The Math says No

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Unfortunately, I have to remove Wide-Eyed Payment and her brother Tuatara into the Norn Meso to keep them separated. After I’d finished yesterday’s entry, I spent the night working with Wide-Eyed Payment, doing various maths and experiments to see if she could naturally lay eggs on her own. Turns out no, she can’t.

The good news is that her daughter, Trisha, doesn’t have this negative gene. I’ve exported her daughter to include in the game when I’m ready for the 3rd generation of Grendels. Bye Trish! See you soon!

After removing anybody with this bad gene from the population (just our two purebred Boneys) it was time to move on. Flawless Color had already laid all four of her eggs and it seemed like a good time to introduce a new Grendel to the population.

I asked for a female Dustdevil Grendel egg and got a Tiger Grendel instead. Little did I know, these two occupy the same slot. I uninstalled the Tiger Grendel agent and kept getting Tiger sprites anyway so I moved on and decided to use one of Grendel Man’s genetic breeds instead.

Meet Claire (you’ve probably noticed that I’ve abandoned the Protective Tub agent already. It was hilarious while it lasted!). She’s an Amarok Grendel. You can find their agent at The Realm (link to post). This means a few things.

First, cold doesn’t bother her. She can eat critters and seeds but can “also hit norns for nourishment”(readme). She also won’t hit creatures to alleviate her anger, she’ll hit critters instead, though I’d rather she drink potions. She’s got a lot to live up to being the only female who can lay any more eggs. I also can’t compare her genome in GeneCompare. I wish I could figure out what was wrong with this program. :C

I scanned around to check on all of my creatures and everyone seemed to be fine.

The Grendels were all wandering around, talking to each other and napping. Claire was exploring the upper levels, scooping up seeds and yelling about how angry she was. I instructed her (nagged, really) to drink some potions and she took to watching the awkwood seeds fall from their vine. It’d be a little while before she reached adulthood. At only 9 minutes old, she was still a child.

The Norns were doing well, too. The norns had all paired off into groups. Sour Drink and Loving Wren had taken to going up to the top right door together and kiss-popping while Five Cheese and Uptight Kettle rode the elevator and Scandalous Laborer and Lowly Adjustment wandered towards the hill.

Even the gnarlers were doing well!

That is, until I got my second death notification. Obese Bomb was my second first generation Grendel to die and it stung quite a bit to see her go. I have to admit, she and Thin Desire were two of my favorite creatures and I knew that Des might be the next to go. Rest in peace, Bomb. I’ll miss you.

I took my time here to check on the other elders. They were all in their Ancient life stage now and each of them fathered or mothered 4 eggs. Giants and Tuatara spent their time on the top deck of the  meso talking about seeds, probably oblivious to the death of Bomb.

Meanwhile, Des picked another spot to stand in and hadn’t moved. Just as I handed her a toy to play with, Earthly Giants died. Unlike Obese Bomb, who had a complaining Des to keep her company, Earthly Giants got to spend his last moments with his son Tuatara.

I had a moment of silence for the couple and spent time with Thin Desire and Macabre Desire. They both were sleepy so I encouraged them to rest. Next thing I knew, Wide-Eyed Payment was pregnant with two of Tuatara’s children. Normally, I would be excited except that Wide-Eyed Payment might never get to lay her eggs. This whole endeavor has been very heart breaking.

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

Last 2 Generation 2 Eggs

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

The norns were all doing pretty well. Uptight Kettle and Lowly Adjustment in particular were forming a great friendship, consisting mostly of chasing poor Five Cheese around. She didn’t seem to mind and kept saying “me happy”. Nothing to worry about here.

After my last entry, though, I set off to work on the Egg Tracker and Family trees and noticed something.

There were still two 2nd generation Grendel eggs left! I realized that if I didn’t hatch these two Grendel eggs, they might not get a chance to spread their own genes. Naturally, I had to hatch them.

This time, thankfully, I have the internet to help me.

This is Tuatara, son of Obese Bomb and Earthly Giants. This male to female ratio problem just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?

Anyway, onto his genetics.

Tuatara

Emitters

Neutral – 90 39 0 Emb B MutDupCut 128 0 Organ# = 5, Creature, Sensorimotor, Permanently active, chem=Sleepiness, thresh=0, samp=34, gain=4, features=Digital (0)

samp is originally 35

According to CDR, sample rate refers to how often the emitter injects the chemical into the creature. This particular gene injects sleepiness into the creature constantly at a pretty steady rate and the original sample rate is 35. All this means is that the creature will be injected with sleepiness a little more often. This minor mutation shouldn’t hurt little Tuatara at all, just make him a little sleepy a little more often than the other grendels.

Negative – 180 Different in file 1 13 0 Adu F MutDupCut 128 0 Organ# = 11, Creature, Reproductive, I am pregnant, chem=Progesterone, thresh=128, samp=1, gain=2, features=Digital (0)

gain is originally 3

Since Tuatara is a boy, he doesn’t have to worry about this gene at all! Any daughters he has, however, do. The gain is originally 3 and gain is the amount of chemical that gets injected into the creature. Progesterone, the chemical that’s changed here, is the one that helps a female creature lay her eggs and prevents her from getting pregnant again while pregnant. Because it’s lower here, any daughters he has might have a harder time laying their eggs. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about this change except that Wide-Eyed Payment, my Grendel who had trouble laying her eggs, has this gene as well. I might try to remove this gene from the population by way of careful breeding, but I’m curious about how else this gene can evolve.

Anyway, if Wide-Eyed is able to lay eggs on her own (good-bye Preggy candy) then I’ll allow him to stay with the others.

Stimuli

Neutral – 443 44 0 Emb B MutDupCut 128 0 Play critter (86) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,0 => -25*Loneliness + 0*<NONE> + 0*147 + 0*<NONE>

chemical is originally <NONE>

This isn’t particularly interesting. Normally, the genes here control what happens when a creature plays with a critter. Since 147 isn’t used, this has no change.

 Neutral – 449  54   0 Chi B MutDupCut        129   0 Reached peak of smell 16 (71) causes sig=145 GS neu=7 int=204, ,,,240 => -124*Comfort + -6*Fear + -5*Pain + 4*Boredom

Originally Degree is 128

This gene controls what this creature feels when he’s ‘smelling’ the grendel home at its strongest. The change here is in the “degree of mutability” or just “degree” in the Genetics Kit. This controls how much more likely and mutatable(?) the gene is. Here, the gene is made slightly more likely to mutate in future generations. Otherwise, there are no changes.

I should add that after looking through her genes, Wide-eyed Payment is an identical twin to Tuatara! That makes sorting her genes out very simple.

There! That was easy. Having the internet around to help makes this much simpler, anyway.

Moving on to our next egg, we have Viggo, another male. Looks like the boys really have to get those girls if they want to carry on their genes! He looks a lot like Impartial Relation, doesn’t he? Well, they aren’t related. 😛

Also, I’d move on to his genes, but I’m still having trouble opening Gene Compare and I’m just not willing to go through and compare his genes in the DDNA analyzer since it misreads the genes. I’m also not willing to compare every gene between him and his two breeds in the Genetics Kit. Sorry guys, maybe another time?

 

As if I didn’t have enough eggs already, Flawless Color decided that I should have two more eggs to worry about. Oh dear. It looks like Flawless Color is done laying eggs. So far (yes, I peeked) it looks like Elite Cap and Clear Glass are both going to be passing on their genes through Flawless Color’s eggs. A quick look at her genetics tells me that she doesn’t have the same problems laying eggs that Wide-eyed Payment does, either.

If the boys are lucky, they can have babies through Wide-eyed and she’ll be able to hatch them on her own. If we’re lucky, this bad egg-laying gene won’t be carried in her baby.

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

6 2nd Generation Grendels and 6 1st Generation Norns

by ⋅ 4 Comments

I’ve added an egg-tracker page to the blog! You can keep up with the eggs at the link above.

————

Goodness I’ve got my hands full with this bunch. Good thing I’m playing whilst I stay up tonight.

It’s currently New Years Eve and I’ve made time to get some DS/C3 time after spending the entire afternoon with the hubby and some of my friends.

Anyway.

I loaded the game and the grendels set of hitting each other. What made me sure that I’d be so busy was a pregnancy notification right off the bat!

This time, it’s a lonely egg from Wide-eyed Payment. I’m not sure, but I suspect the father is Elite Cap. I’d separated her from the other Grendels to make it simple to snatch up her egg but she just wouldn’t lay it. I followed her for a while and then there were two more pregnancy indications!

Flawless Color was the lucky lady this time but since both boys were nearby, it could’ve been Elite Cap OR Clear Glass this time. I moved both ladies up to the second level of the terrarium hoping they’d lay their eggs. Almost immediately, Color laid both of her eggs and carried one of them off in her hands. It almost seemed like she was trying to keep me away!

It wasn’t long til I decided to check on the norns. I found Uptight Kettle sleeping in the grass, Five Cheese sleeping on the second level and Lowly Adjustment by the elevator. Scandalous Laborer was watching one of the bees’ nests for a while but in general, things were very quiet. I was worried that Scandal wasn’t moving but when I pulled her away, she only walked up to Kettle to stand by him.

I wondered if she wanted more eggs, but I’m not about to change the rules at only Generation 1. ;D Thankfully, the love was at least mutual and Kettle kept saying that he loves Scandal. Good for them!

Loving Wren, on the other hand, was busy gobbling up all of the seeds next to the fish pond. He seemed happy eating by himself, though I was worried he might be getting a bit chubby.

I was starting to get a little worried about Five Cheese, though. She wasn’t ill and in fact spent a lot of time taking naps on her little spot next to the beans. She hadn’t moved in a little while, though so I took her hand and moved her away. She ate an apple and went right back to napping.

Her name wasn’t on the emergency medical list, though, so I moved on to my still pregnant grendel. I was a little desperate to get her to lay the darn thing, so I downloaded Norngirl’s Preggy Candies and had her eat one. A few seconds later, there was another grendel egg!

(resized)

I was starting to have problems sorting out the eggs, so I changed the top level of Random’s Room to water using Amaikokonut’s MW – Room Edits (link). It’s a great help and either of the water room types keeps the eggs from hatching.

Speaking of those eggs, though, the grendel ladies still had 5 more eggs to lay before they were done laying eggs for their generation. I was a little worried that I would only have 8 grendels to work with for the next generation but after some time, I thought that was enough to work with. I’d only hoped all four of the grendel boys would get a chance to pass on their genes, especially since it seemed like no one had any really debilitating mutations.

I left my younger grendels to check on the elders and found that Des hadn’t moved since she’d reached Old age. She looked so old and tired there but rather than disturb her, I decided to let her rest and do whatever she liked for the rest of her time.

As for the other elderly grendels, Macabre Desire was in the bottom part of the meso, walking through the grass, Obese Bomb was napping and Earthly Giants was above, pushing the elevator button and eating tuba plants. In general, they were all pretty comfortable. Des eventually got up to eat some fruit so I stopped worrying and left to check on the norns again.

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

More EGGS.

by ⋅ 2 Comments

No pictures this time! I’m sorry. :C

—

After that little peek into Grendel genetics yesterday, it was time to encourage my norns to make babies. Sour Drink only has to lay 4 eggs then I’ll be done with this generation’s breeding.

With some gentle encouragement, I got her to have eggs with both Uptight Kettle and Loving Wren. What a sweet girl! I scooped up her eggs and put them in the inventory for later. I set her in the grass to let her take a nap but she busied herself eating seeds instead.

Back to Flawless, though, she was now an hour old and still an Adult. I decided to move her mother in with her in the Norn Meso to keep her company. Since her mother was rendered infertile now (and females can’t mate) I saw no harm in it.

I skimmed through my population list and saw another female who had turned into an adult at only 18 minutes old. Wide-eyed Payment was an adult now! I started to suspect that it’s a Boney Grendel trait to age very quickly. Finally, I decided to just move them all back to the Grendel Terrarium. Flawless hadn’t aged to Elder yet and showed no signs of passing away.

Before long, it seemed like I had grendels kiss-popping again. I didn’t have to worry about the norns anymore so it was just as well.

The grendel terrarium was starting to get very crowded. I debated taking all of the first generation grendels out of the game to make available for download or injecting a new meta room for them to use.

I have to admit, it didn’t take me long to decide to do both.

—

I turned out to be an idiot and accidentally deleted the rest of this blog post.

So I’m going to guess what I wrote.

—

I have 4 male grendels to my 2 females and might have to introduce new blood as needed. I could always remove the population limit, but I want to keep things sort of limited. It’s hard to know for sure what I want my plans to be when I create these worlds and I end up having to adjust as I go.

I’m probably going to play with one group at a time from now on (and introduce bacteria) because, while I like being so busy, it isn’t especially condusive to blogging as I go and it isn’t as much fun for me. I also don’t get to spend as much one-on-one time with my creatures and don’t have a chance to get to know them better. So I’m going to divy up play time as such:

From here on, every generation will be separated entirely and I will only play with one species of creature at a time.

Creatures with Detrimental genes will still be put into the Norn Meso for study.

Once a month (after we move) I’ll release all the creatures I played with that month for download/adoption/study.

So there’s that. We’ll see how things go tomorrow.

Grendel Eggs

Obese Bomb

Thin Desire

Norn Eggs

Sour Drink

Five Cheese

Scandalous Laborer

  • Share on Tumblr
  •