Using mutants for different settings
Using mutants for different settings posted in Species, Aliens, Xenoforms & Monsters forum comment posted by derek_holland I am just starting to read Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid and there is an excellent point about about one sense that is poorly understood by the public and rpg authors- chemoreception (i.e. smell and taste).
Having an increased sense of smell isn't always a benefit and may actually be an extreme drawback in some cases, such as visiting alien worlds. There are three reasons for this- the receptors may not be able to detect foreign chemicals, foreign chemicals may have different uses in alien ecosystems, and how the brain interprets scents, such as bring up memories, may be short circuited by foreign chemicals.
How I would play this is not simple. Locations have listed bonuses or penalties relating to odors, Critical Failures for perception checks by smell cause decision paralysis for X phases, and Interaction checks for species that rely heavily on odors suffer listed penalties under their description.
There is only three ways to get around these penalties- replace the nose with a cyberware version that is programmed with local chemicals, an Amazing mutation that allows the nose to be trained*, and a biotech brain implant that does one or the other.
* Which takes days to months depending on how foreign those chemicals are.
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