RNG population control

[Originally written September 5 2020]

I returned to a mildly improved C3/DS world – I’d installed a few fixes to the DS lifts (so they should be able to carry adult Grendels now), man-o-war eggs (so they hatch), and Capillata umbilical (so creatures looking to exit the room are more likely to use it). I also now had a system in place for population control, which went into immediate use on the egg in my inventory – the roll came up 11, so into the airlock it went. I then began making my rounds.

Without me attempting to keep everybody in place, they moved around quite a bit, although some were more prone to moving than others. 

Tamora started out hanging around on the bramboo terrace by herself, while Rosalind was a good Grendel and started smacking gadgets and toys as needed despite being surrounded by Norns, including Thor and Horatio, who were napping nearby.

Lorenzo reached adulthood and acquired a small shadow in the form of Baldur, who apparently needed a fellow stripe-bearing Norn to look up to. The little Bengal was quite content to follow his big foster brother around as he went about his business, which mostly consisted of riding the lift up and down.

Freya took a rather nasty fall off the treehouse deck, and it must have knocked her a bit senseless, because she decided to wade deeper into the pond, expressing her intent to push the balloon bugs I use to keep the trout fed. She could have drowned attempting this, but luckily I was there to pull the soggy Norn out of the water.

Thor had decided to stress tess the offline warp portals, and it kept him quite amused, but my attention was elsewhere. Baldur was hanging out with a very reluctant Tamora, when he announced quite cheerfully that he was ill. Suffering flashbacks to my war with the bacteria in the previous world, I immediately doused both the Norn and the grouchy Grendel with pink fog, then went over the whole bramboo terrace area with yellow fog – just to be sure!

Meanwhile, Helena was suffering a case of Eat Elevator Syndrome, so I exported and reimported her, then prodded the robot toy in front of her, which seemed to do the trick. While in the Meso, I found that Freya had joined Thor in playing with the warp portal, and both had grown into adolescence. Their brother, Loki, however, was quite happy to stay put.

Lorenzo and Baldur finally dragged Tamora down from her perch in the corner of the Terrarium as they went up and down the lift by the Learning Room, and Baldur unfortunately discovered the music box, which he was overly keen on activating. Repeatedly. I airlocked it pretty quickly and replaced it with a ball.

Tamora, in her quest to get away from the troublesome Norns, went all the way to the Jungle, but even here she couldn’t escape, because Lorenzo followed her on her grand adventure, much to her distaste. So she headed out to the bridge where she finally got some peace and quite.

Helena seemed to have no taste for wandering, but she had plenty of taste for carrots! Baldur, who seems to be everywhere at once, joined her on the bramboo terrace for a bite to eat. Horatio is the one Norn I wasn’t surprised to see still in exactly the same place. Treehuggers are not known for their inclination to use doors or lifts. Still, it was good that he was staying out of trouble…

Speaking of trouble… I actually didn’t notice this odd little trend until I was looking over my screenshots! I was too busy trying to convince Freya to eat some fruit, as she’d apparently decided that gadgets looked more appetizing. After some coaxing, I convinced her that apples were better.

Despite Lorenzo’s presence, Tamora returned to the Jungle, where she picked up some bacteria. Thankfully she had the sense not to return to the Woodland and spread it, so I was able to handle that issue with some pink fog.

Horatio expressed boredom, to which Rosalind suggested he get a creature egg. Which he most certainly did as soon as he found Helena! The dice also decreed that this one should be airlocked, but he didn’t seem to mind.

With all of the other creatures grown to adolescence, I decided it was time to import the other two Norns in the backlog. This meant it was time for some genetic analysis, as I’d previously just hatched, named, and exported them without so much as writing down their monikers.

First up was little Heimdall, visually a perfect inversion of Loki.

Receptor

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Special gait 6^(limp)”. Chemical: “Injury”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 0.937 if Signal > 0.251.

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “COMFORT”. Chemical: “Injury”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 0.937 if Signal > 0.251.

Heimdall will never limp, but if injured, he’ll be very homesick. An odd mutation, to be sure, but it could be worse.

His next interesting mutation caused me a bit of confusion – the report says he has an insertion at 400, but it looks to me like it’s actually a deletion. The deleted gene in question is a stimulus for things approaching… but I’m not sure if the gene in question is actually used! First off, the stimulus itself is called “[It approaches DEPRECATED]” which in theory indicates a piece of code that is no longer used. Further, all stimulated chemicals in both parents are flagged as silent, and in Horatio, the gene is flagged “Do Not Express” so it shouldn’t have any effect. On the other hand, in Helena it’s not flagged DNE.  Still, the fact that it’s DNE on Horatio means the lack of it shouldn’t be a problem for Heimdall. Similarly, the rest of his mutations were minor and shouldn’t affect him.

Next up is Saga. Despite her pure Treehugger appearance she is indeed half Chichi. She has a few half-life changes that shouldn’t make a difference, but which are a pain to track down… I will need to make a script for that. Her few mutations were all minor and not worth discussing, from what I could tell – some of the reporting was a little wonky.