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Balthizarlucien

Domestication Through Mendelian Inheritance

37 posts in this topic

Domestication through Mendelian Inheritance

The concept of Mendelian Inheritance is in fact a rather simple one, as it is actually commonly taught to most US students (I cannot speak for other countries as I do not live there, sorry) in roughly 7th grade. For those who do not know I will sum up the concept for you.

Starting in 1856, a man by the name of Gregor Mendel began conducting experiments on his pea plant garden these experiments ran until 1863. During this time he discovered and recorded some remarkable things which apply to every order of animal and plant but for the sake of this post I will be discussing the base concept as it applies to animals.

Every animal has a set of characteristics unique to that individual alone. Shared traits are the result of a single mutation becoming a desired or useful trait in the species which allows it to survive and reproduce. This is the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin. Mendel took this a bit farther by showing we can actively change organisms by artificially selecting a breeding partner which carries traits which we wish to have in our final animal, plant or otherwise.

Mendel created the concept of recessive and dominant traits and worked out how these could be applied to breeding with a simple chart. You first need to know what will be dominant and what will be recessive before making the mate selection if you are going to get the outcome you are looking for but; the chart below shows an example of this with human eye color. In this example I need to tell you that blue eyes as well as green eyes are recessive genes and brown eyes are a dominant gene for the chart to make sense. On the side is the genes of the father and across the top is the mother:

Brown Blue

Blue Brown Blue

Green Brown Green

As you can clearly see there is a 50% chance of the offspring having Brown eyes, 25% chance of the offspring having blue eyes and a 25% chance of the offsprings having green eyes. This is of course simplified way beyond a reasonable level but you will note that there is no chance that the offspring of this pairing will produce hazel eyes or some other color as it is not represented here.

What I propose is a set of traits for the breeding of wild ancestors of livestock so that you are able to create breeds which are unique to your world and fit the outcome you are hoping for. These categories would have of course normal variation but within each category is recessive and dominant traits that, much like the eye color above, could be used to determine the way your individual livestock offspring turns out. This is how humans have been domesticating plants and animals for thousands of years and how we continue to do so even today.

As for mod development, I understand that this can be a bit challenging to code, as I am also a professional programmer, however it is well within the realm of possible as it relies on simple programming practices such as switch case statements and basic genetic algorithms. I will try to steer clear (no pun intended lol) of talking about AI as I do not know if Minecraft actually uses the Finite State Machine model as I suspect it does so I will simply describe the animal’s appropriate behavior and leave the rest to Dunk ;)

The traits I believe would be most useful are listed here:

[*]Size

[*]Color

[*]Horn/ Tusk/ Antler/ Spur Size

[*]Temperament

[*]Number of Offspring and or Fertility Rate

[*]Natural resistance to hot or cold climates

[*]Strength

[*]Intelligence

[*]Perception

[*]Volume of Production

Each of these traits can be sub divided into recessive and dominant genes and because my Menagerie listed below are all real animals much of it already has been. Those which refer to purely game statistics of course would need to be determined to fit the proper desired game mechanics as wild animals should still breed amongst themselves but I will describe each trait below for you as I am sure some sound a bit vague.

Size

This one is fairly straight forward. Size typically is a trait in the wild which leads to either dwarfed or giant versions of animals and which allows humans to breed chihuahua dogs that fit into a tiny purse. Of course what part is dominant and what part is recessive in the wild is mostly based on living conditions. Island Dwarfism is the result of a limited amount of space, food and water. The megafauna of the late pleistocene was due to an over abundance of grass like foods. If you are looking for smaller animals then breed smaller mates but in the wild bigger is typically always better.

Color

This one plays into another feature further down the list but is very important when you think about it. Animal colorations all mean something. A white tailed deer is a soft brown so that it can blend into its forest surroundings without worrying about predators being able to pick the deer out but; they also have a striking white tail. This is a warning to the rest of the deer that there is danger and that the herd must flee. So, color could be a warning or camouflage depending on what it is used for. Essentially every mammal is also susceptible to albinism so if dunk sees fit he may add that in but remember that this would most definitely be a highly recessive gene.

Horn/ Tusk/ Antler/ Spur Size

Size is again important. If you wanted a boar as a guard animal (they are very dangerous animals for those who may not know) then you may wish to breed males with larger tusks so they can do more damage. For those of you who are tired of taking damage from a freshly domesticated Junglefowl may be looking to breed that annoying spur right off the rooster’s foot. Again is it entirely up to what you want. Now I know that spurs will not be able to be clearly rendered dunk, but you could simply vary the damage it does so that if someone wanted a flock of attack chickens they could breed them that way lol >:)

Temperament

This one is very important and we actually have a study to go from that took place in Russia where they eventually bred a tame fox species. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox] Temperament determines how aggressive or docile a species is. In the wild aggressive behavior can be a huge benefit, especially to solitary animals but on a farm, it can be highly dangerous. You can breed out aggressive tendencies by simply removing more aggressive animals out of the breeding pool and onto your dinner plate :) Eventually you will have yourself a docile, friendly version of the animal which will not attack you every time you walk by.

Number of offspring and or fertility rate

I have played and watched enough terrafirmacraft to think that I may want a pig that does not cause a pig-splosion every time she gives birth… and having a few extra cows would be nice. With this trait you can breed towards a high chance of producing less or more offspring simply by continuing to breed a line that produces at the rate you wish. In the wild having more babies is beneficial to more aggressive animals but for herds of grazers, having less is better as it permits the herd to protect their young better.

Natural resistance to cold or heat

This one would be a fun feature to play around with because you could breed shaggy cows or hairless dogs! It really depends on what you are looking for. This gene would be climate specific in the wild and would control fat and hair production so if you are planning on breeding larder pigs then you are going to want to get them from colder areas but if you would rather produce mutton and milk as opposed to producing wool then you would need to find yourself some warmer climate sheep.

Strength

Right now there is no way for you to hook up a cart to an animal or to use an animal to pull a plow but you can use donkeys to carry things for you. If you wanted to add carts and plows dunk I am sure lots of people would be behind you but otherwise this gene may be useless by itself. Strength is self explanatory and could be used to improve an animal’s carrying capacity.

Intelligence

I know I promised not to talk about AI but it is a bit hard to avoid. The reason this one is so important is because “smart” farm animals are typically harder to contain but are excellent students when trying to teach them how to perform certain actions such as riding or truffle hunting. This would be something that would allow you to fine tune your animals a bit easier for the jobs they are to do and would come into real play when dealing with any of the animals you would like for pets.

Perception

This is a gene that would be exceptionally useful in the wild. It has three main components: Sight, Hearing and Smell. This is how we took a wolf and created the bloodhound from it. If you are planning on hunting truffles then you will want to take your docile pig line and breed the ones who have the higher success rates when finding truffles in the ground with their snout. If you want a falcon to be your hunting partner then you will need to breed those which are good hunters (they rely on sight). These features are the ones we typically breed our pets for but could apply to a bunch of different breeds and can be effected indirectly by things like longer hair length.

Volume of Production

This one is one which I actually saw a mod for a long time ago. This is the set of genes which determines output of meat, wool, milk etc from your animals. By using this gene correctly you can increase your yields or create varied sources for certain products like milk. I am sure that many people know about cow and goats milk but were you aware that sheep are also used for milk production? If you said yes then the chances are relatively high you are not from the United States as sheep milk is exceptionally rare here. But wouldn't it be cool to have a dual purpose animal on your farm that gave you two renewable products? I sure think it would be.

As for player GUI implementation, I was not thinking that very much would be necessary. simply a skill that can increase with different interactions with animals such as feeding, breeding etc. This would be similar to the existent system for seeds which have them displaying a specific nutrient when your agricultural skill is high enough, you could tooltip the gene data of the animal at a certain husbandry level. This would of course be difficult to exploit but would give people a way to see where their animals are within the genes and breed accordingly.

My Plan is to list 10 prey animals (Livestock) and 10 predatory animals (mostly for pets and population balance) I am slowly working on populating these two lists as I think that these animals would truly round out the natural world as well as the Animal Husbandry aspects of Terrafirmacraft.

Hopefully you all both understood my ramblings and enjoy the idea enough to comment but Thank you for at least reading this.

Prey animals

Species name Aurochs

Posted Image

Male

Height 160 - 180 cm

Weight 700-1500 kg

Distinct feature Large pronounced horns which curve toward the front

Color black-brown with a small light eel stripe

Product Beef, Work Animal (plowing, pulling etc), Leather

Female

Height 135-150 cm

Weight 500-1000 kg

Distinct feature udder (barely visible), reduced horn size but still pronounced

Color reddish brown

Product Milk, Beef, Leather

Fertility 40-60% chance

# of Offspring typically 1, twins 1 in 7 births

Gestation 270 days

Eyesight bad depth perception (will stop at shadows to check for hole)

normal color perception (better at seeing short wavelength i.e. green, blue)

good movement acuity and 300 deg vision

Hearing 23-35,000 hz frequencies

Smell Excellent, can detect orders from up to five miles away (obviously needs some scaling lol)

Social behavior Unisexual Herds. Males fight for mating rights during spring, occasionally leading to death or injury. The Aurochs are grazers that feeds on bushes and tree branches during winter.

Temperament Neutral but highly aggressive if threatened

Species name Bezoar Ibex

Posted Image

Male

Height 80-120 cm

Weight 85-100 kg

Distinct feature Large Scimitar shaped horns on top of the head as long as 144 cm also has a pronounced beard

Color grayish to brown coat often with redish tint and dark brown or black stripes on the face, anterior leg surfaces and along the spine.

Product Meat, Horns (could be used as tool material or a weapon) Leather, Pack Animal

Female

Height 50 - 80 cm

Weight 25 - 35 kg

Distinct feature Teats for milking, Less pronounced horns and little to no beard

Color grayish to brown coat often with redish tint and dark brown or black stripes on the face, anterior leg surfaces and along the spine.

Product Meat, Milk, Leather, Pack Animal

Fertility 75%-80%

# of Offspring 1-3 normally

Gestation 147-180 days

Eyesight Excellent depth perception (can easily jump 6 feet across a gap in a mountain and land on a tiny flat spot)

Excellent Color Perception (can distinguish all colors and have exceptional night vision)

Excellent movement acuity and 340 deg vision

Hearing 78 - 37,000 hz

Smell Excellent sense of smell (helps with feeding to prevent eating poisonous plants etc)

Social behavior Unisex Herds, rutting similar to Aurochs.

Temperament Neutral (Will flee if they sense danger and will only fight if cornered)

Species name Eurasian Wild Boar

Posted Image

Male

Height 110 - 125 cm

Weight 300–350 kg

Distinct feature Large Tusks, Mane that runs along their back, thick subcutaneous tissue comprised mainly of dense fat that acts as armor against mating challenges, predators etc.

Color Highly Varied, white to black through the red and brown ranges

Product Meat, Hunting Companion (truffles or big game) Leather, Mount?(they are big enough…)

Female

Height 80-90 cm

Weight 80-100 kg

Distinct feature no visible tusks, much smaller than males, no mane

Color Highly Varied, white to black through the red and brown ranges

Product Meat, Hunting Companion (truffles or big game) Leather

Fertility 80-85%

# of Offspring 5-6 piglets and litters up to twice a year

Gestation 108 to 120 days

Eyesight terrible. cannot distinguish human figures at ranges of 15 meters

Hearing 42-40,500hz

Smell Excellent sense of smell. can detect truffles below 1 meter of dirt. will dig up dirt to reach food as well.

Social behavior males are independent but females live in very closely related herds between 20-100 individuals

Temperament Aggressive

Edited by Balthizarlucien
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You, Sir, have been doing your research. I approve. Seems interesting, let's see what the developers say.

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I am hoping it is a rousing yes but I don't expect my idea will go very far at all though as it does pose a bit of a challenge. I have also made suggestions to other mod makers in the past simply to be ignored so I am used to being shot down lol. I just thought that a huge amount of work has already been put into TFC and animal husbandry felt extremely lacking.

I will be adding more animals to the list as I finish their profiles and obtain images for them all so stay tuned as I hope I mention some which appeal to all of you guys. And the predator list... Very excited!

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Incredibly detailed suggestion! The ideas almost suggest a game on its own where one can select animals and breed them to obtain certain traits. How do you envisage all of this in the framework that TFC already presents. I think in TFC you can already breed larger animals. Horses inherit features from MC: jump height and speed. All animals needs to be domesticated/ familiarized in TFC which is a time-consuming process. Furthermore, finding just a male and female animal of the same species is already tough in TFC, so you just take what you can get. Adding that list of certain traits to breed in animals requires a LOT of animals. I suggest simplifying your suggestion somewhat. Nonetheless, we need this, and perhaps with plants too which would be far easier to implement :) Can't ignore Mendel's peas he he

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Incredibly detailed suggestion! The ideas almost suggest a game on its own where one can select animals and breed them to obtain certain traits. How do you envisage all of this in the framework that TFC already presents. I think in TFC you can already breed larger animals. Horses inherit features from MC: jump height and speed. All animals needs to be domesticated/ familiarized in TFC which is a time-consuming process. Furthermore, finding just a male and female animal of the same species is already tough in TFC, so you just take what you can get. Adding that list of certain traits to breed in animals requires a LOT of animals. I suggest simplifying your suggestion somewhat. Nonetheless, we need this, and perhaps with plants too which would be far easier to implement :) Can't ignore Mendel's peas he he

I can see this plugging into the existing TFC framework quite easily especially because inheritance is already present. The idea of finding domesticated species already available in the wild doesn't make much sense to me and frankly breaks the immersion a bit IMO.

Dunk has had a similar idea already as well which is evident in the wiki where it talks about inheritable traits but it seemed to me to be a sign of someone unsure of how to proceed with the traits concept. I am hoping this post will clear up some ideas of his own or he is of course welcome to this which is why it's here :)

As far as plants are concerned, I think that would be fun but more difficult to implement visually. Not to mention, the plant aspects of farming feel very well rounded to me anyway.

Edited by Balthizarlucien
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Interesting take, but not sure how much can be implimented. You state size as the most straight forward, when it really isn't and to make it a simple Mendelian trait would infact reduce the size variety in game.

Size in real life is a multifactorial trait, hence the gradient of sizes we see. I haven't looked at the code to have the slightest clue how it is determined, but I do know there is variety of sizes in the animals. Mendelian would give us at best 3 sizes depending on haplotype. Calculating a multifactorial inheritance would be far less efficient than other methods that would give the appearance of the same thing.

I think Mendelian genetics could be applied to animals in interesting ways to add a bit of variety to them. Say a breeding trait. Dominant dominant would have a 10% chance to have a larger litter. So every baby born would have a 10% chance to spawn in a duplicate animal. Dominant recessive would have 5% and recessive recessive would have 0%.

Framiliarity could have similar trait that had a 0-10% chance to have its familiarity its increase twice as much. Or production where you have chance to milk cow twice in a 24 hour period or to drop more wool in a shear.

I think size and colour/pattern are handled quite adequately by current methods.

As for the domestication of wild animals taking you out of your immersion, I don't see much of a solution. Obviously domestication took a really long time. A great deal of this process is hypothesised to be due/hastened by the inbreeding of the animals. There is no real way to model this in a game in a way or timeframe that is even remotely realistic. Just think of them of as feral not wild.

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Interesting take, but not sure how much can be implimented. You state size as the most straight forward, when it really isn't and to make it a simple Mendelian trait would infact reduce the size variety in game. Size in real life is a multifactorial trait, hence the gradient of sizes we see. I haven't looked at the code to have the slightest clue how it is determined, but I do know there is variety of sizes in the animals. Mendelian would give us at best 3 sizes depending on haplotype. Calculating a multifactorial inheritance would be far less efficient than other methods that would give the appearance of the same thing.I think Mendelian genetics could be applied to animals in interesting ways to add a bit of variety to them. Say a breeding trait. Dominant dominant would have a 10% chance to have a larger litter. So every baby born would have a 10% chance to spawn in a duplicate animal. Dominant recessive would have 5% and recessive recessive would have 0%.Framiliarity could have similar trait that had a 0-10% chance to have its familiarity its increase twice as much. Or production where you have chance to milk cow twice in a 24 hour period or to drop more wool in a shear. I think size and colour/pattern are handled quite adequately by current methods. As for the domestication of wild animals taking you out of your immersion, I don't see much of a solution. Obviously domestication took a really long time. A great deal of this process is hypothesised to be due/hastened by the inbreeding of the animals. There is no real way to model this in a game in a way or timeframe that is even remotely realistic. Just think of them of as feral not wild.

I realize that size is multi factorial and only provides limited size adjustments based on genetics but I was more suggesting the Mendelian model of dominant vs recessive inheritance.You are right as to the timescale being an issue if the changes were small or if the time was implemented in a normal scale but both of these do not have to be true. The changes can be artificially accelerated by making each generation significantly demonstrative of the resultant trait. As far as the traits which are currently used, I believe they are executed well and size is especially so. I am not saying at all that dunk or the rest of the team are not doing a great job but I do think having a more wild form with a bit of natural variation that we could then breed into different varieties would awesome.
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Never suggested that you were implying that devs were not doing good job. Just that Mendelian genetics are not necessarily the best choice technically or for gameplay.

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I think the best solution for the animal domestication would be to in a way mimic real life. So if we want to get domesticated cows we would have to find a wild cow with babies and either kill the parents or somehow  steal the offspring, this first generation would be docile, but really domesticated would be the second generation. This is an over simplification of the domestication process, but is believable.

The part I believe is the hardest is how to code animals to procreate in the wild and avoid overpopulation. We would need a system that would scan a group of chunks and count how many of a specific animal there are and if they are below a certain range it would trigger procreation, and if over it would halt.

A system like that would make possible sustained hunting. And also make more realistic how wolves and Bears hunt other animals. 

I just suspect that to create something like that it would eat away the memory and processing of any regular server.

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Well thought out, but it might be better if it scanned a 3 by 3 area of chunks instead of all of them singularly. A possible solution to the lag would be only the chunks in a 9 by 9 area around the center of the current spawn protection system.

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I think having tamable animals breeding in the wild would be unbalancing. Why bother domesticating pigs if you can just put them in pen and they will breed on their own.

Your suggestion of getting wild babies and making them docile and next generation being tames is what the current system is. The first cows you get can be moderately tamed, with effort the next generation will be fully tamed. However the first gen will only be fully tame if you put effort into the parents (which you need to to get them to breed) and the babies. Otherwise the first gen will be like parents. All you need is for wild ones to be juvenile. Probably possible to put condition that for an animal to complete final growth stage their familiarity must be >0. Then only worldgen animals would be effected as animals inherit some of their mothers familiarity, so it can't be 0.

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I think they key "immersion breaking" factor here is that wild animals and domestic animals look exactly the same.

 

The only real solution to this would be to implement some sort of system where world generated animals use a "wild animal" texture, and then when a baby animal is born, it stores a generation number. So world generated animals would be gen 0, if they had babies it would be gen 1, if gen 1's had babies they'd be gen 2, etc. We would likely just make the generation number 1+ the highest generation parent. So Gen 0 + Gen 1 would still give a Gen 2.

 

From there we could use a texture multiplier system like we do with cooking food to determine the texture of the adult animal, being a blend of the "wild" texture and the "domestic" texture until the generation is say like 3. So gen 0 use just the wild texture, gen 1 use a blend of the two that's more wild than domestic, gen 2 uses a blend thats more domestic than wild, and gen 3+ just use domestic.

 

Edit: In case it's not obvious, this is essentially what Dunk was already planning on doing.

Edited by Kittychanley
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I think they key "immersion breaking" factor here is that wild animals and domestic animals look exactly the same.

 

The only real solution to this would be to implement some sort of system where world generated animals use a "wild animal" texture, and then when a baby animal is born, it stores a generation number. So world generated animals would be gen 0, if they had babies it would be gen 1, if gen 1's had babies they'd be gen 2, etc. We would likely just make the generation number 1+ the highest generation parent. So Gen 0 + Gen 1 would still give a Gen 2.

 

From there we could use a texture multiplier system like we do with cooking food to determine the texture of the adult animal, being a blend of the "wild" texture and the "domestic" texture until the generation is say like 3. So gen 0 use just the wild texture, gen 1 use a blend of the two that's more wild than domestic, gen 2 uses a blend thats more domestic than wild, and gen 3+ just use domestic.

 

Edit: In case it's not obvious, this is essentially what Dunk was already planning on doing.

 

 

I think that will definitely help but one of the other things which causes a bit of the immersion breaking is the lack of aggression on behalf of the animals. true wild boars are terrifyingly dangerous to encounter and can easily kill a single human which is why boar hunters have the saying "pick the best tree before you shoot" because if you miss you wont have the extra millisecond to decide where to flee. also, I was hoping for a broader selection of animal types which were representative of important agricultural animals which influenced human development such as goats which are as popular if not more so than sheep but lack representation in the game. but it is good to hear that dunk is planning to do something about the appearance issue though :)

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Aggressive wild animals is also already planned. That's why all animals have an aggression modifier value. It just hasn't been implemented yet.

 

We specifically avoided a very wide variety of animals in TFC because we want to encourage players to "Catch 'em all." Each animal that has the ability to be domesticated has it's own specific purpose, and we intentionally did not add animals with a duplicate purpose.

 

Cows are a source of milk.

Sheep are a source of wool.

Pigs are an extremely plentiful source of food.

Horses/Donkeys are a method of transportation.

Chickens are a source of eggs and feathers.

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Aggressive wild animals is also already planned. That's why all animals have an aggression modifier value. It just hasn't been implemented yet.

 

We specifically avoided a very wide variety of animals in TFC because we want to encourage players to "Catch 'em all." Each animal that has the ability to be domesticated has it's own specific purpose, and we intentionally did not add animals with a duplicate purpose.

 

Cows are a source of milk.

Sheep are a source of wool.

Pigs are an extremely plentiful source of food.

Horses/Donkeys are a method of transportation.

Chickens are a source of eggs and feathers.

 

I see. You do need to think about this fact though, you already have put a huge effort into the taste system and mutton tastes hugely different than goat, as does duck from chicken etc. and if you are encouraging the "catch em all" mentality than look at the source.... what are they up to like 750? lol. I know that we should not have anywhere near that many animals in game but 10 prey and 10 predators would be fun and still relatively simple I would imagine especially if the game uses some variation of a Finite State Machine for its AI processes because AI functions would be reusable. to explain what I mean i will just post my animal list here:

 

note (I was hoping all of these animals could be bred and domesticated)

 

Prey                                                                   Predator

 

Aurochs                                                             Timber Wolf

Bezoar Ibex (goat)                                             Fox

WIld Boar                                                           Mountain Lion

Mouflon (sheep ancestor)                                  Owl

White Tailed Deer                                              Falcon

American Bison                                                 Snake

Red JungleFowl (chicken)                                 Crocodile

Mallard Duck                                                      Wild Cat (typically known in Great Britain and its also endangered... :( )

Przewalski Horse                                               Bear

American Wild Turkey                                       Badger

Eastern Cotton Tail

Pheasant

 

 

the nice thing about this list is the way these animals interact. all of these prey are eaten readily by one or more predators. This builds in your population control and creates the element of danger in wandering the forest. variations based on climate would add a nice touch but I was not going to try and be heavy handing in my suggestion in that regard. I hope that at least some of this Idea sparks something for you guys in the dev team.

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If you want you can use Father Toast's Special AI mod to modify the behaviour of the passive animals. Will make them aggressive when attacked. You can also set it so they call for help from nearby animals of their type. However I recommend against this because as far as I can tell they never loose the aggression. There are  downsides though. First is that they will only do 3hp damage per hit, I've tried to buff this, but my testing indicates this isn't possible. Second for some reason Roosters are always aggressive. Third Deer when aggressive act like they do on ropes and teleport around like crazy. Kind of annoying as you have to anticipate to be able to hit them, chickens are pretty speedy aggressive too. Lastly if a mob hits the animal it will become aggressive towards them, you can guess who wins that battle.

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While in real life mutton does taste very different from goat, our taste system really has no way to believably reflect that. Take a look at the different taste profiles we have for all the meats. They're all almost identical. In fact,

 

Pork, Fish, Chicken, Mutton and Horse Meat are all exactly the same.

Beef and Venison are almost identical, with the only difference being 5 points from sweetness.

 

The only proteins that are visibly different from the others are soybeans, eggs and calamari.

 

A predatory system is also not feasible to implement because it only reflects a negative effect on population, and since there is no good way to make animals breed in the wild, we have no positive population effect to try and counteract it.

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If I understood correctly how wild crops work they will spawn each year in the same location.

My question is would it be possible to set a system working more or less the same way that around spring time would check the animal population of a location and if no animals of that specific exist  there it would spawn a few, also depending on how many it would make the existing ones procreate, all the way to a max number. Of course one of the things that would kill the process would be player presence or constructions. So no one can just build a fence and watch animal magically appearing there. The idea is to mimic how animals breed in the wild.

In my mind the problem with animals breeding in the wild is about control and avoiding overpopulation, In an ideal situation we could recreate nature and have predators and prey control each other. unfortunately I don't believe we can code something like that with minecraf engine. Maybe with a different game engine and in a finite world I can almost see as possible.

That said a system that just count how many animal we have in a certain group of chunks and spawns or/and make then procreate is the best I can think about. That would ensure no more extinct animals in a server, just because new players went and killed all cows for food.

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While in real life mutton does taste very different from goat, our taste system really has no way to believably reflect that. Take a look at the different taste profiles we have for all the meats. They're all almost identical. In fact,

 

Pork, Fish, Chicken, Mutton and Horse Meat are all exactly the same.

Beef and Venison are almost identical, with the only difference being 5 points from sweetness.

 

The only proteins that are visibly different from the others are soybeans, eggs and calamari.

 

A predatory system is also not feasible to implement because it only reflects a negative effect on population, and since there is no good way to make animals breed in the wild, we have no positive population effect to try and counteract it.

 

I will definitely look into the taste system so I have a better idea how it works. It seems strange though that you have all of the taste categories (although I am not sure if Umami is included..) but that those meats taste the same.... 

is the taste system explained in the wiki?

 

as far as breeding in the wild if you simply provide each animal the ability to break specific blocks and obtain food from them and  allow them to breed based on some sort of population limiter as mentioned above. I know that Herdcraft allows animals to breed in the wild and that seems not to be very resource intensive as far as I can tell so you may be able to model your wild breeding from that. 

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as far as breeding in the wild if you simply provide each animal the ability to break specific blocks and obtain food from them and  allow them to breed based on some sort of population limiter as mentioned above. I know that Herdcraft allows animals to breed in the wild and that seems not to be very resource intensive as far as I can tell so you may be able to model your wild breeding from that. 

There could be a hunger points system where if it drops below a certain level herbivores would eat some grass which would restore X amount of hunger points and if predators drop below the level they kill an animal which would restore X amount of hunger points to all predators of that same type within an area around the kill (To reflect the fact that some, like wolves, both hunt and feed in packs).

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There could be a hunger points system where if it drops below a certain level herbivores would eat some grass which would restore X amount of hunger points and if predators drop below the level they kill an animal which would restore X amount of hunger points to all predators of that same type within an area around the kill (To reflect the fact that some, like wolves, both hunt and feed in packs).

 

This already exists. All TFC farm animals will eat grass when they're hungry, and wolves and bears only kill nearby animals if they are hungry.

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This already exists. All TFC farm animals will eat grass when they're hungry, and wolves and bears only kill nearby animals if they are hungry.

/me feels stupid now...

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I would suggest that the only possible way to have even remotely balanced wild animals like cows "breeding" would be to use code similar to how saplings appear, but lower chance. So the very precise conditions must be correct and chunks loaded for a very small chance of one spawning.

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That's exactly my idea. 

One of the problems I see is that to be realistic the ratio predator prey would need to be tweaked. I have no idea what the ratios are in real life, but even if we took then down, any working number would involve having like 100 prey for each predator. Of course we could also tweak predators hunger to lower it down so they would not kill prey so often, (No idea how often it is right now).

The thing is to be sustainable the numbers need to match with prey reproducing fast enough to keep predators alive and at the same time not getting extinct or overpopulated.

Even though I would love to see a system like that, I do not believe we can do all this math in a server. For now I can only hope that someone can come up with a way to code all this without bringing all servers to a halt.

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Well I pretty much have no idea what is going on but i have some ideas, 1. (This is silly) For the guard animals I suggest riding a pig and wielding a hammer, Hog Rider anyone? 2. Un tamed farm animals will migrate to a warmer area or place in the world

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