Guide to genetics

Ruth McVork says: "Welcome to genetics, brother! Are you feeling good? You SHOULD feel good! You are now like unto a tiny god! Are you prepared to be what you were born to be? Are you ready to save the station (or totally fuck it up)? Chin up, buddy. It's not that hard. But before you start grabbing those monkeys from the pen, you should know the basics."

The Department

Welcome to Genetics. Just across from the Morgue lies a mystical realm where some of Nanotrasen's most twisted greatest minds entertain themselves by tying the Human genome into knots.

The first thing you're going to see is that our department has two rooms. The first, the one you walk into as you enter from Medbay, is the Cloning room. It has only one Cloning Console, one DNA Scanner, and one Cloning Pod. More on this later.

The second room is the one where you're going to spend the most of your time. This is where things get done, where people go to become hulking supermutants, where you are going to do your job. This room has two DNA Scanners and two DNA Scanner Access Consoles, along with two diskette boxes and a few lockers. The bio-hazard locker has pretty much what you expect it to have - a bio suit and bio hood. Useful if a disease breaks out. The diskettes are also extremely useful, as we will see later.

The third room has your test subjects! These monkeys are going to be your guinea pigs, you are going to experiment on them, and make them suffer quite a bit. It's pretty inhumane. But such is life, and after a few seconds, it will all be worth it. They actually have it pretty easy, it's better than getting gibbed and eaten.

This is going to be your home, buddy.

Cloning

When you first hear about "cloning", you may think that people are referring to making many clones of yourself so you can take over the station. This is not the case (although that can be done too, just not exactly that way). Cloning is a process of reviving someone who has died when all other methods have failed or cannot be produced in a timely manner. For a cloning process we need a dead body and cloning equipment, which can be found in your Cloning Room.

1. First of all, you have to know that for all things cloning, the Chief Medical Officer has a final say. He is your boss on this side of Genetics. If he tells you to clone someone and not some other guy, you do it. The only person with higher say than him on these matters is the Captain.
2. On to the specifics! How does cloning work, you ask? Well, it's quite simple! Just grab or pull a body and stuff that puppy up in the DNA Scanner and close the door. If you want to remove someone from a Scanner, click on it to open the door. Unless the Scanner is locked, the person/monkey inside is going to pop right out.
3. After the Scanner is already occupied, interact with the Cloning Console. You will see a few things. Now, the most important is the first. Click Scan to see if the person inside is actually not an empty husk! If they can be cloned scanning will succeed regardless of whether they're in their body or not. There are still a few possible errors - see the section on cloning errors for details.
4. If scanning is successful, however, you will get a Successful Scan -message. That means you now have that person's cloning data saved. You can use this record to steal their genetic data at any time, but cloning is more limited - if their last death happened after they got scanned, any attempts to clone using the record will fail.
5. After you actually have DNA data from a person, click Check Records, and then select the person who you want cloned. You will see a list of their UI+UE (Unique Identifiers + Unique Enzymes) and their SEs (Structural Enzymes), which are quite irrelevant. Click Clone. You will notice that the Cloning Pod is now fully active, with a shadow inside. That is the new body. You can now take the old corpse out of the DNA Scanner, strip it completely so the cloned person can have their stuff back, and place the old corpse in the morgue. You don't have to worry about it anymore.
6. The cloning process takes from 2 to 3 minutes. For whoever is getting cloned, it seems like a very long time. But it's not long for you. While the guy is getting his new body set up, take his belongings and stuff them all in the locker right by the cloning pod, so their stuff isn't scattered all over. Plus, cloning the captain and leaving his ID and other secure items on the floor sure is bad.
   • Aborted cloning: Use this as traitor to screw with that assistant who talked smack to you earlier. During the cloning process, it is possible to eject the incomplete clone by unlocking the Cloning Pod with your ID and ejecting the unfinished clone (needs to be >40% done) or by getting an Engineer to unlock the Genetics APC so you can shut off the power temporarily, which also causes the clone to (instantly, no matter how done) eject. This will usually clone people without limbs or vital organs, making them die quickly.
7. The cloned people often have cellular damage. If so, take them to cryo to fix it.
8. After the pod is empty, feel free to clone your next patient, and to let the old one out, since they most likely don't have clearance to open the door.
9. If R&D has been doing their job, they might upgrade the cloner to a level where it can autoprocess. If this is the case, you only have to press the Autoprocess button on top of the window, and the cloner will scan automatically. This is useful to process a large pile of bodies quickly - scan them one at a time, and autoprocess will do the rest.

Hark! A Husk!

So you've come across a husk (a gray, dead guy) on your floor, which means you can't clone that poor sod without upgrades. Before you go throwing that body in the morgue, they can still be helped!

1. First off, make sure it's a husk. Throw the body into a DNA Scanner, if it says Subject no longer contains the fundamental materials required to create a living clone, then you have yourself a husk (if your DNA Scanner had been updated to the max by the Scientists, you could clone the husk right now. So if you know they've been doing their R&D, ask them).
2. Take the body down to Surgery.
3. Pester the CMO or a Medical Doctor to extract the brain, or do it yourself.
4. Put the brain in the DNA scanner like you would a body.

If all goes well then your cadaver will be reborn!

Helping the Headless

Sometimes you'll find corpses whose head is separated from their body. Thanks to the marvels of modern science, this is not a problem!

1. If you have a head or a brain, just chuck it in the cloner as normal! To clone a head or brain you must throw it into the cloner by activating throw with R and then clicking. Then click the cloner to close it.
2. If you don't have the head, but you have the body, not all hope is lost: take a blood sample and give it to the botanist to make a replica pod, and the deceased guy will be reborn as a podperson!
3. If you have neither, he's dead for good.

Cloning Plasmamen

If the patient is a plasmaman, cloning them will be complicated by the fact that the naked patient will burn in the station's atmosphere. This can be dealt with by using showers to keep the patient from catching fire, then dressing them in a plasma envirosuit.

1. Put plasmaman into cloning scanner
2. Scan them, start the cloning process
3. Drag their dead body to cloning pod
4. Undress them and leave their clothes in a pile
5. Turn on shower near cloning pod
6. Once they pop out of cloner, put them under shower and wait for them to dress up

If the patient is a naked or beheaded plasmaman, follow these additional steps:

1. Once they pop out of cloner, put them under shower and feed them a few Salbutamol pills (if available), or if desperate, keep a syringe of Perfluorodecalin ready in case you need it. Plasmamen suffocate if they don't have plasma to breathe!
2. Yell at cargo to order plasmaman supplies. In the meantime, bug Engineering/Atmos for a filled plasma tank.

Empty Cloning

Cloners have the option to "Empty Clone" a record, creating a mindless replica of a person. To complement this function, cloners can do Body-Only scans, which can be used to create empty clones but not real clones, and bypass the sentience restrictions that ordinary scans have. These body-only entries can be deleted without requiring access.

Why can't I clone this dude?

Error message	Cause	Solution
Unable to locate valid genetic data.	Whatever you put inside the scanner doesn't have valid (humanoid) DNA.	Stop putting bees in the scanner.
Subject's brain is not responding to scanning stimuli.	The person inside has suicided or signed an infernal contract. Cloning is impossible.	Let the Cook take care of them or put the body in the morgue.
Subject no longer contains the fundamental materials required to create a living clone.	You're trying to scan a body that's been husked or smashed by megafauna, but your scanner doesn't have a (tri-)phasic scanning module.	Remove the brain and scan it. Yell at RnD to upgrade your scanner.
Mental interface failure.	The corpse has no ghost associated with it.	Try again in a few seconds - ghosts get notified when someone attempts to scan their body. No success? Let the Cook handle it.
Subject already in database.	That person has already been scanned.	Start the cloning process. Want to update the current clone scan? The CMO can delete scan files.
Initialisation failure.	The patient is still alive.	Try again when the patient is dead.
Unable to initiate cloning cycle.	Cloning has been disabled in the server config.	Yell at admins and hand the corpse over to the Chef.
Corpse has no head.	Some asshole decapitated your guy - clone scanning is impossible without a brain.	Draw a blood sample and ask Botany to clone them with the Replica Pod plant. Can't draw blood either? Your patient is out of luck.

Keep in mind that patching up a corpse with Synthflesh and then reviving it with Strange Reagent bypasses a lot of these issues.

DNA Modification

Your boss here is no longer the Chief Medical Officer. Do not feel forced to listen to his orders, except when it comes to cloning. Regarding the research, listen to direct orders from the Research Director as well as the Captain. For security reasons allow NO ONE ELSE in the Modification room. Simple as that.

Your Friend, The DNA Scanner

The DNA Scanner and its attached console are the single most important part of your job as a Geneticist. Your primary focus as geneticist is finding helpful, powerful genes, and distributing them throughout the station to whoever might need them. To do that, you're going to need your best friend - the DNA Scanner.

The DNA scanner is comprised of two parts: the Scanner itself, which looks like a blue tube with a glowing green screen next to it, and the Console, which controls the DNA scanner and allows you to modify and store genetic sequences. Interacting with the console will open the scanner interface.

The DNA Scanner module, showing the status of the currently inserted test subject.

At the top, you'll see the DNA Scanner information module. This section details important information about the person or creature currently inserted into the DNA Scanner, including their name, how healthy they are, if they're Conscious, Unconscious or Dead, and how irradiated they are. It also allows you to Lock/Unlock the DNA Scanner, and remotely open and close its doors. Finally, this is also where the Scramble DNA function can be found, an extremely important tool that randomises the test subjects DNA, deactivating all their current genomes and giving them a selection of random new ones.

Underneath the information module, is the DNA Console module itself. This allows you to select between the consoles three major functions - Storage, Sequencer, and Enzymes.

The DNA Scanner storage menu.

DNA Storage

The Storage function is where gene sequences you've discovered can be stored, and activators and mutators for those genes can be printed. The DNA Scanner has a finite amount of gene storage, but luckily, empty data disks can be inserted into the machine, with each one being about to hold the data of 6 extra genes. Only one disk can be inserted into the machine at a time though, so make sure not to lose or misplace your disks when you're not using them. Store them in a safe place!

This is also the area in which genes can be combined into unique mutations - to do so, select the gene you'd like to combine, and then select the other gene you want to combine it with from the Combine mutations drop down menu. If you've selected a value pair of genes, a new mutation will be formed, and added to storage. Make sure you have storage space for your new gene, or else it will not be saved to the console or disk. The Mutate button in the Storage menu will mutate the inserted test subject with your selected gene. This isn't the best way to distribute genes, however, and generally speaking you'll want to print an activator or a mutator for your desired gene instead. Activators will activate the gene in someone who has a dormant version of the gene, and a Mutator will give the gene to someone even if they don't have that gene in their sequences at the cost of increasing their genetic instability. When someone comes to you asking for a gene, just check your storage, print them off an activator or mutator, and inject it into them. Et voilà, they now have that mutation!

The DNA Sequencer screen, showing eight fully discovered genome sequences.

DNA Sequencer

The DNA Sequencer is where the bulk of your work as a geneticist will be done - so pay careful attention to this section!

The first thing you will see are eight different blocks, each displaying a DNA strand. Selecting one of these blocks will display the genes mutation information to the right - its Name, Description, and how much Instability the mutation causes. If the mutation is undiscovered, it will instead show its name as Mutation [#], and the rest of the information as Unknown.

In order to discover an unknown mutation, you'll need to complete its genome sequence in the Genome Sequencer at the bottom of the screen. You will see 4 different sections, each comprised of 4 pairs of genes. A gene pair is either A -T/T - A or C - G/G - C, or, if the mutation is undiscovered, [X] will be displayed instead. To discover the genome and its effects, you need to complete the genomes by turning every [X] into a matching pair. If a missing pair is A - [X], then you know that [X] must be made into a T. Left clicking on a gene block will cycle it through A>T>C>G>A etc. Right clicking will cycle it in reverse order. In some cases, you may find that both parts of a pair are [X]. In this case, you have several options:

• If two or fewer pairs are [X]-[X], you can just guess them. If one pair is [X]-[X], just cycle through A-T>T-A>C-G>G-C. If two pairs are [X]-[X], set one to A-T, and then cycle the other one through A-T>T-A>C-G>G-C. If theres no match, change the A-T to T-A and cycle again, continuing until you find the correct missing pairs.
• If three or more pairs are [X]-[X], your best bet is to grab your handheld DNA Analyzer and looking for people that have the mutation you're looking for. If for example you're looking for Mutation 23, you just need to scan people and monkeys until the analyzer finds someone with Mutation 23, and then use the analyzer with the use hotkey and select Mutation 23 from the selection box that pops up. It will then print that sequence for you in the chat box, something like "CGTAXXTX-ATATXXXT-CGCGGCTA-XXTAXCXX". You then just need to compare that sequence with the one on your console, and use it to fill in the missing gaps.
• If you're unbelievably stuck, and for some reason can't find someone with missing mutation you need, you can use the purple Joker button to instantly reveal half of a missing gene pair. Be warned, however, that this has an incredibly long cooldown, and is shared between machines, so should only be used as a last resort. Don't rely on this to solve all your genes for you!
• If you're stuck AND there is no Joker available for some time, just hid the Scramble Genes button. It'll give you a fresh set of genes to work with and you'll like find an easier to solve version of the same mutation further down the line.

A discovered gene can be activated in a test subject using the Activate button, and activators and mutators for active genes can be printed here as well. You can also save a gene mutation to the console or disk from this menu - which you absolutely should do if the mutation is a positive one. See below for a complete list of all mutations. If you fail to save genes people need, you may not be able to find them again later, so make absolutely sure that you're saving useful genes to the console or a disk as you find them.

Once you've discovered all 8 sequences a test subject has, hit the Scramble Genes button at the top of the interface to be given a fresh set of genes to solve. Continue solving genes and saving good ones to the console, until there are no more genes to solve that shift.

Congratulations! You've done a genetics.

Unique Identifiers - Enzymes

Unique Identifiers (henceforth referred to as UI) can be found under the Enzymes tab in the console. This is a rarely used part of genetics, and for most shifts, its not something you will need to think about unless you're doing some complicated work with cloning. On this tab, you'll see three sections.

Unique Identifiers are mislabeled as Unique Enzymes on the UI

The most important of these is the Unique Enzymes section. This section is comprised of 7 sets of 3 descending letter blocks. So in the example image to the right, the values of those sets would be:

[dec] [1ee] [301] [1a3] [f00] [45b] [97d]

These blocks are responsible for different features of a persons body. From left to right:

1. Hair Colour RGB value
2. Beard Colour RGB value
3. Skin Tone
4. Eye Colour RGB value
5. Gender
6. Beard Style
7. Hair Style

You modify UIs by pulsing each value (clicking the letter you want to modify), however unlike gene sequences where you can select specific values as you please, this process is semi-random.

• Output level will be how much you want the value to change.
• Pulse duration will determine your accuracy - low accuracy might cause modifications to be applied to random blocks and letters instead of the ones you clicked. It’ll also block the console from being used for its duration. Upgrading the manipulator of the scanner reduces the time needed to get better accuracy.
• When the identifier is pulsed, first probability is the chance of it being increased/decreased by the output level you set. Second is double the output level. (Or at least it should be, when in doubt pray to RNGesus - in general you should do it a lot when modifying UIs)

Note that UI modification is not equally supported for all races.

Gene Instability - AKA Oh God My Skin Is Melting

So, its happened - a Security Officer has arrived and threatened to, "paint the walls with your brains" unless you give him, "every single gene you've got" and now he's screaming as his body twists and contorts as it mutates uncontrollably. That right there is the result of surpassing his bodies instability threshold. You may have noticed that each mutation has its own instability rating - this is how unstable it makes your body, and if the instability rating of all your mutations adds up to 100 or more, your body will begin to mutate beyond your control. To avoid this, its pretty simple: don't let your instability reach over 99. As long as its 99 or less, you're in the clear. Using an activator instead of a mutator is an easy way to avoid an instability penalty, but this will only work if the scanner or analyzer shows your patient as already having the mutation they want. If they don't, you can try scrambling their DNA until the mutation they want pops up in their DNA, or bite the bullet and just be careful with how many mutations you give a person. Most of of the popular genes are safe to combine as long as you limit them to 2-3 per person. Space Adapt + Insulation + Dwarfism + Telekinesis, for example, adds up to 90 instability, making it a completely safe combination of genes. Even a highly unstable gene like Hulk for example, can be safely combined with at least one other mutation, so its just a case of doing some (sic)quick maffs in your head and making sure people stay within the limit.

This does, however, lead us to the next must-know information:

Mutadone = Mutagone

If someone has overdosed on mutation injectors and is going on a rampage, or simply isn't as happy with their new superpowers as they thought they'd be, you can flush all those mutations out of their system instantly using Mutadone. You should find a bottle of these pills in your office, and if not, you can always ask the Chemist to make you some. Mutadone has the added benefit of staying in their system for some time, preventing a person from just grabbing another injector and immediately hulking out again. If you want to flush Mutadone out of someones system, you can use Charcoal, which will allow them to mutate themselves again.

If there's no mutadone and you're desperate, shove them into the scanner, and hit scramble. This will instantly remove all their mutations at the cost of inflicting substantial radiation damage to them.

A side note: if someone comes in complaining of blindness, or Tourette's, or any other negative mutation, and mutadone doesn't work it's likely that they have a brain trauma or virus instead. Flying kick them into the nearest stasis bed and get a real doctor to make them feel all better.

Rads-B-Gone

Radiation can be a real danger when working with the DNA Scanner. For most test subjects, like your monkeys and monkey humans, you won't really need to care about this at all. If a test subject gets so irradiated, they die, it's a little irresponsible, but hardly anyone is going to write you up over it. Slap the corpse in a body bag and hoist them off to the morgue.

However, if you're going to be scrambling the genes of a crewmate, or have another geneticist scramble your own genes for you, that's a completely different story. In those cases, you'll want to keep Potassium Iodide to hand to quickly flush rads out of your system. Pentetic Acid is also a great option as it not only clears radiation, but also undoes the toxin damage it can cause. Upgrading the DNA Scanner will also drastically reduce the radiation the machine inflicts onto your test subjects, so nag science ASAP for those upgrades if you're going to be using a lot of crewmates as test fodder.

Not Godly Enough - Feed Me More Chromosomes

If, after giving yourself a safe amount of mutations and making yourself a living god, you are still unsatisfied, there is one more trick in your arsenal: Chromosomes.

You can gain chromosomes by using Activators on people who have certain genes, and then recycling the activator by putting it back into the DNA Scanner or activating their genes from within the scanner. Chromosomes come in five different flavours, each with a different effect;

• Synchronizer: Gives the mind more control over the mutation, reducing some downsides by 50%.
• Stabilizer: The rarest chromosome. Reduces instability gained from the mutation by 20%.
• Power: Boosts strength of certain mutations. Experiment with super sneeze or even deadlier fireballs!
• Energetic: Reduces cooldown on action-based mutations.
• Reinforcement: Makes the mutation immune to mutadone.

Each mutation in the sequencer has room for one chromosome, allowing you to selectively buff specific mutations. Once you have made a buffed version of a mutation, you can store that buffed version in the console, and from then on, every mutator you print of that mutation will have that chromosome. This can be really handy for buffing an entire group of people or reducing the instability of more popular mutations. Use chromosomes effectively, and you'll be a step above every other geneticist!

A reminder, however, that a chromosome cannot be used on a mutation it would have no effect on - you can't use a Stabilizer chromosome on a mutation that has no instability cost, for example.

I'm Not A Catgirl, I Swear - Getting Species-Specific Genes

There will be several times as geneticist that a moth, lizard, or any other non-human, will come crashing through your office window asking for BIG WINGS or FIRE BREATH or some other insane nonsense. This is because their species have special, unique genes, that are only discoverable by experimenting on their species.

The risky way of finding these genes is to slap them into a scanner and treat them like any other test subject. This is pretty dangerous, however, and can take a very long time. The safest and most efficient way to do this, is to use your cloning bay access and make a Body-Only clone of the non-human species you want to find a gene for. That way, your crewmate can get on with their job, and you can get on with yours without worrying about accidentally turning them into a radioactive monster. Patience is the key in either case, as you might find the species-specific gene first try, or you might need to scramble them many, many times before it appears.

Make sure to ask science to upgrade your cloners first so you're not guzzling all the synthflesh, and also make sure that you're not handing out potentially dangerous mutations willy-nilly. As with many things in genetics, failure to use common sense is a quick and easy way of finding out what it feels like to have five security officers beating your ass at once.

A full list of all species-specific genes can be found in the table below.

The A-G of Genes

Below is a list of all possible genes a person can have - know that not all genes are created equal, and their effects can either be Positive, meaning they are entirely beneficial, Minor Negative, meaning they are at worst an annoyance, or Negative, meaning they can cause great harm, or even be fatal! A reminder that injecting someone with negative mutations against their will as a non-antagonist is a very, very easy way to get banned.

Mutation Name	Quality	Description	Obtained Via	Instability	Notes
Positive Genes
Telekinesis	Positive	A strange mutation that allows the holder to interact with objects through thought.	Genetic	30	Allows the user to manipulate objects and consoles at a distance. Helpful for scrambling your own genes, and is fairly popular.
Space Adaptation	Positive	A strange mutation that renders the host immune to the vacuum of space. Will still need an oxygen supply.	Genetic	30	This is one of the most popular genes, and you will often have multiple people come and ask you for this - make absolutely certain that you have this saved to both a disk and the console!
Autotomy	Positive	Allows a creature to voluntarily discard a random appendage.	Genetic	30	Not as useful as it sounds on its own, but can be combined with the Ligament Hook surgery to reattach limbs. Instant handcuff escapes... as long as you don't eject a leg instead.
Insulated	Positive	The affected person does not conduct electricity.	Genetic	25	A great gene for engineering and janitors, and can be combined with Radiation to make Shock Touch.
Chameleon	Positive	A mutation that adapts the user's skin pigmentation to their environment. The adaptation has been observed to be most effective while the user is standing still.	Genetic	25	As long as the affected person does not move or interact, they slowly fade out of vision. Useful for ambushes or hiding, but has an important downside; this gene will continue to work after you die!
Transcendent Olfaction	Positive	Your sense of smell is comparable to that of a canine.	Genetic	30	Lets you track people via their scent. Sniff something you're holding in your hand, and then use it again while not holding anything to track their scent.
Cryokinesis	Positive	Draws negative energy from the sub-zero void to freeze surrounding temperatures at subject's will.	Genetic	20	Prepares a bolt that reduces the temperature of whatever it hits. Useful for slowdowns, or against specific targets!
Telepathy	Positive	A rare mutation that allows the user to telepathically communicate to others.	Genetic	10	Let's you speak directly into a person's mind - nobody else can hear what you say this way, and if combined with Chameleon can be used for fun hijinks.
Geladikinesis	Positive	Allows the user to concentrate moisture and sub-zero forces into snow.	Genetic	10	Lets you make snow with your mind, which you can then craft into floor tiles, snowmen, snow walls and snowballs. Fun for redecorating!
Dwarfism	Positive	A mutation believed to be the cause of dwarfism.	Genetic	5	Makes you visually look much smaller than other crewmates. Allows you to walk over tables without needing to climb them first.
Glowy	Positive	You permanently emit a light with a random color and intensity.	Genetic	5	This is not a terribly useful gene, but can be very helpful if there's a nightmare loose on the station.
Antenna	Positive	The affected person sprouts an antenna. This is known to allow them to access common radio channels passively.	Genetic	5	Allows you to passively access radio channels without a headset. If you want to cause chaos, give it to humanised monkeys with Tourette's and Swedish.
Strength	Neutral	The user's muscles slightly expand.	Genetic		Has no practical effect - this is basically only needed as one of the genes needed to mutate Hulk.
Minor Negative Genes
Nearsightedness	Minor Negative	Makes the subject's screen go hazy at about halfway from the edge of your whole vision. It's not THAT bad, and can be temporarily fixed by using prescription glasses.	Genetic		Can be "fixed" by wearing prescription glasses. May not always be genetic.
Coughing	Minor Negative	A chronic cough.	Genetic		Coughing causes you to drop small objects you're holding. It can also be used to fake the symptoms of a disease.
Nervousness	Minor Negative	Causes the holder to stutter.	Genetic
Wacky	Minor Negative	Unknown.	Genetic		Makes you talk in Comic Sans. Funny to give to Security as an antag gimmick.
Gigantism	Minor Negative	The cells within the subject spread out to cover more area, making them appear larger.	Genetic		Not a positive gene like its cousin Dwarfism, but can be fun to give to lizards along with Fire Breath. Some people may ask for it, so it's worth saving.
Clumsiness	Minor Negative	A genome that inhibits certain brain functions, causing the holder to appear clumsy.	Genetic/Clowns		Makes it impossible to use certain objects, and causes you to drop things constantly. Guns and weapons may explode in your face when fired. Clowns start with this gene.
Void Magnet	Minor Negative	A rare genome that attracts odd forces not usually observed.	Genetic	30	Allows you to make yourself temporarily invincible, but prevents you from moving. This will also happen to you at random, whether you want it to or not.
Spatial Instability	Minor Negative	The victim of the mutation has a very weak link to spatial reality, and may be displaced. Often causes extreme nausea.	Genetic	10	This is similar to Void Magnet in that you will be warped back and forth at random. Can be combined with Clumsiness to make the dreaded Cluwne gene.
Swedish	Minor Negative	A horrible mutation originating from the distant past. Thought to be eradicated after the incident in 2037.	Genetic
Chav	Minor Negative	Unknown.	Genetic
Smile	Minor Negative	Causes the user to be in constant mania.	Genetic		This also applies a "positivity" chat filter to a person, changing certain words into "nicer" versions.
Paranoia	Minor Negative	Subject is easily terrified, and may suffer from hallucinations.	Genetic
Two Left Feet	Minor Negative	A mutation that replaces the right foot with another left foot. It makes standing up after getting knocked down very difficult.	Genetic		A hugely problematic gene that makes it extremely difficult to get up after being knocked down. Combine with other negative genes to make someone's life hell.
Negative Genes
Monkified	Negative	A strange genome, believed to be what differentiates monkeys from humans.	Genetic/Humans		This gene is incredibly dangerous in the hands of those with bad intentions. Instantly turn anyone into a monkey and have them drop all their things. There's very little you can do if someone injects you with a mutator of this stuff, so be careful.
Deafness	Negative	The holder of this genome is completely deaf.	Genetic		Anything means anything, including yourself.
Tourette's Syndrome	Negative	A chronic twitch that forces the user to scream bad words.	Genetic
Epilepsy	Negative	A genetic defect that sporadically causes seizures.	Genetic
Blindness	Negative	Subject goes completely blind, becoming a part of a usually forgotten minority. How sad.	Genetic
Unintelligible	Negative	Partially inhibits the vocal center of the brain, severely distorting speech.	Genetic		Makes it difficult to speak beyond very short sentences.
Spastic	Negative	Subject suffers from muscle spasms.	Genetic		The spasms occasionally force you to use whatever item you are holding.
Mute	Negative	Completely inhibits the vocal section of the brain.	Genetic
Fiery Sweat	Negative	The user's skin will randomly combust, but is generally a lot more resilient to burning.	Genetic		This will eventually kill the person with the gene. If your test subjects get it, deactivate it so they don't burn to death!
Acid Flesh	Negative	Subject has acidic chemicals building up underneath their skin. This is often lethal.	Genetic		This will eventually kill the person with the gene. If your test subjects get it, deactivate it so they don't melt to death!
Radioactive	Negative	Subject radiates energy from their skin. They're just as susceptible to it as anyone else.	Genetic	5	Much like Acid Flesh and Fire Sweat, this will kill your test subjects. This is however an incredibly useful gene, as it allows you to mutate both Hulk and Shock Touch.
Species-Specific Genes
Fire Breath	Positive	An ancient mutation that gives lizards breath of fire.	Lizard species	30	A very powerful, Lizard-exclusive offensive mutation. Give them a strange potion and Gigantism to make your very own dragons!
Acidic Hands	Positive	Allows an Oozeling to metabolize some of their blood into acid, concentrated on their hands.	Oozeling species	30	Lets Oozelings dissolve objects by touching them with the power active - this uses up your blood, though, so try not to kill yourself.
Cat Claws	Positive	Subject's hands grow sharpened claws.	Felinid species	25	Turns Felinids into discount wolverines, giving them slash attacks when attacking with their bare hands.
Strengthened Wings	Positive	Subject's wing muscle volume rapidly increases.	Moth species (can be applied to Apids)	30	While this gene only manifests in Moths, it can also be applied to Apids. On Moths, it provides full flight, even in gravity. On Apids, however, it instead improves their dash range!
Overload	Positive	Allows an Ethereal to overload their skin to cause a bright flash.	Ethereal species	30	Gives Ethereals the ability to blind people at will, cooldown permitting. Also, generally undetectable, which makes for a fun surprise!
Agaricale Spores	Positive	An ancient mutation that gives Psyphoza the ability to produce spores.	Psyphoza species (can be applied to anyone)	30	Contrary to the description, while this mutation can only be obtained from Psyphoza, it can be applied to anyone. It grants the ability to produce obfuscating clouds of their own blood (if they have any). This can kill you if overused!
Combined Mutation Genes
Hulk	Positive	A poorly understood genome that causes the holder's muscles to expand, inhibit speech and gives the person a bad skin condition.	Radioactive + Strength	40	Despite being human-exclusive, this is one of the best and most coveted genes you have access to as a geneticist. Do NOT hand this out willy-nilly unless you want Sec to stun baton you into a coma. Makes you strong enough to punch through walls, immune to stuns and very, very loud.
Anti-Glow	Positive	Subject absorbs nearby light, creating darkness around them.	Glowy + Void Magnet	5	Makes light around you vanish. Doesn't work if you're Ethereal, as funny as that would be.
Shock Touch	Positive	Channel electricity to your hand to shock people with.	Insulated + Radioactive	30	Lets you ZAP fools with a beam of lightning. Be warned - you are not immune to your own zip-zapping. Grab insulation as well unless you want to be constantly zapping yourself.
Cluwne	Negative	Turns a person into a Cluwne, a poor soul cursed to a short and miserable life by the honkmother.	Clumsiness + Spatial Instability		This is a REALLY nasty one. Turns the victim into a sickly green clown, doomed to constant seizures, an inability to talk, and generally just being an affront to the gods.
Unavailable Genes
Unstable DNA	Negative	Makes the subject randomly mutate. Very dangerous. Definitely be careful with this one.	Admin Spawn Only		No longer in Genetics, but can be acquired via admin spawned injector
Elvis	Minor Negative	Forces the language center and primary motor cortex of the subject's brain to talk and act like the King of Rock and Roll.	Admin Spawn Only		No longer in Genetics, but can be acquired via admin spawned injector
X-Ray Vision	Positive	A strange genome that allows the user to see between the spaces of walls.	Admin Spawn Only	35	No longer in Genetics, but can be acquired via admin spawned injector
Laser Eyes	Positive	Reflects concentrated light back from the eyes.	Admin Spawn Only		No longer in Genetics, but can be acquired via admin spawned injector
Thermal Vision	Positive	The user of this genome can visually percieve the unique human thermal signature.	Admin Spawn Only	25	Works through walls.

The Gene Genie - The Traitorous Geneticist

Sorry for the bad chapter title. I wanted to use that for a very long time.

So, you learned how to do your job successfully, and how to be a credit to the station. You learned how to manipulate genes. Now you want to learn what the hell to do when the syndicate is the one writing your checks! Well, fret not! I will give you some pointers. But these are mostly tips - traitorous objectives differ wildly and change your actions way too much for me to write a real guide on it.

Head Revolutionary

Simple. Flash colleagues, and if you're an Ethereal this gets even easier as you can become a living flash with unlimited uses. If the RD or the CMO come check on you, say you have a good set of powers, but the replicator is offline. Ask for him / her to strip and get in the Scanner. Lock him/her in, have your way with them, they can't leave, nor can they talk. Let them enjoy their slow, painful death. If someone wants to clone the captain, that too is pretty simple. Just don't do it. As soon as the guy leaves, stuff the captain in a locker, take his stuff and call it a day. You could also eat until you get fat, transform people into monkeys and eat them. Fun for all.

Another fun strategy is, if you managed to kill a head of staff, to copy their identity with a DNA scanner and apply it to yourself; impersonating a head of staff during a revolution is easy since they are usually exempt from implanting.

Traitor

Depends on your objective. If it's a hard one, like stealing the AI... well, you're fucked. Keep working on those powers! As soon as you have Hulk + TK, go for it as you wish. No tips here.

If your objective is a simple one, though, like stealing the hand tele, there are more approaches to this. As the above tip, you can just break the walls with TK Hulk, but that is rather crass. There's a more roundabout, but classier way to tackle this. Take a monkey from the pen, transform it into a human. Take its UI+UEs, make an injector, stuff it in your pocket with a label like "Clean Backup - Alexa White".

Now get your own UI+UEs and name it "Clean Backup - Original" or something. Avoid using your name. Now, go hide somewhere close to the item's location, stick yourself with the monkey injector, spawn emag, stick ID and PDA in your backpack. For added stealth, get a different outfit. Emag your way to the captain's room, get his jumpsuit, RUN RUN RUN. The AI might see you, so it would also be good if you spawned an agent card so you can't be tracked. If anyone sees you, they're not going to see your actual name, only the humanized monkey's name. Hide, stick yourself with your own stuff, change clothes, walk away smoothly.

If you have to kill someone, same stuff from rev.

Also, never forget identity theft. Since you can take someone's complete identity, including looks, you can have some fun with that.

Wizard

As a wizard genetics isn't of much use to you as it takes a long time before you get anywhere, but you can still get disguises with UI+UE injectors and if you happen to arrive late into the round, you can steal the genetics' hard work and take mutations from the consoles for yourself

Changeling

FUCKING REJOICE, your work is cut out for you! Have fun eating the lifeless corpses you clone. Keep in mind that transformations and transformation stings copy UI+UE. Turn people into horribly disabled freaks or channel a lot of hulk-TK-cold resisting supermen.

A final general tip is that when you're using mutations to cause chaos, Mutadone is your mortal enemy. Destroy every bottle and pill of it you can find, and either remove the chemistry lab from the picture so they can't make more, or flood the medicine fridges with sugar pills labelled Mutadone to waste some precious time. You'll not only be powerless if they manage to force mutadone into you, it will also stop you from re-mutating for some time. Genetic Stability