Traitor Geneticist items - Mutator Pen / Radiation Grenades

[SL the Pyro]

I got a lot of positive feedback in the Official Traitor Items Discussion Thread as well as in-game about these ideas for unique Geneticist traitor items, so I thought I'd make an official idea thread for them in the hopes that they might get approved.

Mutator PenSpoiler!

Item Name: Mutator Pen

Appearance: Looks like a regular Pen item, and is also named like a regular Pen.

Functionality:
-Works similar to the Sleepy Pen in that it's an inconspicuous no-indication-of-use item, except instead of holding Reagents, the Mutator Pen holds Mutations - up to three, and has infinite uses.
-The mutations from the pen take a few seconds to activate (so you have time to get away and not be ratted out!), but when they do, they go off all at once.
-It spawns in with three random bad Mutations already pre-loaded.
-Can be flushed with a right-click menu option (either individually or all at once)
-Can have other Mutations loaded into it with regular DNA Injectors.
-Examining the Mutator Pen will give a very blatant message of what it really is upon closer inspection, as well as display what Mutations are currently loaded.

Cost: 4 Telecrystals

Examples of Use:
-Comes as a pretty mean debilitator fresh out of the traitor's PDA, and 4 TC means you can double up on negative mutations if the RNG is kind.
-Load up on beneficial Mutations in secret. Inject yourself and let loose at an opportune moment.
-Inject Mindslaves with positive mutations and have them wreak havoc. 4 TC means you have enough left for two Mindslave Implants, and the portability of both the implants and the Mutator Pen lets you create murderboning super soldiers on the fly.

Radiation GrenadesSpoiler!

Item Name: Radiation Grenades (5-pack, comes boxed with a Radiation Suit and Radiation Hood)

Appearance: Similar to a regular grenade, but with the casing coloured a sickly green.

Functionality:
-Countdown system and area of effect are like that of a regular grenade.
-When the grenade blows, the affected area is covered in an eerie green glow (like if Radium was splashed on it) for a good, long while.
-Anyone caught in the initial explosion has their RAD ramped way the fuck up and gains a random bad Mutation. People walking into the irradiated area while it still exists takes gradually more RAD and has a chance of gaining a bad Mutation for every cycle they stick around - this stacks with the general Mutation chance caused by high RAD. The buildup from just sticking around is itself fairly high, so even making a quick run through it is ill-advised.
-Anyone wearing a suit that blocks radiation is completely immune to all of this.

Cost: 8 Telecrystals

Examples of Use:
-Decidedly unsubtle, but terrifyingly effective because of the massive RAD buildup alone. Trapping people in a room where this has gone off is very likely to badly mutate and/or kill them.
-It's a Grenade, so it works in trap assemblies.
-Wearing the supplied radsuit/hood means you can cook the Grenades or even detonate them in your hand without fear of self-harm.
-Perfect for blocking off areas you want to keep people out of, like your Genetics Lab when the crew realizes that you're a Traitor Geneticist.
-Not a Geneticist and got them out of a Surplus Crate? Get caught on purpose and pin the blame on the Geneticists.

[DyssalC]

What if the mutator pen, rather than starting with three random bad mutations, let you instead load up any three researched mutations?
You discover hulk, immediately load it onto the pen rather than wait for injectors, and then go around gib-suplexing.

[Amuys]

I'd thought it'd be cool if traitor geneticists could have something that upgrades mutant powers.

[mozi]

What if the mutator pen, rather than starting with three random bad mutations, let you instead load up any three researched mutations?
You discover hulk, immediately load it onto the pen rather than wait for injectors, and then go around gib-suplexing.

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

[KikiMofo]

Really good ideas. Genetics needs SOMETHING for a traitor item. Traitor genetics rounds are really really slow cause you need to do all the research and stuff to get the powers.

[pizzatiger]

What if the mutator pen, rather than starting with three random bad mutations, let you instead load up any three researched mutations?
You discover hulk, immediately load it onto the pen rather than wait for injectors, and then go around gib-suplexing.

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

The thing i don't get is....why spend money on the mutator pen if you still need to wait 50 hours to get the injector which you still need to load into the pen AND does the same thing except is slightly faster when injecting other people

[mozi]

What if the mutator pen, rather than starting with three random bad mutations, let you instead load up any three researched mutations?
You discover hulk, immediately load it onto the pen rather than wait for injectors, and then go around gib-suplexing.

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

The thing i don't get is....why spend money on the mutator pen if you still need to wait 50 hours to get the injector which you still need to load into the pen AND does the same thing except is slightly faster when injecting other people

Because this way the victim would have no indication of what caused the mutation.

[KikiMofo]

Because this way the victim would have no indication of what caused the mutation.

Except for the dude standing right next to him just like when people sleepypen drugs with text that shows.

[mozi]

Because this way the victim would have no indication of what caused the mutation.

Except for the dude standing right next to him just like when people sleepypen drugs with text that shows.

The mutations from the pen take a few seconds to activate (so you have time to get away and not be ratted out!), but when they do, they go off all at once.

[BadClown]

I would definitely like to see this, geneticist is such a delayed traitor role with the access they have, and this is a very nice way to speed up their go-time a bit.

[SL the Pyro]

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

... That's... not quite correct either. Which is my fault because I just now realized that I didn't clarify it in the specs.

The blurb for "infinite uses" on the Mutator Pen meant that it injected the mutations - but still kept them afterwards, so they could be used on multiple victims. Just emptying them out on monkeys or something wouldn't work, this is why I included right-click options to flush mutations. Alas, you can't spread chaos effectively with mutations if the pen only gets one shot per load!

The thing i don't get is....why spend money on the mutator pen if you still need to wait 50 hours to get the injector which you still need to load into the pen AND does the same thing except is slightly faster when injecting other people

I did consider doing it like this at first, but I decided that would've been way too overpowered, not to mention completely awful for stealth since everyone would know what was going on if multiple people had mutations two minutes into the round. Infinite injections of any three mutations (or six, if he buys two pens) can easily be either horrendously crippling or absurdly godlike if the user knows what to inject, so I'd like to keep the requirement for DNA Injectors as a bit of a restraining bolt so the traitor has to work for his supercripple/superhuman injector.


...Now, with these things said, there's something I'd like to ask: are the Telecrystal prices for both the Mutator Pen (4) and Radiation Grenades (8) acceptable? I'm wondering of the pen's is too low and if the grenade's is too high.

[SL the Pyro]

I did consider doing it like this at first, but I decided that would've been way too overpowered,

...And now I'm misreading things, because I thought pizzatiger was suggesting the same thing DyssalC did. Whoops.

also why the fuck can't we edit posts

[Crumplehat]

This could actually give geneticists a reason to research disabilities with fuckhuge locks on them like deafness and mute.

[mozi]

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

... That's... not quite correct either. Which is my fault because I just now realized that I didn't clarify it in the specs.

The blurb for "infinite uses" on the Mutator Pen meant that it injected the mutations - but still kept them afterwards, so they could be used on multiple victims. Just emptying them out on monkeys or something wouldn't work, this is why I included right-click options to flush mutations. Alas, you can't spread chaos effectively with mutations if the pen only gets one shot per load!

that sounds cool but then someone could easily blind the entire crew with no effort that way

[Noah Buttes]

it works that way as SL Pyro describes it. like the sleepy pen, if you want to customize it, just empty out the preloaded stuff on some worthless lab monkey/staff assistant then load up your own mix.

... That's... not quite correct either. Which is my fault because I just now realized that I didn't clarify it in the specs.

The blurb for "infinite uses" on the Mutator Pen meant that it injected the mutations - but still kept them afterwards, so they could be used on multiple victims. Just emptying them out on monkeys or something wouldn't work, this is why I included right-click options to flush mutations. Alas, you can't spread chaos effectively with mutations if the pen only gets one shot per load!

that sounds cool but then someone could easily blind the entire crew with no effort that way

And that's a problem WHY? It'll be pretty fucking obvious what's going on once everyone starts going blind!