Wait what does the spore sucker do exactly? Extract any spores currently on a character?
Interrogation methods for mush:
Forced showers - Doesn't work on mush who are waterproof.
Spoiled rations - Wastes a ration (4 AP!). Ration may not be properly spoiled, giving false results. Needs several days to spoil properly. If not mush, person becomes sick.
Natamy rifle - Low on AP cost and lots of fun for Chao. But may possibly kill or heavily injure non-mush too.
Spore sucker - Non-mush get dirty and injured. Nothing happens to mush. So you have two things to check for with non-mush, even if the other fails. Almost game breaking in this sense and if someone was secretly spored, it has the side effect of removing one of those spores.
Spore sucker is the safest of these techniques and almost guarantees a hit. It's also a lot less work then the others (except natamy rifle). The funny bit is that it's not actually proven that it doesn't work on mush. It's mostly just me and GlyphGryph going around telling people that it's foolproof without any evidence that it is and everyone just rolls along with it.
I don't think it's as much of a golden bullet as it seems - the real benefit comes from making your Mush think it is.
The psychological factor is the main drawback of it as well. It pisses players off OOC and a lot of them feel like it's cheating. Including players who are on the human side. The mush on my ship actually went on a rant about how unfair the tactic was before surrendering. One of the humans on my ship threatened to suicide because he didn't like it.
I have thought of a strategy for mush, and I want you guys to poke holes in it. Basically, its a way for a mush to pretty much guarantee the ship's death on day 1, without exposing the second Mush.
1) Start as a character with technician - Terrence or Raluca.
2) Find the wrench. Keep it. You have disassembling to do anyway, so nobody should ask questions.
3) Disassemble the first shower as the crew requested. No suspicion.
4) Save up 6 AP and 8 movement, maybe an additional technician point or two just in case while you wait for the apron and the mush sample to be found.
5) Disassemble the second shower, then go steal the apron and the mush sample, then make a beeline for the Pasidae and take off. At this point the crew will realize you are mush.
6) Taunt the crew until they move the ship to kill you and recover the mush sample.
This is all doable on Day 1, and leaves the ship without any method of getting clean. In addition, because you stole the apron, they cannot research or eat without having a good chance of getting dirty, and as soon as they do... no more research, comms, astro-scanning or Neron projects for that crew member. If you organize with your Mush partner to be legitimately dirty when you pull this off (or have a good reason to become dirty shortly afterwards) they have the run of the ship and can extract spores whenever they like.
There are other methods to guarantee the ship's death. This isn't as effective as the morale murder rampage I posted earlier in this thread. However, it doesn't quite kill the ship, it just screws them and provides a smoke screen for your mush buddy so it could lead to some fun.
They can still shower in the sink, but that's done only once a day at 2-3 AP. Maybe it might prevent Raluca from working on NERON and should put a halt to mush research.
The golden shower from vending machine doesn't rebuild the showers, it just upgrades them. They're bugged, so they look like they're there but disappear later.
You don't even have to pull this off with Terrence. Anyone can disassemble the second shower.