Enigma

The Enigma mutation is notable for being the only "normal" mutation that raises your cool.

Location

Enigma is conveniently located in the Heaven bar within Gangland.

Effects

This mutation grants:

    +2 to cool
    -1 to senses
    immunity to diagnose
    immunity to appraise

Advantages

• Easy to reach. Really. It's right there in Gangland.
• You're incognito. Enigma covers up a bunch of vaguely interesting details about your character. Nobody will be able to see how old you are with @age or appraise you. Enigma also hides most of your mutations when people look at you, so people won't be able to tell if you've got Billygoat or not and so on.
• +2 cool. This is a straightforward buff. Great for bladers (and gunners to a slightly lesser extent), reduces stress gain, all that jazz.
• Can buy alcohol no matter your age; barkeeps won't be able to tell how old you are. Yay!

Disadvantages

• Can't be diagnosed. This is the most obvious downside. You need to be confident in understanding your st readouts and knowing the symptoms of the various illnesses so you can get the right treatment, because no doctor will be able to check the symptoms for you. Know your stuff, don't be a dumbnigma. The doctor in Slagtown also won't be able to fix you up if you're running to him in the early game.
• Can't be analyzed. If you get a mental illness, you're stuck with it unless you run into an Empath, and nobody takes Empath so you're pretty much on your own. Fortunately, most builds don't run into mental illnesses that often, but be wary if you're running bad implants or are a Vampire.
• It's a noob trap. Enigma is good for minmaxers who can make use of the cool and know how to handle the downsides. It's not good for new players who don't understand their debuff messages and will whine in corpnet every time they get hit with something they've never seen before. Yes, the cosmetic mystique is cool, but steer clear until you understand the game a little bit.
• Radiation becomes problematic, because it's really hard to tell how many rads you have. If you start feeling "sick to your stomach" and taking damage, then obviously run to a medic for a detox pronto. Otherwise, try to stay rad-free, take the right precautions and hope you don't accidentally sprout a third arm because you weren't paying attention. Just like real life, you can and should also regularly fondle me, which will give you a special message if you feel a cancerous lump.
• Makes precise drugging awkward. Most builds that take Enigma won't have tons of Endurance for drugs anyway, but if you want to be precise about your dosages then Enigma gets in the way of that a lot because you can't be diagnosed for dosages.
• Can't use @buffs. This is another noob-shredder. @buffs is great for experimenting with drugs and figuring out how all your numbers work. If you're taking Enigma, you're going to have to do without.
• -1 senses. This is hardly the end of the world because senses is an easy stat to buff with mutations and temporary increases, but a debuff is still a debuff. Needless to say, you probably shouldn't take Enigma if you're going whips or something.
• Cool isn't considered a very good stat. Out of all the six stats, it's got the lowest apparent utility (although it does apparently do more things behind the scenes), and you're making a lot of payments for a +2 bonus here. Good for pistols/blades/rifles users for the +1 weapon skill it gives though, and it might help you hit that 20 cool requirement for Chromemouth's zero, which is very strong.

Appearance

Your appearance when diagnosing or appraising essentially disappears, along with visible mutation effects disappearing from the looking and examining.