Creatures Community Chat

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Observation: Family Tree

Wow, just noticed the family tree has got so big you can't read the names in the .jpg. Apologies but I don't think there is any way to fix this. I'm not sure how much it matters as the connection were already an utter mess. Hopefully just being able to see the colours and vague connections will still be entertaining.

Observation: Population and Tribes

I'd been a little worried after messing with the food supplies. My population got culled dramatically and although it's even lower than last post, the Norns are gathering together again and breeding. I'm down to 20 Norns but a lot of them are now babies and the elderly have nearly all passed on.

There's virtually no point in talking about tribes anymore, at least not in the sense of differing breeds. The Norns are now so inbreed it doesn't matter, and I'll refer to the tribes now by where they are located.

The Norns located in the Jungle are predominantly Toxic, although there is a some Hardman genes that managed to propagate into the pool. This seems to have given them an affinity for being able to eat detritus as well as normal foods, and they tend to anger more often than other Norns. Although not nearly as much as a pure Hardman would.

Sadly the population here is very small, mostly due to the bad mixing of Toxic genes with the other breeds. I've had a LOT of baby Norns die, presumably due to this bad mix.

The Norn Terrarium is almost devoid of (relatively) intelligent life, with only two elderly Norns still alive there. At one point the Apple and Toxic Norns mingled here, but the babies either died, or move onto different rooms. Anyone with Toxic genes seems to have headed to the Jungle and the Apples have made their way to the Meso. Sadly it looks as though the Treehugger genes have once again died off, at least in appearance.

At the moment most of the population is jumping between the Meso and the Norn Garden. Without the Treehugger genes they aren't getting as overcrowded, although it does seem to be on the rise. The Chichi Tribe seems to be doing the most breeding here, with Sirel,Risen and Joost producing quite a few new faces. Fortunately they're also breeding with the other Tribes, so I have an incredible mix of patchwork Norns. I have temporarily turned off the population monitor due to the dwindling numbers (although youth and elderly still can't breed) and this is clearly having an effect with a small number of Norns owning the gene pool. I will probably need to turn it back on shortly to stop these few Norns controlling the next generation.

(Random observation: One of the lifts in the Norn Terrarium has broken. The one leading up to the Crypt. This will cause problems for Norns wanted to escape the Terrarium. Any suggestions on how to fix it?)

One nice thing with the introduction of the Chichi tribe is that I've started producing babies (well, not me personally obviously) with mutated pigmentations. All Berry's children have started life with a purple colouration, although most of them seem to lose it later in life. I was terribly disappointed to find a bright orange Norn, but before I could take a screenshot he was at childhood and had already lost it.

(Random Observation: There has just been a new Grendel born with the strangest gait mutation I have ever seen. Namely, he doesn't have any. The poor thing doesn't appear to be able to move at all. I do the right-click and drag to make him walk and he just slides along the ground, continually facing forwards. I've exported him in case anyone would like a look at him, but mostly because that just seems a cruel life. Even a quadriplegic can be fed and entertained, but this poor creature doesn't seem to be able to do ANYTHING for himself.)

The family tree has nearly got to the point of impossibility. It's now so large I have trouble finding the Norns parents to make the appropriate links. Although now the elders have all died off it's starting to become easier again. Essentially all the purple and pink nodes are still active.



I've also started work on a new creatures related project. I don't feel that anything is ready to show just yet but I'll start throwing up some random images soon. Terribly exciting :D ...

Friday, June 25, 2010

Observation: Population

After my population maxed out and I started building up some excess eggs I made a few changes to the world to try and keep things a little more stable.

I dramatically culled the food supplies in all the rooms, making it impossible for a large number of Norns to survive in the same place. This had a nearly instant effect with half the Norns in the Norn terrarium making the move to the Jungle. Since then most of them have move on to the desert and I have a good spread of Norns across most of the world.

It seems the Norns have good instincts to find food and will naturally migrate when their area starts to run low. I'm going to try and have some fun with this idea by occasionally reducing the amount of food naturally found in rooms to force most of the population to keep moving.

I also introduced additional bacteria to all the rooms with the use of the Bubonic Bulge. It's difficult to tell exactly what caused it, but my population has been dramatically reduced. Instead of the 45 Norns I had, I am now down to 27 with no spare eggs. I do still have a few Norns left to import from SAM5, but they're all Toxic Norns now and I'd rather not give the Toxic tribe such a massive advantage.

It is a tad worrying at the moment, as a large chunk of my population has reached old age and can no longer breed. Hopefully the new generation coming through will consist of some good breeders.

In other sad news, Ono has just died, marking the death of all the first generation Norns.

Several Grendels have passed out of the C1 part of the world, but few have survived and at present the Grendel population is mostly situated in C1. I've introduced some Killer Grendels to the mix. They've quite savage beasts and will often kill off other Grendels. So far they're all still hanging out in C1 and have only killed a couple of Norns who have ventured into that part of the world. Eventually though they're sure to escape and are bound to be a massive selective force on the Norns.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Observation: Population

My population has maxed out. I originally set my max creatures at 50, but once it became apparent they were getting rather crowded I lowered it to 45.
I've got my breeding limit set to 4 children per Norn, which should aid in keeping the population under control.

I have a couple of unhatched eggs lying about but only about 5 or so, which I don't find too distressing. If I start ending up with large stockpiles of eggs I'll consider lowering the breeding limit. My aim is to get a stable population that doesn't get bogged down by old eggs, nor do they go extinct due to a lack of breeding.

I'm a little concerned that the Grendels have stopped breeding and are no longer stockpiling eggs. I think I'm going to need them later as a selective pressure, as my Norns are surviving quite well.

As diabolical as it sounds I may need to considering introducing some things that will help kill off the weaker Norns. I want to see if I can get a stable population without doing so first, by limiting breeding. Then I'll introduce a few additional pressures and if needed up the breeding limit to accommodate.

I'd like whatever pressures I introduce to not be random, which will hopefully promote good evolution. For example having the piranha pit open periodically would be no good, as the Norns will have no concept of staying away.

I do have the bubonic bulge and macrobacteria in the world, so hopefully disease will be a contributing selective force, but I want a few other things to introduce.

The Grendels can't be relied on as selective pressures, as it looks like they might end up being out-bred, although the egg laying machines should always leave me with a couple.

Any ideas? What would be good selective pressures to apply to my tribes? Preferably pressures that don't kill them first shot and they can learn to avoid them in later life.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Observation: Tribe updates

Just noticed something mildly interesting about these blog pages. They're in a different time zone. So just to make sure there's no confusion, no I'm not writing up posts at 4:30 in the morning :P Just in case people thought I was a closet, late night Norn player. Coz you know, I care what all you online people think of me ;)

Anyway...ah yes, the tribes.

My goodness, what have I done right!? My population has boomed. I currently have a population of 42 creatures (and boy is the world starting to feel it). 2 Ettins, 10 Grendels and however many left over makes the Norns...30. Yeah my maths is fantastic.

The portal between the Norn Garden and Norn Terrarium has been getting a lot of use. The Apple/Treehuggers and the Bondi's have been mixing nicely and we've even got a couple of crossbreeds showing up.

Strangely I noticed the Hardman, although having access to a teleporter and being overcrowded (note I said teleporter, not portal. Why on earth are there two categories for essentially the same thing?) they weren't using it. I decided to give them access to an interporter (the interporters have the option of linking them all up in a portal loop) and they instantly started spreading around the world.

So keep that in mind people. Norns tend to avoid teleporters but make a beeline for the portals. It may have something to do with the interporter reducing their crowdedness slightly.





Hardman Tribe:

The Hardman's seem to be doing extremely well this run. Although they still spend most of their day angry they tend not to talk about it as much and can instead be found...doing all those other things Norns do.

The training dummy seems to be a fantastic asset and gets used regularly. I'm also happy they don't spend all their time hitting it. Perhaps a handy side effect is that the portal and training dummy are close by and once they've drained their anger they realise their surrounded by relatives and bolt for the portal. Just a theory but I'll have to check it's validity.

Since they were semi cut off from the other Norns for quite some time the Hardman have spent all their time breeding in the Meso with their own tribe. And they've been doing a swell job of it. They're breeding at least as much as any other Tribe and are in the lead in terms of generation number. Hopefully now they have better access to the rest of the world we'll start to see some more inter tribe breeding.

Toxic Tribe:

The Toxic tribe are clearly progressing the slowest this run and it's entirely my own fault. I ah...may have forgotten to import them...:(

Never to mind, they're in there now and they've already given birth to a little one. Certainly I expect them to catch up reasonably well, considering their strong breeding genes and their migrating abilities.

Bondi Tribe:

The Bondi tribe seem to be travelling a little slowly, but nothing to be worried about yet. They tend to live quite a bit longer anyway. On top of that they're breeding a fair bit with the Treehugger tribe which is producing some very cute crossbreeds.

Treehugger/Apple Tribe:

The Apple Norns are fantastic breeders. I currently have the max children per norn set to 6, after which they'll become infertile. Tooty, the original female Apple norn is already bordering that number. Bannan, her male partner isn't far behind. They've mostly breed with each other, but there's a few Apple/Treehugger and Apple/Bondi crossbreeds showing up. Now the Hardman have entered the Norn Terrarium hopefully we'll see the final combination.

Again the Treehuggers seem to be struggling. They began reasonably strong and they've passed on enough genetic material to ensure their place in the next generation or two but as the world is slowly getting more crowded they're breeding less and less. Their instinct is to run away from other Norns when crowded, rather than start pushing some cuddly trees. Fingers crossed there will some tougher cross breeds that will get rid of the 'easily overcrowded' gene and give them a fighting chance.

Chichi Tribe:

As I said in a previous post, when the first generation Norns start to pass on I will introduce some Norns from previous runs. So far Cherwood (Treehugger) and Joan (Hardman) have passed, making way for Pecs and Taret to follow in their wake.

Taret is a Norn from a run when I only had the free breeds. She seems to be a combination of Astro, Civet and Bengal. She is generation 10, but other than that there really isn't anything interesting to add.

Pecs was my first child while testing the Apple Norns for the first time. He is a Hardman cross Apple Norn and seems to have a lovely disposition. So far none of that anger shown in the Hardmans.

Grendels:

Early on I wanted to test if the C1 Grendel update was working so I threw all my Grendels into the C1 expansion and left them there. Not only has the update mostly fixed the floating body parts issue, but they've thrived. I now have 10 Grendels wondering about and they seem pretty happy with their environment.

Little do they know I'm planning to open the flood gates on their peaceful existence and allow them to interact with the Norns again by hooking them up to another interporter. It will be interesting to see whether they flood back into the Ark or if they stay hidden in the past.

Observation: The hydra Grendel

Just noticed this new baby Grendel has a distinguishing feature. I'm sure it's just related to a bit of a graphically mix up between the C1 and Banshee Grendels, but if this is a mutation it's seriously awesome!



I have a hydra-Grendel! (Notice the additional tail)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Observation: C1 Grendel update

Just noticed while I was typing the last post my C1 Grendels have reached adulthood and retained their lovely appearance. So I'm now happy to vouch for the update. Still have no idea what will happen should they reproduce with another breed, but time will tell. And at least for now I'm happy.

Observation: The annoyance of love

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm thoroughly fed up with my Norns tell me how much they love me. Me personally, not each other.

At first it was cute, really, but it's got to the point where it's hard to shut them up. Which annoyingly scares the bejesus out of the Treehuggers.

As soon as one starts they ALL get in on the act which puts them all in an horrible loop where one Norns say "X love Hand" then five others say it. Which in turn makes the other five feel the need to repeat it, which in turn...you get the picture.

They're VERY difficult to stop. I've had them go on for a good solid ten minutes or more. It's like being in a room full of parrots. I've needed to physically separate them several times as they either get far too annoying, or the Treehuggers go crazy and wont listen to anything else. They just run around terrified of all the talking.

This has only become a problem since I upgraded to the CFE breeds. They're meant to be vastly more expressive in terms of relationships, but because you give them a lot of love as infants they adore you and go crazy at the mere sight of a floating hand.

So. I will be trying to get my hands on the agent that turns the Hand invisible to see if that makes any difference. I've experimented with the COAS code that does it and it seems to make a big difference. If they can't see you they don't seem to want to express their undying love.

Fingers crossed this works or I'll be playing with the sound turned off! Gaahhh!!

SAM6: Setting things up

I've gone ahead and abandoned SAM5. I've grabbed a few of the youngest Norns from the world and I'm currently setting up my tribes in SAM6. Here is the Family Tree so far.




Treehugger Tribe:

I originally had the Treehuggers set up in the Norn Garden again. After a relatively short time though I found all the animal life had died off. The big blue fish died before laying eggs in the pond, so the fish life is just about gone (Scratch that. Another fish turned big and will hopefully lay eggs this time). The tomekos have always been a small problem for me and this time they've died off in record time.

Without critters to keep them entertained the Treehuggers seemed to get depressed pretty quickly. They seem to relieve certain stresses like fear through pushing critters (although I haven't tested this with the biochemistry set yet).

As a result I've moved things around a bit as the Norn Terrarium has fantastic animal life and the Treehuggers seem a lot happier. For anyone who is interested I'm using some patches that enable the ecology in the Norn Terrarium to thrive. It's called the 'Woodland fix pack' and can be found at 'Creature Haven', along with several other fantastic fixes. It is still advised to keep the door near the learning room closed though. Oh, and the CFE breeds can be found at Creature Haven for anyone who hasn't found them yet.

As well as the Treehuggers I've hatched two Apple Norns for a little more genetic variety. That and I want to test them out in a run.

I've also loaded the Norn Terrarium up with 'cuddly trees' to try and make the Treehuggers more relaxed. So far it seems to be working.

There is a portal (interporter agent) connecting the Norn Terrarium to the Norn garden, which is already seeing a fair bit of use.

Bondi Tribe:

The Bondi's are currently set up in the Norn Garden as it's about the only place the Norns can get at the Crobsters, although they do mostly seem to leave them alone.

As a bonus I've thrown in the C1 carrots which seem to grow just about anywhere and make sure there is a supply of constant food.
Other than that there's a bunch of cool toys, and as mentioned the portal between the Garden and Norn Terrarium.

Hardman Tribe:

The Hardman are set up in the Meso. The major addition to this room is the training dummy (set to Grendel) and a smell emitter (also set to Grendel). This simple addition seems to have made my Hardman a great deal happier. When I wasn't looking one of them has even managed to get pregnant already, so I'd say this was all that was needed.

I've also installed the Grendel update for the Banshee Grendels, which gives them some new voices and places an egg layer in the Workshop, so that should please the Hardman to no end.

Toxic Tribe:

The Toxic tribe is completely made up of Norns from the last run. If their ancestry is anything to go by they should all be very good breeders. Once again I've set them up in the Jungle.

I was also happy to note that the Stinky Stump vendor can be used without having to first inject the Stinky Stumps, so breeders can have complete control over where they are placed. They're mostly in the Jungle, but several have been spread across the world in strategic places, such as near the ant nests in the Norn Terrarium.

Chichi Tribe:

I'm still a bit all over the place with this tribe. The main issue is I don't currently have anywhere to put them. So I've decided I will import/hatch new Norns when one of my first generations dies. This will start with some random creatures from previous test runs who will have a mixed bag of genes from all the free breeds (chichi, Bengal, bruin, fallow etc) and then resort to hatching some new chichis.
I'd also like to add I want to give Harbert a run, as he's magically developed a Grendel body without genetic interference.

Grendels and Ettins:

Not much to add about the Ettins. The desert has been set up with a good supply of food stuff and if they ever bothered to stay there I'm sure they'd love it. No such luck of course.

As mentioned I now have the Grendel update installed so Grendels will also hatch closer to the Meso. Whether or not they and the Hardman end up killing each other off is yet to be seen.

I'm also in the process of testing out an update for the C1 Grendels. Previously my Grendels would get floating body parts when they reached adulthood and I've been informed there is a fix for this. It can be found at DiagnalFish under 'Grendel Fix'. I can't vouch for it yet as my Grendels haven't reached adulthood, but I'm fairly confident it should work. No idea what will happen if they decide to breed with the Banshee's at some point.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

SAM6: A better world?

This will most likely be my last post regarding SAM5 as I'd like to start a new world where there is more variety in my Norn's genes, rather than them all being pure Toxic.

So here is the final result from the SAM5 family tree.



There's been a few new additions to the family, most of whom I've exported for use in SAM6. I was also extremely happy that a new crossbreed was born just before I started mass-exporting.

Bracken is the son of Cocoa and Kit, which makes him the only surviving child of the Bondi family, mixed with the incredibly successful genes of Zap's prodigy. Being a half Toxic there is no guarantee he'll survive long but if he does hopefully he'll have brought Zap's breeding traits with him. Depending what he prefers to eat will determine whether he starts in the Bondi or Toxic starting area.

I'm not entirely sure how many of the exported Norns will make it into the new world as there's far too many of them to start with. Perhaps I'll include them as anomalies that will be imported into different starting areas at random intervals.

My next post will most likely be about the new world set up for SAM6.

Monday, June 14, 2010

SAM5: What have we learned?

Haven't mentioned this before, but SAM5 is the abbreviation of my worlds name. It stands for 'Shee Ark Mark 5', this being the 5th world I've made since I started playing again.

With the toxic Norns pretty well owning the world right now I'm thinking I may have learned all I can from SAM5. It is time now to start considering what changes can be made to have more success in SAM6.

Migration:

The aim of this run was to see how well Norns could learn to migrate. Obviously there has been some success and failure in regard to this.

Bondi Tribe:
The Bondi's seemed reasonably adept at migrating. Sadly their lack of breeding is probably my own fault, as their starting zone was Terra Nornia and then later Terra. Both these rooms have issues with the way smells (CAs) move about and their ability to find their way around was hampered. Given better starting conditions I think they should do alright.

Toxic Tribe:
The Toxic Norns dominated this run and I think it has a lot to do with their migrating abilities. They started the run in the Meso. From there they were driven by a strange desire to be with Grendels when lonely and made their way up to the jungle. When pregnant they'd try and go back to the Meso. Because of this the tribe got spread between the Meso, all over the bridge, and to the jungle. A couple even made their way into the Norn garden. Because of their travelling instincts and the limitless supply of detritus along the way this tribe prospered.

Hardman Tribe:
As mentioned in the previous post the Hardman's didn't do quite so well, mostly due to an over abundance of anger coursing through them, which was only intensified by crowdedness. To try and alleviate this in the future I'll be using the training dummy mover agent and placing the training dummy in their area set on Grendel. I've done some tests already in a new world and it seems to be working okay, although at present I don't have many Norns so crowdedness may still be a factor.

The down side to this plan is that I can't make duplicates of the training dummy (doesn't fit in the replicator) so any Norns that leave the area will have to find alternative methods of dealing with their rage.

Treehugger Tribe:
The Treehuggers really suffered in SAM5 and I really do like this gentle breed. Their major issue was that of over crowding, which lead to them never wanting to breed (which seems rare enough anyway). I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to overcome this problem.

I will try teaching them from an early age to push teleporters or portals to escape crowded situations. I only wish there was some kind of desire to use lifts when crowded, as this could help the issue a great deal.

As the Hardman's will have the training dummy in their area I was considering removing all the normal toys from the Treehuggers starting zone and replacing them all with cuddly trees. This should make a safe haven for the Treehuggers where they wont be confused by toys that don't reduce their crowdedness, but make it harder for them to survive elsewhere, not unlike the Harman. It may be that a mutation will be required before they can survive better in the outside world.

I'm also considering putting some Apple Norns in with the Treehuggers, as they're supposedly a very similar breed, but also have a greater desire to reproduce.

The World:
The other reason I'm thinking of starting a new world is that SAM5 seems to be getting slow and buggy. As I've mentioned in a previous post my Norn Terrarium doesn't produce fruit or seeds anymore and I've got a few rooms (like Terra Nornia) that won't completely uninstall and are bogging down the system without a real purpose. A fresh start will be an improvement and I'll be trying to avoid rooms that have CA issues.

I've got my fingers crossed Liam and Moe can help sort out the CA issues I'm having in C2toDS, as I'd really love to use this 'room'. A single, massive room would be great to test migration instincts to the max.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Observation: Tribes

Apologies for not posting for a couple of days. Been making some progress on my job...and yeah okay, I bought Assassins Creed 2. What can I say? :P

So although I haven't had a lot of time to play Creatures 3 for most of this week, a lot has still happened. There's been a huge number of both births and deaths, as well as some interesting (although not particularly good) observations within the world.

Let's start with the world.

Firstly all my original food supplies from the Norn Terrarium seem to have dried up (or bugged out). No apples or seeds fall from the trees anymore, and any cheese dispenser I try to active auto-kills. It's hardly an issue, as there are plenty of other alternative food supplies. It may have something to do with installing the new Terra room, as I've only noticed it since then. But then again, I haven't been looking too hard either.

Norns

I've recently started using the Biochemestry set as I wanted to check out some things in the specific breeds.

Hardman & Treehuggers: I can't help but feel both the Hardman and Treehugger breeds are at a bit of a genetic disadvantage. Both seem to have genetic drives that hamper both their enjoyment of life and their breeding potential. Of course this is my first time playing with them, so it may be me as a breeder.

As we already know the Harman are a very angry bunch. Although not a huge issue in itself, their ability to get over their problems are somewhat more concerning. To my knowledge, anger is controlled by two means; hitting things (preferably Grendels) and expressing themselves (NornX extremely angry).

While beating up Grendels is an excellent way of reducing anger, expressing is much less effective. This is mostly due to overcrowding. I did some experiments with Munch, one of my few Hardman Norns and the Biochemistry set. I found that Munch could control his anger through expressing only if there were less than 3 other Norns around him. Any more and his crowding added to his anger at such a speed he couldn't 'express' it out of his system fast enough. This led to a loop where he would try to express his anger out, only to have it build up instantly again. He then spent most of his time standing around telling everyone how he felt and never got around to breeding. (He died as I was typing the next paragraph). Even with Grendels present he would prefer expressing to hitting, which may have to do with his upbringing and not being heavily exposed to Grendels.

I found a similar situation with the Treehuggers, although if anything it is worse. The problem is once again overcrowding, but with the Treehuggers they end up frightened and crowded. Once again this leads to breeding issues. Basically, they won't. I found this more concerning with Treehuggers, as expressing their crowdedness seems to have no impact on how crowded they feel. Or once again it's so minor it gets filled again.

The cuddly tree is fantastic at relieving this stress, but comes at a major cost. Once Treehuggers realising pushing toys reducing their crowdedness they will think ALL toys do the same. I've found Treehuggers on several occasions pushing toys non stop, scared out of their wits. I would seriously consider not having this agent in your world. What would have worked better is if Treehuggers reduced their crowdedness from toys in general, not this specific toy.

Tribes

I'm only up to generation 5, but I think this run is just about over. I think the family tree I've been keeping explains why.



So for the most part this should confuse the hell out of you. There are so many lines going in all directions that making any sense of who is related to who is almost impossible. However, there are several interesting observations we can obtain from this data.

The first is that those people who have been requesting a family tree function as a Creatures extension THIS is what you need to work with. If someone can come up with an efficient way of making this data intelligible to the average user I'm all ears. Personally I'd love to see a family tree feature in the game, however looking at this and considering this is only generation 5, I don't think it would be viable.

Next is that of the four tribes the Toxic Norns have completely dominated the others. I believe there are several reasons for this.

1. The Toxic Norns travel much more than the others, which gives them a greater chance of multiple partners and many more children.
2. The reasons mentioned above with the Treehuggers and Hardman. The other tribes just didn't seem to want to breed.
3. Although there were a few offspring from the Bondi's, they were only with the Toxics, which leads me to...
4. None of my Toxic half-breeds survived long enough to breed. This is mostly due to their chemistry issues (I believe) but also in part due to the restrictions of adult breeding.

Another observation I have made is how much of an impact having a good breeder makes to the tree. It may not be immediately obvious with lines going everywhere, but almost all the 4th and 5th generation Norns (purple and pink nodes, respectively) are descendants of 'Zap'. You will then notice that his children that survived (Alberta, Dusty, Candy and his granddaughter Bitteret {Candy's child}) were also fantastic breeders and as a result these children now own the world.

Almost from a single Norn the dominant gene has prospered, and within two generations.

There's quite a bit more that could be added, but I'm afraid it's getting late and my brain is slowly ceasing to work. I've got a long weekend coming up, so hopefully I'll add some additional observations over the next few days. As long as I'm not too busy playing Stabby-Stabby Creed.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Observations: Hardman Norns

There's been quite a bit of migrating going on which I'm very please about. About the only Tribe that hasn't done any moving about are the Treehuggers, who insist of sticking in the Norn Garden so matter how crowded it gets. I've added a teleporter between the Garden and the Norn Terrarium to see if that makes any difference. I'd prefer a portal or door though, as Norns tend to steer clear of teleporters for some reason.

The exciting thing is I might have my first inter-racial couple. Masha has become pregnant and laid an egg. However there were two males with her at the time. The father is either Munch (which disturbs me as that's her son) or Mist the toxic Norn. Below is the mystery egg in question.



Almost straight after laying this egg there was quite a battle between Masha and Munch, and the two Grendels who'd decided to take up residence in the Meso. Perhaps it was a parental instinct, what with the newborn on the way? Either way my Grendel population has been cut in half as the Hardman were the winners of this fight.

Observations: Norns

Hardman Tribe: The Hardman tribe have suffered their first loss with the death of Rail. I have a hunch he spent too much time complaining about his anger and forgot to tend to other needs, like food.

Interestingly it seems the children are the ones moving about the most, as Munch, Crunch and Masha's son has made his way down to the Meso for some unknown reason. Picking up a cold along the way I dumped him in front of some lemons and he returned to health very quickly.



Bondi Tribe: I've gone ahead and moved the Bondi tribe into the improved Terra Reborn and removed The Burrows. Annoyingly the agent doesn't uninstall correctly and I've been left with the room. It has removed all the agents though, which has given me my speed back.

The adults all seem to be gathered on the one area and overcrowding each other. I'm not sure whether they appreciate the lift access available to them. Kit on the other hand has already left the room and ventured out into the Meso, where he's gone and taught himself English.

More recently Skit has also decided he's had enough of being crowded and gone the step further to visit the Treehuggers! So far all he's done is made them even more crowded, but hopefully something more will result from his visit.



Treehugger Tribe: Nothing special seems to be happening with the Treehuggers other than their continued over-crowdedness and a visit from Skit. A toxic norn has also decided to visit, although he's only stayed on the lower level. He did however bring some macrobacteria with him and left a new one growing. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on their health.

Toxic Tribe: It would appear the Toxic Norns are more deadly than their Hardman cousins. This pictures shows what I believe is the first Grendel death attributed to Norn activity. Look at all that bacteria!



The toxic Norns seem to be the most likely to migrate. They've visited the Meso, Norn Terrarium and Norn Garden, whilst spending most of their time in the jungle or bridge.

Observations: Norns

In addition to the first days reporting, I also wanted a brief summary of what the Norns have been doing in the world.

Hardman Tribe: So far all the Hardman's have stayed in the Norn Terrarium. They spend most of their time complaining about their anger issues. Hopefully some of them will venture out into the world for some Grendel hunting and discover the other Tribes.

Bondi Tribe: Unsurprisingly the Bondi's haven't travelled far either. Considering their only access to the Shee Ark is via teleporting I don't expect this to change any time soon. The four adults are busy on the far right side of their island, leaving the newborn, Kit, to fend for himself on the left side where he hatched.

Treehugger Tribe: The Treehugger's also haven't moved terribly far. But with two new babies in the Norn garden and certainly more to come, they are already starting to get a little crowded. Hopefully this will force some of them to vacate in search of less crowded pastures.

Toxic Tribe: The toxic tribe has no doubt been the most interesting. Starting their run in the jungle, they have quickly spread a lot wider. Upon giving birth to Mist, Vapour travelled all the way from the jungle to the Norn Meso to lay her egg before leaving to return to the jungle again.

Mist began life alone, but after a quick few feeds he too has begun his journey back to his parents, although at present he's sleeping in the Capillata Hub.

Petew too tried to make the journey to the Meso, but only got as far as the bridge before laying her egg that would later hatch Zap. Fortunately most of the Shee Ark is populated with stinking stump plants and detritus is plentiful.

At present Echew and Avenge have joined Zap on the Bridge and Vapour has returned to the jungle.

This naturally occurring migration will be interesting to watch, especially if the Treehugger's expand their borders and move into the Toxic's hatching area. Perhaps some children will meet there and stick around for each other's company.

The first day

Norns

So after raising all the first generation Norns to breeding age I've imported all of them again and placed them in their initial starting zones. Bondi's in Terra Nornia, Treehugger's in the Norn Garden, Hardman in the Norn Terrarium and the Toxic's in the Jungle.

When I'd exported a few Norns they'd already managed to get pregnant, so even after injecting Amaikokonut's new population controlling agent I got a couple of eggs. As well as that there were a handful of additional pregnancies and all in all there are six new babies running about. So far all the breeding has been within the set tribes.

Avenge has been busy, fathering Mist with Vapour, and Zap with Petew. Both are males. Echew better catch up quickly or his genes wont make it to the next generation.

Crunch and Masha have birth to a son called Munch.

Sandy and Skit have given birth to a male named Kit.

Clove of the Treehugger tribe has been busy also, fathering Fern with Chloe, and Walker with Luchi. Siric, my eldest of the tribe will need to pass on his genes shortly too, as he's already over 3 hours old and doesn't have long before reaching old age.

I've started keeping a family tree over at bubbl.us. At present it seems to work alright, but given sufficient generations and multiple children in each I can see the layout getting very messy indeed. This wouldn't be so hard if Norn's were monogamous, but having multiple partners really makes things tricky.



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Other Creatures

Nothing to report on the Ettins. They've just been doing their thing.

The Grendels have been a little more busy. I currently have two new baby Grendels, each sharing the C1 and C3 genes. The babies look quite odd to say the least. The most horrible part is that the body parts don't match up nicely and I've got floaty chunks of Grendel.

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World Observations


There has been a dramatic decrease in the speed of the world. Having all the Norns imported at the same time, as well as having Terra Nornia and C1 injected is really having an impact.

I've closed down the warp and disconnected from the Internet, but honestly it makes very little difference. I will have to consider removing C1, although I'm not entirely sure if it can be removed when created with a new world.

Considering the only connection to Terra Nornia is by teleporter, and the Norns reluctance in the past to use these devices I may consider removing Terra Nornia and moving the Bondi's to the Meso instead. Now that Terra Reborn has been altered to work within a docked world I may consider injecting that instead.

On a mostly irrelevant note, I killed off all the default lifts that come in Terra Nornia and replaced them all with insta-lifts so they all have call buttons. So far none of the Norns care and avoid them.

Population Control

First off I need to give a big thank you to Amaikokonut over at Naturing :: Nurturing for putting together a new agent specifically for my purposes.

Amaikokonut already had a few .cos files that attempted to reduce the breeding that goes on in Creatures 3. After I asked a few probing questions at www.creaturetopia.org Amaikokonut went to the effort of combining these .cos files into a more user friendly agent that anyone can now use.

A description on how the population controller works is already available at Naturing::Nurturing, as well as the download, so I'll only say I've prevented any creature but adults to breed, as well as limiting the number of children a Norn can have to 10.

And with this addition I've finally started my feral run.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Observation: Petew



Petew loves a Grendel? Now there's a phrase I didn't think I'd hear any time soon. Especially when they seem to have such a violent relationship. Still, Petew was saying she 'love hand' about 5 minutes out of her egg, so maybe she's just a very affectionate Norn.

Observations: Toxic Norns

Well I've all but given up on having the Toxic Norns populate the Meso as their starting place. Every single one I've hatched has stayed long enough to feed before running off to the jungle terrarium in search of Grendels.

Can't for the life of me figure out why they feel the need to be around their scaly friends. Perhaps there is some instinct that says Grendels are often sick and therefore being around them should be a source of healthy antigens?

Whatever the case I've moved most of the stuff from the meso to the jungle and they seem to be a lot happier there. Although they do occasionally make a trip to the Norn terrarium when they Grendels get frisky. Fingers crossed the Grendels don't beat them to death before they have a chance to encounter the Hardman. The Grendels do seem to leave them alone for the most part though.


Here's a couple of them now. Say hello to Petew and Echew. Petew is the smaller of the two.

I was also more than a little surprised after injecting a macrobateria cage into the jungle to find several more of them spread all around the ship. Not only did I not realise there were plants, but I'm astonished they've made it to most corners of the ship. The Toxic Norns will bring their food wherever they go!

Observations: CA restrictions

Did some testing this afternoon to see if I could find the issue with Norns and their lack of lift riding. It would appear that the CA (smells) aren't travelling between floors and therefore the creatures will have no desire to go anywhere.

Experimented with Moe's Room Changer to see if it was the type of environment, but alas it seems to be coded deeper than that. Will be looking into what the problem is exactly, but with my lack of CAOS knowledge it's unlikely I'll personally be able to fix it.

Working CAs


Broken CAs


If I can't find a solution I may need to consider abandoning the use of Terra Nornia. Considering my Toxic norns seem to have little interest in staying in the Norn meso I may be able to switch them around and put the Toxic Norns elsewhere. I really liked the look of the Garbage Dump, but decided not to use it due to it's small size. If the Toxic Norns naturally travel a lot anyway this may not be a problem.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Breeding restrictions

I made a post over at http://www.creaturetopia.org/ in regards to a few of the issues I was having.

It turns out Amaikokonut was the creator of the agent I refereed to in my last post. The one that stops Norns breeding unless they are adults. This, as well as a few other breeding limiters can be found at

http://naturingnurturing.blogspot.com/2009/07/cos-for-every-occasion.html

Keep in mind these are only CAOS code, and you will need to save it as a .cos file and inject them manually.

I've actually spent a good deal of time reading Amaikokonut's blog. It is an interesting read and there are several good agents scattered throughout the posts.

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I will be injecting the 'Infertility' agent before I start the run to only allow Norns to breed at the adult stage. Depending on how well they breed I will consider adding additional agents until I can find a stable population level. Hopefully one exists.

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The other major issue was with the lifts. The current thought is that some metarooms are not set up to allow CA (smells) to waft throughout the room, making it impossible for Norns to know what objects are on floors above or below them, and thus means they'll very rarely use the lifts.

Will need to do some tests to confirm this. I have no idea how I'll go about fixing it if this is the problem. May need to consult with Moe on the C2toDS project and consider exchanging the Burrows metaroom to the C2toDS room once the issue has been resolved.

Observations: The world

There are several things that bother me about the world.

Most pressing is that in a lot of addon metarooms the Norns seem to have little concept of the lifts being there. They will activate them when prompted, but otherwise ignore them. I understand this is probably partly due to the CFE genes that try to slow this down, but even a CFE will go up and down levels to feed or breed. In both the C2toDS and Terra Nornia this seems to be a prominent problem and I'm worried will effect my migration plans. Norns will spend their whole lives in one area because they are unable to move on, and may end up dying off as a result. This would obviously be unfair to them as it may not be their fault.

I have tried using the insta-lifts and have had the same results.

Some git forgot to add call buttons to the lifts in Terra Nornia! This will only make my lift issue worse. Must try and find a way around this...

Although a really awesome addition, the crobsters are near impossible for a Norn to get at. Most places with water are either inaccessible or death traps. The pond in the Norn terrarium seems to be the only viable place. They also seem to die off a little too quickly, although I have no issue leaving a few dispensers around the place.

The bees in Terra Nornia get stuck, which is quite disappointing as they are pests and I would have liked an excuse to include some of the trappers in the world. Seems largely pointless now.

The Norns breed too often and too early. I've managed to get some of my first generation Norns pregnant at the youth stage before I've even managed to get all my population ready.
I believe there is an agent that prevents Norns breeding before adulthood. Must find that again. Should also look for additional methods of slowing down the breeding as I'm sick to death of having 50 eggs laying about. Slows down the generation turn over.

I've noticed a glitch where some seeds from the Norn Garden fall into the Norn terrarium. There must be another such glitch as the tubas have found their way into the room and I don't recall including them. Oh well, I'm perfectly happy with some natural progression.

Observations: Norns

Norns

As I haven't played with the creatures mall breeds before I was really happy to see some striking differences in personality. These observations may be obvious to anyone who has played before, but I'm finding it all very exciting.

The Treehuggers, as expected are a little fragile. Not so much that they've got sick, but they get crowded very easily. At first I was worried they might have had issues breeding, but this does not seem to be the case, at least within their own breed. Will be interesting to see how they fair with the other breeds.
I love the way they push critters and plants. I'd love to know if they get any stimulus out of it, or if it's just instinctive.

I'm personally growing very attached to my Bondi Norns. They do seem to sleep a little more than other breeds as advertised, however I love the fact they spend all their time playing with toys. In the past all my other Norns have been obsessed by gadgets and it's refreshing to find Norns that actually like to play.

The Hardman are obviously a very angry breed. What I find interesting though is that they only hit Grendels until their angry is resolved, whereas Grendels seem to keep going until the Norn is dead, regardless of their emotional state.
They can also take a serious beating. Any other breed would have been dead a long time ago after the fights these characters have.
Their main emotion is anger and they spend most of their time trying to get rid of it. Obviously Grendel hunting is a good method of releasing their rage. The other method is expressing their anger, which means they spend a lot of time standing around telling each other how angry they are. At least when hunger or boredom kicks in they try and relieve that before going back to complaining about their anger management issues.

I've only just started playing with the Toxics and they are quite tricky compared to the other breeds. I managed to kill off my first hatchling (RIP Chuck) and I've got no idea why. He did seem to get a little obsessed with the tubas rather than his detritus which may have been the cause.
The other thing I've noticed is that when lonely they seek out Grendels, which I wasn't expecting. It's obviously instinctive because neither of them have met a Grendel, and yet they still went searching for them. On the plus side it will help migration. On the down side they may end up dead.


All the new breeds seem vastly more likely to use dispensers as a source of food, something I've never managed to get through my other Norns head, even the CFE breeds.

The Banshee Grendels seem a lot more fragile than the originals. I've had very few make it to adulthood. But then again no one has been taking care of them either.

The Norns Introduction

I have several Norns from a previous world I intend to bring in, but for the most part these will be generation one Norns. There are two female and two males for each breed.

Bondi: Sal, Sandy, Skit and Flick*
Treehugger: Chloe, Luchi, Clove and Siric*
Hardman: Dayna*, Masha, Crunch and Rail.
Toxic: Vapour, Avenge (Still need to hatch two more).
Chichi: Currently not in game.

Additional: Harbert, Joost, Taret, Risen.
These Norns are from a previous run and are all around generation 15. Harbert has a nice red tinge. Joost is quite an interesting Norn, as he has managed to develop a Grendel torso by natural means.

*These are the Norns from a previous world. They are all Generation 1.

World set up

Norns:

I've recently obtained all the breeds from creatures mall (Treehuggers, Hardman, Bondi, Toxic and Banshi) as well as learning about the Gizmo and CFE breeds.

I've set up a new world with these breeds in mind. I will be using the CFE breeds for Treehuggers, Hardman, Bondi and Toxic. I am still contemplating whether or not to include the Chichi Gizmos as I'm not sure what effects breeding CFE and Gizmos will have.

I have set up several of the metarooms as starting points for each breed and tried to make the environments to their liking.

The treehugger norns have been placed in the Norn Garden metaroom, along with a heap of extra toys and a tuba dispenser on the bottom level to keep a reasonable level of food in the room. There is generally enough fruit and seeds to go around for a small group.
Also included is the cuddly tree.

The Bondi norns will be hatched in the Burrows (Terra Nornia) metaroom. Not a lot comes default with this room, so a whole heap of stuff has been added. All the food sources have been placed in such a way that a norn would need to travel to get all three nutrients. Needing less food in general I thought this starting point would suit the Bondi's best.

Included are the potted rainbow bamboo. With the Norn garden injected these will grow in certain areas.
The bramboo and a dispenser.
Tubas and dispenser.
Tomato and acorn plants from the super food dispenser.
Beelacanth flowers (produce seeds).
Strategically placed potted plants, including the Gelsemuim and Chilli plant.

Crobsters have also been included, but with the way the pond works it is unlikely the Norns will be able to get to them. I have used Moe's Room changer agent to allow plants to grow in certain areas and will experiment to see if I can get crobsters to breed the same way.

Currently I have started the Bondi norns on the top level of the metaroom. Depending on what path I choose to take I may add the Gizmo chichi norns on a lower level and see when they meet up.

A teleporter is included on the top level to allow access back to the docked world.

The Norn meso has been turned into an area for the Toxic Norns. This was chosen because when injected, the stinking stump plant places itself all around the ship, but the only creature room they are injected into is the meso.

The cak-in-a-box and toxic trashcan have been added, as well as a hoosh dispenser from Creatures 1. Several toys have been added, more for my enjoyment than theirs.

I will be interested to see the results of having the treehuggers in such close proximity to the toxics, as I've heard the toxics don't breed very well with other Norns.

The original Norn terrarium has been set up for the Hardman. This area was chosen for the Harman due to it's proximity to the Grendels and the jungle terrarium. I figured if any of the breeds would survive the Grendels it would be the Harman.

Pear and tomato plants have been added, as well as the shee pears that grow from the giant trees. Acorn plants were initially added, but have already gone extinct. This plant seems to be a little fragile and will need to be monitored closely, and possibly replaced later.

Other than a few toys the only other addition of interest is the cuddly tree. Hopefully it will keep them from beating each other to death.

In addition to this, all rooms have been set up with amulets of teaching. The first generation will be taught using these and then left alone. Hopefully the younger generations will also use them, although it is usually a trial to get a Norn to push them at all, as they are categorised as 'tool'.

*Changing the ground type has indeed made it possible to breed crobsters. Now I just have to hope it doesn't drown the norns in the process.
** Just tested the theory on a poor C1 Grendel. Sadly the theory of drowning creatures holds true and I will have to be very selective as to where I place the crobsters.

I intend to raise the first generation of Norns by hand, making sure they can all speak properly and have reasonable survival skills before setting them loose on the world.

In addition to this I have C1toDS installed should space ever become an issue. It is currently sealed off to the rest of the world, although it does have a warp portal open for interests sake.


Ettins and Grendels

I also have Grendels and Ettins in this world, as well as the Banshee Grendels for a bit of diversity. I have no intentions of monitoring their progress, however I have given them a fighting chance by including the Eggonicer, which permits the natural laying of both male and female of the species. Hopefully they will do alright for themselves and maybe something interesting will happen in their development. The Eggonicer has been set up to ignore Norn eggs.

I have also made some changes to the jungle and desert terrariums to give both Grendels and Ettins a better chance of survival, as well as hopefully keeping them in their own rooms a little more often.

The jungle has the awkwood creeper and chilli plant, as well as some rainbow bamboo.
The desert has been given rainbow bamboo, triffid and trumpet plants. It remains to be seen how well the latter two will survive.

Feral Run Intentions: Mirgration

I've recently been playing with the new C2toDS world in production by Moe and several others and found the size of the world in comparison to any room in Creatures 3/Docking station to be gigantic. I thought this could offer some features that may not have been explored previously in Creatures 3.

The first would be how well Creatures 3 Norns could survive in such a large environment, considering their genomes had been written with smaller metarooms in mind. Would they get lost and confused in such a large world?

The other thing I thought would be interesting to explore would be the possibility of migration and ring species.

Migration is something many people have wished were more prominent in the creatures games. Generally people have spoken about having environments change dependant on season, which should then force the Norns to move to a new area for food. Although at present the game doesn't have systems set up for this I thought I could attempt to simulate it.

This could best be achieved by the placement of food sources. Since creatures usually need a supply of protein (fruit), fat (food) and starch (seeds) to get along comfortably I figured I could place supplies of these foods intermittently throughout the world, so no creature would be able to have all three sources in the one place.

Obviously ring species would be impossibly due to the limitations on creature evolution, but I thought this could be closely observed through breeds instead of species. For example, I have set my starter world up so that each breed of norn starts in their own unique environment (outlined in detail below).

This should allow me to observe when 'species' meet and breed and whether or not certain breeds stay in one area, migrate, breed only within their own species etc.

The purpose of this run is to see how long and to what degree isolated populations will migrate and breed, and what results this achieves in the children.

Feral Run

Armed with the new CFE breeds, as well as the new (well, new to me) Creatures Mall breeds I intend to do a feral run.

I plan to be all scientific about this process, and keep a reasonably detailed journal about my findings, which is the purpose of this blog page.

My next few entires will detail my purpose behind the feral run, the set up of the world, an introduction to the norns taking part and my observations so far.

The creatures rebirth

So I finally got around to finishing 'Mirrors Edge' a couple of weeks ago and found myself without a game to play. For some strange, nostalgic reason I decided to boot up Creatures 3 again.

Upon returning to the creatures community I discovered a few new things have been developing. Firstly I found the CFE breeds which has given me a new lease on Norn raising. So much nicer when they can actually hunt for food and don't run up and try to hug Grendels upon their first meet.

I was also finally able to get my hands on the Creatures Mall breeds and was very happy to see how they behave different, compared to the recoloured breeds like Fallow or Zebras.

And finally I found out about the C2toDS project that was underway. I've been in touch with the creators and I'm currently working on some of the graphics stuff. So hopefully you'll get to see some of my 3D stuff in the near future.