Epigenetics

Epigenetics
Posted 2021-10-16 06:04:47 (edited) #541911 "Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence" What I'm proposing is that the game take epigenetic changes into account, and allow wolves' gene expression be affected by more than just their parents and applicators- for their expression to be affected by user's actions in taking care of the wolves. It's fair to say the userbase of this game likes genetics, and additional factors to consider would be a lot of fun. At the bottom of this post, I've given a list of things that could potentially change gene expression, and of expressions that could be changed. Most of the proposed changes, if implemented, would allow game's features to be used in new ways, depending on what was added. For example, if the biome a wolf was born in changed their performance, people might go to different biomes to find NBWs to use for their projects. Letting certain types of food/herbs have effects on wolves might also encourage players to sell and trade items in different ways, based on what was relevant to their goals. Since this would add a lot of detail to the care of a wolf, maybe it would be better to avoid adding epigenetic changes that could be considered "penalties", and use this mostly as a way to boost or neutrally alter wolves, so epigenetics would function as a somewhat optional level of advanced play, for people who wanted the best wolves or who had specific goals. The level of effort this would take to implement would vary based on what was added, from small code changes, to potentially new art, dialogues, action options (feeding wolves herbs), etc Things that could affect gene expression: -Being fed medicines/herbs -Being starved/fed well/fed certain items -Possibly their job? Having to run a lot to be a scout would be different than a mostly sedentary herbalist -Age -Past sicknesses -Giving birth -Season/biome of birth -Personality/Personality of parents Genes that would be affected: -Job performance/stats (could act like a "boost), energy regeneration, hunger/mood depletion -New markings, bases, mutations, etc -"Tint" - rather than gaining a marking/changing base color, they could turn a slightly different hue. pic is my lead wolf with a hypothetical yellow tint over the left side of his image- real tints would probably look different (better lol), this is just a layer of color drawn over him. -Eye/nose/claw color -Fur length- longer hair could maybe be drawn on only in the black outline, to avoid having to add it for all markings/bases -Immune system (be more or less susceptible to certain illnesses) -Fertility -I know we already have heritable skills from the stat system, to a degree, I think it'd be cool if the children of wolves with certain jobs were better at that job than others, like they gained stats faster or had better luck -It'd also be neat if certain jobs changed wolves' appearances a bit, like if herbalists tended to pass on black markings, scouts passed on red, etc Thanks for reading!!	greenstead #48354

Posted 2021-10-16 06:04:47 (edited)

#541911

"Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence"

What I'm proposing is that the game take epigenetic changes into account, and allow wolves' gene expression be affected by more than just their parents and applicators- for their expression to be affected by user's actions in taking care of the wolves. It's fair to say the userbase of this game likes genetics, and additional factors to consider would be a lot of fun. At the bottom of this post, I've given a list of things that could potentially change gene expression, and of expressions that could be changed.
Most of the proposed changes, if implemented, would allow game's features to be used in new ways, depending on what was added. For example, if the biome a wolf was born in changed their performance, people might go to different biomes to find NBWs to use for their projects. Letting certain types of food/herbs have effects on wolves might also encourage players to sell and trade items in different ways, based on what was relevant to their goals.
Since this would add a lot of detail to the care of a wolf, maybe it would be better to avoid adding epigenetic changes that could be considered "penalties", and use this mostly as a way to boost or neutrally alter wolves, so epigenetics would function as a somewhat optional level of advanced play, for people who wanted the best wolves or who had specific goals.
The level of effort this would take to implement would vary based on what was added, from small code changes, to potentially new art, dialogues, action options (feeding wolves herbs), etc

Things that could affect gene expression:
-Being fed medicines/herbs
-Being starved/fed well/fed certain items
-Possibly their job? Having to run a lot to be a scout would be different than a mostly sedentary herbalist
-Age
-Past sicknesses
-Giving birth
-Season/biome of birth
-Personality/Personality of parents

Genes that would be affected:
-Job performance/stats (could act like a "boost), energy regeneration, hunger/mood depletion
-New markings, bases, mutations, etc
-"Tint" - rather than gaining a marking/changing base color, they could turn a slightly different hue. pic is my lead wolf with a hypothetical yellow tint over the left side of his image- real tints would probably look different (better lol), this is just a layer of color drawn over him.

-Eye/nose/claw color
-Fur length- longer hair could maybe be drawn on only in the black outline, to avoid having to add it for all markings/bases
-Immune system (be more or less susceptible to certain illnesses)
-Fertility
-I know we already have heritable skills from the stat system, to a degree, I think it'd be cool if the children of wolves with certain jobs were better at that job than others, like they gained stats faster or had better luck
-It'd also be neat if certain jobs changed wolves' appearances a bit, like if herbalists tended to pass on black markings, scouts passed on red, etc

Thanks for reading!!

greenstead
#48354

Epigenetics

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