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[10ebbor10]

It's generally a bad idea to give more power to the Random Number God.
Dwarf Fort should stick with actual genetics.

Adding detailed genetics is more work for nearly the same payoff has having an unnaturally high mutation rate.

Nope, because actual genetics allows for the player to intervene in the adaption process. Ie, selective breeding of animals.

Also, unnaturally high mutation would give very strange things.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Just simulate alleles. That should be realistic enough.

[Starver]

I tend to breed huge dogs/meaty cows/whatever by choosing to keep a minimum number (one male, two females) of adults of any particular species I'm currently trying to practice husbandry with.  (I don't go so far as to 'accidentally' kill the unbutcherable pets, but I could do.)  The selected representatives have the qualities I like, and I butcher the rest, even as (sometimes unprofitably small) young.

Anyway, I was going to say that we should have paired genes, with (procedurally decided) recessive and dominant versions, thereof, and the blending be as (simplistically) we see in RL, one of each parent's pair is chosen to be expressed (or left unexpressed) in the child.

It'd mean a (mere) doubling of the 'genetic makeup' of any given individual, and a single sorted list of "what eye-colour/hair-colour/build/etc prioritises over what other eye-colour/hair-colour/build/etc", for each quality, that would be universal to the entire world, and an insignificant performance hit upon generating new offspring (maybe slightly more hit, but barely noticeable, when conjuring new adults out of the 'haze of history' into actuality).  And apart from it being random which genes are the (most) recessive ones, you'd still get a chance of silent but heritable traits bringing out "the gingers" from an essentially blonde or brown-haired line of parentage and grand-parentage, without any need for mutation.


Which is basically the whole "We should model Alleles" argument, but wordier.


(Or there's Rock-Paper-Scissors priorities, or how about triplexed genes, or more?  That'd be fun, especially for species like goblins, where one out of ten thousand possible combinations could possibly allow such as a super-giant variant, beyond the realms of what's possible out of a normal single-allele dominance system in the relevant body-size.  (Or glowing fur for a creature.)  Or, of course, a super-tiny one.  But it's not mutation (which you could also add in, like spontaneous conversion from one Allele to another, even mid-development for some interesting adolescence-revealed effect, but right now I'm not pursuing that), and instead is merely a possible family trait, especially from whatever the closest in-breeding situation one can engineer in those hard-codedly-non-incestuous pairings.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Him, add in tags for numbers of chromosomes? Neato idea.

[King Mir]

It's generally a bad idea to give more power to the Random Number God.
Dwarf Fort should stick with actual genetics.

Adding detailed genetics is more work for nearly the same payoff has having an unnaturally high mutation rate.

Nope, because actual genetics allows for the player to intervene in the adaption process. Ie, selective breeding of animals.

Also, unnaturally high mutation would give very strange things.

You can do that with what I've outlined above. You just need more control over which animals mate. But that's not a genetics problem.

Very strange things could be desirable for some mythical animals.

Edit to clarify:
In nature, mutation is relatively low, but there is a lot of complexity to how traits are passed on, resulting in a lot of differences between the parents and child. In simple genetic algorithms as proposed, the only source of differences is mutation. In order for these two methods to give similar results, the mutation rate in the simpler model must be higher than in nature. But the intent is for the game to reflect nature better without the same level of complexity.

[Scow2]

It's generally a bad idea to give more power to the Random Number God.
Dwarf Fort should stick with actual genetics.

Adding detailed genetics is more work for nearly the same payoff has having an unnaturally high mutation rate.

Nope, because actual genetics allows for the player to intervene in the adaption process. Ie, selective breeding of animals.

Also, unnaturally high mutation would give very strange things.

You can do that with what I've outlined above. You just need more control over which animals mate. But that's not a genetics problem.

Very strange things could be desirable for some mythical animals.

Edit to clarify:
In nature, mutation is relatively low, but there is a lot of complexity to how traits are passed on, resulting in a lot of differences between the parents and child. In simple genetic algorithms as proposed, the only source of differences is mutation. In order for these two methods to give similar results, the mutation rate in the simpler model must be higher than in nature. But the intent is for the game to reflect nature better without the same level of complexity.

Yeah, I'm more for this idea than having the game try to include an expanded version of the entire human genome in it with every variation on each gene as well... which WILL become an incredible resource hog for worldgen. Doing anything less than comprehensive genetic coding would lead to the game failing to deliver sufficient breadth.

[Courtesy Arloban]

What genetics should dwarves have though?  I'd consider them close enough to humans to possibly interbreed, but others may disagree.  In that case would they have more chromosomes, or less?

[GreatWyrmGold]

What genetics should dwarves have though?  I'd consider them close enough to humans to possibly interbreed, but others may disagree.  In that case would they have more chromosomes, or less?

Probably the same number, but why would chromosomes need to be simulated?
More to the point, HOW would they be simulated?

[Bytyan]

What genetics should dwarves have though?  I'd consider them close enough to humans to possibly interbreed, but others may disagree.  In that case would they have more chromosomes, or less?

Probably the same number, but why would chromosomes need to be simulated?
More to the point, HOW would they be simulated?

The dragon bites Urist's left hand, severing it at the wrist!
The hand is still in the dragon's grasp!
The dragon swallows the hand!
1300 units of Urist's genetic material have been stuck down

[GreatWyrmGold]

...I don't get that, but I'm afraid to ask...

[sackhead]

you could have different phenotypes associated with different chromosomes. i.e hair color and skin color on one while size on another.
once you define the traits that would have alleles associated with them you could define the number of chromosomes. say i defined 30 traits to have different alleles  and 5 pairs chromosomes each chromosome would  control 6 traits with the 1st chromosome taking control of the first 6 traits defined the 2nd chromosome taking control of the 2nd 6 traits. all that is left is some sort of mutation system but i think that would be largely  pointless instead maby you could simulate some form of chromosome crossover.

[Starver]

Sounds like more complication than needed to actually drill it down to chromosomal separations.  While there are some things that are complex interactions where it's relevent whether it's different bits of the same chromosomes or on different chromosomes (not forgetting the 'proteome' soup, directly from your mother's early development, and thus a result of how your grandmother was affected by the likes of hunger/stress at or around the time she conceived your mother), it might as well just be bare phenotype choices.

So I just say that where you currently have "hair colour: auburn" and "eye colour: emerald green", and the rest, defined in a current body instantiation, you now have "hair colour: auburn|blonde" and "eye colour: emerald green|brown" in a "quality: mother's contribution|father's contribution" format, and then either randomly (or by preference, arbitrary or by global rule) express just one of the choices[1].  But, as and when they become a parent, either of the choices could be selected to be their parental contribution.

Basically, this doubles the "qualities" definition, in the relevant creature's data-structure (a small increase, barely significant on top of the other data an entity holds and changes, day-to-day), and adds a bit of choosing code, and makes redheads (or whatever is an equivalent 'recessive' quality) rare, but occasionally springs a 'sport', even in the most carefully husbanded population.


If we're going for full chromosomal information, however, there's going to be opportunities for junk DNA areas to allow genetic 'tricks'.  Normally unexpressed areas can perhaps contain historically-justified developmental features in an "inactive" form, you'd be looking at random mutations changing those features and/or whether they're expressed, so occasionally a dwarf will be born with webbed fingers, or something.  Here you have an additional load of "historic" genetic forms (webbed fingers, quadruped form rather than biped-with-arms one, gills, feathers, whatever is appropriate) with an associated 'chance' weighting and (assuming that the chances are weighted so that 'chance of being viable' is already a given end result[4])

But that interesting proposition probably needs some examining of the current biotemplates to populate all biped homonid genomes with quadraped-like qualities (and/or prehensile tails) in these 'hidden' spaces, either explicitly or through some sort of procedural/worldgen-initiated process.

(So, in an hypothetical example, who'd have thunk?  It turns out that Homo Nano (dwarfkind) is more closely related to Homo Khalkina (kobolds) than Homo Hominis (yer bog-standard human) and so are more likely to 'throwback' to all-over body hair than to become tall and beardless abominations (and far too linked to close relatives Homo Arborealis/elven, anyway).... Or whatever.)




[1] Chimeric possibilities, aside.  I'm not sure whether we should complicate things so that some dwarves express different coloured eyes[2], or different coloured hair on different parts of the scalp (or more generally across the body[3]).  And you know there are examples that during paternity-related blood tests, mothers have been found to have a different set of genes in their blood (those cells that contain DNA) from their reproductive systems, and have appeared, at first sight, to not be the biological mother of the child that they are inarguably the actual and known mother of.

[2] Perhaps if they've got some mystical aspect to their particular make-up by default, each eye would be of either parents' colours.  Which might not be noticeable, if both gave the same 'token', of course.

[3] Although that's common enough already, and dwarfish animals have really wierd colour combinations to different body-parts, already, so the genetic features that create (in females only, as I recall) "tortoiseshell" cats are pretty much already overshadowed.

[4] Although being born with gills but no lungs would cause problems for a child, unless you can get the mother to stay in the partially flooded training pool, until the infant becomes an independent youngster who can aquatically operate on their own without risk of "air drowning" while in maternal care.  However, an amphibious form that's capable of both environments (may require occasional wettings) would be a more likely throwback form, and make for an interesting unit to have.  I wonder if you can make a flooded barracks for them to train in... Hmmm...

[GreatWyrmGold]

you could have different phenotypes associated with different chromosomes. i.e hair color and skin color on one while size on another.
once you define the traits that would have alleles associated with them you could define the number of chromosomes. say i defined 30 traits to have different alleles  and 5 pairs chromosomes each chromosome would  control 6 traits with the 1st chromosome taking control of the first 6 traits defined the 2nd chromosome taking control of the 2nd 6 traits. all that is left is some sort of mutation system but i think that would be largely  pointless instead maby you could simulate some form of chromosome crossover.

I think it would be simpler to code and mod, and be practically identical if Toady just didn't code in chromosomes.

[Putnam]

Do we actually have genetics in-game? (to an extent, that is)
Newb here, in case you haven't noticed.

Yeah, entire civilizations tend to become of the same skin and hair color over time.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Do we actually have genetics in-game? (to an extent, that is)
Newb here, in case you haven't noticed.

Yeah, entire civilizations tend to become of the same skin and hair color over time.

Granted, they have a tendency to do so IRL as well, but not to those extremes...
Granted, it might be justifiable as the populations of interbreeding individuals are smaller and more isolated, thanks to intervening territories of other races, but still...