Slickster help please !

[Boris77]

Hello folks,

 Whilst I have more than a few hours under my belt at the game, I am not so great at it. Trying for once not to vent surplus stuff into space and starting with a slickster farm. I've got my basic farm made.... but my slicksters don't seem keen on continuing the population. I have the tempreature above 60C -- but they still have little chance of creating new slickster eggs and are sticking with longhairs, any idea what I am doing wrong ?

 

[StarSquid]

Unfortunately, being out of the conditions for a morph doesn’t actually lower the probability of that morph. You have three options here:

A) keep going with the current setup, and when that egg in the corner there hatches the slickster it produces will have the default egg chances. Then it will grow up and produce plenty of eggs. This is the safest option, but will take longer.

B) make a separate longhair slickster farm. It will mostly produce longhair slicksters but every so often you’ll get a regular slickster egg that you can take back to the main farm. This one is good if you have a lot of oxygen, not great otherwise.

C) Increase the temperature further and farm molten slicksters. From a technical perspective they’re better, but taking care of them requires fancy gear, so I don’t recommend this option unless you already use an atmo suit with the farm

If you go with option A, remember that you can supplement it by picking the larva eggs care package.

[Boris77]

9 minutes ago, StarSquid said:

Unfortunately, being out of the conditions for a morph doesn’t actually lower the probability of that morph. You have three options here:

 

Thank you kindly for the fast response ! By this, do you mean it does not matter the temp the slickster is now -- it only matters when it is born ? That is, because it was under 60C when the highlighted one is born it will Always have the same egg chances no matter what temp it is for the rest of its life ?

[suxkar]

Have you checked the temperature of the slickter itself in the properties? unless they are in a liquid they will exchange heat very slowly with CO2, so you might just have to wait for their internal temperature to equalize. I see no other explanation for those egg chances.

EDIT: the egg chances should update on temperature change. Can you confirm the temperature of the slickster?

[StarSquid]

4 minutes ago, Boris77 said:

Thank you kindly for the fast response ! By this, do you mean it does not matter the temp the slickster is now -- it only matters when it is born ? That is, because it was under 60C when the highlighted one is born it will Always have the same egg chances no matter what temp it is for the rest of its life ?

No, it’s more that as far as I can tell the egg chances for the default morph can never increase, only decrease. 

[Boris77]

4 minutes ago, suxkar said:

Have you checked the temperature of the slickter itself in the properties? unless they are in a liquid they will exchange heat very slowly with CO2, so you might just have to wait for their internal temperature to equalize. I see no other explanation for those egg chances.

EDIT: the egg chances should update on temperature change. Can you confirm the temperature of the slickster?

Thank you as well ! The slicksters are all over 60C and have been for a good 15+ cycles. Here is one at 67C -- but the tooltip suggests it should stop being pointed towards longhair after 60C.

 

[suxkar]

it might be that normal morphs do not have conditions on their egg so the % doesn't go back, unsure. You might have to wait for newborn slickster to get back the usual percentages. Hope someone else can share more insight.

[Chthonicone]

39 minutes ago, Boris77 said:

Thank you as well ! The slicksters are all over 60C and have been for a good 15+ cycles. Here is one at 67C -- but the tooltip suggests it should stop being pointed towards longhair after 60C.

 

The tooltip says nothing about what happens when the body temperature is above 60C actually. It only says that the chance for long haired slicksters are increased when body temperature is between 20C and 60C. There is no stated condition that reduces the chance of long haired slicksters, except when body temperature is above 100C, when molten slicksters chances improve.

There is also never a condition that improves chance of normal slickster eggs.

Your problem here is that you think the conditions are:

if (20C < body temp < 60C) then long hair++

else if (100C < body temp < 130C) then molten++

else larva++

But what the actual conditions are:

if (20C < body temp < 60C) then long hair++

else if (100C < body temp < 130C) then molten++

else no change

[biopon]

32 minutes ago, StarSquid said:

No, it’s more that as far as I can tell the egg chances for the default morph can never increase, only decrease.

No, it can change in both directions. Critters will have a 66% chance to lay their own kind of eggs by default. You can increase this by providing whatever conditions they need; feeding mealwood to glossy dreckos, keeping slicksters above 60C (or 100C for moltens), etc. The change is slow however and the chance improves or worsens gradually. For dreckos every time they eat, for slicksters on a per cycle basis.

Here's one of my longhairs that I almost forgot about:

Spoiler

OP, keep at it. You'll soon get that ONE egg and it will change everything.

 

2 minutes ago, Chthonicone said:

But what the actual conditions are:

if (20C < body temp < 60C) then long hair++

else if (100C < body temp < 130C) then molten++

else no change

Wait that is weird, are you sure about that?

[Chthonicone]

3 minutes ago, biopon said:

Wait that is weird, are you sure about that?

Yes, I am 100% sure. I've ranched slicksters for quite a while. When a slickster becomes "tainted" from body heat, it's egg chances are permanently altered, and chances for normal slicksters are permanently lost.

Also, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, the biggest affect to the slickster's body temperature I've found to be, what temperature is their food. When they eat, I've seen their body temp increase/decrease by a larger amount than at any other time, and they eat frequently.

Something else to keep in mind, there is similarly no chance to increase ANY normal morph's odds of being picked. Not for hatches, shine bugs, dreckos, pacus, or pufts. If you want a normal morph, maintaining the conditions that don't produce a morph is imperative from adulthood. They reset their egg chances, body heat, calorie count, etc. on becoming an adult so childhood doesn't matter. After all, once you lose the ability on a critter to lay a normal egg, it will never regain that ability.

Pufts are especially bad about that.

[Boris77]

Thanks folks ! That explanation makes perfect sense to me. That egg hatched and just become an adult:

 

[Chthonicone]

2 minutes ago, Boris77 said:

Thanks folks ! That explanation makes perfect sense to me. That egg hatched and just become an adult:

 

No problem. To be honest, I find keeping temperatures up for slicksters to be easy enough with just 2 space heaters for a 96 tile ranch. No need for temperature control either as a space heater automatically shuts off at 70C, and the average for the ranch should be above 60C. Don't even need tempshift tiles for this.

Best to get started with heating a slickster ranch before you get them, or at the very least, the moment you get them to preserve their egg chance. Later on if you want molten slicksters you will have to experiment with other ways to heat their abode, as neither space heaters nor tepidizers will get liquids hot enough.

[StarSquid]

I’ve found that for molten slicksters your best bet is to build the stable deep, where the rock starts out pretty close to their desired range, then feed them with the piping hot CO2 from your generators. You could potentially even put a coal generator or wood burner right in the same room, since then you get 9kDTU/s in addition to 110° carbon dioxide. If you want them closer to home I’d just make the walls out of insulated tile and feed them on your generator output. You could potentially use an aquatuner or thermo regulator but I feel like you’d end up with too much heat unless you have a way to reject it.