[1.0 - 1.1] Genetic Rim - Combine animals to create new hybrids - v5.05

[SargBjornson]

I... could have made it the opposite... It will need testing!

[Luncario]

Hey, realy very good job on the mod I use it since you released it ! I found something strange, when u go for the human hybridation, the bear skin give +50hp to the body part while the thrumbo doesn't, is it balance for the stats given from the thrumbo skin ?

[SargBjornson]

Ok, new patch, including several things you guys asked for! Regarding that bear skin implant, it's part of its features

v4.201:

- Added Gene Duplicator building to duplicate most genetic material
- Added Gene Duplication research
- Removed power needs of the Animal Control Hub
- You can now craft mechanoid interface chips in the fabrication table with Advanced Fabrication research. This method is EXPENSIVE as it is intended as a catch-up for peaceful storyteller playthroughs where mechanoid crashed ships might not appear.
- Mechamuffalos now consume a little more food to not screw caravan calculations up (stil 1/30 of what an ostrich eats!)
- Mecharats don't need mechanoid interface chips now, they are cheap!
- Fixed hibernation module implant's resting rate
- Fixed a typo when making muffalo skin implant

[SargBjornson]

Sneak peek of the next hybrids to come: the cat hybrids

[CombinedAutism]

Hey Im using your mod with CE (including comp. patch). But the creatures are not really balanced for CE I assume? My mecha spider for example has 0.35 Sharp armor meaning it drops from a salvo by the simplest machine guns. Also, it shoots so inaccurately that the shots spread in almost a 180 degere arc in front of it. Dont know if thats intended or not.

[SargBjornson]

Actually I didn't make the CE patch, so no idea! You'll have to ask Saebbi about it!

[CombinedAutism]

Ok thanks. By the way I noticed there are no dog genes/serums? How come? I was looking forward to some badass haulers:D

[SargBjornson]

Wolves take the place of dogs

[CombinedAutism]

But the sweet 0.0 animal filth rating  Great job on the art though they look as freakish as I had hoped

[SergeMalbret]

Some bugs and suggestions:

Beaverwolf Castoreum nutrition is currently set to 0.5 , i.e. 10x the nutrition value of vanilla vegetables (0.05), while having the same market value. I assume this was a typo, as it's described as "a food additive and natural flavour", so it being 10x as nutritious as other foods sounds weird, and makes it 10x as good to buy from traders as any other food.

The Hibernation Module restRateMultiplier is -0.5 , which does the opposite of what it claims in the description ("reduce the need for sleep"), i.e. it actually makes pawns regain rest slower. If you compare it with Core/.../Traits_Singular.xml , Quick Sleeper has a multiplier of +0.50 , which is what I assume was intended.

The Consciousness modifiers on the Hibernation Module and Neuron Reinforcement are extremely powerful, and may not have been intended as such. Consider that Consciousness above 100% directly translates into increases in Manipulation and Movement among other things. So a +20% Consciousness from the Hibernation Module is comparable to having a Bionic left arm, and Bionic right arm, and a Bionic left leg, and a Bionic right leg, and a Bionic Jaw at the same time and more, which is beyond incredibly good.

If the Hibernation Module is made to reduce the need for sleep, it is already a very strong and desirable effect, and so an increase in consciousness seems unwarranted imo. (An implant that makes the pawns sleep longer but provides a small increase in consciousness would be an interesting tradeoff, but based on the description I assume this was not the original intent of the Hibernation Module)

Similarly, the Neuron Reinforcement module is already great (faster learning and faster researching multiplier that stacks with other multipliers), so it providing an additional consciousness bonus seems just far too good. Even without the consciousness bonus it is very desirable.

I would suggest increasing some of the workAmount and WorkToBuild values - it feels weird that e.g. combining the genes of a bear and a muffalo is less work than building a wooden door! It feels less "satisfying" to accomplish some great genetic engineering if it can be done in seconds. With something like a 4-8x increase it would feel more like the pawns are working on a great and difficult task.

Similarly, I would recommend increasing hatcherDaystoHatch , which is currently 1 for everything. The incubator may be a high-tech piece of equipment, and it makes sense that it would speed up animal development to some extent. However, an animal still needs a certain amount of energy to grow and hatch, and if that amount of energy is delivered in a very short span of time, it would be like instead of cooking dinner at 200 degreesC for 30 minutes, you'd try cooking at 2000 degrees for 3 minutes. Not too healthy.

(When one introduces genes from one animal into another irl, it generally takes longer for it to hatch/grow than the base animal, because homeostatic mechanisms need to deal with additional developmental issues). And from a gameplay standpoint, making an incubator one day and having something like a massive dinosaur/bear hybrid hatch from it the next day feels unsatisfyingly easy to me, while having to keep the incubator at the right temperature for e.g. 10 days would imo be a nice balance of being neither too trivial nor too hard.

Thank you for the great mod - I hope you take some of my suggestions into consideration.

[SargBjornson]

Ok, peoplelinos, new update is here, and let me tell you, it is HUGE this time. If you want the whole changelog, I added it to Github, but the main changes are these:

- New hybrid animal family: cats. 16 new animals.
- Feline genes can be extracted from vanilla, Animal Collab, Alpha Animals and Let's Have a Cat! via Modcheck.
- New animal control ability: cat reflexes.
- New items: genetrainers. Genetrainers are implants that do not take the place of any given organ, and they need a vanilla mech serum (neurotrainer, healer or resurrector) to be crafted.
- Added genetrainer bench and research to go with it
- New mechanic: non-specialized genes can now be extracted from ANY animal, to be used in the recombinator.

[Ravenholme]

Ok, peoplelinos, new update is here, and let me tell you, it is HUGE this time. If you want the whole changelog, I added it to Github, but the main changes are these:

- New hybrid animal family: cats. 16 new animals.
- Feline genes can be extracted from vanilla, Animal Collab, Alpha Animals and Let's Have a Cat! via Modcheck.
- New animal control ability: cat reflexes.
- New items: genetrainers. Genetrainers are implants that do not take the place of any given organ, and they need a vanilla mech serum (neurotrainer, healer or resurrector) to be crafted.
- Added genetrainer bench and research to go with it
- New mechanic: non-specialized genes can now be extracted from ANY animal, to be used in the recombinator.

Great stuff as always Sarg, can't wait to give the new cat hybrids a try. Looking forward to whatever is next, too.

Minor note about the OP though - Under the 'Issues' section, both mods you link to in regards to mitigating the load up time are actually just Genetic Rim

[SargBjornson]

Ouch... fixed!

[CrimsonPhalanx]

Found a bug related to needle chickens, at first I noticed one of my chickens died from lack of sunlight, but no matter how early I loaded the save my second chicken dies on load.

I did some testing by locking one chicken up and waiting for it to die from sunlight, as well as saving at different intervals.

I found something weird. Apparently the light level for the chickens are synchronized. After reloading a few, I realized that the locked up chicken would end up having the same light level as the chickens outside (which is impossible), even the dead body's light level gets synchronized.

[CrimsonPhalanx]

Similarly, I would recommend increasing hatcherDaystoHatch , which is currently 1 for everything. The incubator may be a high-tech piece of equipment, and it makes sense that it would speed up animal development to some extent. However, an animal still needs a certain amount of energy to grow and hatch, and if that amount of energy is delivered in a very short span of time, it would be like instead of cooking dinner at 200 degreesC for 30 minutes, you'd try cooking at 2000 degrees for 3 minutes. Not too healthy.

(When one introduces genes from one animal into another irl, it generally takes longer for it to hatch/grow than the base animal, because homeostatic mechanisms need to deal with additional developmental issues). And from a gameplay standpoint, making an incubator one day and having something like a massive dinosaur/bear hybrid hatch from it the next day feels unsatisfyingly easy to me, while having to keep the incubator at the right temperature for e.g. 10 days would imo be a nice balance of being neither too trivial nor too hard.

Thank you for the great mod - I hope you take some of my suggestions into consideration.

Waiting 10 days then getting a flestbeast would be extremely frustrating though. But from your point I feel a better solution is to have the animals have a default longer hatch time but will not form a flestbeast, but theres a machine to speed it up to the usual 1 day but have a chance to produce a fleshbeast (or maybe a machine that instantly hatches it and the the fleshbeast chance is determined by the hatch progress)