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I'm running my ettin wolfling run for quite some time now, and I've seen alot of things worth mentioning, so now I have a central place to do so. I've started the run with a first generation female, and a spliced male. I let them alone for awhile behind locked meso doors, so they wouldn't wander off and get lost. As well as a home smell emitter, so they'd breed easier. After awhile I put a few in the norn terrarium, along with a home smell emitter, but still behind locked doors. When I opened all the doors, it didn't take them long, to start a gathering close to the airlocks. Though it bothered me, I just left them to their own devices. That's when I saw the first colour mutation; a female was killing everyone around her, because she felt crowded. It's a good thing creatures can't operate the airlocks, or she would've flushed everyone out. The thing that caught my eye however, was that she was purple! I was exhilarated to actually see a mutation :) When they were settled, I removed the smell emitters and let them run their course. [TOP]
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Because I had sixty ettins running around, the world got extremely slow, and with no exciting changes, I was getting quite bored. So I decided to "micro" study my colony, i.e. export a couple, and import them to an empty world, to see what they'd do. It was a disaster. I wanted to test their intelligence, by putting them all in the workshop, but all they'd do was mate, complain and die. Most of their offspring was more successful at finding food however. As time went by, I started my world less and less, until one day I decided to play again. But upon loading my world, it crashed. I restarted it a few times, because I just couldn't believe it. For a week long, I really, really, resented the program, for losing all my work. But then remember that little undocked world with a few smart ettins, so I started again. [TOP]
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I made a new world, called "Amori", I don't know any italian, but apparently it means "loves", which, kind of fits. By the time I imported the remaining forty ninth generation female, there were already some generation four ettins running around. This time I had another tactic though, I placed every egg in the workshop, so every ettin would be tested on intelligence. Soon there were alot of ettins chittering away, and the first thing I noticed was that they weren't as crowded as they used to, nor did they go through alot of trouble to go after gadgets. Eggs were escaping my attention, or it was just too crowded to get to them, so I set out to write a script to move the eggs automatically. Now I had more time to keep an eye on the foodstocks, as I scattered them over the ship again, some moved to the desert on instinct. The eggs from the norn terrarium were moved to the library, and I moved the cheesevendor to the top level of the desert, as a backup food source. The desert was transformed into a tropical place, with carrots, bramboo, various grass types, and some more flora and fauna. It became a popular place to children, pregnant females, and the elderly. [TOP]
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Because I wanted to observe this world more, I only raised the breeding limit to thirty five. By this time, the colour mutations were only faint, but the behavioural mutations were getting more interesting. They were becoming more resistant to crowdedness, and the cold, which I think is a good example how random evolution finds it's way. Most of them were passing the intelligence test by now, except a few, who were stuck trying to eat the door, or the elevator. I noticed that, the older ones getting lost, would return to the place they considered home, rather than going for the desert, or a random food source. The first time was when they took a baby with them through the portal, and the older ones went back to the meso, by means of elevators, and the baby went to the desert. I started to see more emotional behaviour as well, for example, a male ettin was pushing a dead female ettin, while he was hungry, and actually wanted to eat some food nearby. He didn't go for the food until the dead body of the female dissappeared. But something made even me uncomfortable: One day I was just scrolling through the world. and I saw two ettins, one was in the water in the desert, apparently trying to get away, and one was on the water edge, apparently being scared as well, but not going in the water. The first said he was going right, the second said he was about to eat some food, on asking them how they both replied they were happy. Ofcourse, after awhile the first died, and when that happend, the second one went to eat the food he had his eye on. Around this time, I also started to see ettins send elevators back before continuing their journey. One even had a variation on the button obsession; he'd call the elevator, send it back, call it again, but he always stopped temporarily to eat some apples. Eventually he died of old age while being convinced he could eat beasts :P [TOP]
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When I went through the usual round, to see how the ettins were, I discovered a fifteen hours 'Old' male ettin in the meso, I didn't know that ment they don't die of old age back then, and I thought it was kind of funny. Ofcourse he had alot of offspring, and the mutation spread. I had to make a script exporting the elderly, because I had more elderly than young ettins. Not long after, I found a eleven hour old male in the desert. When I knew they were immortal, I stopped exported, and instead age them. One night I went through all their genes, discovering I only had four normal aging ettins left! I deleted every ettins, except those four, fixed a few timeline genes, and imported a smart first generation ettin, to spice up the genepool. Not long after, the normal aging ettins were settled right back in. But this time I added grendels to the mix, to provide more challenge for them. [TOP]
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Just after the world passed the two hundred hour mark, it crashed, and it wasn't long until I realized it was a fatal error, luckily, it happend awhile after saving, so I could still export my ettins. I couldn't import them all, as I exported all the babies that hatched after I exported everybody. But soon again, they were settled in, when I found a bright blue male in the midst of the norn terrarium. The blue mutation appeared to stay, after a while,I had several bright blue ettins running around. In the meantime, the grendels had taken over the desert, and some found the meso, most of the ettins fled, but some were killed. Though I have my suspicion about some deaths of grendels, I've never seen an ettin actually kill one. By this time, I started to call my ettins "My colony", because it's as fascinating as watching an anthill. Sometimes nothing interesting happens, but after awhile the changes become apparent, sometimes even radical. One mutation might change the whole colony, or never get a chance to begin with. [TOP]
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After I made the expressive ettins, I started to get irritated with the static faces of my colony. I pondered for a couple of days, thinking of a way to keep the generation, and the average mutations, without any agents. My first experiment was to breed one of my colony, with a first generation expressive ettin, in the meanwhile, I was studying the genetics kit. What I expected, happend: Alot of ettins had random face mutations, some were the normal kind, others expressive, some a combination of the two. When I openend up a gene file of one of offspring, I was planning on finding a way to adapt her, but keep her generation. However, I found out that she had everything I wanted, all the facials, and general mutations in my colony. Going back to my colony - which was at generation one hundred twelve by then - I was doubting what to do; the female ettin I had was of a ninety ninth generation, I could go from there now, or retry when I had a much higher generation. With that, I was planning on "fixing" the rest, meaning I wanted to change the facials of every ettin, and import them as first generation, in short; alot of work. I decided on the first, as I liked the facials too much, or began to dislike the static ones too much. When I exported thirtyfive ettins, thirtyfive more hatched. As I exported those as well, I furiously started to change the ettins, exporting them, and pausing the game. After twelve ettins, I imported the the generation ninetynine female, and went on exporting "fixed" ettin from the genetics kit. This turned out to be a disaster, I just let them do their thing for awhile, and they did fine. But noone had an advantage, there were about four high generation ettins, one in an egg, and all the limits had been reached. With a pretty young generation still alive and well, the higher generation being in the minority, and the last two being stillborn, it looked like trouble. So I kept the high generations, and some - they were in the generation five already - "fixed" ettins, the breeding limit was lowered to twenty four, and I let them breed again. Some time later my colony was restored, and I spread them as usual, although, to my suprise; two ettins returned to the meso on their own several times, this both annoyed and prided me :P [TOP]
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When I heard a slight limping mutation could lead to a severe one, a bell began to ring; I've seen my ettins limping a bit on many occasions, not severe, but still slowing them down. And still being happy about the facial changes, I decided to test every ettin by placing them at engineering, and if they wouldn't know what to do, I'd ask them to approach me. This way I could eliminate the ones that limped, after that, so many new ones hatched, I could check my whole genepool. On my usual round, I found an ettin in the jungle, she wanted to eat the elevator. I ignored it. A while later she returned to the norn terrarium, this is when I noticed a male with what looked like some strange walking mutation. So I isolated him in the desert, which was abandoned due recent grendel invasion, but was totally empty now, and went to check his genes. I found nothing special, but by this time, the female mentioned before had reached the desert as well. For some reason, she was limping a bit backwards, when I checked her genes, the sexy gait's last pose had changed to the first vomit pose! I traced it back to her grandmother, who had six kids, of which three had the same mutation, of them, only her mother was successful at conceiving one child. No wonder, considering they walked backwards when they wanted to mate :P After cooling down, she led a happy, yet fruitless life in the desert. Some time later, I came across an angry looking ettin. All the genes I've seen, have no evidence of an ettin being even capable of being angry, so out of curiousity, I checked his genes. It appeared that the value anger, from the anger expression, had mutated to sex drive. He was the only one with that mutation, and funny as it was, I exported him before he could make any children. [TOP]
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