Fixes for 2nd-gen problems Some fixes to breedfiles, to make 2nd generation pets come out the way you want. ================================================================================ These fixes work for Petz 3, 4 and 5. I don't cover every possible problem in this "howto"; I'll probably add to it as time goes by, but for now it contains: Making the newborn kitten or pup usually take up the colours from the breedfile Fixing some problems with balls not connecting properly (when both parents are from the same breed) Fixing baby chickenz whose heads are all messed-up and whose parents are both chickenz Just a note as to my editing methods so that with any luck all this will make sense. These days, there are my "easy-edit" packages -- they come complete with instructions. I use those myself for all development work, only going to the effort of making a full breed if I want a non-overwriting breed of a specific type. I've got info on how I make a full internal-lnz breedfile in various other places on my tutorials Making the newborn kitten or pup usually take up the ball colours from the breedfile ================================================================================ The problem is that you've hexed a beautiful breedfile with just the colours you want on all the ballz, and you've checked that the breed comes out right from the Adoption Centre as well as that it looks perfect as an adult. Then you have a breeding programme and over and over again the baby comes out either with the original P.F.Magic or Studio Mythos breedfile's colours or with patches of odd default colours. No matter what you do, you can't seem to get the breedfile to pick up on the actual breed colours. Well, What you have here is the way the game deals with ball groups, so the solution for this lies in the "group" columns and in the [Fur Color Areas]. It varies a little between breedz, and I've only had time to check out a couple, but if you fiddle around in those parts you will eventually get the result you're looking for. Really, for any breedfile with which you are having 2nd-gen problems, you need to try and understand how this area of the file works, tweak it, try breeding, and then tweak again. Here are a few examples: Scottie-based breedz -------------------- What I've found works is to set the numbers in the group column of the extra Add Ballz to 1, also the numbers in the [Ballz Info] "group" column (for everything except things such as nostrils, eye and iris) to 1, and then you can control things down where you see [Fur Color Areas]. In the ;FurColorTrait column, try replacing the number 1 with 2; this will give your babies colours taken from the breedfile, while the number 4 will most likely produce colours taken from the mother. Try out various numbers there, see what you get. Also, remember that the group column numbers do affect things such as how the paint brush in the game paints the balls, so if that matters to you try fiddling with those also. Chihuahua-based breedz ---------------------- In the Chihuahua-based breed, if you change the number in the ;FurColorTrait column of [Fur Color Areas] to 3, your pets will mostly breed a baby whose colours have been taken from the hexed breedfile. If that doesn't produce the correct colours often enough on its own for you, I've found once again that putting 1 in the Group column of the [Ballz Info] section, for each ball, helps too. Other combinations of numbers may of course work, I don't have time to test 'em all; I really just wanted to give you a pointer. Again, the changing of the Group numbers to 1 of course affects things like how they take paint if you use the brush in the game. It doesn't seem to significantly affect the ball sizes in this case. Dachshund-based breed (e.g. Liz' Penguin) ---------------------- Change the number in the ;FurColorTrait column of [Fur Color Areas] to 4 A Dalmatian-based breed ----------------------- I had an interesting problem sent to me recently. The hexed breed had black or brown ear tips on ears made up of addballs. The colours of 2nd gen ears (all of them), head ball, neck ball, eye and iris balls all changed to the colour of the eartips. Once again, the [Fur Color Areas] had to be manipulated in order to get sensible 2nd-gen pups. This is what the original Dalmatian had: [Fur Color Areas] ; (1-4, 5 - jowls) ;FurColorTrait ballWithBaseColor colorAreas 1 48 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and this was what gave a decent fix: [Fur Color Areas] ; (1-4, 5 - jowls) ;FurColorTrait ballWithBaseColor colorAreas 4 48 0, 1, 2 You can see that the listed colorAreas matter as much as the FurColorTrait. If all the colour areas 0-4 were listed with trait 4, the pup would come out all white, and if fewer than 0,1,2 several areas would become grey. Fixing some problems with balls not connecting properly (when both parents are from the same breed) ======================================================= I say "when they are both from the same breed" because different breedz -- particularly hexie species -- have different [Add Ball] balls, which means that the [Linez] can end up connected really oddly in some offspring. This is _not_ about that kind of problem, which is inherent in cross-breeding. Right, your problem is that you've created an addball to use as its base, say, the chest and another one to use as its base the ankle, and you have a [Linez] line to link these two added ballz. The pet shows up beautifully at the Adoption Centre and grows to adulthood like a dream. Then it breeds, and no matter what you do those two balls refuse to join up. Well, the answer is this: when it comes to getting the data for babies, the game simply doesn't like ballz from different body groupings to be joined. So it just ignores those linez. No problem; you can fool it. The way to fix it is to over-ride the "bodyarea" number for each different-bodyarea ball that's to be joined. You do this by choosing one of the normal bodyarea numbers and putting it in that column for all the relevant balls. I chose 1 for the problem case that I was sent, which seemed to do no harm at the Adoption Centre plus it definitely produced a properly-connected baby. If you see problems such as things moving wrongly (I didn't see anything like that, but I suppose you might), try altering that number in some of the groupings and see what happens. Don't choose 8, as that's the head (unless of course you want the added ballz to basically be head balls) or 0, as that tells the game to choose defaults. Special note: I've had people write to me with queries like this: ---------------- > I'm hexing a realistic dogz breed. There are addball featherings on the > chest but one of the addballs is giving me trouble. The topmost > feathering addball, although based on the chest ball, is joined to the > neck ball by linez. This ball becomes disconnected in 2nd gens. If I base > this addball on the neck ball, although it joins to it in 2nd gens, it > moves along with that ball and generally looks wrong - and then it > won't connect to the other chest featherings. And the solution, which works for me every time, is this: ---------------- Put in an extra ball, at the centre of the neck ball but with the bodyarea number of the chest ball, and make this the ball which is to be connected to your problem "feathering" topmost [Add Ball]. This extra ball should be _based_ on the neck ball, but have the bodyarea of the chest ball. Then you can attach the feather to this extra ball and it works in 2nd-gens. This certainly worked in my test breed, and should work for you. Here's an example of what I mean. In [Add Ball] I put these two ballz: ;88 chest (chest ball is 50, bodyarea 1) 50 0 50 -50 75 244 0 1 0 0 31 1 0 0 -1 ;89 neck (neck ball is 54, bodyarea normally 8 but in this case 1) 54 0 0 0 145 244 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 54 Yes, I know the size of the ball is full neck-size and the colours are startlingly awful, but I find it helps me to see clearly and quickly just what is working and what isn't. Obviously your colours would be different and you would make the extra ball a lot smaller, although still at 0 0 0 position. Then of course in [Linez] 88 89 6 40 44 44 90 100 0 0 88 50 6 80 44 44 90 100 0 0 and ta-da, the 2nd-gen pup comes out with ball 88 neatly connected to both the neck and the chest, and behaves properly like a chest ball. Fixing baby chickenz whose heads are all messed-up and whose parents are both chickenz ====================================================================================== This one is weird; it seems that, for most chickenz babies, although the data is basically there as per the original (with a few variations such as you would expect), the game usually does one very odd thing. It takes the [project Ball] section, complete, and puts the lines in a different order in the pet. Same Project Ball data, same length of Project Ball section, same checksum -- just the lines are in a different order. As yet I've not found a way of getting the game to always put them in the correct order when a baby is born. There is a simple fix you can do in your hex editor if you want to, until I do find how to make it work right -- if I ever can! Remember to save a copy of the petfile somewhere safe before doing this: In any pure-chickenz baby born like this, open the mother in your hex editor and copy the 630 bytes from the beginning of [Project Ball] down to just before [Eyes]. Paste those bytes over each of the two [Project Ball] sections of the baby. Enjoy Carolyn Horn