What's old is new again

My oldest feral run is coming to an end and I just feel like rambling about it for a bit. I've been running if off and on since 2014ish under different names. They used to be called Wuta Norns, then they went nameless for a few hundred generations, and now I've started calling the Akorith Norns. The main reason for the various names (besides realizing Wuta is a terrible name) is that the current norns don't have a lot in common with the old ones besides generation count. The Wutas were CFE while the Akoriths are CFF. To be fair, they were converted during their nameless phase in 2015, not recently. Getting them from CFE to CFF was a pain, to put it mildly.

The current norns, the Akoriths, have their own base genome I've slowly tinkered with while the run was going on. They're a nice purple, carnivorous norn that's somehow gained some Stinger Norn traits. I can't remember why I added those, but those genes are firmly established in the run now. Some of the later genes I added didn't get passed on though. Combine that with a lot of mutations, and they aren't very similar to their base genome anymore. They breed very well and seem like quite competent little norns. They can even navigate at birth instead of childhood!

The world they're in is a seasonal wolfling run set in the Desert Ruins and C3toDS Ettin Terrarium. Unlike some of my worlds, it isn't amazingly decorated and the few decorations it does have are just there to put patch plants on. Both of them have had their agents stripped out so the norns migrate properly. Speaking of which, the migration path they go on works amazingly well. The top of Desert Ruins is their home in spring and fall and the bottom of it is their home in the winter. The Ettin Terrarium is their home in the fall. As for the eggs, they are transported into the Workshop by an egg finder. From there the babies only have to get to the Meso to be teleported to the spring/fall area. So the babies have a good chance of being teleported into an area with food.

To wrap up this meandering post, my oldest feral run is slowly coming to and end. It's had many names, but its final name is likely going to be Akorith Norns. Their base genome is a weird mix of last minute additions and most of the norns aren't even similar to the latest version of it. Plus the world they're in works well. All in all, I'm happy to see the run end at generation 1,000.

An Eggciting Egg Finding Machine

Guess who's wolfling run is doing well for once? My wolfling run hasn't died out in nearly 40 generations, even with population controls exporting the old Norns and a weird egg finder set up. I think moving them into a simpler seasonal migration world is what did the trick. The run is quite boring now, so I'll just write about my egg finder setup instead!

During another wofling run, I noticed the older eggs weren't hatching. I'd find generation 10 eggs mixed in with my generation 20+ eggs and that annoyed me. So I rigged up an egg finder to a timer, and made sure the older eggs would hatch first. It worked surprisingly well.

Basically what happens is the egg finder picks up all of the eggs and sorts them from oldest to newest. Since the newest eggs are in the water, they don't hatch. This makes the older eggs hatch a bit quicker, and means you won't have old eggs laying around anymore. The fireplace is actually a portable incubator, like the Meso's heat pan, and makes sure the older eggs hatch faster. The lavaball is just there to teleport the babies into the main metaroom.

It works quite well, but has one slightly annoying side effect. Your generation count isn't going to go up very fast with this egg finder set up, especially if your creatures are prolific breeders. It basically forces every egg to hatch in order, so it takes a while for one generation to finally end. So maybe it's not great for every run.

Agent links:
Egg Finder
DS Timer
Lavaball 4
Fireplace (it's under December 15th)

A Failed Wolfling Run

The wolfling run I started in the last blog post has failed. A seasonal migration world is apparently to hard for these Norns, even though their ancestors survived in another seasonal world. I've tried restarting it by cloning the Norns, but it eventually dies out. I think what happened was they weren't breeding enough to keep the population up. Some Norns died every time the season changes when they had to migrate. Unfortunately, the population was terrible at breeding and died out.

If it wasn't for three eggs and two dead Norns I found and cloned, the run probably would have ended right there... I don't think I can call this a wolfling run or even a feral run at this point. It's just a giant mess of high gen Norns and terrible genetics. It's been a lot of fun until now, with weird Norns with 1.6k genes and a population of Norns somehow existing on the edge of extinction for like 10 generations. So much fun, in fact, that I decided to continue it in some way.

So I cloned and spliced the remaining Norns with the CFF Marsh and Alien breeds. They were probably going to die out again, but at least they were colorful.

Creatures 1 Wolfling Runs are Impossible

...for me at least. C1 is the only Creatures game that I can't run a wolfling run in. I can run them in DS without a problem and have even managed a few in C2 before. But C1? No. I've tried many times and I either stopped it half way through to cure all of the sick Norns, or watched them all die. Recently though, Jessica updated some of C1's food sources. So I figured I would give it another shot.

I should have learned from past mistakes though, since the run failed miserably. All of my males died before breeding, so I hatched a new set. I got one egg from them, which I promptly froze. I figured things might get better after that but they didn't. All but three of my Norns were wiped out in a plague on the island. So only two males and one female survived. The males are probably going to die from starvation and the last female isn't doing much better. She's sick and dying in a corner.

So even if C1 wolfling runs are possible, I don't think I want to try them anymore. Especially not after this run. She's just sitting there, sneezing. There's even a cheese by her foot, but she won't eat it.