🌱🌿🌻ele's pack-er tracker🌻🌿🌱

🌱🌿🌻Welcome to the Kodaway!🌻🌿🌱

This here's my journal of various bits and bobs in regards to Wolvden! Plans for the future, which studs or custom decors I'm pining after, thoughts about strategy or art or events, they all go here!

Table of Contents

Strategy and Planning

TBA!

To-Do

Hoard 200 healing salves!

Finish the banner commissions!

Breed a silver shaded pup out of Chlorargyrite and Acorns!

Train up the matriarch line heirs!

Breeding Pairs



Strategy and Planning

So, here's my strategy for how I plan to manage my pack on Wolvden.

I want to be a stats-oriented pack, specifically focused on breeding and training for wisdom and smarts, i.e. the stats involved in stalkers, and herbalists, based primarily out of the Northern biomes -- coniferous, taiga, tundra, etc. Secondarily, I'd also like to focus on strength, primarily for flavor reasons. Tertiarily, I also want to have a pack that focuses mainly on Warm Light/Medium bases. Markings should be in white, gray, black, silver, beige, and cream, with a higher emphasis on the first four -- I'm really aiming for wolves who are a pleasing contrast of white, silver, and gold. For this reason, white merles are preferred to other merles. Eyes should either go very light, with white or ice, or very dark with black. (If they come out with a pale jade green, though, I will be all over that.) Skin, nose, and claws... should match, preferably, but I really go back and forth on whether I want the pack's standard to lean Light/Light/Light or Bistre/Bistre/Bistre or Marbled/Marbled/Marbled. I'll have to keep thinking about it.

In pursuit of good stats, though, the goal is for every pack member to reach level 20 before they breed. That way, every parent gives the highest likely stats to their children, and every generation increases in stattitude. (Wow, that's a horrible pun, I love it.)

Scouting seems to be the easiest and faster way by far to turn a level 1 wolf into a level 20 wolf. Hunting is secondary to this so far -- this may change when I get stalkers that are good enough to consistently hit Large tails in Glacier. Either way, scouting's great because it lets you have more nuance in what stat you're trying to accumulate. Not much more nuance, if you're also trying to ram wolves up to level 20 as fast as possible, but at least the two highest biomes are both stats I want. Either way, according to my calculations, if you take a level 1, one-year-old wolf and make them a scout and have them scout only in glacier or rainforest, they'll hit level 20 when they're around four years old. It takes approximately three years of in-game time to take a level 1 wolf to level 20 by scouting. This is honestly slightly a problem. That is a lot of in-game time. That means that all my level 20 wolves -- my wolves in their prime -- would, at best, have only 3 good breeding years. So we're going to be setting up a pipeline to reduce time-to-prime.

For now, our primes focus exclusively on breeding. No hunting, no scouting, no herbalism (maybe, herbalism might be the exception), just breeding and -- as the role most compatible with it -- pupsitting. This actually seems like it'll work really well! We have a ready made population of pupsitters whose development won't suffer for the minimal XP and intermittent work, and pupsitting is a job that you can definitely "breed around." No more taking in low-stat castoffs just to pupsit! That'll save more room in the pack for actual good breeding stock. On the flipside here: once my pack starts hitting a higher stat tiers, especially once I start clearing the stalker floors for getting higher-level trails in higher-level biomes and therefore can start making primes faster, this is going to change. I want to hit the delicious 716.

Speaking of size, I don't really want more than two hunting groups, two scouts, and one herbalist at a time, not until I'm able to feed a pack off hunting. That means I want a maximum of 13 hopefuls at once. I don't theoretically have a limit on the number of primes I want to have at one time, but without spending a bunch of cones on guarana or bone marrow, I doubt I'll have very many at once -- they just take too damn long to make, and I have a limited number of spots to make them in. I'm pretty sure death-by-old-age will keep the number of primes fairly low. If I had to guess, I'll probably hit a maximum of 5 primes at once. I'm just setting up this pipeline now, so we'll see what happens after I've had a generation or two go by.

(Additionally -- when adolescent training gets added, like they said in the first January news post? These calculations are going to be majorly readjusted, depending on how that feature works, whether it's just a stat-boosting thing or if it actually lets you level the babies up or what.)

The goal for breeding, beyond high stats, will be to breed primarily in-pack. This'll have to happen after I establish a strong pipeline, a reasonable population of primes, and a more even gender balance, though. Right now, I have exactly one prime, and the vast majority of my pack is female. I'm not at all interested in line-chaining, but breeding together third cousins doesn't bother me in the slightest, and I might honestly be okay with breeding second cousins. First cousins might be a bit much? We'll see what a pack of only 20-ish wolves can support. Right now, with my pack unbalanced and unstable, I'll be relying on high-stat outside studs to acquire good blood and good markings. I especially want to go for white merles in high marking slot numbers. I'm a huge fan of how a white merle over a complex gold and silver coat looks. Very shiny.)

Doing Math

Stat gain by level

2+4+6+8+10+12+14+16+18+20+22+24+26+28+30+32+34+36+38+40 = 420

Based on level-based gains alone, a pup can be reasonably be expected to gain 420 stat points over their birth stats at prime-hood.

Stat gain by job

Current assumption is that wolves can gain up to 2 stat points a day from their job. This means that, assuming a wolf lives a full 8 years and works every single day of that, they have 168 working days. 168 * 2 = 336. If you assume they work up until their last breeding day (for females) at 7 years 2 months , then 148 working days, 148 * 2 = 296.

Stat gain total over life

420 from leveling, 296 from jobbing, 420+296 = 716.

Stat gain by breeding
Pup stats are based on % of the parents' combined stats, which here I'm going to call the breeding stat (B). A pair of two wolves with 500 total stats each have a breeding stat of 1000, as do a wolf with stats 900 and a wolf with stats 100.

According to IceOrthus's calculations, above a breeding stat of ~1000, pups inherit stats at a 33% rate, declining 1% with each 100 points above 1000 in the breeding stat.

Stat gain by generations

To ensure that pups have birth stats at least as high as their own parents' birth stats, i.e. holding rate, the parents need to gain a certain amount of stats before breeding. The equation is as follows:

x = parents' birth stat (individual)
y = amount of stat needed to attain holding rate
z = % rate at which stats are passed

(x + y) * 2z = x, solve for y

For reference, B = 2(x+y) here.

for z = 0.25, (x + y) * 2 * 0.25 => 0.5x + 0.5y => 0.5y = x - 0.5x => 0.5y = 0.5x => y = x

The equation for z is currently unknown; current usage of this formula depends on substituting a likely value for z. 0.25 is the predicted pass rate when B = 2100, meaning that (x+y) = 1050. Given that in this context, when we solve for y, we find y=x, that means that x=525 and y=525. HOWEVER, we now believe that with enough work, y could functionally be set at 716 over a wolf's lifetime. If z holds stable at 25%, we would expect to see a plateau effect in wolf stats occurring at approximately 1431. At that point, parents would only be able to breed pups who have, at most, birth stats comparable to their parents. However, that's only if z = 25% when B = 2862. If z continues to shrink after B = 2100, then the equation for the holding point would actually be x = 2z(x+716), solve for x+716 assuming the formula for z as a function of 2(x+716) is known.

Next step: charting the curve for z and possible establishing a formula.

Making Decors

I really think I'd like to give it a try! Ideas: a grows-with-you companion (snake? bird?), jewelry, more floral decorations, bone decorations, educational matching sets, a den with pups, Wolfquest themed stuff?

NOTE: Decor descriptions have a hidden character limit of 252.

Eastern Agricultural Complex set
TEN TOTAL DECORS: 7 main set (chenopod, sunflower, sumpweed, ovifera, knotweed, little barley, maygrass), + 3 bonus (gatherer's bags, mouthful of plants, flower adornments).

ORDER OF TO-DO: Ovifera => Sunflower => Little Barley => release the three front pieces => Maygrass => Knotweed => Sumpweed => Chenopod => release the four back pieces => Gatherer's Bags => Flower Adornments => release the two remaining bonus pieces

The Eastern Agricultural Complex (or EAC for short) is a group of plants first cultivated in Eastern North America over 5000 years ago. Most of the domesticated versions have now gone extinct, but their wild counterparts are still around!

The Eastern Agricultural Complex (or EAC for short) is a group of plants which were first cultivated along the waterways and upland bluffs of Eastern North America over 5000 years ago. Most of the domesticated versions have now gone extinct, but their wild counterparts are still around!

• Chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri), also called goosefoot, is a northern relative of quinoa. The seeds are said to have an earthy taste, and the leaves can be cooked and eaten in small quantities. Some farmers and archaeologists are trying to redomesticate chenopod as an ethical quinoa alternative!
• Sunflower (Helianthus annus) is the EAC crop that's most grown and relied on still today! It's a major source of cooking oil and biofuel. Each sunflower "head" is actually dozens of tiny flowers clustered together, with each flower producing a single petal or seed.
• Sumpweed (Iva annua), also called marshelder, is a relative of sunflower that grows along streams; its seeds are carried on annual floods, leaving a "bathtub ring" of sumpweed stands around waterways in the spring.
• Ovifera squash (Cucurbita pepo sp. ovifera), also known as acorn squash, is still around today in the form of colorful autumn decorations. Some people think these gourds were cultivated as fishing net floats before they were used as food!
• Knotweed (Polygonum erectum) is a riparian weed. It's known for having a significant degree of genetic plasticity - depending on the growing environment, it can be short and bushy or tall and slender.
• Little barley (Hordeum pusillum) is a distant relative of Old World barley. Today, it grows everywhere from the Sonoran Desert to the Gulf Coast marshes. It's a hardy survivor known for flourishing even during poor growing years!
• Maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana) can grow almost five feet tall! It prefers wet and marshy areas, and its seeds are very nutritious.

And the bonus decors...

• Gatherer's Bags: Looks like your wolf has patiently gathered quite a haul of native Eastern North American crops... I wonder what a carnivore wants with those?
• Mouthful of Plants: Looks like your wolf has a mouthful of native Eastern North American crops... I wonder what a carnivore wants with those? Pending approval! #1253
  
• Flower Adornments: Looks like your wolf has been decorating their fur with flowers from native Eastern North American crops... maybe it'll help disguise their scent on the hunt? Either way, they look wonderful!
  
  

TODO

• Mouthful of Plants: create Sentinel art, create adolescent art, create pup art, create young pup art, create newborn art, update adult art, create mutation art?
• Little Barley: create art, ensure it works with all poses
• Cucurbit: rework the pose to have it integrate with sunflower pile, create art
• sunflower: make sure the pose still works with cucurbit, create

Dynasty Wolves
Priorities for the wolves retained in the pack's dynasty are those who have reached prime, those who have lore.

Ready for dynasty: broken-open chlorargyrite

Destined for dynasty: iron-rich streamside clay, volcanic hot springs, acorns on the branch,

Nominated for dynasty: maygrass in summer heat



Packwide Lore

Tucked into the folds of the mountains, a wide, U-shaped glacial valley funnels icy winds down off the glaciers and into the lowland forests. Tall loblolly and good-smelling cedars and scattered sequoia sway gently in the sunlight and the cold air; the dense mixed conifer stands are interspersed with sunny fire meadows dotted with flowers. Above the treeline, scree slopes lead up to pale cliffs. Down in the middle of the valley, a broad glacial-fed creek meanders this way and that through the grasses. When you walk forward to dip your toes into the water, it's ice cold.

And as the cold mountain breezes sweep over your face, rustling the grasses and putting ripples on the water... you smell wolves.

This is Valley Kodaway, named for the stream which runs through the center of it. It is also the name of the family of wolves that live on the stream's banks. The Kodaway are pale gold-and-grey wolves, keen-eyed nomadic hunters who wander the peaks and forests surrounding their natal valley. Typically cheerful and confident, these wolves are friendly enough when you meet them in their travels -- but their valley is sacred, and protected.

Kept safe in pride of place inside a hollow in the roots of a fallen redwood, the matriarch and her inner circle of wolves in their prime conspire to raise the future of the pack. Nested in a meadow of wildflowers in a sunlit opening in the canopy created by the redwood's fall, the hopeful scouts and scouts-in-waiting enjoy the warmth; the rest of the pack, nested in a patch of grass under the canopy's shade, hunt in celebration of the matriarch and her heirs. Not far away, the creek murmurs to itself as it cuts through the meadows; puppies and adolescents play on a sandy shoal beside the creek, out where passing packs might see them and take an interest in recruiting the young dispersals for their own packs.

When a wolf comes of age, they shall join the hunting packs. Most beloved inheritors, destined for breeding, shall gain the prized roles of stalker or finisher.

When the first scout reaches the prime of their 20th level, they shall no longer be a scout. The second scout shall become the first, and the eldest of the beloved inheritors shall be awarded the role of second scout.

When a wolf enters their prime, their work shall be the work of the future -- breeding and the nursing of pups. Hunting and scouting are the work of the striving young. The only exception shall be if their presence is needed to make up the numbers of the hunting parties.

Lineage Maps

First generation

Second generation

MUST USE

🌻creekside sand in flood == herbalist, silver snouted, only survivor of fennel's line, trying to make stalker-leaning??? -- maybe breed her to a high-stat stalker stud create a sibling set

need 3 more sibling sets????

notes for next gen: 🔥 to 💧, 👑 to fire's pair,

AVAILABLE

(OUTPACK)tanuki up a dead pine, wind-tossed eagle nest,

Individual Lore

TBA.

Extra lore

For the future!

Extra lore

For the future!