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[Shiv]

Think it'd be possible to introduce genetics to animals?  Nothing complex, just along the same lines of items.  A base pair of animals (like the ones you start with) would have X chance of producing a superior specimen.  Then that would breed with other animals and eventually you'd get a 'Masterpiece' animal.

The different levels would provide better food quality, more meat/bones, etc.  But as always there's regression towards the means so a Good animal x Good animal could still = Worse animal. 

Any how, might give something else to the Animal training skill.  Breeding pens, maybe?  Do animals breed in cages as is?

[kalida99]

would be a nice addition, breeding cows and horses to give more meat, be faster stronger, and worth more.

as for the cage thing i believe so long as there are two of the same species with opposite genders, regardless of where they are will breed... (i think)

[Rowanas]

nice. we would need a breed option in the z-animals section so you could mark two pets for breeding. also that way you could specifically breed animals instead of waiting for them to do it naturally. Hell, you could easily just give animals the agility, strength and toughness characteristics and then you would breed the animals with the right mix. You could even make it so that you had only one cat in your fort but it would have superfelinely agile and superfelinely strong, and that way it would just careen around your fortress taking out pests.

This idea would be good when combined with the stables idea.

[Capntastic]

# Bloat347, HEREDITY, (Future): Once there are enough physical and other candidate traits to be passed along, the game could model heredity/genetics with some simple algorithms and data.

Please search the devnotes to avoid suggesting things Toady's already considering.

[Mel_Vixen]

Abendum:

I advise to read this Post of toady one and the 3 or 4 following pages of the thread.

Also the devlogs from the 11/12.Jan.2009 might interest you:

•            01/12/2009: 852. Finished up the inheritence I was working on yesterday. Right now it'll do dominant-recessive stuff with the color variables, and it can also do that with the appearance variables or do averaging. It's pretty simple at this point, but what's there now could be used to, say, breed your dogs toward certain colors and body dimensions, as well as whatever facial features there end up being (though the colors and patterns would be limited to whatever is in the raws). Of course, the process might involve a lot of culls as there aren't a lot of controls on which animals breed.
             
  I also handled the starting "wounds" for skeletons and zombies, wound pain (so the original goal which initiated the wound/layer rewrite, getting rid of phantom limb pain and other annoying permanent pain situations, has been met), sever stub wounds, and some edge cases concerning parts melting off leaving other parts that need to become severed limbs and so on.
•            01/11/2009: 856. Took a break from wounds today to add "genetic" inheritence for appearance variables. The day ended with some kinks left to be worked out, though I've come a long way from where I was this morning with nobody having kids and all the gods dying of old age.

[Draco18s]

One of the main issues with selective breeding and "superior" animals is two fold:

1) What trait are you breeding for?
If you think this doesn't matter, read Fossil Hunter by Robert Sawyer.
2) What traits are you breeding against?
If you think this doesn't matter you need to take a clue and look up genetic disorders and diseases.

[Rowanas]

But merely pairing animals with the things you want and not the things you don't you'll get that. I don't care about how tough my cats are, so they could be scrawny and lame, as long as they run fast and catch lots of mice.

[Shiv]

1) What trait are you breeding for?
If you think this doesn't matter, read Fossil Hunter by Robert Sawyer.
2) What traits are you breeding against?
If you think this doesn't matter you need to take a clue and look up genetic disorders and diseases.

Uh, I'm breeding for better muscling and bone production (higher quality bones so more are useable from the corpse).

I'm well aware of how genetics and selective breeding work but to implement that degree of complexity as a side note into a game that's not about breeding at all, is kind of...a waste of time? 

[Neonivek]

I'd be somewhat creeped out to think of ways to see how good a creature's bones are while they are still alive.

Chisel anyone? (except spelled correctly)

[Dakk]

AFAIK, animals won't breed in cages as of now, you can put your whole herd of 20 and 3 bulls inside the same cage and they won't ever breed.

[Mel_Vixen]

Shiv since DF is a "fantasy-world simulator" it trys to simulate as much as possible from the genned world.

If you look at Humans, finches cattle etc. you will notice that every Region, every place has developed its own subspecies of a critter. The Galapagos islands as extreme example have a dozen types of finches that are highly specialised on certain food and island-climates.

Toady, i think, wants to be as diverse as nature without coding every species hard into the raws. Doing this by certain traits and genes is actually a pretty good way.

Breeding of Animals (and later plants?) is there just the icing on the genetics cake.

heh and what would be nobility without some inherited illnesses from inbreeding.

edit: I hope the pregnancy via "spores" are gone in one of the next versions.

[Draco18s]

1) What trait are you breeding for?
If you think this doesn't matter, read Fossil Hunter by Robert Sawyer.
2) What traits are you breeding against?
If you think this doesn't matter you need to take a clue and look up genetic disorders and diseases.

Uh, I'm breeding for better muscling and bone production (higher quality bones so more are useable from the corpse).

That might be what you breed for, but it might not be what I breed for.  That's my point.  I might want leaner animals (less fat/meat) that are good for assisting in combat (high dexterity).

[Shiv]

OK so what's stopping them from making it so you can select traits (agility, strength, toughness, bones, meat, etc and so forth) to breed for?  Find two tough dogs, breed them, hopefully you get a tougher dog.

Shiv since DF is a "fantasy-world simulator" it trys to simulate as much as possible from the genned world.

If you look at Humans, finches cattle etc. you will notice that every Region, every place has developed its own subspecies of a critter. The Galapagos islands as extreme example have a dozen types of finches that are highly specialised on certain food and island-climates.

Toady, i think, wants to be as diverse as nature without coding every species hard into the raws. Doing this by certain traits and genes is actually a pretty good way.

Breeding of Animals (and later plants?) is there just the icing on the genetics cake.

heh and what would be nobility without some inherited illnesses from inbreeding.

edit: I hope the pregnancy via "spores" are gone in one of the next versions.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this.  Are you just re-asserting that it's a good idea or am I reading this wrong? 

[Mel_Vixen]

I was just saying that genetics isnt a waste of time since its a rather (in my opinion) important part of the simulation aspect. Breeding is just a little additional feature which isnt that timeconsuming.

[Rowanas]

Dear god. in the future all the animals Toady (armok be with him) programmed in will be merely the starting point for other races. Hell, when everything is finally implemented, the goblins will breed with each other which could create strange mixes of goblin, such as goblins with loads of strength but absolutely no toughness, like goblin battering rams. also, the building destroyer 1/2 tag should eventually be based off the strength and size of a creature, so animals would naturally become BDs through evolution, or only a few might.

Urist Mcdwarf: The macaques are coming!
Urist Mcobservant: and they've brought rhesus mcbuildingdestroyer the legendary macaque!