Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[evictedSaint]

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Do physical traits and attributes pass from dwarf-dad and dwarf-mom down to dwarf-child?  Or are new attributes and traits rolled at random?

[Absentia]

I'm fairly certain that physical traits and attributes are inherited, at least to some extent.

[Codyo]

I think that any animal that can breed will inherit some traits from its parents.

[Cholek]

Sadly eugenics is not possible in current version.

[SixOfSpades]

From what I've heard, the factors most likely to be passed down are the largely meaningless appearance traits like hair / eye color. Physical stats are somewhat influenced by those of the parents, and mental stats are always "batshit random".

Personally, I'd have each of a newborn's stats calculated as
( (Mom's base stat) + (Dad's base stat) + (racial average) + (random) ) / 4.
This would require each dwarf to keep an extra, hidden set of "base" stats, to remember things like what their Strength score was before working their way up to Legendary Miner. Washboard abs are not genetic.

[Loud Whispers]

Washboard abs are not genetic.

Well, I have been able to get Dwarven babies born from incredibly muscular parents to be born as muscular brickhouses themselves, same with my pigs amongst whom I end all weaker bloodlines. Physically hair colour, eye colour, size, muscle, fat, physical attributes (such as strength/durability) and for some reason ears (but as far as I can tell, not noses or cheekbones) are dictated or heavily influenced by the child's birth parents. It would be interesting to try and get Dwarves from two civs together to see how DF selects traits for the children more closely.

*EDIT
I checked over all of my Dwarven children born in the Fortress and all of my Dwarven immigrants after seeing this thread and I didn't really spot much of note. All had charcoal hair (or grey hair, but from old age), cinnamon skin, emerald eyes and free-lobed ears. All except one Dwarven child born from two parents with free-lobed ears, this child was born with "great swinging lobes." That's one child deviating from the phenotypical norm out of just under 70 2nd generation children.

[wierd]

Sounds like my prior research in previous versions.

The "percentiles" code is rigorously enforced by the game. Even if mum and pop are superdwarven ubermensch, the child produced will get rolled based on the hardlined percentiles values defined in the raws. X% chance of having A, Y% chance of having B, etc.


Here's the relevant section from creature_standard.txt

Code: [Select]

Attributes for dwarves are still described in terms of the median value below, but the actual
        game effects are altered according to the raw numbers.  The numbers are different percentile values. 
        1000 is the human median for all attributes, so dwarven strength, for instance, has a higher median
        of 1250, although they suffer from their smaller size.

[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]              +
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:AGILITY:150:600:800:900:1000:1100:1500]                 -
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]             +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]    +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]                ++
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:CREATIVITY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]            +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]              +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]                +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SPATIAL_SENSE:700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]        ++

These tags establish the growth phases of the creature's life.  The format is (BODY_SIZE|<year>|<day>|<average size>).

[BODY_SIZE:0:0:3000]
[BODY_SIZE:1:168:15000]
[BODY_SIZE:12:0:60000]

These body modifiers give individual dwarves different characteristics.  In the case of HEIGHT, BROADNESS and LENGTH, the
        modifier is also a percentage change to the BODY_SIZE of the individual creature.  The seven numbers afterward give a
        distribution of ranges.  Each interval has an equal chance of occurring.

[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]

Between you and me, I would like to see toady make the "Base median", and the resulting distribution based from it, be taken from the average of the values presented by the parents.

That way there would still be variation that could move up and down the scale, but would still allow eugenic programs to actually have value. 

Eg, Mummy is uberdwarven, and daddy is a prissy mayor with noodle arms-- Kid's median will be calculated as the average of mummy's stat, and daddy's stat, then the percentiles code kicks in, and rolls his stat.

As it currently stands though, everything has fixed static values.