Experiments

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

To continue Nichebusters by Skysplash?, this section serves for future experiments.

1. If you set up a male's mutation menu and release him, will breading grant you any mutations?

Also, I clicked on the wrong setting. Meet Vandon, Vandon and Vandon, Dukdondon ans the only compatible Sirasi. Of course, her genes are awful.

First batch pre-release. They have 2 mutations on average, digging paw + stinky tail.

Nothing on those 3 from dad.

Mama bat got lucky. Nr. 4 mutated digging paw.

Love at first sight? Maybe she was chased by rogues.

One more digging paw

2 more. So setting a male up before banishment is useful and distribution seemingly about usual.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Update: he just escaped by moon walking.

Got him again

Somehow, my laptop survived. Only one blind nicheling though, weirdly enough.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Round 2: Rogue males and spiky body.  3 spiky, three spiky derpsnouts, one normal. 

(Summary of three tests:

- there's a spiky body console bug

- high enough population density to ward off = three nichelings with max. one tile between them. They will then breed with one and leave the others alone

- rogues are a lot more aggressive in high numbers)

The first suspect:

- Approached D/S (derpsnout, spiky) and turned away.

- Tries to mate with normal nicheling (who was also nearest)

When removed, went to spiky

- did nothing for one turn

- ran away

Weird invasion by pawless normal snout

I'll need more rogues

-- rogues refure DS females

-- changing snout gene has no effect

-- neither does mating with the rogue

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Test 2: distasteful and normal females

- the rogue is still repelled after adding medium body with the console. Bug?

When a new rogue males spawns, he is not repelled by a nicheling with former spiky body

Red guy now refuses to mate with any female. Asexual representation? Hm...

Rogue 2 now refuses to mate with any females.

Rogue 3 hits

Rogue 2 breads again with 3 females. 

Rogue 1 hangs out with his wife and kid. They're married now.

Rogue 2 mates again with three former spiky, some odd days later

Or not? Normal snout is his fav.

So is webbed paw, who was only approached before by rogue 3. Despite having 3 potential females, he ignored the others.

Conclusions:

1. The spiky body removal bug may tame a rogue fully. Spiky body is always avoided.

2. Rogues avoid mating again after the child is born for a little while. At least if they're born with 1 gem.

3. If multiple rogues are around, they're a lot more aggressive about mating.

4. Being in a nest may or may not make a female more attractive. On a different note, a favourite target may exist if only one or two rogues are around.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

5 rogues alive. Again, a calm after the mating frenzy. That's some rather odd behaviour. Maybe the increased population density wards them off by accident. Either way, as long as the rogue children stay close to her, it's not too interested.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Test three: females in a close group

They're after the two nicheling formation in no time. This has no effect. Natutally, they stay away once the rogue spawn is born. Is this effective in conserving food? 

This guy went after blue eyes and ran away. That seems to be standard behaviour, despite approaching them mutliple times, tile to tile. 

Conclusion: if you're out of males, keep three females close. Close enough is a maximum of one tile, otherwise the population density isn't high enough to ward them off. 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Is there something you want to see tested? If so, there's a savefile open for this now anytime, including prior versions. 

[Sky]

*sarcastic gasp* How dare you steal my idea! I am the one and only Nichebuster! >:P

Nah, it's fine. I'm too busy playing other savefiles to do testing right now

 

[bostonlobstah]

YES! THANK YOU!

I don't have any ideas yet but the rogue testing is really interesting!

Could you maybe do some more tests of other NPCs in the game?

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

I'll run some tests on defenders or apes, if something useful comes up. No ideas on what to test.  So for today:

3) inheritance of mutations

Summary: the old system still applies

Test 1: in older versions, mating with a male, then consoling his genes, would not work. He passes on what he has at the time of mating, including empty mutation slots. 

Since the console is now bug free, does this still hold true?

The set up. Full wings:

The males receive runner leg after mating + mutate lean body.

 - no lean body on sons with red gem. The next batch of children all had lean body, as at the time of mating a mutation was assigned. No one inherited runner leg.

Conclusion: the console issue still applies. 

Further tests required on mutation slots. 2 could well be a fluke. 

Let's try this on females before restarting:

Two running legs.

Trial 2: 

The females receive hammer tail, males lean body in their slots. 

No lean body, one hammer tail.

Trial 3:

No ram horns from males, one hammer tail

Conclusion: the old system still applies

 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Up next: 

Defenders: (summary will follow here)

Test 1: Distasteful traits

- no effect, unless...

A) The offender is out of range. In this case, it will hit no one with distasteful traits nearby. A normal nicheling within range will be attacked, though. Or not, they're hellishly inconsistent. But no distasteful nicheling was chosen here.

2: attractive fur colours

Seemingly doesn't care. 

3: distractions

the defender perceives hunting as more offense than hitting it. Use this to kite and kill it! 

Defenders avoid babies! Unless you have the bug that makes them target children, building a nest granted Red here unlimited free attacks without retaliation.

4. Range

Offender on tile 6, prey on 5 (max range of vision) = attack

offender on tile 5, prey on 6 = peaceful defender

5. Memory

-- max attack count =3. Attacked bear 3 times, 3 swipes in relation. 

-- one other entity attacked = one swipe

-- most defenders remembered at least two offenders. The last always had one target take the punishment for all after using the nest exploit.

???

Some pretty basic aspects. Still, I'll need to work my way up. Spawning them in on Crossing would work best.

1) Distaseful traits

Do they hit back with distasteful appearance? 

Ouch. 

Can you growl at them? No. 

Interesting to note: after it killed her mother for striking it, it still hit the daughter

I guess they land multiple attacks in retaliation. If one doesn't hit, as the nicheling is dead, it will pursue another. I can't count them here as the attack modifier is too high. Restart.

On the next attempt, he did not get vengeance on a second nicheling. I'll try to messure if prior attacks had an effect on this. Yup. Three attacks = three swipes from the bear. 

Who gets hit? The last nicheling to attack.

Having two defenders will at times result in one swipe from the unattacked defender. Sometimes

D2 picked a victim seemingly at random. Let's get some tests.

A) attacked same nicheling that hit the other defender. This nicheling was within moving distance (2 tiles)

B) next nicheling will be outside movement range. Random attack?

Let's dive into B. Do distasteful traits have an effect on who is chosen?

D2 was surrounded by toxic and saberteeth. Instead of attacking, he moved two tiles into the direction of the offending nicheling -- or perhaps another helpless target, peacock guy.

Again: he moved away! Try 3: same results! Distasteful traits do work, then. Somewhat... he pursues the offender instead, directly.

2. So let's work with case B again. 

White nichelings are usually preferred. What do defenders think?

Wait: orange guy is strong enough to do damage. He landed one attack and it attacked someone else! Three swipes from orange, three from the bear, though. The plot thickens.

Tried this 6 more times. This time, they just went both after orange! These bears really can't be consistent. 

 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

I'll surround one for further tests.

2 toxic, 1 white, 1 yellow, one high camouflage. Orange saberteeth will hit and fly out of rage, or stay within.

Let's have him stay: D1 just attacks the offender. M'kay. 

When removing Orange: first attack: no one? Second: no one again? Still no one! 

I've tried removing the offender from its sight range and keeping it in. This has no effect. Will D1 only attack when movement is possible?

I've killed stuff around it. It doesn't attack! 

Movement is now open again. So what? It just pursued Orange after his attacks. So I had Red hit him. This resulted in one swipe at orange and onr movement toward Red. After multiple attempts, this stayed consistent. The defender remembers multiple targets

So let's surround him with the innocent, while both offenders scatter out of range. His movement is unrestricted

And... he just goes after Orange. I'll need to move the offenders out of range. 

He attacked white over yellow.  And... I messed up and killed D1. Oh, well.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

Red, White and Orange will now be offenders. Will it now show a preference fur fur colour?

R+ O attacked once, W hunted 2x prey. It went after W. 

Red hunted x1, white fled, O did nothing. D1 went after White.

O+R hit D1. White fled. D1 went after White. Lets have him hit white to reset his hit streak of 2. 

Orange hunted x1. R + W attacked x1. D1 pursued Orange. 

Red hunted, W + O attacked. It went after red! 

the defender has no preference for fur colour and deems hunting more offense then attacking it! 

3. Red is now farther away than the attackers. No matter. Its locked on her.

Closer yet:

Nope. Still went after red. 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

4. Range

the defender has 5 sight. What happens, if...

A) prey is on tile 5, Offender O on 6?

Nothing at first. It didn't notice.

Then I had O2 hit the bear. Instead of pursuing O2, it then went after O1! What the heck?!?

B) prey on tile 6, O1 on 5.

It... went after O2. Okay. Let's let him land a hit. Or not...? It didn't attack. Huh

I'm putting O1 in its range now. No attack. Good.

 

 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

So. On to the misteries.

6. Why do they swipe babies?

7. Do they like to swipe isolated nichelings, weak nicheling, or the like?

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

6 and 7 are hard. Let's try a few things, now knowing how they would act near an adult.

I'm so sorry White...

It didn't hit the baby. Unfortunately, the defender died. Will need to wait for a new one. 

Again:

This time, O will be out of sight. It did not attack the baby. If this is a bug, I don't have it.

This time, lets use a zero strenght strawman. It... doesn't care. I need more offenders. Still nothing. Wth? Not isolated enough? More distance,then.  D still doesn't care. 

I let these two on the naughy list have children. Is this some original sin stuff?

It... moved away. Repelled by children? 

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

It died on me again. Sure enough, Red had her child and the new defender didn't harm her.

I'm guessing the bug some have leads to the defender targeting children instead of avoiding them.

Let's test their memory some more.

How many nichelings can be on the'hit-list? 

Hmm... well. I had them each land a hit, but it only hit White twice. 4 might be too many.

Three agressors. Blue took 3 hits. Same for 2 Os. This defender likes to hit one nicheling for the sins of all. No problem, I'll just have them all hunt. It doesn't forgive that. Still only one target. Is the nest exploit to blame? 

 

[Lilytuft]

I hate defender bears!

[bostonlobstah]

Thank you!!! I need to do some testing myself!

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

What I'll be up to:

1. Radius of the peaceful bear

2. Angering it

3. Hunting strategies

4. Spiky body vs. Distasteful traits