Creatures Caves

The regulator lobe in C2 is also called the 'sandrabellum' after Sandra Linkletter who made most of the original C2 Genome, including that new lobe... it consisted of a bunch of special nodes, each of which could be influenced by chemical receptor genes, and have its output used by chemical emitter genes. Basically it worked like a real set of regulatory nodes/glands and hormones for the creature that would help it send and get various signals to and from it's biochemistry.

For example, if the creature were suffocating, there was a receptor gene that would detect a certain chemical that builds up in the creature while it's suffocating, and sends an input signal to one of the nodes of the regulator lobe, and there was an emitter gene that would look at that node and increase a 'suffocation' drive chemical based on the output, allowing the creature to feel like it's choking.

This lobe's functions were taken over in C3/DS by Circulatory 'Floating Emitter-Receptor' Nodes, which have the same function, they act as specialized places for emitter and receptor genes to attach to and regulate the body chemistry. Again just like regulatory hormones and glands in real animals. Although, C3 creatures don't feel suffocation because they don't have genes or a drive for it. These nodes act even more realistically in C3, because their function is now related directly to the creature's circulatory system, just like real hormones and glands. For example, they allow activity in the 'Fight or Flight' organ to be influenced by the creation of adrenaline in the creature.

C3 creatures have the most complex brains of all though, with 15 lobes plus these floating emitter-receptors which take over all the functions of the regulator lobe from C2.

The extra lobes in c3 give it various information about its situation, helped by the game engine:

The first, the detail lobe, gives information about what it is looking at, like whether it's a creature of the opposite sex, or how close it is, if it's being carried, or if it is making a noise, etc...

The next lobe is the situation lobe, as the name suggests, it tells the creature things about its own situation, like if it's riding in a vehicle, falling, near a creature it can breed with, how old it is (so that it can have different learning behaviors at different ages) , and so on...

Then is the response lobe, which mirrors the drive lobe, and stimuli genes can talk to it to tell it how it should respond to a stimulus (like that playing with a toy reduces boredom, for example). Instincts also can talk to this lobe, and work a little differently in c3 than in c1 and c2... in c1/c2, the way an instinct would work was to tell the creature something was either good or bad, by telling it that an action would add reward or punishment chemicals directly. In c3, reward and punishment get passed out depending on whether a drive is increased or reduced, and instincts are associated directly with drives... So it will think of any instinct that tells it that a drive increases as punishing, and any that tells it that a drive is reduced as rewarding, and this also lets the creature associate different actions with different drives instinctively, instead of just having a feeling that those actions are good or bad and then having to learn which drives they affect.

Next is the smell lobe, which tell the creature how strongly it is smelling the items around it... This lobe complements the 'stim source' lobe and allows things that are closer or have a stronger smell to be more stimulating to the creature.

Then there's the friend or foe lobe, and that lets the creature make associations with different individual creatures, so it can love, like or dislike them. Interesting fact about this lobe, it has 36 neurons, which actually means the creature can keep individual opinions about up to 36 other creatures. If it meets another creature and forms an opinion about it after that, it will forget about whatever creature it had the weakest association with (so it will remember its best friends and worst enemies the longest if exposed to over 36 different creatures who it forms an opinion about, and will tend to forget creatures that didn't make much of an impression on it)

Last is an output lobe that has just one neuron, and just reflects the creature's overall mood by taking some of its drives into account... this is what lets them say they are happy if their drives are low.