Dev Blog #3 – Understanding Mutation
Cleb - November 10, 2016
Mutation is the driving force behind improving your units in CURE. A unit will have a chance to undergo mutation every time they reproduce. Mutations can be beneficial or detrimental or somewhere in between.
Mutations:
Mutations occur during a match while reproducing a unit. When a mutation occurs your unit will gain a new visual appearance and some changes to their stats.
Some special mutations will actually unlock new abilities or units. The stat changes will act like a buff to your unit. For example a unit could gain an additional 5 hp from a mutation. Mutations will pass on to the next generation. So if one of your units gains a very powerful mutation you will most likely want to selectively breed that unit to gain more units with that mutation. Mutations can also stack giving you the potential to create very powerful units during the match if you are patient and lucky.
Increasing Mutation Chance:
The chance a unit can be mutated is not static. There will be many world hazards that will increase a unit’s ability to mutate. For example radiation will increase a the mutation chance of a unit exposed to it, however will damage the unit itself. This extends beyond radiation any stresses that unit goes through can help it to create a mutation. Units can also gain mutations that will increase their ability to mutate.
Stealing or Sharing Mutations:
Your bacteria units also have a chance to “give” each other their mutations this is called horizontal gene transfer. It will occur on rare occasions when your bacterial units are in close proximity. You can also gain the mutations from an enemy bacteria through a similar fashion. The only difference will be that you will gain a chance to gain their mutation when you digest the unit.
Mutations and Genetic Engineering:
Mutations will be converted into genes which you will get to use to permanently genetically engineer your unit. More accurately your mutation buff is a representation of the genes you have gained. In the final game you will only receive these genes if you win the match they were created in. We will go into more detail about genetic engineering in future blog posts.
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