Just increase your mutation stat bro it aint worth risking a birth deficit disorder
Yeah but then they will look ugly and i like my cats look like cats still
you either get a disorder than changes your gamestyle or get a disease named "lolippedoniggershitskinrape67fag disease" that turns your basic attack to "masturbation" and your cat starts one shotting your other cats before hanging itself in turn 2
"The hardest choices require the strongest wills"
i completed normal and am scared of harder shit/don't want to struggle to grind low shit without going full hog, so i'd like to share my experiences/info with mutation maxxing and fucking ""cats"" shit up for max performance
i start with a room inbred af, full into stim for breeding bonuses, and i want to maintain around 10 comfort with 30+ cats, that shit don't do nothing for me past that. certain disorders can be worked with and lifespans are random so fuck health them things don't need it anymore, but i have a health room underneath them just out of reach which i just realized is like a max sadism sim. i can also squeeze 20 mutation, which works well enough in the same room to roll mutations because i'm lazy and don't have perfect furniture or dupes of it. all cats in that fucker for similar reasons. super late game with optimal furniture would look different and involve 2 rooms minimum for offense and support cats mutation lines so clerics/druids don't become really weird buff/debuff bots, but i'll use a card of one for my experience to get specific mutations
beginning the process, you want to start with one mutation at a time, maybe 2, similar process to getting all 7 stats. very ideally you want to reach ice age so you can resummon guillotina 1 and max food, so you can do alley on easy, use those cats to beat guillotina, have max food, and therefore have a long, repeatable breed cycle. i thought mutation could rotate and replace all mutations over time so it was chaotic, but they only fill empty slots and replace defects, therefore controllable fairly easily. it helps when they're easily identifiable visually. so say like i start and want that wing thing that gives jump and bruise on hit on all them, well, that cat that has it becomes vip #1. he says he hates another cat, that motherfucker is gone. he's threatened, other shit is gone. eventually, he hopefully breeds and you get kittens with them. repeat with those until you have enough to feel safe, and keep doing so until you can dumpster cats without it and you will have around 10 or so with those wings to breed and regularly pass it.
but you don't just want that shit, you want that tentacle monster behind that gives +1 attack, so it gets more complicated but process is the same, one example is you find a cat that has the tentacles, vip it again, then hopefully it safely breeds kittens with them. eventually, you should start having kittens that have the wings AND the tentacles, prioritize those, and start dumpstering ones that just have wings or just have tentacles when you have enough to avoid catastrophic failure/loss. but nigga, why stop there? we want that bleeding bat ear and those sideways mr krabs eyes, same process, just extended. can repeat until finely tuned cats, but with tuned ones you want to keep a big pool, 30+, because particularly when inbred, baby defects can replace parts you want, therefore those have to go in the dumpster or to the gay, so instead of having 4 usable kittens a gen, it's usually by 2 or 3 gens where you safely have a team or two you want. especially because you reach the stage of
disorder/defect management. starting with defect management, basically, start top/oldest down because defects can inherit. basically dumpster almost everything that's not a plain - stat, besides any potentially positive. no confusion, immobilize etc. ideal is usually just 2 - stats for minimal potential headaches, if you can get dodge chance or brace, good. ideally you clean top down, and then it gets easier, and you just look at year ones and dumpster any with problematic shit, similar to disorders, unless you're hunting mutations, in which case you ignore them until then to start culling. defects are really not an issue, their biggest thing is removing mutations, and if you don't keep an eye on that, you can have mutations you like removed from the pool over time. just look at their cards and never take one with guaranteed blindness/confusion/immobilized on runs, and dumpster from the top down ones with similar bullshit. again, ideally just - stats or ones with - stats and a positive. mutations can also replace them and you still regularly get cats with them removed later in years. they affect very little and are very easily managed as long as you don't ignore them and breed an entire line of +confusion +blind cats.
the random disorders above negative health, (besides just dumpstering those with them because it's rare enough to be a non factor) wobbly cat is workable/potentially good for melee or non ranged, i haven't experimented with how much knockback damage it causes but damage null is pretty great. williams syndrome fucks regen but gives charm potential, tourettes is fucking bullshit because your cat likely will just use damage on your own team, i believe there's also a interaction with druid where it fucks their song. tachysensia can be ok but prioritized movement over damage, schizo is dumpstered, savant imo is dumpster but i could see it work ok with mages, first stage dwarfism is good, like a sidegrade more than a penalty, primordial dwarf however fuckin sucks. osteogenesis i like a lot, especially with cleanses. more damage for you/enemies. injuries are riskier though. ocd i think has a lot of potential because it's a guaranteed cleanse and self damage is within manageable levels if needed. narcolepsy is tempting and there's some ways to counter it but most always the dumpster. down's is dumpster unless explicitly like with guaranteed fighter dumb strength passive imo. diabetes looks like dogshit at first but i think could synergize great with butcher. depression works when careful on a tank. bpd is dumpster. autism is dumpster. anemia is risky but solid equal trading hp for mana. albinism is dumpster. adhd is the intentionally bad "punishment" ai i believe so dumpster. dyslexia is kind of annoying and a coin flip. fetins are special and can be inherited from volcano sacrifices, you have a roll of death or a rare chance of one getting one of 3. they all give 10% chance of ai a turn, but can give +3 rerolls a level up, or 3 mana and 2 heal a kill, or all mana when a ally cat is killed (trash-est of them), and can be inherited. basically rewards but ai could potentially fuck you.
