While I was still waffling on whether or not to continue to try and make the 2017 genome fit my needs, I decided to just go ahead and start prepping the Gizmo genome as a new starting point. Said prepping involved converting it to a CFE genome, since Vampess's guide on how to do that is (as of this writing) still available via the Wayback Machine.
(I am aware Kezune did a conversion already; I opted to make my own just for the sake of knowing exactly everything that's going into my version.)
I also decided to ask what parts of the Creature genome don't work because of engine bugs over on the Norn Nebula discord (random aside: I've updated my contact information on the left hand sidebar with my new username and Discord username). Verm, one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever known, replied with this list:
- Organ values always start out with maximum lifeforce regardless of their life force start value in the Genetics Kit.
- Mutation chance and mutation degree effectively do nothing (always a 0 or 1 chance out of 255).
- Neuroemitters don't work (and even if they did they wouldn't work like how you'd expect from the Genetics Kit).
- The brain organ doesn't actually exist (all genes below the brain are actually considered part of the muscles, or whatever organ it's immediately below).
- The "Reaction" value in Stimulus genes does nothing.
- Which is because the Intensity value does nothing (it always returns 0).
- The "Modulate using sensory function" switch also does nothing.
- Also worth noting is a reference to a unused lobe marked "elvn," which you may recognize as the Elevation Lobe in CFE-based creatures. However, it needs an (unreleased, as of this writing) external script to actually function, so it doesn't actually work in the CFE and beyond.
The exact technical reasons behind all these is beyond my understanding. But did I mention C3/DS suffer a lot from "Had to rush it out the door" syndrome? Fortunately, none of this is vital, can be worked around, or both (even if both the neuroemitter and stimulus bugs are mighty unfortunate as far as a gengineer's toolkit goes).
However, you might notice that something I did call an engine bug once actually isn't one. Specifically, the emitter locus "Muscle Energy Used." In a past post I noted that it almost never fired. Well, Verm corrected me on this one, too. It DOES work; specifically, it triggers whenever the creature's skeleton updates (that is, things like changing poses, position updating, and collisions). The actual issue is that the values on it were set way too low.
So I tweaked and tested until I got muscle tissue levels similar to what I was getting out of the Activase system in the 2017-based genome, and much more reliably at that. So...one of the biggest reasons to keep trying with the 2017s is gone.
Between that and the Gizmo's other biochemistry changes making it so I no longer have to futz about with trying to balance that stuff as I talked about in my last post, my desire to stick with the 2017s is basically at an all-time low. But nevertheless, there's a new obstacle in my way: the fact that the Gizmos, as a pre-CFE breed, don't have all the edits the CFF and beyond introduced.
And it's a long list. And that's just the CFF, to say nothing of the 2017s and TWBs/TCBs.
But...I believe it may be an effort worth making, even if the majority of what I wind up doing is just adding genes from the CFF/2017s/TWBs/TCBs. Because I have the new option of implementing these changes in a way that suits me better. For example: I'd prefer to create a new organ to store any new receptors, emitters, etc. rather than do as the CFF did and leave them in the Brain organ (actually the Muscles, as noted in the list above). And I can do some futureproofing as well, like having this new organ be underneath the Hunger Overwhelmsion organ as opposed to the other way around; a convenient spot to put new genes without having to worry so much about compatibility.
(Both organs would still be at the bottom of the genome this time, though. My previous base genome had the Hunger Overwhelmsion organ grouped with its related organs higher up in the genome, which probably was a big reason why that genome had so many compatibility issues.)
So the journey continues. Until the next one, folks.
