 |
welcome, guest |
| Development Forum | ||||
 |
| |||
 Code Monkey evolnemesis  |
Yeah, I've considered it, but there are problems with longer pregnancies that can cause serious issues in crosses with other types, like eggs getting stuck and not being able to be laid, or them staying homesick the whole time and having to sit at the home for long periods of time or even forever if they get a stuck egg, depending on their other inherited genetics regarding egg-laying and homesickness. All in all, I think of it as something cool to put in custom breeds, or maybe alternate genetics, and I prefer longer pregnancies myself, but because of the potential issues, unfortunately I don't think it's something that is really feasible as an actual fix to the standard breeds unless I want to potentially make them incompatible with all other types. There is a very cool dev resource article here, that goes into the exact genetics and workings of the pregnancies, and tells just how to adjust the details regarding pregnancy length and related things, if you are interested in trying out this kind of stuff... There are also a few breeds with longer pregnancies available for download... The only one I can think of offhand is one of the versions of Stinger Norns by KittyTikara, but I'm sure there are several more... "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
 Yme |
Yeah, it probably would be bad if they became incompatible with everything else. I'll see if I can figure out how the stuff works, and maybe I'll be able to adjust it myself, as I'll only be using the CFF Norns. I'm having an odd issue with the new CFFs by the way, though it might just be a genetic mutation in one of mye first gen female norns, that she passed on to her daughter. That Norn and her daughter are the only Norns that have gotten any children so far, and both of them (some time after pregnancy, and in the adult stage) suddenly got a lot og fear and anger that just stayed with them for some time, then they just died. There were no virus, no toxins or any other high drives on them. They both died relatively shortly after giving birth to their first child, seemingly from something that increased both fear and anger in them, even after putting them in a calm and safe place. They did manage to live happily for a few minuts (guessing 5 to 10 minutes) after laying their eggs, then this fear and anger thing happened, that killed them. I could send you their gen-files if you want to check them out. |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Sure, do that, message me and I will give you my e-mail address, or else you could just put them up for adoption and let me know... Usually if you see fear shooting up to maximum in a CFF it means they are suffocating or not breathing well for some reason... If they were getting fear and anger at the same time, that is probably pepper norn or alien norn DNA, those tend to get angry when they are afraid, to give them somewhat more aggressive responses to threats. Poor little things really wanted a piece of whoever was messing with their ability to breathe. It's remotely possible there were some airless pockets in your ship or some kind of world corruption, I've seen people have similar problem with suffocating norns and putting them in a new world stopped it, but I really didn't get to look at the world involved and there could be other explanations like bacteria. This will happen when they get a bad fever too... excessive heat causes panting which can suffocate creatures if it gets bad enough... Reasonably not being able to breathe freaks them out... It's possible they were ill, and caught the same bug, not all bacteria will cause noticeable sneezing or anything, some will just increase hotness, put out toxins (fever toxin is especially dangerous, especially when the bacteria's antigen is already raising the temperature), and damage organs. Some bacteria can even slowly damage the lungs, which will also cause suffocation if they are damaged enough to stop working (this takes a pretty long time though... excessive panting from hotness is the most likely cause in this case, mutation is not very likely, especially since the mother is a first gen and first gens can't have mutations in C3/DS...) This would be undetectable in other norns and they would just pant to death with no noticeable symptoms unless you were specifically looking at their air and oxygen levels or hotness, because only CFF can actually notice the drowning/suffocation involuntary action... (this is why normal norns can just walk into a pond and fall asleep happily then drown)... One simple way to tell if a CFF is suffocating, is to quickly dunk it in water (can't really make the situation worse if it is...) and see if the drowning bubbles come from it right away... The bubbles underwater are scripted in the game whenever a creature is suffocating, triggered by the drowning involuntary action... If this isn't the problem, you'd see no bubbles, because normally it takes a decent amount of time for them to start drowning. Also the hoverdoc in the Meso and the bacteria detectors on the Ark are good for detecting infections, and the anti-bacterial sprayer or hoverdoc can get rid of them, and might allow them to recover if they can naturally lower their temperature enough before they suffocate. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
 Wingheart |
If a norn is suddenly terrified and you have iceflowers growing somewhere, drop the norn by the iceflowers. If the norn calms down they were suffocating from fever. If they do not go spray them with antibacterial spray. |
|||
Yme |
I checked them both with the hoverdoc, both before and after death, and there were noe bacteria or toxins. The only drives that were high, were fear and anger, so it was'nt heat ither. Other Norns are staying in the same place as them, at the same time, so airless pockets don't seem to be likely, as far as I underatand, though I do not have any knowledge about their DNA, reactions, or the game engine, so I might be wrong. The only thing I really know, is that the only symptoms they had, were anger and fear, and that there were no bacteria or toxins. They both died in the Norn habitat of the Ark, and the symptoms continued even after moving them from the left most side, where the carrots grow, to the Norn hut in the midle of the habitat. If it happens again, I will dump them in the aquarium to check for air bubles. I don't have the Norns themselves, but I should have the genfiles, unless the game deletes them when the creature dies, though if there cant be mutations in the first gen norns, then I'd be wasting your time by asking you to look through the files. Ps. The fruit bush agent you made for them, with the new chemical, has stopped produsing fruit. Is that a bug, or is it seasonal? |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Hmm strange... there's nothing about the changes I can think of that should kill them, I didn't change the underlying mechanisms behind how they breathe or suffocate or anything like that, the drowning involuntary action is just a response to the physical effects of them suffocating... in the case of these, the involuntary action is triggered when lactic acid builds up from low oxygen in the blood, and in others it is triggered from no air in the lungs (the default trigger based on air makes the action continue for a long time after being able to breathe again, and also sends it to newborn babies for the first several minutes of their life, which is why I changed the trigger in these to blood oxygen levels to be more sensitive to when they are actually in danger)... either way, it just runs a script occasionally to make bubbles come up if they are underwater, and sends a stimulus to them which most ignore, but for these just gives fear. Suffocation, or rather, death from a lack of sufficient blood oxygen from any cause, is really the only way I can think of that a first gen could both get a lot of fear AND die... Unless its heart stopped or something from stress from all that fear, but I have yet to see any creature die directly from stress, even though it can damage organs, and then there's still the question of how that much fear got there... The only thing that makes that much fear normally is the drowning response, or maybe fear toxin... Still, if it wasn't fever and not airlessness, I'm a little stumped as to how they could be dying... lung failure or something like that seems a bit farfetched... Another thing you can do is download the X-Ray agent here, and I believe that has a standard tab that will show air and oxygen levels... Really you can have it track and graph any chemicals you want. It also shows organ health, which would be worth looking at. And yes, if you have the genetics files I could look at those and run a gene compare and see if there is anything strange going on there, but yeah, if they are first gens that's probably a waste of time. The berry agent was made by Arnout, so I'm not sure about that... I'd make a comment asking about it underneath the download page, that way Arnout should see it and answer you. Or you can send a PM. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Well, there have bin no more incidents like it, so I have no idea what it might have bin... If lack of oxygen is the only thing that can cause something like this, then I guess that had to be the cause. Maybe a temporary airless pocket, due to some unknown bug? The Norns died pretty quickly after removing them from the spot they were in, so I might just have moved them too late. I'll make sure to drop them in water if it happens again. A thought on the changes we were talking about, where you mentioned it might make them incompatible with other genomes, and that this stops you from making all the changes you really want to... How about making 2 versions? One for people who like using other genomes, and one for people who just want to use this genome, and get Norns that are as close to the older games as possible? That way you can make exactly the changes you want to make, with no restrictions. Longer pregnancies and longer lifespans let you have a more "personal" experience of each individual Norn, and makes it feel more like you have a little tribe of creatures that actually are individuals, instead of fast living breeding machines. They will have less babies, because they are a bit harder to breed, and because of the longer time to give birth, but each individual Norn will have more "meaning" in the world it lives in, if you get what I am trying to portray here. |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Yeah, I agree, I feel the same way... After some discussion with other people in the community and testing, I had to make the decision not to add those kinds of changes into the base CFF fixes, since people have different preferences when it comes to lifespan and breeding, as well as the noted issue with crossbreeding between creatures using different pregnancy lengths... Some like wolfling runs, some like nurturing, and some like to see variations or breed for traits in a population more than raising individuals, and some like things the other way around... and really, other than a decrease in fertility that was necessary to stop them from being unstoppable breeding machines, the rest of these aren't exactly fixes to anything that was actually broken. I think making alternate versions like you said, that live about double the normal lifespan (like the 1.1 evos or the aliens), with longer pregnancies and maybe even weaker fertility (increasing the cooldowns on pregnancies might be enough though, testing will have to be done to make sure the breeding is tweaked appropriately), would definitely be something worth doing. If I do it, it will probably be after CCSF before I get around to it, but we'll see... If anyone else wants to do it and release any alternate versions like that, I'd have no problem with it, though. The following should help: - The resource article on pregnancy should help get a pregnancy length and cooldown as desired. - The lifespan depends mainly on the 'Half-Lives' gene (it's a one-of-a-kind gene that is near the beginning the genome, around gene 26 or so), specifically the half-life of the 'Life' chemical (125)... A value of 106 (~30 minutes), will give them a lifespan much like the older games (~9-11 hours, double the normal C3 lifespan) - The best way I have found to tweak their fertility (barring increasing the cooldown after pregnancy) is with the half-life of the chemical 'Libido Lowerer' (chemical 40). This half-life affects how long it takes for a male norn to become fertile once it reaches the proper life stage, and it also affects how long males have to wait after breeding to be fertile again, It also affects how much of the female's cycles are infertile. The current half-life in CFFs is 50, which gives a reasonable breeding rate for the normal lifespans and makes the fertility cycles and breeding cooldowns actually notable... The normal genomes' half-life was MUCH lower and made them fertile practically all the time, with the males only having to wait seconds after breeding, so they would always fill worlds with eggs quickly... I have found a value of 64 can make norns that are practically impossible to breed... so somewhere between 50 and 64 I think would make a feasible value for a longer-lived norn, if just increasing the pregnancy cooldown isn't enough. In general though, when tweaking fertility, when you are not sure about something, it's probably usually best to try and err on the more fertile side, so a population can stay viable in case of unforeseen circumstances like attacks, violence, or disease killing off some individuals, or a population being a little more spread out than your test population. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Sounds awesome, evol! I'll take a look at the article, and see if it something I can understand. I don't know a thing about this stuff, but I love learning new stuff, and being able to make genomes and agents would be cool. I am a digital artist, so I'm sure I would be able to make som cool looking agents at least  You mentioned earlier that you wanted to make some new organs and stuff like that. If you could make exactly what you wanted to make in the CFFs, if you had no constraints other than what the engine allowed, what would you do with them? |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Well, these already have a new organ and a new brain lobe and tract... The organ overwhelms their other drives if they are very hungry, so that they can focus on it despite other drives (without this organ, creatures could easily become pre-occupied with drives like boredom, anger, or homesickness and starve to death while just sitting around thinking about them) and the lobe and tract give them a way to detect when they are full and represses thoughts of eating depending on how full they are (C2 had some kind of similar fullness system, but it was missing from C3). I'm pretty happy with them overall, especially with the brain tweaks the 1.1s and Evos have which increase their curiosity and random thoughts... I've added just about everything I wanted that I could manage to them, besides pretty much just the changes you mentioned... I personally prefer a lifespan around 9-11 hours with longer pregnancies and less egg-bombing. There are a few other changes I've thought of, but those are either mostly beyond what I understand or may be even not possible and missing in the C3 engine. The 'Roadmap/Checklist' post on the first page of this thread has pretty much everything I've thought of for changes, with the ideas that have been implemented marked on it. Out of the stuff I never finished, a thirst drive is probably the thing I'd like to implement the most, but that has several issues that makes it rather difficult and possibly even unworkable given some limitations of the engine with regards to the smells they can follow... I also like the C2 Kai Norns, who have babies who need milk from their mother, and mothers who get a 'broodiness' drive to help them take care of their babies, someone had the idea of trying to convert them to C3, and I'd like to implement something like that in a breed if possible. The ones in C2 used a cob to help implement their behaviors and biochemistry, and I can't quite figure out how to look at it to see everything they were really doing, so it's a little difficult, I also think some brain changes may have been involved in this breed as well... But I think it would be pretty neat if I could get something like that working. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
The genome is great so far. They remind me me of the C2 Norns, but in a more functional way. IMO it seemed that the Norns in C2 didn't really "understand themselves" too well, and had problems surviving because of it... They forgot how to sleep and how to eat (not considering the fabled OHSS), and it was sort of like if they ate or slept, it was more because they just tried to do everything, and out of pure luck ended up getting it right. Never had any luck with the Kais either, as I saw no use of the "feed your child milk"-thing at all. So yeah, these Norns seem to be a less dysfunctional version of the awesome C2 Norns, and it's great! I believe I found the original creator of the Kais and Cannies, on FB, as I remember her name, and sort of what she looked like back then, so I could try to contact her, and maybe she could help in figuring out how to transfer the Kai-mechanics to the CFFs? Have you thought any more about how to get the Norns to express themselves better, like in the older games? I remember Norns used to look at something and asking what the object was... Did they actually have brains that would be curious about what the object was, or was this scripted when a Norn looked at an object it didn't know the name for? |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
I believe it was scripted, and kind of random when they didn't know the name of something... kind of like in C3 how they every now and then will randomly decide to talk about their relationship with some creature they are dealing with... In C2 they also had some other stuff that I'm not sure how they did, like telling each other to stop doing things they didn't like... When I first played it, one of my norns started slapping the other one, and he called her by name and ordered her to stop... and she did... For a second... Then she hit him one more time, he hit her back, and then she walked off in a huff and went downstairs to drive me absolutely insane trying to get her to drink when she kept saying she was thirsty, or to at least use the machine down there to learn more words... I know there are stims in the game for them hearing another creature tell them 'no' or 'yes', but these are not used in the standard C3/DS genomes, and if you did put them in, it does not seem possible to actually ever get a creature to say these things... It's not even clear if the engine ever even would send this stimulus if you could somehow make it that they did. You can use 'SEZZ' but creatures ignore that even if it's something they would normally respond to because it doesn't really register to them as anyone speaking. It would be cool if I could figure out how to get them to tell each other off for doing things that make their mood worse, or encourage each other for things they like, and get that to work... it's almost certainly what those stims are there for... hmm... then again, I imagine during a kisspop session there will be a lot of 'yes' 'yes' 'yes'... C1 creatures say 'yes' but that is only because that's the word they have for referring to the Need For Comfort drive... C2 also have this drive, and might know those words, but C3/DS creatures have no such drive... their equivalent to NFC is their 'mood' lobe (it's really just one neuron that takes a composite of several drives and determines their overall mood on a simple scale from happy to sad) EDIT: P.S. Yeah, I'd be interested in knowing how they worked, so I could make a C3 version of the Kai breed with a CFF genome and those features as well, and almost certainly longer pregnancies and lifespans too... so the babies have a decent amount of time where they need milk... crediting the original author of the C2 breed too of course, at least for the idea and any of the genetics I use, and definitely for any help they can offer in figuring out how to make it work. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Your C2 Norns could use each others names? I still play it, and that has never happend to me. They says stuff like "stop norn", but I'v never seen them use other Creatures names, or even really having any sort of understanding that other Creatures are talking. You sure you didn't have a COB or something, that might have done that? I think I found her on facebook. Sent a Message, but she hasn't replied. Maybe she has disabled messages from people not on her friendslist or something. Is it hard changing breeds on the C3 genomes? I was thinking about trying out the C1toDS room, and wanted to use the CCFs in there, but the C3 Norns really look out of place in the C1 world, so I wanted to get some C1 flavoured Norns in there, with your genome. |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Yeah no cob... it was vanilla... it's possible she thought his name was just the word for norns though, or maybe I am misremembering I don't know... she was a baby and they were just learning stuff... I had just given them names... I thought if another norn had a name they would use it instead of 'norn' in that game. As for knowing if each other speak, well, sort of yes, sort of no... they would register the words as if you had said them, but they can't really tell the difference between things they hear and random things they think, nor do they really know the source. In C3 its the same, the whole responding to each other thing was scripted... but since they can still hear each other's suggestions, they can still learn from it if they decide to try whatever is suggested... in C1/C2 it was a lot less likely they'd get coherent suggestions from other creatures, because this scripting was absent... although still possible... like in the case of telling each other to 'stop'... you might also occasionally notice another norn lie down when one nearby says 'rest'... As for changing the appearance, it's pretty simple as long as you know what breed slot the sprites you want it to use are in... It's just a matter of changing the appearance genes. It would be pretty simple... I can look up the C12DS breeds sprite slots and make some egg agents for them based on the CFF DS genome. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Wingheart |
Maybe up their pigment bleed mutation rate? The pigment bleed mutations look pretty good. |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
I think they are already maxed out in CFF, but I'll check... also all the color and bleed genes are set so they can't be cut, so they aren't prone to just going away from mutations. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Wingheart |
 That's great! And also explains the predominance of slightly greenish/yellowish Evos I get in my wolfling runs. |
|||
 Sanely Insane RisenAngel Manager  |
Now that you're bringing up pigment mutations, I feel I should mention another thing that might be worth incorporating. As the generations pass, it's possible that a bunch of duplicated genes will build up. At some point, this can lead to a load of sliders even in purebred populations as all the duplicates "push out" more vital genes. Granted, this is a risk with pretty much all gene types (I've had it happen with initial concentration genes before). However, it's especially noticeable with pigment and pigment bleed genes as their mutation rate is set to max by default. For the current CFF, it may even be more of an issue as those excess pigment and pigment bleed genes can never be deleted once they've appeared. For this reason, I'd suggest disabling the ability for the pigment and pigment bleed genes to be duplicated in addition to cut. That way colors can still mutate while simultaneously reducing the risk of both color loss and sliders in future generations. Risen Angel's Creatures Blog |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
That definitely sounds reasonable... I hadn't thought of that... CFF itself is done, I think, but I for one will almost certainly do this in any future breeds I make based on it... I'm kind of loathe to keep making new versions, especially since all the breeds are out and people are already making new breeds with these, but since it could cause genetic problems as is, I might even make a final updated breed pack with all the base and mall breeds fixed this way if people are interested... It might be a while until I find the time to do this though. Especially since cutting is disabled in those genes, it definitely does make sense, as you say, that they could have a tendency to build up and possibly cause issues a little more often than normal if duplication is not also disabled. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Oh, while we are talking about pigments... Would it be hard to modify a genome to not allow the ugly "glowy" collors that make the Norns look like neon lights? |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Hmm... as far as I know, there's no real way to do that other than modifying them so their color & bleed genes can't mutate at all. The process is pretty random, and certain combinations of genes like ones with some pigments really high, or with certain swap values, will generate these kind of things... and there is no way to really restrict which values they can mutate to. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Ah, that's too bad. I really hate the look of the neon Norns. Lol! What tools did I need, to be able to make the lifespan and pregancie changes again? I wanted to start a world with only a few Norns (10 or less), with 10-12 hour lifespans, so I can get to know each of them a bit better than what I currently can. Allso, would it be possible to make a grendel that don't really hunt down Norns actively, but instead just beats on them if they happen by? So it's more of a dangerous beast if you cross into it's terretory, but as long as your not in his vicinity, he plays around and is a happy bastard with his grendel friends? |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
To make lifespan and pregnancy changes requires a gene editor of some type... there are the official ones, like the Genetics Kits for Creatures 1/2/3, they are great since you can tinker with the genes and then use it while the game is running to lay an egg with those genes into your game... but it's a little hard to find the downloads except in web archives, since the Gameware site they were on is pretty much dead... you should be able to find working links in the Help forum here, maybe in Download Detectives... They don't seem to play nice with newer operating systems, though some people seem to have gotten them to work with windows 8 at least... Some others might work, though, there's also "Creatures 3 Genetics Lab 2.1", you should be able to find the download for that with google, and I think it might play better with newer operating systems... There's even a web-based one, but the name escapes me... Neither of those will lay eggs into the game, though I think there might be something called Eggernator (it's an agent) that still lets you make egg agents from genetics... I can make a special version of some breeds you like for you if you want... just let me know. Yeah, a grendel like that wouldn't be too hard to make, just a few instinct and stimulus gene changes will make it so they don't seek out norns when lonely, and only really get mad when they see them. The changes will also have to make it so it will be friendly with and seek out other grendels (most normal ones barely want to interact with each other...) There might already be breeds like this, but I'll look into it... "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Sanely Insane RisenAngel Manager |
Here's a sort of bug report: For whatever reason, whenever the "near death" music starts playing for a CFF creature in my game it never goes away no matter how well the creature in question cares for him/herself afterwards. Not even first gens are safe from this (in fact, it was a first gen that I first noticed it happening). It seems to be a CFF-exclusive thing, though from just looking at their genome I'm not sure what exactly the cause might be. Risen Angel's Creatures Blog |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Hmm, that's really weird... I've heard people tell me that before too in testing of some of the later ones... I'm not sure either, I didn't particularly make changes to their metabolisms, and to try and work around any possibility of malnutrition, the 1.0s have an even much weaker fullness response than the pre-1.0s do... They are definitely well capable of eating when not hungry now, though there's still some appetite suppression when full... all I can think of that they have different as far as their nutrition is that sickness takes glucose from them to make antibodies... this could deplete their glycogen stores, which is what I think the music is based on, but pigging out should theoretically always let them restore these... I'll have to really go over that bootstrap .cos file, and go over their metabolisms with a fine-toothed comb and raise them at the same time as some control norns and compare nutrition and energy levels... maybe there's some interaction or something weird I'm missing. EDIT: hmm for the life of me I can't figure out what .cos file makes that music change... it could be in the engine itself... there's an entry in the game variables script that sets which track to play for 'near death', it is called "engine_near_death_track_name", so it kind of implies that the engine is making the decision here, and I have yet to see anything in any of the bootstrap .cos files that references this game variable or the default track name it is set to... "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Okay, thanks to everybody, I have figured out the problem with the near death music... it was caused by a defect in their new liver alcohol receptor gene that was slowing their normal liver function to a crawl. This caused glycogen stores to not be able to be replenished once depleted, and made them bad at storing long-term nutrition in general. A tweak to the gene restored normal liver function. Unfortunately, this uncovered a serious problem with their new adipose receptor gene that causes heart injury when adipose levels reach very high values... The problem being that the adipose levels NORMALLY reach very high values (maximum, in fact, unless they are having a problem storing fat, like a defective liver). If a CFF creature were to inherit the heart disease gene, but not that defective liver gene, it would pretty quickly become obese and die of heart failure. Likewise, if I were to change some other gene to fix how they store fat, they would still die if they happened to inherit the heart disease gene and not the one that controls their fat and saves them from it. Since it can't be fixed without involving other genes, it looks like heart disease for high adipose levels will have to go, to avoid potentially deadly issues with higher gen creatures, and with any crosses. It was a nice idea, but it does not seem to work in practice with the general C3/DS genomes. Looks like C3/DS creatures are just good at building up a healthy layer of blubber (they don't really have hearts anyway... their blood is kind of like a sea in their bodies that doesn't need to circulate, their mitochondria fulfill all the functions that hearts had in C2 creatures...) These are serious enough problems that I feel they warrant one last FINAL final release to fix... Bah, I've got a lot of egg-making to do. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
Not sure I understand the big problem with this, really. If a creature has a bad genetic makeup, it will die, and the bad genes will die with it, so is this really a problem? Oh, and would it be possible to make a genome with a heart that functions like in C2? That's a lot cooler than being a bag of blood  |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Hmm, well the problem is that the heart disease gene itself is the bad gene, it will be fatal in any creature that inherits it, unless it ALSO inherits one or more other genes that have to be made specifically to counteract it (and that are useless or even possibly harmful by themselves...) this basically means that these norns will die of congenital conditions at least 25% of the time when crossed, and possibly have other bad side-effects even more of the time... just from this gene being there... it also means that even pureblood CFFs could potentially have much more of these problems and more of a risk of death due to genetic problems than non-CFFs. It's hard for me to think of a gene as a generic fix that should be added to all breeds, if it is causing extra genetic problems AND requires me to add another gene that is either useless or bad on its own, especially if it is not really doing anything particularly beneficial for the creature even when it works 100% correctly. Sure, when introducing a new vulnerability to an organ, it would make sense that then you would then be susceptible to new birth defects that hit that vulnerability, but still, 25% or more is a bit high of a rate for congenital heart defects... Also, it is true that technically C3 creatures don't have hearts as such... they have mitochondria that fulfills all the functions of the C2 heart organ that originally had this adipose vulnerability. Basically C2 creatures had a bloodstream that was necessary to circulate nutrition and oxygen to their cells, C3 creatures, like the completely organless C1 creatures, have a blood sea throughout their bodies that doesn't need to circulate... Chemicals, nutrition and oxygen get to cells and organs through osmosis alone, and the mitochondria do what is necessary to metabolize these inside the cells to make energy. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
 Wrong Banshee Dragoler |
Even before discovering the problem with the alcohol receptor, creatures could have inherited the heart disease gene but not the receptor keeping adipose tissue down. Have you changed your mind about that gene now completely? Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base.  |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Yep, and that was a problem... it meant up to ~25% of all crosses died from heart failure (and I'm pretty sure I saw CFF grendels whose adipose levels were topped off even with that gene, so it's possible all CFF grendels just die very young) ... I wasn't even aware this was happening, or that the alcohol receptor was killing their ability to store nutrition so much... The alcohol receptor I figured out how to fix by itself and get it working the way it should (that is, the way it did in c2, which was to keep their liver working at the rate their liver reactions were tuned to work at, and just increase it with alcohol in the system)... The heart disease gene is more of a problem, since it needs other changes involved to make it work as it should (changes that would be basically useless if it weren't there). This means pretty much that it just introduces a huge source of genetic problems affecting ~25% of crosses, and even a good number of purebreds (if there is just one gene that counteracts it). That probability factor actually gives a way I might save it, but it seems very complicated to get working just right, and I'm not at all sure it's worth the trouble... If there are SEVERAL counteracting genes, preferably spread out in the genome somewhat, any combination of which will stop them from automatically dying, then the chance of deadly defects goes WAY down (I did something like that to let crosses be a lot more likely to inherit protection from lactate even if they don't get the full lactate cycle). The problem with this is making sure that these saving genes aren't too strong... If they make it impossible to get heart failure, then there is really no point in having the heart failure gene at all. In the other direction, if the saving genes have a bad effect otherwise, like just making them a lot easier to starve (like the liver gene did when it was not working), then that also kills much of the point to having the gene in the first place, because then, even the cure is bad. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Wrong Banshee Dragoler |
I understand where you are coming from now. It sounds like the genome may need more ways that creatures can burn adipose tissue, as well as the receptor to slow it down? Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base. |
|||
Wrong Banshee Dragoler |
OK how about this; alcohol receptor keeps adipose gain down, small adipose reduction added to traveling, push, pull and get stimuli and a receptor+emitter that detects when adipose gets too high and emits hotness as a warning? There are enough changes there that at least some of those would be inherited, while not completely overloading the genome, and they all kinda make sense. Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base. |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
well, I'd rather not slow all liver function... I'd probably try to work on a triglyceride receptor or some reaction that makes adipose or something... since slowing the whole liver also makes glycogen gain harder as well as protein storage and was causing the music issue as well as a lot of extra starvation as it was (it also made heart failure practically impossible, kind of defeating the purpose of having the possibility), but maybe making it a bit slower wouldn't be too bad for them... It WAS slowed very drastically before. Genes to burn fat (or glucose, which should eventually translate to fat loss, now that their livers are working properly) from activities also kind of make sense, though of course those would have to be tuned very carefully to make sure that relatively inactive norns can still gain weight when they have all the genes. Loss of one or more of these genes then wouldn't be a complete death sentence, it would just mean the norn would need to either be a bit more active, or have mutated a more efficient receptor somewhere. I'd like to stray away from having to coax them to be extra active for most of them to have a full lifespan though, it should just be really lazy ones getting problems, later in life. Not everyone likes to nurture them. Also, there's the very real possibility that these would all have to be tuned completely differently for different species, and even different breeds who store fat more efficiently. Getting these balances just right seems like it would take a lot of time and effort and testing for each different breed (a few mall breeds have different metabolisms in one way or another...) To me this all seems like a LOT of trouble just to save a gene I added from a different game whose sole purpose is to kill them. Still, it might be possible if we can find a good combination of at least 3 or 4 other gene changes that are effective, but not TOO effective. Gizmo Norns might be a good place to start looking... the person who made those tweaked a whole bunch of metabolic genes to add realism, it seemed they tested these changes extensively to balance them, and it did have a few things I liked... For example, babies have to eat while young, instead of having almost until adulthood to eat their first meal before starving... This might add too much realistic difficulty for wolfling runs to be feasible though, since babies don't have a real sense of smell and can't navigate yet except by sight (smell navigation and understanding of lifts comes at childhood...), so I'm not sure people would appreciate this either. But I think their fat storage and stuff was more balanced as well. Adding just some of the Gizmo metabolic changes that involve fat might be enough to fix this. All in all though, I think this stuff would be better part of some special breed rather than a generic fix to all breeds, since it adds quite a bit of complexity and potential for problems. I'll probably look into putting this stuff into Evos at least. "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
Yme |
As long as it doesnt constantly affect you'r world, like the 25% death rate the heart disease would cause, death isnt really a bad thing. Haveing Norns die from starvation as babys is ok, as it will "weed out" the dumb ones, and get a good population of smarter Norns. The way I see it, the more things that favour a Norn that "thinks better", the better it is. The smarter the Norsn are, combined with the more randome thoughts of the genome you made, the more personality they can develoup, and you would allso get more interresting results from wolfling runs. Basicly, being dumb should kill you ;P |
|||
Code Monkey evolnemesis |
Agreed. The Gizmo changes are pretty cool, I like a lot of them. The eating while a baby thing especially kind of makes sense to me... It doesn't make sense that a normal creature should be able to make it to reproductive age without even having to know how to eat, and it definitely can't be great for the gene pool. The nutritional changes in Gizmos I think have a little problem though in that they don't seem to get hungry fast enough in relation to how much nutrition they need... it seems like they can starve while barely noticing it sometimes. Their hunger seems a bit out of whack with their metabolisms... still this should be something that can be worked around. Actually, it seems like that's a good place for another fix... some extra genes in their hunger regulation organ... In C2, a creatures hunger would depend on whether it needed nutrition... in C3, it is just emitted at a steady pace, and assumes that their metabolism is burning nutrition at that pace... I could make genes that give them a proper increase in hunger when one of their nutrition stores is low, this way they can't starve without knowing about it. I might even be able to figure out a way for them to be driven to carry any food they come across home with them when they are pregnant. They might just munch it down after they get there, but at least it will give the babies more of a chance... there is not necessarily food around home smells (in fact in the ship and capillata, those areas are often pretty barren of visible food for some reason). "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love." "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan |
|||
| downloads cobs adoptions creaturelink metarooms breeds gallery art wallpaper screenshots graphics promos sprites |
dev hack shack script reservations dev resources active projects dev forum community links advice chat polls resources |
creatchi forum bookmarks general news help development strangeo survivor |
mycaves log in register lost pw |
1 online RisenAngel |
| creatures caves is your #1 resource for the creatures artificial life game series: creatures, creatures 2, creatures 3, docking station, and the upcoming creatures family. contact help privacy policy terms & conditions rules donate wiki |
||||