Hybrid Genes for Existing Entities and How to Obtain Them (from Rabbils to Apes)

[Pokestardragacraft]

Hey so I know some of these pairings don’t seem biologically accurate but this is Niche and why not. I think some of these are better than others and don’t think they all would work but I think I’d be nice to at least propose it. Also, I would like to say that I am aware of the “one post per idea” rule, but I wasn’t sure if each entity counted as a different idea, and I didn’t want to bombard the forum with all of them. However, if you think I should separate them, I’ll happily do so. I was also sick of people suggesting hybrids through the same method as bearyenas so I made some original ones but the bearyena rule does apply to most of them if you don’t like the ideas I proposed. Finally, I wanted to explain the formatting a little bit. If you see “existing gene/existing gene”, it means both/all would work for the slot and can either be one or the other or both/all. If you see “existing gene/new gene”, it means that the existing gene is an alternative to the new gene. Since I made this in a very give or take way where if you don’t think the new gene is very good, the existing gene would be a good alternative. All patterns were also chosen based on entity texture and what may look similar on a Nicheling, such as stripes to look like a feather texture.
So let me know what you think works and what doesn’t.

Rabbil
Obtained by:
Breeding with a giant rabbil
A giant rabbil spawns as a friend in an area with 3 burrows next to each other surrounded by 3-4 
berry bushes and will collect from bushes (in grassland biome)
Collecting berries from the bushes in the area results in the giant rabbil no longer being your friend
Destroying bushes, attacking the giant rabbil, and/or other rabbils in the area and/or sight range of the giant rabbil results in the giant rabbil attacking you and compels other rabbils to attack you
Normal rabbils attack with a strength of 1 every ⅓ times
If the giant rabbil is killed for 10 food points, rabbils will stop attempting to attack your creatures and will despawn back into the burrows and will not respawn until the giant rabbil respawns
A new giant rabbil spawns in 10 days if the area is left in the dark and all berry bushes in the area are fully grown (applies as well if giant rabbil dies of natural causes)
All giant rabbils are male and move like any other rabbil unless being bred with where it will not move for the day until a successful breeding or the day passes over
Giant Rabbil Stats:
5 sight
2 strength
2 speed
3 collecting
Lifespan - 30 days
Hybrid Genes:
Normal snout
Big ears/Rabbit ears - +4 hearing, +1 heat resistance
Running leg/Collecting paws - +3 collecting (maybe +1 speed)
Lean body/Small body - +1 heat resistance, +2 camo in tall grass, +1 stealth, +2 speed, can be picked up by birds as a teenager (adult size is equivalent to the size of a big bodied teenager)
Medium tail/Berry tail - +1 collecting (original idea by @ChasingNyx )/Lean tail - +1 heat resistance
Normal hind legs/Speedy hind legs - +3 speed, +1 swimming
White fur
No pattern

Dodomingo
Prerequisite:
All current in-game dodomingos are female
A male can be made that looks like the female or completely different (either a peacock flamingo mix (will be on another post) or how @Dingorok describes it)
Some dodomingo ideas originally by @Dingorok here:

Obtained by:
Finding fertilized dodomingo eggs in a nest and raising them for yourself to breed with the offspring (if you take them while in a dodomingo’s sight range, it will attack you) (you can take them either for 10 food points or to raise them)
Once eggs are laid, the dodomingo will leave the occupied nest in search for another nest
Nests with eggs cannot be used by Nichelings
If with male counterpart, they mate and the dodomingo will sit on a nest for 6 days before leaving behind eggs (dodomingo takes a 2-day break before breeding again)
If without, the dodomingo will sit on a nest for 6 days before leaving behind eggs (1/50 chance of occurring every time it steps in a nest)
OR
Creating a nest for a (if with male, pregnant) dodomingo and maintaining it for 6 days before leaving behind eggs for you willingly
Raising eggs requires a creature to take the eggs and spend a day without energy (the next day after taking the eggs). The hatched eggs will give you 1-3 baby dodomingos who will follow the creature that raised them until they are adults where they will just be more in the general area (anywhere from 4-5 tiles) of that creature. If a raised dodomingo is out of range, it will take the quickest route to get back into range no matter how far away. If/when the creature who raised the dodomingo(s) dies, the range becomes permanent to the spot where the creature died. All dodomingos would be female (unless a male counterpart was added, in that case it’s 50/50 and breeding with males would be similar to bearyenas (male dodomingos will not move for the day until a successful breeding or the day passes over)) and when successfully bred with would immediately go towards the closest nest regardless of range (a female dodomingo also will not move for the day until a successful breeding or the day passes over). After having a kid, the dodomingo will return to the range.
Bonus:
Dodomingos will leave behind unfertilized eggs that can be taken for 5 food points (if you take them while in a dodomingo’s sight range, it will attack you) (1/10 chance of occurring every time it steps in a nest)
Once eggs are layed, the dodomingo will leave to occupied nest in search for another nest
Nests with eggs cannot be used by Nichelings
Stat change:
2 strength
(Raised dodomingos have a longer lifespan of 25 days, they spend 3 days growing up)
Hybrid Genes:
Bird Beak/Dodomingo Beak - +1 smelling, + 3 alluring voice (attracts predators and prey, especially sound based ones, to the area used in a radius of 3 tiles)
Medium ears/Bird ears - +4 hearing, +1 cold resistance OR hear more prey and/or roots (as if worms were there)
Normal eyes/Sharp-sighted (or Bird) eyes - +3 sight OR +4 sight
Wing/Velvet paw/Roosting wing - +1 cold resistance, +1 heat radiation
Medium body/Feather body - (I don’t have any ideas for this one)
Peacock tail
Normal hindlegs/Bird hindlegs - +1 fishing, +1 strength, +1 speed
Stripes pattern

Bluebird
Obtained by:
Befriending a female bluebird
A female bluebird is brown and slightly bigger than a male bluebird with yellow or black eyes
A female bluebird spawns randomly and is befriended by either sacrificing a baby or leaving 15 pieces of meat for it to take (prioritizes taking food/children despite anything)
Once befriended, a female bluebird will kill prey and collect meat that contributes to the food counter and will no longer take your babies. If you attack a male bluebird, you will lose the female bluebird’s trust, and she will no longer be befriended nor re-befriendable.
Only creatures who can reach treetops can breed with the female bluebird and can call her over via the call creatures ability (while on treetops). She will then prioritize coming over once attempted to breed with will stay in place for the rest of the day. If successfully bred with, she will prioritize finding a nest will hover over it for the rest of the day. The next day, there will be an egg in the nest that you would require heating up (done by placing to Nichelings adjacent to it or by using heat radiation) overnight for the egg to hatch the next day. If heating up is not performed after 3 days, the egg will rot/die and will take up the nest/space for the next 3 days before despawning.
Female bluebird stats:
1 speed
4 strength
5 sight
Lifespan - 35 days
Hybrid genes:
Bird Beak/Strong beak - +1 cracking, +1 strength
Medium ears/Bird ears - +4 hearing, +1 cold resistance OR hear more prey and/or roots (as if worms were there)
Normal eyes/Sharp-sighted (or Bird) eyes - +3 sight OR +4 sight
Wing
Lean body/Feather body - (I don’t have any ideas for this one)
Peacock tail
Bearyena hindlegs/Bird hindlegs - +1 fishing, +1 strength, +1 speed (Discussion of bird hindlegs here: https://strayfawnstudio.com/community/index.php?/topic/596-bird-hindlegs/)
No pattern

Crabbit
Obtained by:
Breeding with the elder crabbit
The elder crabbit is a larger, bluer crabbit with bigger ears that spawns randomly alongside 1-3 other crabbits
After 3 days out of water, it will appear dead and you will have a choice to either carry it (requires nimble fingers) or take it for 5 points if food. Taking it to the water will revive and tame it. If you do not touch the elder crabbit after 3 days, it will despawn. After being tamed, the elder crabbit will follow the creature that tames it exactly one tile behind. If it falls behind, it will take the shortest path to be right next to the creature no matter what. If the creature that tamed the elder crabbit dies before the elder crabbit, the elder crabbit will act like a regular crabbit (but will still be tamed and breedable). A tamed elder crabbit will also pick up any shells around it.
Killing or attacking an elder crabbit and attempting to revive it will fail and make the elder crabbit disappear.
All elder crabbits are male.
Elder Crabbit Stats:
1 speed
3 sight
Lifespan (Only in effect after taming) - 10 days
Hybrid Genes:
Medium ears/Rabbit ears - +4 hearing, +1 heat resistance
Antennae/Crab Antennae - +2 smelling
Gills
Normal eyes/Eyestalks - +3 sight OR +2 sight
Water body/Exoskeleton - +2 defense, underwater breathing (+1 heat resistance?)
Claw/Pincers - +2 strength, +1 fishing, +1 cracking OR +2 strength, +1 fishing, +1 collecting
Normal hind legs
Swimming tail
Red fur color
Mask patten

Arctic Ramfox
Obtained by:
Befriending an abandoned arctic ramfox
Abandoned ramfoxes have a 1/10 (feel free to comment if this is too high or low, I haven’t encountered many arctic ramfoxes) chance of spawning with other arctic ramfoxes
It will not be near the pack and will be in some other dark area, it will be slightly smaller, darker in color, and younger. It will not move as often as the pack would. It stays at least 2 tiles away from the rest of the pack.
Requires 10 food to tame
When tamed, the abandoned ramfox acts like a tamed bearyena yet tends to stay closer to other pack members. The ramfox can also inflict warming up as if it were another pack mate and will have a longer lifespan after being tamed of 20 days. The ramfox will now also hunt prey such as rabbils and will contribute to the food counter to prove it is useful to you.
There is a 50/50 chance the abandoned ramfox is male or female. Breeding with a male is the same as a friendly bearyena. Breeding with a female will move towards the closest nest after a successful breeding and after a night on the nest, will give birth.
Hybrid genes:
Some gene names by @seahorsepie here: https://strayfawnstudio.com/community/index.php?/topic/964-ramfox-hybrids/
Medium ears
Ram horns
Big nose
Normal eyes
Big body/Medium body/Snow body - +1 cold resistance, +2 speed
Bearyena claws/Hunting claws - +1 speed, +1 attack
Bearyena hindlegs
Medium tail/Big tail - +2 cold resistance, -1 heat resistance
Black/White fur color or just white fur color
No pattern
Hemophilia

Walrus Deer
Obtained by:
Breeding with a walrus deer
Keeping a walrus deer unharmed for 30 days makes it trust you. If you attack it after being befriended, it will no longer be befriended or re-befriendable.
All walrus deer are male and attempting to breed with one will stop the movement of the walrus deer until the day passes, there is a successful breeding, or it is attacked.
Hybrid Genes:
Medium ears
Antlers/Big Antlers - +1 strength, +1 attractiveness (both sexes or only males) OR +2 strength
Normal snout/Sabertooth fangs/Tusks - +1 strength, +1 cracking
Big body/Blubber - +3 cold resistance, +1 swimming
Runner leg/Hooves - +1 speed, +1 cracking
Normal hindlegs/Hooved hindlegs - +2 speed, +1 strength, +1 swimming
Swimming tail
Red/White fur
Stripes pattern

Apes
Obtained by:
Taming the ultimate ape
The ultimate ape is a very rare entity that spawns in with another ape on a different area on the island. When it spawns in, it makes a very distinct sound. It is the best combination of the great apes; having excellent sight, hearing, and smell; and can only be found on the deep jungle island. It’s appearance is like a mixture between the three apes. The ultimate ape will spawn as a child and will become an untamable adult after 50 days. It is only tamable as a child and requires 100 food to tame which can be separated into 10s, 20s, and 50s at a cost (alternatively, have new menu pop up for how much to give to the ape). Separating food gifts wears off 1 food point a day and each feeding (regardless of amounts) takes one point of energy. When the ultimate ape becomes a “tamed” adult, you will have to provide it with 10 food points every 10 days. The ultimate ape starts off with 10 food points when it grows up. Each feeding of 10 points is one point of energy. Feeding does stack meaning feeding it 50 food points one day lasts for 50 days. There would be a bar or icon letting you know how much longer you have. Missing feeding the ultimate ape makes it feral and untamable. You can only breed with a tamed ultimate ape when it has the age of 150 days.
The ultimate ape is neutral as a child, extremely aggressive as an adult, and neutral as an adult if it was tamed and is maintained. Letting the ultimate ape grow up without taming it would be one of the hardest, if not hardest, challenges in Niche. If any creature is ever caught on its radar, it will immediately target that creature. It can be distracted by other food resources and other apes for 2-3 days. It likes to move around to make it less predictable. If creatures have distasteful appearance, distasteful scent, and strong voice, it will not attack.
All ultimate apes are male and act like friendly bearyenas but also collect fruit.
OR
Snatch a baby ape from ape nests found in jungle trees with winged creatures by standing directly underneath the tree. The ape will be one of the three apes and will take 25 days to grow. The feeding system works the same as the ultimate ape in order to maintain trust. If you fail to feed the ape, it will become feral and untamable. The ape has all the normal stats of its wild counterpart.
Bonus:
I could see there being two achievements for the ultimate ape
Master of Beasts - Tamed an ultimate ape for life
Master Hunter - Kill the ultimate ape
Ultimate Ape Stats:
6 sight
6 smell
6 hearing
4 defense
5 strength
2 collecting
2 speed
Immune to poison
Drops 100 food points
Lifespan - 250 days
Hybrid Genes:
Normal eyes/Blind eyes (Smelling and Hearing Apes)/Sharp-sighted (or Bird) eyes - +3 sight OR +4 sight 
Big ears/Giant ears - +5 hearing, +1 heat resistance (maybe disables horn gene)
Big nose/Giant nose - +4 smelling/Ape Snout (Seeing and Hearing Apes) - +1 strength, distasteful appearance
Toxic body/Big body/Armored body/Toxic Armor - +2 defense, +2 strength, distasteful appearance, poison resistance, disable fur color
Bearyena claw/Ape arm - +1 strength, +1 collecting, +1 cracking, +1 climbing (climb up trees instead of flying) (maybe +2 speed and/or climbing ability if both paws) 
Normal hindlegs
Medium tail
Black fur color
Spots pattern

I also have an idea for balance bears, but I heard there are some new bears and wanted to see those before I made some genes for them so I'll probably make a post about them later. Anyways, thanks for reading this extremely long post!

[ChasingNyx]

This all sounds so cool! I hope to see at least one of your ideas get in Niche! You get an upvote, for all of them!

[bostonlobstah]

I don’t think hybridizing with some of these species makes sense, but I could see hybrids with balance bears and ram foxes.

[georgie]

i know a lot of people really like the idea of more hybrids, but personally I think that hybrids should be kept to bearyneas only. It makes them seem more special and unique to other predators like the apes and balance bears, and if they were to receive hybrids too, bearyneas would be widely overlooked. that's just my opinion on hybrids though, and I wouldn't actually find it offensive for more hybrids to be added

[Pokestardragacraft]

On 5/5/2018 at 10:45 AM, Pokestardragacraft said:

Hey so I know some of these pairings don’t seem biologically accurate but this is Niche and why not. I think some of these are better than others and don’t think they all would work but I think I’d be nice to at least propose it

 

37 minutes ago, bostonlobstah said:

I don’t think hybridizing with some of these species makes sense, but I could see hybrids with balance bears and ram foxes.

I’m aware

[Duplodragon]

I really would like to see Ramfox hybrids. However, I would not give it Bearhyena limbs, because they are too strong and too slow. I think the unique genes to go for with that one are:

• Ramfox Tail: +2 cold resistance 
• Ramfox Claws: +1 strength +1 speed
• Ramfox Hindlegs: +2 speed +1 strength (+0 swimming!)

As for the Ultimate Ape: I like him, but I don't think that should be the tameable one. I think it is just too much awesomeness at once (and yes I think that is possile). Instead I would like it, if Ape nests would spawn on Ape Tree branches. There you could find one or two little Apes of the same species that you can abduct with flying creatures (similar to the flying attack). If you then manage to bring them out of range of any adult Apes you can tame them as usual. The special genes would be:

• Ape arms(same as above): +1 strength, +1 collecting, +1 cracking, +1 climbing (when uniform)
• Ape Body: +3 strength, maybe: poison resistance, disables tail genes
• Ape Snout(Seeing and Hearing Ape): 0 Smelling, distasteful appearance, maybe: poison resistance, +1 strength
• Giant Nose(Smelling Ape): +4 Smelling
• no Ears(Seeing and Smelling Apes): 0 Hearing
• Giant Ears(Hearing Ape): +5 Hearing, maybe: +2 heat resistance, disables horn genes
• (Blind Eyes(Hearing and Smelling Ape))
• Giant Eyes(Seeing Ape): +4 Eyesight
• (yellow Fur(Seeing Ape))
• green Fur(Hearing Ape): +2 camo in Jungle and Grasslands
• blue Fur(Smelling Ape): probably: nothing, maybe: +2 camo in water

values have been updated

[Pokestardragacraft]

On 2/19/2019 at 11:45 AM, Duplodragon said:

I really would like to see Ramfox hybrids. However, I would not give it Bearhyena limbs, because they are too strong and too slow. I think the unique genes to go for with that one are:

• Ramfox Tail: +2 cold resistance 
• Ramfox Claws: +1 strength +1 speed
• Ramfox Hindlegs: +2 speed +1 strength (+0 swimming!)

As for the Ultimate Ape: I like him, but I don't think that should be the tameable one. I think it is just too much awesomeness at once (and yes I think that is possile). Instead I would like it, if Ape nests would spawn on Ape Tree branches. There you could find one or two little Apes of the same species that you can abduct with flying creatures (similar to the flying attack). If you then manage to bring them out of range of any adult Apes you can tame them as usual. The special genes would be:

• Ape arms(same as above): +1 strength, +1 collecting, +1 cracking, +1 climbing (when uniform)
• Ape Body: +3 strength, maybe: poison resistance, disables tail genes
• Ape Snout(Seeing and Hearing Ape): 0 Smelling, distasteful appearance, maybe: poison resistance, +1 strength
• Giant Nose(Smelling Ape): +5 Smelling
• no Ears(Seeing and Smelling Apes): 0 Hearing
• Giant Ears(Hearing Ape): +5 Hearing, maybe: +2 heat resistance, disables horn genes
• (Blind Eyes(Hearing and Smelling Ape))
• Giant Eyes(Seeing Ape): +5 Eyesight
• (yellow Fur(Seeing Ape))
• green Fur(Hearing Ape): +2 camo in Jungle and Grasslands
• blue Fur(Smelling Ape): probably: nothing, maybe: +2 camo in water

 

I like some of the ideas you have and appreciate the feedback! For the Ramfoxes, you’ll notice that a lot of our gene suggestions are similar, the Bearyena genes are there as currently existing gene options as mentioned in the intro. As for the hindlegs, the issue with no swimming is that the hindlegs gene is meant to allow for every creature to have at least one speed and one swimming so that you cannot have an immobile creature. It’s more obvious with speed since most creatures are land based but it still applies to the water as well. 

For the apes, I made it pretty hard to maintain tameability on purpose but I do like your idea for taming cool too. My only issue with the taking method is that maybe it should be a little more difficult since the genes you get from it are pretty beneficial. Either that or it could just be a very rare event but that could get annoying. I also like your take on genes like how the ears could disable the horn genes and the normal Ape Snout. However I think that +5 smelling and seeing is too much especially when you consider after much breeding that you could have creatures with all of the beneficial ape traits. Maybe if you have the Giant Nose it could disable eyesight and having Giant Eyes could disable smelling just for balance. As for the fur colors, I’m not sure how they would work since you need to consider fur colors are incompletely dominant and therefore will mix with the preexisting fur colors.

[Duplodragon]

4 minutes ago, Pokestardragacraft said:

I like some of the ideas you have and appreciate the feedback! For the Ramfoxes, you’ll notice that a lot of our gene suggestions are similar, the Bearyena genes are there as currently existing gene options as mentioned in the intro. As for the hindlegs, the issue with no swimming is that the hindlegs gene is meant to allow for every creature to have at least one speed and one swimming so that you cannot have an immobile creature. It’s more obvious with speed since most creatures are land based but it still applies to the water as well. 

For the apes, I made it pretty hard to maintain tameability on purpose but I do like your idea for taming cool too. My only issue with the taking method is that maybe it should be a little more difficult since the genes you get from it are pretty beneficial. Either that or it could just be a very rare event but that could get annoying. I also like your take on genes like how the ears could disable the horn genes and the normal Ape Snout. However I think that +5 smelling and seeing is too much especially when you consider after much breeding that you could have creatures with all of the beneficial ape traits. Maybe if you have the Giant Nose it could disable eyesight and having Giant Eyes could disable smelling just for balance. As for the fur colors, I’m not sure how they would work since you need to consider fur colors are co-dominant and therefore will mix with the preexisting fur colors.

Yeah, I forgot to write that my Ramfox ideas where basically the same. I only wanted to show that I would make it very similar, but with additional speed. I came to that idea with the 0 swimming, because i realized I already had selected 3 skill points for the Hindlegs and because I thought creatures unable to swim wouldn't be a problem, considering that your'e creatures, especially on cold islands, are most of the times on land. Giving birth to a creature with Ramfox Hindlegs and no other swimming genes in the water or sorrounded by rivers would of course be pretty bad, I admit.

Regarding the difficulty of the Ape taming I think it would actually be quite good to combine our ideas: first abduct the babys and then feed them to maintain their loyalty

I see the balance issue with the Giant Nose, Giant Ears and Giant Eyes, but I don't wan't them to disable each other so I also think now that the values you chose above are better (4 Smelling, 5 Hearing and 4 Eyesight).

I don't think there is a problem with the Fur colors and camo, because you get the camo bonus of 2, if one of you're genes has it.

[Pokestardragacraft]

1 minute ago, Duplodragon said:

I don't think there is a problem with the Fur colors and camo, because you get the camo bonus of 2, if one of you're genes has it.

Glad to see that we agree on most things, and yea I like the idea of combining our ideas for the ape taming method. But for the fur colors, I understand the practical aspect of them, my issue is with the actual aesthetics. For example, the blue fur with the moss brown fur.

[Duplodragon]

32 minutes ago, Pokestardragacraft said:

my issue is with the actual aesthetics. For example, the blue fur with the moss brown fur.

I actually don't think it looks that bad, but before I tried it I wasn't sure either tbh.

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

I really love most ideas, but +3 hindlegs, +4 eyes and +5 hearing would break the game. +3 eyes could have a smelling debuff. Not sure if +4 eyes could even be offset as they make hearing and smelling near obsolete. Hearing is underappreciated, but a too powerful sense has significant tradeoffs in terms of focus

[lpsbead6780]

i like the ramfox & bear idea but i cant really get behide any other hybrids. I would like to see more deer like genes also maybe a really fluffy tail and body😊