Craftable items for animal husbandry

[cyan venture]

Mutations are very rare, and rightfully so, as regular breeding shouldn't mess up the genes in unpredictable ways.
I noticed the new ability from the new NPC to double the rate of mutations. That is a great step in the right direction, but I feel it will fall a bit short for a couple of reasons:

• Even when doubled, the mutation rate will be very small (0.08% during full moon)
• And mostly, assuming a mutation is equally likely to happen in any gene, the chances of getting a change in a gene one is interested in become astronomically low!

My suggestion would be to introduce craftable items that would yield a much higher mutation rate, but on a TARGETED part of the genome, eg, a lotion that would increase the chances of a mutation in the horse "Coat" appearance effect, or a concoction that would make it more likely to happen in the "Horn" genes.

To prevent abuse the crafting of those items could be gated in several ways:

1. Crafting recipes would be randomised per player, using a similar mechanic to the one in Brewing
2. After crafting a concoction, the effect would not be immediately obvious, but instead one would need to go and try it in a pet to see what happens
3. If you feel like even further limiting is needed, the genetics concoctions could be attuned to the creating player, but IMO that would be excessive, and kill the opportunity for a super-niche market of genetic cocktails among geneticists

[upper wasp]

No horns for you!

[dry beacon]

I would add to this - you put the concoction on the mare while she is pregnant instead of a blanket. And it affects the baby genetically.

And yes, it would be cool to be able to craft and sell them, like other craftable things.

I second this suggestion.

Also the recipe should include glowy yellow crystals or fragments of radioactive material from the destruction of Dwyndarre. You know, to increase the mutation rate.

[upper wasp]

I’m against all of this, genetic mutations should be very rare and stay that way

[golden moon]

Seconding this because the idea of radioactive crystals mutating horses sounds logical and could also be explored for other various breedable animals

[remote depot]

Putting some numbers in the conversation so we understand where we're coming from.

In my case, I currently need 20 genes mutated at most. This means every breeding attempt has 0.4% (more during full moon) chance for a mutation.

There are 12 possible mutations, but only DD -> R or DD-> X are interesting, so 1/6.

Out of the 10 others, 6 are detrimental.

All in all, any breeding session has 0.067% chance (once every 1500) to be a nice surprise and 0.2% (once every 500) to hurt me actually a lot more then that since detrimental mutations happen on the other "good" genes.
The cost is 2 renown, so it takes 3000 renown and more than a year and a half for one useful mutation. During this time I'll discard many bees with detrimental ones.
I currently have 3300 Vidaria Renown.

So, the bottom line is that I might hope for one mutation until I stop breeding (because I reached my goal), and I have all the renowns I need already.

[dry beacon]

Yes, and also have to take into accounnt -
wrong place - on the wrong gene.
wrong time - I was focusing on wrapping another gene into this line, and it is now going to double the work because I have to watched 2 genes wrap in now instead of 1
wrong line - I wanted this gene that just mutated on another line of bees than the one it showed up on. Now I have to breed this line into that line to move the gene around.
wrong line 2 - it showed up on a freeze wasp instead of a Fae bee, making it even more difficult because I have to move it accross a hybrid line now too

Bottom line - I'd rather control a mutation than have it random. I am happy to have a an extremely low random mutation system, it makes things insteasting. But if we want USEFUL mutations, they need to be controllable.

Us crazy geneticists are control frieaks with RNG

[golden moon]

Definitely agree because controlled experiments to breed for genes sounds like a science rather than a lottery, although there is lottery involved - there is painstaking effort involved to increase the chances of certain things happening via breeding pairs

[dry beacon]

I mean if it balances out as just about equally as effective as gene hunting in the wild so that most breeders so a little of both

That would be ideal