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[HooliganintheFort]

There should be consequences for inbreeding animals, so we don't have a male to female ratio of 1:20. Like deformities and lower mortality rate. There should also be benefits like more meat or bones on an animal.

This idea has a problem though. Reproduction happens with spores in game so I don't know how this would work out.

Edit: One can turn off this feature though.

[Ramaraunt]

Genetic mutations from reproduction would be cool. I'm thinking of things like two headed cows that spit lava.

[MDFification]

Genetic mutations from reproduction would be cool. I'm thinking of things like two headed cows that spit lava.

The problem is that mutations tend to be less Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and more Charles II of Spain.

[HooliganintheFort]

A two headed cows that spit lava? You need to mod this in.

Maybe like some mental issues? A dwarf who or animal that is an inbred may go insane more often. Causing more !!FUN!!

[gtaguy]

We just need procedural and environment based mutations. And for non-spore reproduction.

[Reelya]

Recessive genes are tricky though. Heavy inbreeding over many generations can actually reduce the overall population percentage with a harmful recessive gene, whereas outbreeding can actually maintain the proportion of the population with the recessive gene.

That's because with inbreeding, the gene is constantly being expressed and thus copies of the gene are excluded from future generations. So it's not just "inbreeding bad lol".

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Focus on things like disease resistance and ability to adapt to a wider variety of environmental conditions. i.e. genes for heat/cold resistance etc.

Disease immunity could be modeled by having each genome have an 8-bit "key" for immunity and a disease has a matching, or complementary key. The more bits match the key, the easier it is for that disease to infect that individual animal. Then, inbreeding would be a real long-term problem, because viruses and the like could be modeled that spread from host to host, and if they mutate to match the host's weaknesses, then it's fatal. By having a herd with a wide variety of "immune systems", it would make it harder for a lethal virus to take hold and wipe them out.

[HooliganintheFort]

Recessive genes are tricky though. Heavy inbreeding over many generations can actually reduce the overall population percentage with a harmful recessive gene, whereas outbreeding can actually maintain the proportion of the population with the recessive gene.

That's because with inbreeding, the gene is constantly being expressed and thus copies of the gene are excluded from future generations. So it's not just "inbreeding bad lol".

===

Focus on things like disease resistance and ability to adapt to a wider variety of environmental conditions. i.e. genes for heat/cold resistance etc.

Disease immunity could be modeled by having each genome have an 8-bit "key" for immunity and a disease has a matching, or complementary key. The more bits match the key, the easier it is for that disease to infect that individual animal. Then, inbreeding would be a real long-term problem, because viruses and the like could be modeled that spread from host to host, and if they mutate to match the host's weaknesses, then it's fatal. By having a herd with a wide variety of "immune systems", it would make it harder for a lethal virus to take hold and wipe them out.

I agree with this idea. A virus that can wipe out my inbred cat population  will be great. Also many sad, deformed cats wil die when the day comes.

[Reelya]

Real inbreeding studies:

http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G2911

Inbreeding causes issues because recessive genes start to express in the offspring, but it's also a vital breeding tool to obtain breeders who breed true.

[Tristan Alkai]

The main issue I have with inbreeding is the extreme difficulty of avoiding it in the game as it currently stands. 

Some of you may be familiar with the 50/500 rule (best reference I could find was, unfortunately, here).  The problem is that herds in DF almost never even hit 50, and when they do they tend to be mostly siblings and cousins, which don't give the kind of diversity that rule demands. 

At the very least, avoiding inbreeding would require a lot more ability to trade animals around with caravans than the game currently has.  An option to set (really large) maximum herd sizes somewhere in the init files would also be handy.