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 Malkin   Manager  |
I interpret " Among other stuff (a lot of other stuff), we?re currently working on the in-game science kit, the critters and plants. The whole team is working very hard on a project that grew to be a lot more complex and a lot cooler than we envisioned initially." to be Fishing Cactus's response to our oft-stated wishes about having an ecology to play with - does this seem like a sensible assumption? What will be in this new ecology?  What would we like there to be? My TCR Norns |
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 Feddlefew |
MOAR EDIBLE PLANTS Norns need to be able to forge for food. And the plants need to be able to withstand being grazed on. |
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 Patient Pirate ylukyun Manager |
What Feddlefew said. Critters that Norns can hunt for would be good as well. Norns could also compete with these for food, but they wouldn't be likely to deplete the food source altogether. |
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 Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
It would be nice if the Norns themselves became a more stable part of the ecology... C3/DS Norns are rather like locusts, they eat everything in sight, often even when they aren't very hungry. And they can wait forever until food appears again because they never suffer any repercussions, eg. dying of starvation. I've seen lots of people complain that the game's ecology isn't "robust" enough to support them, but the truth of the matter is that the Norns are wired to overexploit their environment (perhaps to make up for how hard it could be to teach them to eat in C1/C2) and IMO just flooding the environment with food isn't the solution. Norns need to be more balanced eaters.  |
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Feddlefew |
Yeah, I noticed the over-eating problem with some of my norns. That's basically all they do until they forget how to eat(?!) and starve to death. I think the problem might be alleviated by adding negative consequences for over satisfying certain drives, like feeling ill after eating to much. The opposite problem tended to happen too- The norn terrarium fills up with butterflies and birds fast enough for the birds to wipe out the grass, which leads to grazer extinction. 8^/ |
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 OperationE |
Yeah the same thing happens to my norn terrarium that happens to Feddlefew's. :/ OperationEpicurus |
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 Jessica |
Feddlefew and OperationE: Are you using the updated .cos files from Vampess? Creatures Heaven is currently down, but I'm curious if you're having these ecology problems even with the updates. I haven't really paid much attention, unfortunately... I'm usually too busy with my creatures! I really hope Creatures 4 has a thriving ecology, with many of the ideas that have already been mentioned. A more diverse base of edible plants would be awesome, as would Norns which don't feel the need to overeat! Basically, I'd love to see an ecological system that is modestly deep and detailed where Norns are a part of it, rather than being the species which destroys it. |
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Feddlefew |
I do have the updated .cos files installed- the birds' life cycles working correctly is what started the problem, because they don't seem to have any natural predators and the chicks now grow up and lay eggs of their own. I've had to reset their scripts a few times. The problem seems to get worse when no creatures are around. Edit: I wonder if it's possible to create a set of genes that simulate a limited stomach capacity? |
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 Jessi |
I'm curious to see how an ecology will work as well, and if it will be a bit more balanced than in C3/DS. (I was always very sad when all the snails and fish died out...) I do enjoy watching the critters and environment react to each other, though. I find that occasionally I will get norns that can eat a proper amount of food, but mostly they either never stop eating or refuse to eat unless I constantly harass them. I'm interested to see how the norns will fair in C4.. XD Either way, it should be interesting. I won't be too upset if the norns/ecology aren't much different than previous titles either; fighting with norns has become somewhat nostalgic to me haha. |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Can Norns learn that eating is bad in certain circumstances but not others? Or would punishing a Norn for eating just make them less likely to eat in general? I don't know if the Norn brain can make those kinds of distinctions... could make an interesting experiment, for someone who understands creature brains. |
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Feddlefew |
Maybe add an extra drive called "fullness" that increases as norns eat and decreases over a set amount of time? |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Hmm... maybe, it might be kinda hard to balance though. Norns are sensitive to drives no matter what levels the drives are at. If a Norn gets stung by a bee and feels pain, it doesn't matter that it's only a little pain and not a lot--to some degree the Norn will still be less inclined to play with bees. I can see a "fullness" drive being problematic because, by default, Norns would react to it the same way. Eating would result in a "bad" experience (fullness going up), and it wouldn't matter to the Norn if fullness increased a little or if it increased a lot. It might be possible a chemical reaction were involved (eg. the stimulus injects the disappointment chemical when a Norn eats, and a chemical reaction reduces it if hunger is present), but it would have to work very quickly to be of any use, and might still affect Norns' ability to learn, or might affect them in other odd ways. Plus, that still hinges on the idea that Norns in the present games can learn that actions may be good only in some situations and not in others, which I've never seen hinted at. That might just be too complex for them at this stage... but hopefully not for the C4 Norns. |
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Feddlefew |
I was thinking it would be more like hunger is in humans- we eat until we reach a certain threshold, then a signal is sent to our brains which suppresses our desire to eat until we're finished digesting the last meal. I was thinking a way to do it might be to have "fullness" slowly suppress the hunger drives as it increases, and once it reaches a certain level (after the hunger drives have been completely suppressed) then it triggers the release of pain/nausea. The norns' brains would probably need a special neuron to act as a switch between eating and not eating. This kind of behavior could also help with the problem I've seen with norns starving to death because they're too busy waiting for a toy to enter their FoV. If a norn reaches critical levels of one nutrient then their attention could become devoted to looking for food. |
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 Ettina |
They can learn that doing an action is good only if a certain drive is high. Probably the easiest way to stop overeating would be to make it that excessive eating increased some other drive and distracted them - kind of like many toys decrease boredom but increase tiredness. By the way, I don't care if anyone steals my ideas for their own work, as long as you don't try to stop me from making my own stuff. Many ideas I mention are things I don't have the time or skill to actually do. |
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Malkin Manager |
There's a few interesting posts about critters on this thread in the official forums: Andrea Di Stefano wrote: My TCR Norns |
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