Overview

This mod will add the following items with crafting recipe:

One stat mutagen per stat
One EXP mutagen per tribute item

Goals

Playing solo or with a small group of friends usually requires re-balancing. I never liked the usual solutions of boosting EXP rates, tame stats or resource yields since they usually compromise the early game by making it trivial. But without these, actually beating the game and defeating the alpha bosses takes way too long due to all the breeding and having to level a whole raid squad on your own. Even big servers don't often do this, usually opting to trading for neutered alpha dinos from other tribes.

This is my attempt at simplifying the bridge between mid-game and end-game a bit without compromising the early-game.

The stat mutagens offer an alternative to breeding, providing a gameplay loop of caving for a mutation point, yet requires you to have beaten a gamma boss without this help first (which fyi doesn't need breeding, can be done with fresh wild tames). Mitigating the need to boost tame stats.

The EXP mutagens functions as an XP boost that isn't really that helpful in the early game as you need to be able to hunt harder dinos for their tribute items. It also doubles as simplifying the process of leveling a raid squad as you can hunt for alphas on any dino you want such as a Giga and then feed the mutagens to the raid members. Mitigating the need to boost exp rates.

And lastly, both the stat and exp mutagens make preparing good gathering dinos much easier. Mitigating the need to boost resource rates for those who like big bases.

Note the defaults used are balanced for multiplayer, difficulty 5 and maxdifficulty like official servers.

Stat mutagens

Stat mutagens are consumables you force feed to your dino to give them permanent mutation points.

Crafting
Stat mutagens are crafted at the chemistry bench. However, no bonus applied. 1 craft will yield 1 mutagen. the general recipe as follows:

x1 Artifact
x1 Crystal
x1 Element
x1 Soup (different for every stat mutagen)

Configuration
In the INI, the following options are available. Note the value listed is the default value used when these settings aren't used.

[Mutagens]
MutationsPerMutagen=1
MaxMutationsPerStat=254
MaxLevelPerStat=254
MaxTotalLevel=377

MutationsPerMutagen dictates how many mutations points a dino will receive for every mutagen consumed. MaxMutationsPerStat is the maximum amount of mutation points tames can get from mutagens per stat. MaxLevelPerStat is similar, but uses the addition of wild level and mutations. And lastly MaxTotalLevel is the addition of all wild levels and mutations for all the stats. Note that mutations given will clamp to the max if you ever get there.

For those confused at to why the default MaxTotalLevel is 377, It's to reflect the official servers, 377+73 = 450. So there's no point in getting more than 377 wild+mutation points.

EXP mutagens

EXP mutagens are consumables you force feed to your dino to give them some EXP. There's two types of EXP mutagens, minor and major. Minor EXP mutagens are crafted with tribute items of regular dinos, and major EXP mutagens are crafted with tribute items from alpha dinos. The exp received when using these mutagens is dictated by the tribute item used. By default, it will reflect a level 75 dino of what drops that tribute item. So, using a EXP mutagen crafted from a spino sail will net the exp equivalent to killing a level 75 spino.

Crafting
Minor EXP mutagens can be crafted in either the mortar and pestle or the chemistry bench with the usual bonus. Major EXP mutagens can only be crafted at the chemistry bench at a 1:1 ratio like the stat mutagens. The general recipe is as follows:

x1 Crystal
x1 Tribute Item

Configuration
In the INI, the following options are available. Note the value listed is the default value used when these settings aren’t used.

[Mutagens]
BalanceLevel=75

The number you put there dictates what level dino the mod will use to fetch the EXP given. From testing, I think 75 is a good number. Alphas actually give a ridiculous amount of EXP, if you put this at 150 you pretty much just need a single alpha kill to get a tame to 60+. Personally I thought that's a bit too much. Was looking to shorten the end game grind, but not make it free. Plus, 75 is already above the average wild dino level for the island, the average wild level is more like, 30-40, so level 75 is already like a triple EXP. X6 if you include the fact that your tame gets half the kill EXP when ridden and the mutagen gives the full EXP.

As of now, EXP rates are not considered by the mutagens, so keep that in mind when choosing what dino level to use. The mod also assumes the usual 0.1x per level from base kill XP. And lastly the mod will always use level 1 for the leedsichthys as they only spawn as level 1s.

Plans

In-game UI for the settings (prob annoying for single player people to deal with INI settings and i assume nearly all single player people will want to change the defaults)

Optional speed mutagen (not hard to do, just still brainstorming how to balance that, there's a few quirks to consider now that speed isn't included in the total level anymore)

Compatibility with AA stations (cuz i use AA on my server and found it annoying to require both vanilla and AA stations lol, probly won't bother doing this for other mods unless i need it too)

Also open to suggestions!