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 Olaf  |
Hey people, I have been discovering Creatures 3/DS for a few weeks. I had played C1 and 2 a long time ago, but I never tried that one. So I got the whole package from a recent gog discount, and I have been downloading a lot of agents, metarooms and breeds, the stuff. Now I have been trying to mess around the ecology, and also understand what made ettins tick. I had a lot of them getting stuck with no reaction, going back and forth with no purpose, etc... And getting homesick. So I experimented a little with home smells. And that's where the weird things start to pile up. First, the only home CA I can detect with the scenton detector or the ecology applet is the norn home. Nowhere in the desert could I get any blimp of an ettin home CA. Though norn home smell is actually reaching inside the desert terrarium around the door! I couldn't find any trace of grendel home either, but I haven't looked much into it. Now the weirdest part, the scenton emitter. Putting it right beside the detector, I get absolutely no signal... Unless I set it to the absolute maximum, and then the smell is going through the whole ark. I had a little more control with CAeV agent emitters, but with even the minimum setting reaching roughly from ettin mother to the norn incubator area. I did a clean install with only DS offline, and injected only CAeV and Ecology applet just to check it wasn't a custom script messing with the game. Same results. So I'm curious. How do ettins know where "home" is? Is there something I am missing? |
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Olaf |
Wait, I'm an idiot, I missed that very useful link while checking the wiki on CAs. This explains a lot. There is some ettin home smell in ettin home, it's just not enough to register on scenton detector (but enough for navigation probably). But I am kind of suspecting the scenton emitter doesn't work as it's supposed to now... I am checking the room with ettin seed bank ports. With the command to display CA 17 value, I am getting 0.109815 This value doesn't change at all if I add an active scenton emitter with level 1 to 4. Then on max level 5 the value suddenly jumps to 0.928154 So, yeah. Weird. |
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 Peppery One Papriko |
Yes, CA are an interesting topic in and of themselves. As for the part of "how ettins tick": a large part of their hoarding is done with scripts to supplement their genetics. There was a forum topic years back which discussed this in detail, but I can't find it right now. The gist of it is that there is a cosfile, something along the lines of "grendel and ettin muscle paralyzer", which controls the hoarding. When an ettin picks up a gadget, it is flooded with the poorly named "comfort", which actually means home sickness. The ettin then navigates along the strongest trail of ettin home smell, generally towards the desert. Once in the desert, there is a special room type (similar to soil, infertile corridor, water, etc...) which basically acts the same as air, but is called ettin home. Ettins inside that particular ettin home room type are again affected by the script. It A) forces them to drop gadgets they hold and B) makes them unable to focus on any gadgets, effectively rendering them invisible. Once the home sickness wears off, the ettin starts wandering until they find a new gadget and the cycle repeats. Grendels have, to a lesser extent, something similar done with eggs. However, there is no unique room type involved and it is not quite as overpowering as the ettin one. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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Olaf |
That's interesting, I did not expect that to rely that much on scripts. So if I got this right, it means that no matter how strongly a room is sprayed with "Eau de Ettin", that will never relieve them from their homesickness, because they just need that specific room and nothing else? And worse, making another room smell like that will mess with their navigational skills and drive them to a room that doesn't work for them? That may explain a few very very sad and confused ettins while I messed around with smells... Do norns have something like that too? I've read that female norn feel "homesick" when they need to lay eggs. Do they need a specific room to feel better, or any room that's smelling like norn home enough will do? |
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Peppery One Papriko |
The homing instinct of pregnant norns is fortunately done 100% genetically. They really just track the scent. Also, the scripting is only really required for the hoarding. Natural home sickness wears off in the presence of a strong home smell if I recall right. The problem with ettins and grendels is simply that they are PUMPED with home sickness as long as they are holding their object of interest... It can't wear off because it instantly generates more as long as they don't let go. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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 Wrong Banshee Dragoler  |
Ettin gadget blindness is actually controlled genetically by a brain tract that prevents ettins from being able to see gadgets when their home smell is strong enough. The ettin home room type prevents gadget smell from traveling, thus preventing ettins from pacing around their own stash. Also creatures may get a shot of homesickness when they pick an object up but this only occurs at the first action and the stim doesn't trigger again while carrying. Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base.  |
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Peppery One Papriko |
It's been a while since I looked into this. Point is: it's a mess. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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Olaf |
But it does mean it should be possible to make sort of a secondary ettin home, as long as it doesn't let gadget smell out like the real one then. To be honest that's the interrogation that got me into this mess to begin with  I think I got the bit of code in !map.cos where it happens for the desert rooms. The ettin tunnel rooms are set to room type 10, which is set up with
So, it has "gain" 0 for CA 18 and doesn't absorb any from what's inside. If I just change any other room to be type 10 and put a CA 17 emitter in it, it should work like the real one then, right? |
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Wrong Banshee Dragoler |
To be honest with one other additional brain tract everything about the ettin hoarding behaviour with the exception of the specialised scent-destroying room could be controlled genetically. Olaf wrote: Yes that should work, the Heatlamp agent also does this if set to "Ettin Home". Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base. |
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