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Creatures 3 Genome Project   1 | 2 | ... | 8 | 9 | 10 | ... | 14 | 15
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/8/2015

Most of it. There are also a few new genes split between the heart, liver, and gonads giving them the ability to get heart disease or cirrhosis of the liver, and to get a beneficial effect from vitamin E, (all as in C2), and of course, there are several changed genes throughout the 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

Wingheart



  8/8/2015

That's good.
Also, what was with the Chichis that made them constantly have maxed out adipose tissue and at least a little hunger for starch?

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/8/2015

Actually the chichi's obsession with machines thing reminds me , my CFF norns have a tendency to get obsessed with my learning machine like chichis do, but that may be something to do with the way my learning machine works (it's a speaking one, which I believe creatures are forced to respond to).
I should look at how they respond to other "machine" items I guess.

 
mea
Chaotic Spriter

mea


 visit mea's website: Caos of the Creatures Realm
  8/8/2015

At some point will you be doing a CFF breed that is amphibious, as in able to live on land & in water? Being able to have a CFF Pearl mermaid norn colony would be wonderful.
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/8/2015

Wingheart wrote:
That's good.
Also, what was with the Chichis that made them constantly have maxed out adipose tissue and at least a little hunger for starch?



I haven't really noticed that with the CFF Chichis (actually if these Norn's adipose were maxed out they would die of a heart attack pretty soon after), but they do have the fullness lobe and tend to stop eating when they aren't actually hungry, so they aren't really likely to get fat.

To me those symptoms sound like they are living in the DS meso and totally pigging out on a diet consisting of mostly tubas, which have lots of fat, as well as protein, but no starch, the tubas grow all over the place in there, are really abundant, and constantly renew faster than anything else. The only natural sources of starch in there are the bramboo fruit, which are kind of seasonal and not really that abundant. The rest have to come from dispensers.


"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

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/8/2015

mea wrote:
At some point will you be doing a CFF breed that is amphibious, as in able to live on land & in water? Being able to have a CFF Pearl mermaid norn colony would be wonderful.



Hmm sounds like Pearl Mermaids genome are basically just a modified Chichi genome with a different appearance and a few changes to make them amphibious... I imagine that it would be easy enough to just put those modifications into the 1.0 CFF Chichis... so that could probably be done pretty quickly.


"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

Wingheart



  8/8/2015

I was talking about early (like, first version) CFFs and the CFE Chichis.
They also have explodonuts but yeah I usually add stuff like goldencaps to the Meso. Doesn't help though, and they do that in other areas too.

I think Pearl Mermaids just have their air quality locus changed to 'anything'.

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/9/2015

Pearl mermaids do have their own pose and gait genes which are pretty hard to deal with.
 
Wingheart

Wingheart



  8/9/2015

If you start with the colourtrue CFE pearl mermaid genome and just add the CFF edits to it that won't be a problem.

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/9/2015

Yeah, ok then that might take longer... That makes it the same amount of work as doing the whole conversion of any other breed instead of just making a few changes, but it is probably better to do it that way if there are also a lot of pose and gait changes.

So, any other opinions or ideas on fixes I could put into the final CFF, based on testing?


"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

Wingheart



  8/9/2015

Maybe have a version of CFFs with the anti inbreeding genes carried but not expressed?
They're really good as is.
The female cycles even synchronize, so they all breed at once. Which is sensible.

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/10/2015

I do notice the CFFs have rather low glycogen, which often triggers the "death music." I'd assume lower glycogen is fairly normal but one verymuch alive norn appeared to have none at one point. (to be fair she was about gen 29, but it does make me wonder)
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/10/2015

Yeah, I noticed mine making the low glycogen death noises and music too, while seeming otherwise okay... None starved or anything, but I'll have a look at that, probably has to do with them not eating as much when they aren't hungry, so they have very little nutrition stored... The base genomes were designed to work more with their normal C3/DS super-pigginess I guess... I might have to increase the nutrition they get from food a little, or make their metabolisms a little more efficient, to compensate.

"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

Wingheart



  8/10/2015

Oh that's why the music was weird!
I thought it was because of the really old norn on screen.

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/10/2015

On closer inspection with a normal norn the CFF norns actually do seem like they might be starving. I kind of chalked the low glycogen up to an oddity but it'd definitely more than that.

Oddly they do seem to last a reasonable while without food though.

 
Wingheart

Wingheart



  8/10/2015

So make them get a bit more nourishment from food?
Or make their metabolisms slightly more efficient?
Or a mix of both?

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/10/2015

Adding food nourishment would be easiest I think, I will try that first. Even with their low glycogen storage I haven't noticed them starving any more quickly than other Norns, so it probably only needs a small tweak.

"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

Wingheart



  8/11/2015

It's possible that them usually having muscle tissue compensates for having very low glycogen.
(I say usually because of a second gen Evo norn I had which didn't seem to produce muscle tissue at first, but after injecting her with a little she started making it on her own.)

 
Wingheart

Wingheart



  8/12/2015

Also, this may be an issue with an individual norn, but when they're really old?
Sometimes they decide the perfect reaction to fear is to sit very still.
I found an ancient (5 hours something) norn sitting very still at the edge of the Norn Terrainium pond farthest from the ground, looking very scared. After about 30 seconds of sitting terrified in the engineering/bridge medipod thing he decided that maybe running was a good idea. (He remained scared for over a minute after getting removed from the pond.)

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/12/2015

Yeah, the fear from oxygen deprivation does linger a while after they can breathe again, this is because of how their biochemistries work at a basic level... After deprivation, air and oxygen only slowly and gradually get put back into their system, it actually takes a while for it to get to a point where they are no longer having lactic acid be created from the low oxygen, and feeling the burning from it in their lungs and muscles which scares them... Almost drowning is pretty terrifying, and it's reasonable to take a while to recover.

I made this interval as short as possible though, by tweaking the sensitivity of the reaction to low oxygen, and introducing another chemical that regulates the lactic acid cycle, but there is only so much I could do here... In regular C3/DS norns, the drowning reaction actually keeps getting sent to them for several minutes after having low air in their lungs, because lung air levels take even longer to start to stabilize than oxygen levels, but for them, the reaction only makes the bubbles when they are underwater, they don't have genes to physically react to it (probably for just that reason).

As for staying still at first THEN running after a while, this actually is a pretty common reaction you see in a lot of adult norns for lower levels of fear... it takes a little while to build up adrenaline (which helps amp up fear generation), it takes a little while for fearly drive overwhelmsion to kick in, and also at first, fear will be fighting against any anger being generated from most other stress the norn might have... Often I don't see them decide to panic and start to run until fear gets to a pretty high level (it will keep building for a short time after getting out of the water, and takes a while to go away).

Another thing that you have to take into account with Ancient Norns is they DO actually get senile, and this is especially noticeable in CFE types, because they remember everything for life, until this starts happening... The effects of senility typically start slowly at old age, then speed up, and how it affects them is it affects the strength of connections and randomly flips connections between different neurons... For example, if the norn knows that "Eat Food" is a good way to reduce hunger for protein, it might start to forget slowly, or worse, now it might think that "Hit Food", or "Eat Toy" is the best way to reduce hunger for protein, forgetting all about "eat food". You can actually re-teach them these concepts if they 'forget', by isolating them and working with them, but you will see they start to get things mixed up more and more often, including forgetting how to eat eventually... Your norn might even think that for fear instead of 'retreat from it', the appropriate response is to 'look at it', 'approach it', or 'eat it' instead.


"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

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/12/2015

It might also be related to the Norn not seeing anything to run from... An interesting thing to try which might help them, might be to also give them a weak instinct to want to go towards their home, or maybe each other, when they are afraid. This would be likely to lead them to safety even if they took an elevator to get down there.

"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

Wingheart



  8/12/2015

The weak instinct does sound like a good idea.
He was sitting RIGHT NEXT to a water plant, several fish, and a toy. And just staring at himself terrified.

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/12/2015

evolnemesis wrote:

Another thing that you have to take into account with Ancient Norns is they DO actually get senile, and this is especially noticeable in CFE types, because they remember everything for life, until this starts happening... The effects of senility typically start slowly at old age, then speed up, and how it affects them is it affects the strength of connections and randomly flips connections between different neurons... For example, if the norn knows that "Eat Food" is a good way to reduce hunger for protein, it might start to forget slowly, or worse, now it might think that "Hit Food", or "Eat Toy" is the best way to reduce hunger for protein, forgetting all about "eat food". You can actually re-teach them these concepts if they 'forget', by isolating them and working with them, but you will see they start to get things mixed up more and more often, including forgetting how to eat eventually... Your norn might even think that for fear instead of 'retreat from it', the appropriate response is to 'look at it', 'approach it', or 'eat it' instead.




I actually wondered if this was the case. What is the process behind it I wonder? The "brain" organ becoming damaged and actually effecting their intelligence?

Also on the topic of fear, having drowning-related fear reduce very slowly might complicate them learning an appropriate response, but I understand there's probably little that can be done.
Indeed I tried teaching "push lift" and they didn't seem to make the association, but then things don't come easily to norns if it's not explicitly in their instincts so maybe it's just norns being norns. (possibly make drowning norns feel "low down"?)

Giving them an instinct to come nornhome might help, since that's rarely going to be underwater. A thought that interested me was having them be repelled by water smell, but C3/DS genetics don't seem to function with negatives very well, plus "water" isn't really a concept to them unlike nornhome, so it might just confuse them.

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/13/2015

Not the brain organ damage... It's somewhere in the state rules of their brains, probably the tracts to the decision lobe... It's in how their dendrites are programmed to naturally change strength and move connections from one neuron to another based on how much they are used. Creatures naturally slowly forget things if they don't think about them for a long time, and also won't think about things that don't work for them... Unused dendrite connections naturally get weaker over time, and will randomly migrate to other neurons once they are weak enough, so the creatures can try something else; but for old, and especially ancient creatures, these dendrite connections seem to degrade faster, and migrate randomly more often. Basically, their natural 'forgetting' process, really a healthy part of their learning system, just goes into overdrive.

"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

Wingheart



  8/13/2015

So, basically the standard 'minor increase in brain regulation sensitivity=massive effect' thing.
Makes sense.

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/13/2015

Aww... yeah, they don't know what to do in general if scared... They only know that retreating from Grendel will reduce fear, but no other way to reduce it, if there are no Grendels around, I could see them getting pretty confused... no wonder they have to have a really high level of fear to run, they have to be thinking 'retreat Grendel', not see a Grendel, sensibly ignore the thought, and not do anything about it until its a voice screaming in their heads so loud they can't think of anything else, at which point they basically imagine a Grendel and run from anything, like my poor Churchmouse Norns when they would get scared from noise and start talking about a Grendel that wasn't there.

I put in weak instincts to go toward each other, or else their home, if scared, that should help them a lot more in general situations. Testing out those instinct changes, also some nutritional changes as discussed, behavior changes (their loneliness generation is lowered so they can spread out and explore more and I'm experimenting with a few new natural instincts), changes in sickness (it will take nutrition now as in older games, watch out for your sick Norns and make sure they don't waste away...), and also some breeding changes to make them even a little less fertile.

Anyway, look for the official CFF 1.0 Chichis VERY soon... These will be the end of CFF development officially, They'll have all the fixes that will be in all the breed packs I put out... but I will probably continue to evolve and work on additional things in my Evo Norn breed just to see what else is possible after that. I want to try and do something really crazy with variants.


"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

Wingheart



  8/13/2015

Also, a weird thing that I found like 30 seconds ago: a norn with very high levels of anger and fear, nowhere near water, very old (died of, as far as I can tell, old age), no toxins, and alone.
What the heck could have given her the huge (almost maxed out) anger and fear?
And can I help test these please?

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/13/2015

really high levels of anger and fear at the same time? Sounds like a mutation... Otherwise one or the other drive overwhelmsion organ, or the fear<->anger conversion should have kicked in and stopped the other... Hmm I wonder if those organs were dead? Maybe she had adrenaline in her system all the time that wouldn't leave? That might also cause both of those to build up faster than they go away... If she had a mutation that made one or the other, or made either of their drive backup chemicals, it's also possible it could cause that effect, since they convert back and forth and build off each other and have a kind of feedback effect until one overwhelms the other.

EDIT: P.S. sure you can, I'm going to look at these for a little just to make sure I didn't do anything TOO crazy, then I'll put out a test pair tomorrow in downloads.


"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

Wingheart



  8/13/2015

She was fine up until shortly before she died and even had a few eggs, so it was probably those organs dying off and then something getting her angry and scared.
Interestingly enough she had small amounts of some other drive. I think it was boredom.

Other amusing things: a norn became obsessed with the Jungle Grapes agent.
Just picked up a bunch of grapes and walked around holding it and staring at it for like 5 minutes.
Cute little baby norn too, ate well, and I think she's even laid at least one egg.
Maybe her babies will become obsessed with random fruits as babies too.

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/13/2015

I was wondering about the senility because you mentioned the possibility of them being longer-lived, premature senility might be an issue.
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/13/2015

Missmysterics wrote:
I was wondering about the senility because you mentioned the possibility of them being longer-lived, premature senility might be an issue.



Senility's onset seems to be related to their life stage (old/ancient) rather than their actual age... So longer lived Norns should take proportionately longer to start going senile (assuming their organs live... I've noticed that the drive regulation organs are particularly fragile and seem designed to have a good chance to die before the Norn does... which causes it's own behavior issues... probably intended as part of advanced senility perhaps... weakened fight or flight, weakened hunger, loss of emotional balance, etc...)

I haven't touched their aging yet since I haven't really gotten any feedback on it... I like the idea, but I'm hesitant to do it to the basic CFF breeds if there isn't much demand... It'll probably just end up being something I add to Evos... It also turns out to be pretty complex... Because of how organs age, making the Norns live longer AND have organs that live that much longer too (without seriously affecting their metabolisms) requires changing the reaction rates of every organ AND every chemical reaction in their body. Making organs live longer can only be done by slowing their rates, which means that the rates of all reactions in the organ have to be sped up just enough to compensate.


"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

 
Missmysterics

Missmysterics



  8/13/2015

I noticed something else odd about CFFs. If they get stung by C12DS bees, they seem to start constantly producing fear and eventually die due to stress or all their other drives being repressed (or possibly due to suffocating?). The bees' stings contain fever toxin.

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  8/13/2015

A high fever can cause a creature to have serious problems breathing, so it is quite possible it was suffocating. Fear from that would repress other drives, but I don't think a fever should last long enough for the norn to starve or anything from its other repressed drives... Dying from stress is a remote possibility too if the fever lasted a really long time, but I think suffocation is a lot more plausible given the symptoms... It takes a relatively low oxygen level, sustained for a while, to cause fear; and when the level is below that, their energy is about to start spiraling steadily to zero, and when that gets low enough without an increase in oxygen, they shut down and die... Typically, once they are showing fear from anything causing oxygen deprivation their life is in imminent danger and they have only a few minutes more at most. I'd look at the oxygen and energy levels in any Norn showing fear for no obvious reason.

I'll have to check out how fever toxin is dealt with in their bodies. I know that being too hot makes them pant and get less oxygen, and fever toxin can really increase their body temperature... What I'm worried about is that it might not go away naturally, which would be bad; definitely something to change if that's the case. Hmm, if there are bacteria that inject fever or fear toxin, seems to me my new fear instincts could make it a nasty epidemic... A scared infected norn will now be likely to be attracted to other norns or the norn home...


"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

Wingheart



  8/13/2015

They also seem to have a problem where occasionally they'll get stuck staring at a Comfort Candle and when asked 'what' all they'll say is 'approach norn home' while in the same room as the Candle.

 
Jesseth
The Mossy Shee

Jesseth


 visit Jesseth's website: My tumblr
  8/13/2015

@Wingheart
The comfort candles give off a powerful smell gradient of norn home, ettin home or grendle home depending on which one!
If the norns are sticking in close proximity to the comfort candles, it means that their homesickness/need to approach is overpowering their other drives c:

Norns can only get -so- homesick, and depending on the breed or mutations, homesickness fades over time in an area with norn home smell. So they should get up and move after a while on their own! If it's becoming a nuisance though, I guess the homesickness drive could be reduced. It could also be given some kind of override kind of like the existing ones that ovveride sex drive when a norn is in pain or scared! That would require adding in more genes though probably.


The Mossy Shee & Co
 

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