Medium
Hide and seek is it? Or should we play search and destroy?
Medium allows players to determine the location of other players from afar.
Medium is a movement mutation, and is the upgrade of Clairvoyance, which is a prerequisite for the mutation. It is incompatible with all other movement mutations except for Clairvoyance. Contrary to popular belief, Medium is not the sole travel prerequisite for Empath (though Empath does give a bonus to Mediums); any second-tier movement mutation will satisfy Empath's requirements.
Location
Medium is located on Stormfront Island, to the far north of the zone. If a plane is used to reach the island, landing on the Stormfront Helipad tile and heading a short distance north is the fastest way to reach it.
Effects
+1 focus The seek ability, which uses focus to ascertain a player or mob's location. The passive ability to see auras of other players.
Advantages
- Unmatched PvP utility. The only thing that comes close to a seeker is Johnny Fiveaces, and he's slow, expensive, and only found in one location. Seekers can seek as much as they like at little cost, which is excellent for hounding one particular target at a time.
- Helps with wandering NPCs. This mostly refers to raider bosses, who otherwise must be seeked out with Fiveaces.
- +1 focus. A small but solid contribution to any focus build.
Disadvantages
- Useless without high focus. All seek rolls are focus vs. focus, so if your focus is only mediocre, you'll be locked out of successfully seeking targets with higher focus.
- Almost useless for Carebears. Carebears are soft-locked out of seeking players, so all they can do is seek raider bosses, which is rarely necessary.
- Soft-countered by tinfoil. Anyone in a room with tinfoil installed will be a harder target to seek.
- Suffers from inactivity. The sad fact is that most HellMOO players don't do much; mediums can seek people as much as they like, but they can't force targets to leave the green zones, apartments and planes that they idle in. It's often more efficient to scout high-traffic zones with Clairvoyance to find any viable target, rather than seeking out one target who has a high chance of not being viable.
Seek
Carebears receive no penalties for seeking NPCs, but are heavily penalized when seeking players. When a carebear attempts to seek another player, their focus is completely ignored and they get a 70% chance to fail.
Medium only has one ability: seek. Using seek name will attempt to seek whatever name is used. This is a focus vs. focus roll (the seeker's against the target's). If the seeker succeeds, they will gain information, ranging from the general zone of the target, to the zone, name, and registration of any vehicles that the target is in.
Seeking targets resist this with their focus. Depending on how well their focus roll goes, they can resist giving any information at all, give the seeker brain damage, or even reverse-seek them, getting information about the seeker's location for free! This is almost never useful because people usually seek from the safety of their homes, but it is quite funny. Seeking targets also make a very easy focus roll to be informed that they are being seeked; if the target succeeds, they will get a message about the back of their neck prickling, and someone looking for them. Most aware players will immediately take precautions or evade the area on receiving this message. Tinfoil hats provide a minor bonus to this roll. Only seekers with truly excellent focus can outmatch people sufficiently to stop them from seeing any notice.
Auras
An interesting mystery surrounding Mediums are auras, which Mediums can see on any player that they look at. The specifics of which aura connotes what are uncertain, though they appear to be related to karma (which is also ambiguous).
- Grey or indistinct auras mean the player hasn't done enough of anything to deserve their own aura.
- Red auras indicate bad karma, while green auras indicate good karma.
- Players with Enigma will never have any aura at all.
| Mutations | |
|---|---|
| Racial Mutations | Abomination • Chromemouth • Chud • Empath • Genetic Purity • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie |
| Focus Mutations | Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke |
| Movement Mutations | Leapfrog • Phaser • Clairvoyance |
| Flight • Blink • Medium | |
| Soak Mutations | High Density • Firewalker • Rubberskin • Snakeskin • Yeti Skin |
| Lithodermis • Solar Sponge • Silicone Skin • Eelskin • Yeti Fur | |
| Miscellaneous Mutations | Billygoat • Bleeder • Bloodhound • Brainslug • Brute Strength • Camelfat • Enigma • Fibrocartilage • Hooligan • Hyperimmune • Iron Liver • Junkrat • Mule • Nimble Fingers • Plant Whisperer • Ripper • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision |
| Joke Mutations | Cat Ears • Caucasian • Third Nipple |
| Defunct Mutations | Jammer |
