Solar Sponge

Solar Sponge is a soak mutation which gives resistance against burn, radiation, and laser damage, and allows mutants to derive buffs from the sun and heat.

This mutation requires Firewalker and is incompatible with Vampire and Chiller.

Location

Solar Sponge can be found at ground zero, in the Wasteland. Follow the explosion marks until you find the big crater in the middle. The area is highly irradiated; bring protection!

Effects

This mutation grants:

    Passive: +1-3 burning resistance
    Passive: +2-2 irradiation resistance
    Passive: +2-3 laser resistance
    Passive: Healing effect when hot
    Passive: +1-2 to Brawn/Brains when in the sun
    Passive: Drastically reduced chance to acquire a Mental illness when using Carrie

Advantages

• 6-11 burn soak total. You'll outright ignore many sources of fire damage with this. You can still sometimes get tickled if you're on fire if you roll poorly.
• 3-6 irradiation soak total. Sometimes useful against things like treemen and giant ants.
• 2-3 laser soak. is an obscure damage type, but when it does show up it's quite hard to soak.
• Heal every heartbeat when hot. This can reach +6 health or more per heartbeat if it's really warm, which is on par with a trauma kit.
• Synergy with Plant Whisperer. If you have both, your hunger/thirst will passively reduce in the sun/rain respectively. This is super minor and mostly a flavor thing.
• +1-2 Brawn and Brains in the sun. Indoors the buffs are limited to +1's, and outdoors depend on the weather. If flying, you can fly above clouds for the buffs, as long as it's daytime.
• Reduced Carrie mental chance.
• Controlling temperature: If you want to heat up quickly in a hot area to activate your heal, spam wearing and removing any piece of clothing repeatedly. Every time you wear or remove something, the game re-evaluates your body temperature, forcing your character's internal "thermostat" to quickly adjust to the new area temperature rather than waiting for heartbeats to do it.

Disadvantages

• Not immune to associated debuffs. Solar Sponge only protects from damage; being hot or on fire will still mess up your stats.
• Still need hot gear. Because heat debuffs you so much, you usually still have to use gear to keep cool; the only added utility is in the extra heal.
• Sometimes overkill. Firewalker alone is enough to dampen most fire damage sources.
• Niche secondary soaks. Irrad and laser damage is rare, so it's hard to get consistent value out of these soaks.
• Inconsistent buffs. The sun is too fickle to rely on. Sometimes you're indoors, and sometimes the weather just sucks.
• Incompatible with Vampire and Chiller.

Appearance

This mutation adds the following line to a character's appearance:

%P glowing skin has a bleached-white look to it.

Mutations
Racial Mutations	Abomination • Chud • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie
Focus Mutations	Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke • Empath
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 • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision • Cat Ears
Ripperlikes	Carcinocudgel • Horrorspike • Ripper • Tendrils
Joke Mutations	Third Nipple
Defunct Mutations	Jammer