Posted at 2022-02-19 06:25:56 — Link
Believe it or not, there are still color combinations of pets that don't exist on Beastkeeper. Let alone GP3 perfects!
Before beginning a 'create your own from nothing' project, I would highly recommend having the max stable and a healthy use of expand stable scrolls, plus a bit of silver/tons of vermillion in reserve. (Remember, revealing babies costs silver as well, it's not just stud fees.)
You should also have a thorough understanding of Beastkeeper's breeding mechanics, including how genes are passed down and deviants creation before beginning- which I will not be going over here because there are already guides for that + the FAQ.
First, let's go over some important breeder's vocabulary:
Founder : A 'foundation' pet you purchased or had gifted/adopted from a pound, unrelated to public stud males (at least mostly) that you can use to found a line. It may also be your first obtained pets in a project- you hope that these have fantastic genes to begin with.
Branch : A noun and a verb. To branch means to split an existing line (or chain) after a few generations and start breeding them separately. For example, you could branch a black/black perfect line into a white line to create a white line with all the best traits carried from your perfect black line. However, you could also branch a heavily related line to pets with the SAME traits to start breeding away from each other, to a point they would no longer be inbred breeding back together.
Intermediate : It's mysterious that so many keepers collectively chose the word 'intermediate' as a naming convention for their half-great pets! If you see this word in a pet's name, it usually means it's a founder pet that doesn't have perfect traits but is so unrelated that it must be used in a project to continue it. It's a mate for an 'intermediate' middle stage of a breeding project. You will see many of these pets ended up in the state portal after providing good enough genes into a pool that they could just be released, while browsing pedigrees and happening upon one.
Perfect : A pet with homozygous green/positive/or max traits down the whole row of genes. May extend to homozygous pattern/color too.
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So let's say you want a perfect double deviant, but you only have one/a couple that have close to the correct colors/traits. It's rare to find great pets for sale. You can go to the search and find pets with closer traits, but they either don't have any offspring in the pound, the player hasn't logged in for years, or the player (for whatever their reason) declines any kind of private sales.
If you're really hellbent on making this combination exist, let me introduce you to:
Pedigree Chains, Circles, and Gens.
Let me break down these breeding tactics, then I'll go over what to do when breeding stock simply doesn't exist:
Pedigree Gens
This could also be called a 'wave' and you will see why.
Gen stands for 'generation.' The premise here is that you breed a set of multiple females to one very great public stud male, and their offspring is Gen 1. Repeat a few times, taking female results and putting them all into a 'Gen 1' tab. Then, take Gen 1 and breed them to a different, unrelated public/private stud male and put all of the females into a 'Gen 2' tab. (Repeat for Gen 3 on if needed/possible.)
The goal here is to make better and better generations of result pets, and have some of them turn out deviant as breeding stock toward a double deviant.
Pros: You can buy/use sets of sisters and very related bulk females in a way you normally couldn't. It's very thoughtless, you just breed and check, then sort and rehome fails/old generations that aren't worth keeping around. Not very complicated or thought intensive. Eventually, you will have bred out the original parents and be able to circle back to Gen 1.
Cons: If your color and pattern are meant to stay specific, you will most likely quickly run out of perfect stud males with those colors. You also won't be able to breed Gen 1 through 3 together due to inbreeding, but you can breed Gen 4 back to Gen 1- which is a con due to Gen 1 being (likely) more undesireable in traits being early on.
Pedigree Chains
Sometimes called 'lines' (a line would mean an overall collection of related pets with similar traits toward a goal) a chain implies you use multiple chains to create similar but unrelated bloodline pets toward your overall goal. You would put a collection of unrelated females into a tab, and some into another, and breed them to separate, unrelated stud males, then breed their results back to each other. You create a chain of breeding pets to unrelated pets.
Pros: Prevents inbreeding, more control over results, more directional options after the first generation is produced, easier to sell due to not all being from the same male.
Cons: Requires more planning and descriptions written in the tab on who to actually breed together, maybe even a chart or spreadsheet. Again you will simply just run out of stud males to breed to and the line ends/dies.This method is also slower due to needing specific results to appear in order to continue. With Pedigree Gens, you can keep breeding to make more animals for Gen 1, and Gen 2, but not as much with this method- unless you branch.
Pedigree Circles
Once you have (lengthily) established chains, you can begin breeding them back to earlier relatives without fear of inbreeding. The goal of a pedigree circle is to make perfect-potential pets, no longer using the not so great foundation stock anymore, and establish an indefinite breeding loop without ever having to use outside pets at all. Eventually you will create perfect circles, which will create perfect deviants, and then doubles.
Pros: Self contained, self sustained, no longer requires vermillion if you achieved a perfect long line, inbreeding isn't a problem anymore, no more stud fees, true privacy. Multiple segments on the loop can be used for quickly branching to a new pet color/pattern and already at least carry great/perfect genes.
Cons: Can take multiple months to set up and get going, heaps of vermillion during set up, a great deal of stable space, must be managed with good tab descriptions or an ongoing spreadsheet or have premium membership to pedigree compare when trying to branch into new colors.
