is wrong, the machine will show you how close you are to the correct answer. Let's assume we entered GG and this was the result:
SCANNER ALERT: Decryption failed. 0/2 correct characters in entered code. 0/2 characters in correct position. Attempts remaining: 1.
This shows that there is no G in the code, and thus the code must be CC!
Some codes will be this simple, but others will have up to 4 characters. Some genes will even have multiple locked pairs. Most of the more powerful genes have some of their pairs locked, so it can be worth the effort!
DNA Activators
Rather than figuring out and manually adding the missing bits yourself, you can have the GeneTek create a DNA activator with all the necessary bits needed to activate the mutation. Unlike the above, this method involves only four clicks and zero guesswork:
- One to go to the page for the mutation (via clicking on those nifty horizontal helix sections).
- One to research the mutation (via the Research required link), since you must research a mutation first to vend activators for it.
- One to vend a DNA activator (via the appropriately named Create Activator) twenty or so seconds afterward, when the Mutation Research finishes.
- One on a target human player (i.e. not a humanized monkey) who has the corresponding mutation in their Potential to activate it. (Using, for example, an Obesity activator for someone who doesn't have Obesity in their potential will do nothing.)
Plus a few more clicks to get to the Potential page or the View DNA Samples page through the Research page, if you weren't on there already. You do not have to complete the blocks on the screen for the mutation during any part of this process.
The second method is much faster than the first, and many geneticist prefer it as their primary method of distributing mutations among the crew. The only downsides are the 20-second cooldown between each activator creation and the fact that they don't help in solving the DNA blocks puzzle.
Additionally, an activator that is successfully used on a human (i.e. activates a mutation that was in that person's Potential) will turn transparent and become a filled DNA activator (); if it failed, you'll get an expended DNA activator (). You can then click on the genetics console with the filled activator in your active hand to redeem it.
Each activator redeemed gives you materials, a random chromosome, and an free unlock for the code minigame. In addition, very two filled DNA activators turned in will also reduce the costs of all Research tasks, including mutation research, by one. It's not too much, but the reduction adds up over time, and it'll help you unlock those more expensive upgrades, like DNA Injectors and Mutation Storage. This is really useful if you haven't researched a lot of mutations and you're thinking of getting plenty of upgrades.
Injectors
DNA Injectors are made from either stored mutations (using the Mutation Storage research described above) or subjects with active mutations. Upon jabbing someone with a DNA Injector, the corresponding mutation will be activated in the target, even if they didn't have that mutation in their genetic potential, effectively meaning that you can give anyone any mutation! On the downside, giving someone mutations not already in their genetic potential will also cause damage to their genetic stability. More on that later.
Chromosomes
Chromosomes are modifiers that can be spliced with existing mutations to improve or alter their abilities. You can sometimes get them from turning in filled DNA activators. Each mutation can only be spliced once, at either the Potential or (if applicable) the Stored Mutations Menu, but the modified mutation can be stored and applied multiple times. Before a chromosome can be spliced, they must be marked for splicing first, through the Stored Chromosomes menu, which is accessible through the Research Menu. They come in multiple forms:
- Stabilizer: Removes the genetic stability penalty from the mutation.
- Synchronizer: Makes the mutation less dangerous to the user. This has multiple different effects depending on the mutation it's spliced with.
- Weakener: Makes the mutation give more genetic material when reclaimed.
- Reinforcer: Makes the mutation mutadone-proof, meaning that the only way it can be removed is through the genetics console.
- Power Booster: Makes the mutation more powerful! Note that this only affects ability mutations, i.e. mutations that appear in the DNA hotbar.
- Energy Booster: Halves the cooldown time associated with any activated ability the mutant grants.
- Camouflager: Hides the message associated with gaining a mutation.
Lesser-Relevant Menus
Alongside Potential, these menus appear when you have someone in the scanner. Compared to Research and Potential, there's not much to say about these. They still have a purpose, mind you, but they do far less than the other ones. and are way less important.
Mutations Menu
This shows mutations which are active. If you have the Mutation Storage or Gene Booth upgrade, this is where you go to store or sell them. While you have the same potential after getting cloned, you lose any active mutations after getting cloned, so people coming out of the cloner usually have this empty, unless the cloner had Advanced Genetic Analysis enabled.
Body
This lets you change the occupant into a variety of lovely forms depending on what mutations you've researched, such as a lizardman or a giant cockroach. By default, Human and Primal Genetics (monkey) are available.
Appearance
This one opens up a menu just like the one in the Character Selection screen, where you can change the hair style (s), hair color, skin tone, eye color, and various other cosmetic things about the occupant. If you want to give people obnoxious Sailor Moon hair or colorful Rainbow Afros, this is the place (and the only place at that, as this is pretty much the only way to get those unique hair styles). Only appears if whoever's in the scanner is a race that can accept these appearance options, namely humans.
Supplementary Video
Department Guides | |
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