O Tragic Mystery

October was a rough month for me. Sigh. But I'm still here and still running Creatures. 

I ran the previous world most of the month until it reached Gen ~50 or so. At that point I had accumulated enough observations to know what I wanted to tweak next in the genome (some instinct repatterning, mostly, so they'd be more drawn to eating bugs and animal eggs rather than fixating so closely on critters only). Plus I got tired of looking at that particular set of metarooms and the problems in C1toDS (especially the tendency for them to get 'stuck' in the left hand side of the larger ocean just past the world wrap spot). 

So I made a new world and started again with a new batch of edited dragons to test the edits, using a different set of metarooms. I wanted to go all-out on the Halloween thing but that world kept crashing and eventually died completely (can't be opened). I'm pretty sure it was the Hydroponics Bay metaroom causing the problems, but I couldn't be certain and didn't feel like doing a bunch of testing. So I just made another new world and used only agents and metarooms I've used before without a problem. We ended up with Veridia, Primordia Redux, Deep Abyss, Devil's Reef, and Hydro Norn Terrarium. Turns out C1toDS is very resource-expensive to run, too. In this world I've got a population limit of 50 and it's running fine so far. I'm jecting out all the stuff we're not using just in case, especially the ones that tend to overpopulate like the jungle mosquitoes, but we're a couple days in and so far so good.

I also downloaded the wyvern wings and implemented them. I think I still prefer the arms-and-wings configuration, but I can't deny these look super cool and honestly better than the old Gargoyle-arms thing. God I need to learn how to sprite and just make some new damn arms for them. But I'm happy with these for now. Look at the colooorrrssss

So I checked in on them just now to make sure none of their Offline Portals had autokilled and no prey populations had gone extinct or anything. I always check on deaths when I sit down just out of curiosity. If most of them are old age (and/or grendels being beaten to death; dragons are aggressive little buttheads), I figure the population is healthy. (I did have to ject out the bacteria after ATP decoupler appeared in both the last two worlds... strongly considering either making them immune to it entirely or trying to change how they metabolize it so it can be an actual disease instead of just a BS unstoppable death curse.)

Normally, when I click on the death notif, it takes me to the place the creature died even if the body has already evaporated because it happened too long ago. This time, it took me to the memorial tomb in the Norn Terrarium, which is the default for "I don't know where this happened". That was odd. So I checked the Autopsy Report file and found this as the most recent death:

Deceased: NoName

Moniker: 007-hill-njc6c-wgx2b-33f5a-4cuyv

Sex: F

Age: Child, 0 mins

Cause of Death: Low Energy

From: Starved

Children: 0

Location: Unknown Room, X: -9870.000000 Y: -9910.500000

Interesting, eh? She died so fast that APT didn't have time to assign her a name. From the egg to the grave. She also apparently hatched as a child, which gives me a hint as to what might have happened to her - but let's open GeneCompare and see just what lethal mutation got her, shall we?

OK, let's look at her mutations. Most will be trivial or at least survivable, but at least one is a killer. I'm going to skip over the boring ones, but if I see anything interesting or weird, I'll note it even if it's not the death culprit.

 161 Different in file 1  43   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 7, Creature, Sensorimotor, I'm asleep, chem=Sleepase, thresh=0, samp=3, gain=77, features=Digital  (0) 

 161 Different in file 2  43   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 7, Creature, Sensorimotor, I'm asleep, chem=Sleepase, thresh=0, samp=3, gain=77, features=Digital /Clear source  (0) 

Odd! But nonfatal. Honestly not entirely sure how to interpret this one, but it might affect how often or how long she sleeps. I don't understand the nitty-gritty of some of these functions well enough to guess how clearing the source byte might affect the function of this gene. I might have to try to find another Norn with this mutation so I can observe their sleep patterns and see if anything seems different. If anyone reading this knows how to interpret it, please comment and let me know! I love learning how this program works.

302 Different in file 1  23   0 You B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 17, Creature, Circulatory, Floating receptor/emitter 14, chem=Stress, thresh=128, samp=24, gain=5, features=Digital  (0) 

 302 Different in file 2  23   0 You B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 17, Creature, Circulatory, Floating receptor/emitter 14, chem=Stress, thresh=128, samp=24, gain=5, features=Digital /Clear source  (0)

Interesting. Another 'clear source' mutation. This is the "floating receptor" emitter for Stress, so if she'd lived she wouldn't have processed stress the same way as the default genome either. 

 282 Different in file 1  63   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 16, 1*Hunger for carbohydrate + 1*<NONE> => 1*Hunger for carb backup + 1*<NONE>; half-life = 18 

 282 Different in file 2  63   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 16, 1*Hunger for carbohydrate + 1*<NONE> => 1*Hunger for carb backup + 9*<NONE>; half-life = 18 

Whoa. So the original gene converts Hunger for Carbs into Hunger for Carbs Backup. This is part of their metabolic processing. There's another gene that converts H4C Backup into H4C. I forget why; I think it's part of the overwhelmsion system? But in any event, it's supposed to be a simple swap - one H4C in, one H4CB out; then, later, one H4CB in, one H4C out. But this mutation causes 1 H4C to be converted into NINE H4CB! This means there's a bunch more backup chemical to convert back into the original, which means the two reactions will ultimately boost H4C by A LOT. She didn't get to exist, so this never actually happened, but I suspect she would have felt starved for carbs all the time. This looks like eating disorder material.

But... okay, I've now looked through all her mutations, and I'm really confused. None of this should have caused her to be born in the Child stage, much less die at the instant of hatching. I was expecting to see something having gone wrong in her Time Line stuff, or maybe a Half Life change that made her Life chemical decay stupid fast? Or something? But there's nothing here. Just a few trivial mutations and a couple of weird but nonfatal ones.

So the mystery remains. Unless I'm missing something about those 'clear source' mutations, I guess, but I don't think so? Even if sleep or stress completely broke that's not going to result in instant death. 

I know I'm most likely just talking to myself, but if anyone reads this and has any ideas let me know? I already removed bacteria so it's not that, and the Autopsy Report would have noted any toxins in her bloodstream anyhow. The mystery abides.