Creatures 2 is broken but I love it anyway

It's always fun when the first thing that happens is the game crashing. It was a sign of things to come, as the whole session was an exercise in C2's jankiness, but boy I can tell my mental state has improved because it's not bothering me so much anymore! So I've got that goin' for me at least.

I loaded back into the world with the babies still exported, and decided to keep it that way. I think for Creatures 2 I'm going to separate the generations; things are chaotic enough as it is.

Once I got back into the game and got my bearings, I saw Magni taking another swim. I sure am glad for the pufferfish! Meanwhile, Gunhild was stuck in the boat, which is quickly rising to the top of my COBbling hit list. I could sink a lot of effort into making it not be terrible, but really, what's the point? Not only do creatures constantly get stuck in it, not only are the controls located where you can't click on them when the boat is occupied, but the boat itself is completely pointless because it leads to a small, dead end patch of island with no food on it. I will likely just remove the boat from my world. Anyway, I eventually managed to get it to cooperate and drop Gunhild off, and began leading her across the desert.

Meanwhile, Sigurd and Magni greeted her and somebody apparently found the neuroscience kit. It didn't matter because I use the world state tool to turn everything on anyway. Eventually I managed to shepherd all three of them over to the Calendar Tree, then went to check on the Mernorns. I was interrupted by an alert about glycotoxin, so I had to cycle through creatures until I found who was poisoned. Freyja, apparently, has developed a taste for deathcap. I haven't caught her in the act, but I saw a few more notifications throughout the session and it was always her. She eats them infrequently enough that they don't seem to do her much harm, either. 

Bjorn was hanging out in the treehouses by the waterfall, and was doing surprisingly well taking care of himself, but after I later found him in the splicing area, I decided to lure him down to the swamp to keep Freyja company. Then there was a short period of time where events got very muddled in my brain because the game crashed again and I lost some progress, so I wasn't sure what had and had not actually happened. For the most part, whatever was lost wasn't too interesting.

Having decided to separate generations, I exported Sven, the young Mernorn, and encouraged his parents to produce more eggs. They seem to be doing fairly well, despite often having high hunger meters. I'm not sure if this is due to typical Norn refusal to eat, or if swimming around in two dimensions makes it harder for them to approach food. I have also noticed they have a tendency to smack themselves into the airlock and incubator room walls repeatedly, but there's not much I can do about that.

While I have no complaints about the light sea pufferfish, the dark sea pufferfish apparently wasn't doing its job because I was pulled to the other ocean by a low ATP notification, and found Magni in the water with stars around his head. Luckily I was able to fish him out and resuscitate him.

My heart sank when I glanced at the observation kit. Gunhild was pregnant and sick. I don't know how long I hadn't been paying attention to the kit, but when I checked in on her, I just caught the tail end of the sickness as she recovered. Nobody else caught it from her, either. She was, however, taking a long time to lay her egg; and at first I thought she might be stuck somehow. Gunhild was at 8 already when Freyja got pregnant, and when the latter had laid her egg, Gunhild was still at 8. But then, when I scrolled away to retrieve Freyja's egg, Gunhild finally laid hers.

That's when I found Freyja under the ground, sound asleep. Having seen this before I knew there wasn't anything I could do except export her and re-import her, and with her hunger meter full, I figured I'd ask her to eat while she was in the incubator room. Yet, I could not get her to eat. She'd reach toward the honey and the tomatoes, but wouldn't actually pick them up. I opened up the neuroscience kit to watch her decisions unfolding, and I saw something interesting: she continually alternated between push and pull, but rarely get or eat, even when commanded to do those things. I lured her over to the mushroom patch and told her to eat those. Again, she opted for "push" over "eat," but on the mushrooms this worked. 

Then, an idea occurred to me. Do creatures actually know to get food before they push food? What if they just walk over and try to push food, and actually picking it up isn't an intentional action but part of the creature-side script when pushing the object? If picking a pushed object up is supposed to be handled in the object script, is it missing from many C2 items? It would certainly explain the C2 Norns' trouble with eating! That is something I'll definitely have to look into.

But for the time being, I shrugged and led Freyja over to the others at the Calendar Tree. That left poor Bjorn down in the swamp by himself with only the Ettin for company, so I exported and imported him too, and led him across the desert to join the rest of the crowd.

With everyone taken care of, I hatched the four eggs I had lined up! The hatchlings have been exported, of course, but I figured I might as well do the genetic analysis now!

First up is the striking Sif, daughter of Freyja and Bjorn. I noticed her coloration right away, but believe it or not she has no pigment or pigment bleed mutations! Rather, she just inherited all the Hebe Norn pigment bleeds; in Golden Desert Norns, the pigment bleeds are all flagged as "do not express."

Sif has two age-related mutations. Both the emitter that produces hexokinase when muscle energy is used and the emitter that produces adrenaline when the need for pleasure drive is too high have mutated so they don't kick in until childhood. She also has a very small mutability degree mutation in another emitter and a slight significance change in her "I've stated a need" stimulus.

Next was a welcome change from the parade of girls. Brandr is the son of Freyja and Sigurd, and though it may be hard to see it, he does have a Frog Norn body. He has six mutations: a harmless state rule lobe change, a minor mutability change, and a few more interesting changes.

Receptor

Gene 331: 041 sleep when v. sleepy

Organ: "Creature", Tissue: "Sensorimotor", Locus: "Involuntary Action 5^{(pass out)}". Chemical: "Sleepiness".
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 230.

Organ: "Creature", Tissue: "Sensorimotor", Locus: "Involuntary Action 2^(sneeze)". Chemical: "Sleepiness".
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 230.

Normally, when creatures get tired enough, they are forced to fall asleep. Brandr won't do this; instead, when he gets super tired, he'll sneeze! On one hand, I have to admit that's absolutely adorable. On the other hand, lacking the "pass out" receptor and having it replaced with something that will probably actively keep him awake is... not good.

Receptor

Gene 386: Allergy B

Organ: "Current Organ^(Lung)", Tissue: "<no tissue>", Locus: "Clock Rate". Chemical: "Histamine B".
Analogue: Output = 127 - ((Signal - 63) * 32).

Organ: "Current Organ^(Lung)", Tissue: "<no tissue>", Locus: "Clock Rate". Chemical: "Histamine A".
Analogue: Output = 127 - ((Signal - 63) * 32).

Normally both Histamine A and B have an effect on how hard the lungs are working, but for Brandr, B won't have this effect, as both his histamine receptors detect A.

Emitter

Gene 273: 052 Other species smell

Organ: "Brain", Tissue: "Stim source i/ps", Locus: "Cell(37) Output". Chemical: "Grendel smell". Sample every 4 ticks. 
Digital: Output = 48 if Signal > 24.

Organ: "Creature", Tissue: "Reproductive", Locus: "I am pregnant (egg&sperm ready)". Chemical: "Grendel smell". Sample every 4 ticks. 
Digital: Output = 48 if Signal > 24.

Err, what? Brandr and his descendants won't be able to smell Grendels when they're nearby... but will always smell Grendels when pregnant. That's... bizarre.

Instinct

Gene 387: 029 Act2 when NFP

When... "Drive i/ps" "NEEDFORPLEASURE" ...and you "Activate2 it^(pull)": +127 Reward.

When... "Drive i/ps" "PAIN" ...and you "Activate2 it^(pull)": +127 Reward.

Normally, a Norn who wants pleasure will start interacting with random stuff around it, and this is the instinct that makes them try pulling stuff. In Brandr, he'll instinctively have this urge when in pain instead.

The last of the land-based Norns I hatched today was Runar, a lovely mix of greens from Gunhild and Sigurd. As you can see, he got the neutral Frog Norn coloration genes, letting the base colors of the Emerald Norn sprites shine through. Or so it appears! Actually, he got all three of the Emerald Norn versions of the red pigment, which seem to cancel out, as well as the "at birth" pigments, which don't seem to be enough to outweigh the neutral genes... but the blue pigment is mutated to kick in at childhood! Based on previous experiments, I'd expect the new blue gene to kick in and replace the existing neutral ones, leading to Runar taking on a blue tint, but I'm not sure that's how it works in Creatures 2. We'll have to wait and see!

He has a harmless state rule lobe mutation, small changes in the nominal and gain values for the upatrophin and downatrophin receptors, and an invisible instinct mutation. I suspect that what happened there is that the cell ID for one of the unused conditionals changed, and since the conditional is set to the "not used" lobe, the cell ID doesn't matter. The unused chemical in his "approaching something" stimulus mutated to pain, but since the amount is 0, it doesn't matter.

Receptor

Gene 586: Prostaglandin

Organ: "Current Organ^(skin)", Tissue: "<no tissue>", Locus: "Repair Rate". Chemical: "Prostaglandin".
Analogue: Output = 4 + ((Signal - 6) * 191).

Organ: "Current Organ^(skin)", Tissue: "<no tissue>", Locus: "Repair Rate". Chemical: "Prostaglandin".
Analogue: Output = 4 - ((Signal - 6) * 191).

Prostaglandin won't speed up his skin healing, but slow it down. Speaking of prostaglandin and healing, Runar also has a mutation in the receptor for prostaglandin healing the lungs, so that it won't kick in until childhood.

Stimulus

Gene 563: 024 response to coughing

Stimulus: "involuntary action 3^(cough)", Significance: "0". Reaction: "<none>", Intensity: "0".
+32 Pain, +8 Tiredness, +8 Fear, +16 Hexokinase.

Stimulus: "involuntary action 2^(sneeze)", Significance: "0". Reaction: "<none>", Intensity: "0".
+32 Pain, +8 Tiredness, +8 Fear, +16 Hexokinase.

Coughing won't be unpleasant for Runar, but sneezing will be. The fact that he now has two receptors for sneezing may make it twice as bad for him.

Finally, with a stunning 12 mutations, Hjalmar is the last Mernorn to hatch in the airlock. After hatching him, I realized that if I was exporting creatures to separate generations, then there's no need for a separate Mernorn hatchery. Just bring them into the world first, teach them, and shove them in the ocean before bringing in the land dwelling Norns. Hopefully future generations of Mernorns will be more eloquent!

Hjalmar has a plethora of mutations, not all of which are interesting. There's a "mutation" that I can't find anything different about. He's got yet another harmless state rule lobe mutation, and an appearance mutation that doesn't do anything; it changed the age at which his body sprite is defined to childhood, but that doesn't affect appearance genes. He's got four invisible pigment mutations: one changes the channel on a gene with a neutral value, and the rest were mutability changes. He has another mutability change in another gene. His injury drive receptor doesn't turn on until childhood, and he has a small change to the gain rate of the inhibin emitter. That leaves us with two other mutations.

Organ

Gene 002: 001 CNS: DRIVE LOBE SUPPORT

Clock rate: 127, Vulnerability: 4, Lifeforce start: 255, Biotick start: 127, ATP damage coefficient: 24

Clock rate: 127, Vulnerability: 4, Lifeforce start: 255, Biotick start: 126, ATP damage coefficient: 24

Alright, I've got no idea. There's precious little documentation on these more obscure corners of the genome, and though I was able to find a definition of what biotick start is, I don't rightly know how much difference a change from 127 to 126 will make.

"The “Biotick start” is a way to co-ordinate the genesis of organs during development, so their functions switch on in the right order."

Emitter

Gene 043: Become bored

Organ: "Creature", Tissue: "Sensorimotor", Locus: "I'm Asleep (255)". Chemical: "Boredom". Sample every 25 ticks. 
Digital: Output = 8 if (255-Signal) > 0.

Organ: "Brain", Tissue: "Noun i/ps", Locus: "#Loose dens/cells type0". Chemical: "Boredom". Sample every 25 ticks. 
Digital: Output = 8 if (255-Signal) > 0.

I'm admittedly not quite sure what this will do. Normally, this gene generates boredom when the creature is awake, turning off when the signal is 255 (i.e. when asleep). In Hjalmar, it will generate boredom whenever there are less than 255 loose type 0 dendrites in the noun lobe. A loose dendrite is a connection with a strength of 0. I'm not sure whether that will resolve as always true or always false, given the nature of the noun lobe. It should be easy enough to tell when I reimport him, though; Hjalmar will either always be generating boredom even when asleep, or will never get bored.

And while he has no meaningful color mutations, he has inherited his mother's pigment bleed genes, of which the male-specific gene defines a rotation of 85 and a swap of 200. It'll be interesting to see his colors as he grows!