As some of you might be aware of, there's a new project underway to improve the C3/DS genome under the name of the CFF. To be quite honest, my initial reaction to this project was jealousy. Half the things going into this genome feel like stuff I should have figured out ages ago. It was bad enough that it was a good part of the reason why I haven't been as into Creatures recently.
After thinking about it some more, however, I realized that improving the default genomes really isn't my niche. In fact, I think I'm not good at doing that at all since the way my brain works doesn't usually alert me to potential problems in need of fixing. No, I'm the guy who makes cool and kooky breeds with the intent of spicing up your gene pool. Why should I be so annoyed about the CFF?
That was about when I got over it. Instead of being all miffed about it, I instead decided to incorporate a few CFF edits into my breeds. What are these edits, you ask?
- The Fullness lobe and accompanying tract. It's only two genes, and considering I run a lot of wolfling runs where there's a risk of the creatures eating themselves out of house and home this sounds very useful.
- The "WILL YOU SHUT UP" edits (as affectionately titled by Kezune). Again, this is an easy edit to implement, and its effects again serve to make sure creatures actually tend to their needs.
- The Hungry Drive Overwhelmsion organ. This edit's a bit different from the previous two as it involves a lot of genes and can affect compatibility with other creatures (especially considering that in my breeds it's grouped with the Drive Maintenance and Fearly and Painly Drive Overwhelmsion organs instead of being left at the end of the genome like the CFF). As with the previous edit, however, it helps make sure creatures take care of themselves. Furthermore, a few of my past breeds actually had this edit before the CFF did (anyone remember the Enhanced ChiChi Norns? They were the first breed to have this organ, though the version that's in the CFF does seem to work better).
As the CFF are still a work in progress, I expect to have to update these features from time to time to correspond with new developments (though the two test grendels I have right now seem to be getting along just fine). Since I don't make breeds that often anymore, this isn't as big a problem as it seems.
While I'm at it, I'll comment on the other features of the CFF I don't plan on incorporating into my breeds.
- The inhibin cycle: I have a theory that the inhibin chemical was just a leftover from early on in development. Notice how libido lowerer accomplishes something similar, but for both sexes. I think inhibin might have been planned to be used early on, but then got shafted in favor of libido lowerer and the developers simply forgot to remove the genes related to it. Not certain if this is actually what happened, but it seems plausible to me. True or not, this is one of those edits that looks nice, but isn't really necessary. It really doesn't do anything to help creatures survive, which is a big part of my goal when gengineering, and also has an effect on compatibility with creatures without the edits (considering I'm adding a new organ I might as well minimize the damage otherwise). Plus I prefer fast-breeding creatures anyway as those make wolfling runs go faster.
- That being said, the removal of that broken Testosterone receptor IS something I'm incorporating, as it's actually harmful to some degree.
- The lactate cycle: This does help creatures survive, unlike the inhibin cycle. However, I'm still leaving it out. For one, lactate isn't something I'm overly concerned about as it only has one source in default C3/DS creatures (muscle toxin). Secondly, a good chunk of my breeds are amphibious anyway so drowning is a moot point. And as with the inhibin edit, it has an effect on compatibility (though not to a huge extent).
- One more thing about this edit: The version of it as it exists in the CFF involves use of an unknownase chemical. I'm planning on seeing if I can get a version of the cycle to work without use of that chemical at some point in the future, and if I succeed that will be the version of the cycle that shows up in my breeds. Until then, I might just make it so Lactate actually decays at a decent rate so it doesn't hang around for a creature's entire life.
- Most of the other planned edits (responses to CA levels, alcohol having an effect on the liver, etc.) just sound like flavor edits to me - that is, their sole purpose is simply to make the CFF more similar to creatures from previous games. That really isn't something I'm interested in having in my breeds. Unless one or more of them really does help the CFF perform much better than the default C3/DS creature, I'm probably going to ignore them.
And that's all for now. 'Til the next one, folks.
