Breeding programs?

[nateflory]

While there were many results about children in CANTR, my thought is not directly related to those discussions.

Since newspawns are genetically "spawned" by mixing the skills of two other players in an area (if I understood correctly), has anyone tried to "breed" newspawns with certain skills and thus create a community of Expert *insert_skill_here*?

What I mean by this is, hypothetically speaking, you spawn as an expert farmer, I spawn as an awkward farmer. The other expert farmers in the area quickly unite to drive me from this land (kill, etc). The theory being that new spawns here will all be expert farmers initially, allowing this town to gather resources at an unheard of rate, and trading with the nearby iron-producing town in exchange for food.

The same theory could be applied to hunting, toolmakers, etc.
It may be a silly idea, but I wondered if anyone tried?

Or am I thinking the spawning process works incorrectly?

[Pie]

the only problem with this, is telling who is the parents of this newspawn. thats the only problem i have with this idea.

[nateflory]

I'm not too concerned about telling who the parents are, but more interested in seeing if Everyone in an area is an expert "whatever" would all newspawns automatically be at least Skilled at "whatever", since the available pool of genetics is slanted to be high in a particular skill, factoring out mutations and the like, if they exist....
More of a curiosity than anything else. I doubt I'll ever get to run the experiment in-game as organizing that many people is beyond my abilities at the moment.

[Sho]

From what I know (or think I know) it should work. I'd love to see someone try.

[nateflory]

The only thing that would throw off my experiment is....

Are the genetic skills pre-set at spawning, and improve a different variable during life? Or does your actual Cantrian DNA change as you get better at a skill through practice?

Meaning, if I am spawned only a Novice at hunting, but kill lots of critters and become an Expert hunter, will my "children" be biased towards being good hunters, or will they start out as Novice/Efficient. Only the Shadow (and ProgD) knows...

[Hellzon]

I think it's been said that Cantr has Lamarckian genetics. Meaning that it is the actual skill that is inherited, rather than the original one.

/Hellzon - Darwinist

[Jos Elkink]

It should work, yes ... The skills are inherited - on average 45 % from one char, 45 % from another, and 10 % random - and it is the *basic* skills that are inherited, not the trained ones. So if you're a novice farmer, you train all your life, and you get a spawner inheriting your farming skill, it'll be the novice skill that is inherited.

So yes, the above policy would work. I was hoping it would work naturally e.g. in areas with many animals - only hunters survive. But that's probably too slow a process to actually work in Cantr ...

[deadboy]

yeah and one problem with that Jos, people don't stay in their home towns all the time, they quite often migrate

[Mafia Salad]

You can see it in small towns with a steady few people who are always there. I had a char spawn in rural Aki and at his camp there were two distinct hunting levels. Another place I can think of where I noticed this was Pok Harbour, when Mr. S was dragging the quiet nameless newspawns. Some he handled no problem, others were exactly as strong as him.

Look around you. (look around you, just look around you, have you figured out what we're looking for yet?) Especially in the smaller towns with low traffic, you can see that they are starting to develop reoccurring sets of traits, and I‘m sure the trend will continue. I think it's pretty neat.

[Hellzon]

You can see it in small towns with a steady few people who are always there.

It actually works? Like deadboy, I thought it was evened out by traveling. Maybe I should pay more attention in the Swedish area, this probably is more visible in the non-english regions (the Polish one doesn't count ).

But Jos threw me for a loop. We actually have Darwinian genetics?

[Okud]

Skills you don't practice deteriorate over time, right?

In this case, we better have Darwinian genetics. Just imagine, you have your
dedicated farmer who spent his whole life improving from efficient to skillfull
farming, but only his every tenth offspring inherits his farming skills. The other 9 inherit his decaying repairing skill, fighting skill, walkin skill and so on.

Unfortunately what Cantr lacks in terms of genetics is survival of the fittest. We only have survival of the characters with the most dedicated players.

About breeding programs, I was imagining a primitive community in one of the subpopulated areas, where no newspawn is allowed into the tribe, and receive shields or foods until he or she kills a
(hawk/turkey/rabbit/whatever)
with his/her bare hands. This would help breeding better hunters a little bit.

@Jos: did you consider entropy? You might notice at some point that all skills tend towards the average value.

[Bowser]

About breeding programs, I was imagining a primitive community in one of the subpopulated areas, where no newspawn is allowed into the tribe, and receive shields or foods until he or she kills a
(hawk/turkey/rabbit/whatever)
with his/her bare hands. This would help breeding better hunters a little bit.

I have a character spawn in an unihabited location, spawned there as a result of two explorers stopping for food then leaving. Luckily I found food, but no wood as of yet. I have been awkwardly fighting animals for almost 10 years. I have only killed a rabbit once, not getting enough bone for a knife. Now I am in another battle with a hawk. Its been going on for a few years. I do one point of damage a day, but now with my stone cleaver I do two points of damage. Did I mention in the middle of traveling and mapping, all the names of the locations disappeared....
am I off topic?

[N-Aldwitch]

Hehe, great idea, I love it. The smell of the phrase, 'survival of the fitest' really is imminent here, eh.
It also gives me some personal ideas now. You can visualise it, too, walking in to some farming city with all these toughies poking and warding away at a weak little man who isn't welcome.
Personally I'd run from that city.

[Devil]

I'd be curious to see what happened if you took the average skills of all the character in a location and gave them what they were lacking, rather than what they already had. Would this individual good at metal working stay in a community of farmers and never know (s)he was good with metal? Would they travel and find out, find a job in town somehow?

[Pie]

I'd be curious to see what happened if you took the average skills of all the character in a location and gave them what they were lacking, rather than what they already had. Would this individual good at metal working stay in a community of farmers and never know (s)he was good with metal? Would they travel and find out, find a job in town somehow?

wow.. thats such a sad story... TO HAVE TO BE A FARMER WEHN YOUR REAL PATION AND SKILL IS IN METAL WORKING WOULD SUCK ASS!!!!