I use mutagens to change bad genes into good genes sometimes, and I thought it would be easier if you could decide exactly which gene to change. The new gene would be random.

I'm tired of trying to get rid of a gene such as fragile bones and getting an unwanted color gene instead. I would like to prevent a mutagen from taking away a gene that I want to keep.

Edit: I've been thinking about a better way to implement this idea:

Laboratory (lvl 3)

Bill of Materials:

Vermillion 200

Stone 200

Wood 200

Laboratory (lvl 2) 1

Microscope 3

Test Tubes 3

Coins 50000

Requirements:

Intelligence: 100

Intuition: 100

Description:

Allows you to change one gene of a single pet once a day.

What are your thoughts? :)

While my first thought obviously is "yes! and then I could...", my vote would be no.

Unless you apply some kind of limit anyway, this basically means that anyone can get a perfect pet on demand with nothing but deep pockets.
If, say, an animal could only have this done once, for better or for worse, then I feel it would be a great second chance if a baby came out with unusual bad luck or somesuch.
Allowing anyone who can afford it to reroll until they created the perfect set basically makes a large part of the game moot - no need to establish bloodlines, no need to breed selectively, just throw money at it until it gets better.

Hm, maybe I was hasty voting.
Make my vote "maybe, if it's heavily restricted."
It could make a nice addition.

E: Yes, definately been hasty voting, it's starting to grow on me. Teaches me for rushing things after my bedtime. Dx

Saccharissa (#36085) wrote:

While my first thought obviously is "yes! and then I could...", my vote would be no.

Unless you apply some kind of limit anyway, this basically means that anyone can get a perfect pet on demand with nothing but deep pockets.
If, say, an animal could only have this done once, for better or for worse, then I feel it would be a great second chance if a baby came out with unusual bad luck or somesuch.
Allowing anyone who can afford it to reroll until they created the perfect set basically makes a large part of the game moot - no need to establish bloodlines, no need to breed selectively, just throw money at it until it gets better.

Hm, maybe I was hasty voting.
Make my vote "maybe, if it's heavily restricted."
It could make a nice addition.

Yes, I was thinking about the whole perfect pet thing. The restrictions could be something like decreasing the chances of finding a mutagen, or maybe limiting how often or how many you can use. Do you have any good ideas?

To me personally - but I have rather strong opinions on this kind of thing - once per pet would be perfect. It could be a new item, say Concentrated Mutagen, which doesn't replace the current one. You can gamble all you want, but you only get one chance at rerolling one specific gene, really as a second chance to aid in your breeding towards the perfect pet, not to replace it.

Perhaps an item/building/whathaveyou could be made that allows you to select one trait in a pet, and increase or decrease its likelihood of passing on a selected gene to its offspring.
This wouldn't alter the pet itself, but make it faster to improve over generations.

Reducing odds of finding the mutagen in the wild I would be opposed of even - as it would make it harder for free players to get their hands on it, while favoring those who are able/willing to spend real money on the game.
Not that supporting the game is a bad thing, but it should reward people with convenience, not a winning advantage.

Maybe this ability could be somehow tight to the geneticst invite. You would also need a complete laboratory.

Or what if you made it part of a third level of geneticist, and made it cost extra money on top of having to buy/pay for a mutagen or a concentrated mutagen?

I really like these ideas! Especially including the lab and geneticist invite. The new item idea is great too. I'll try and think of what would work best. Thanks for all of your input.

While interesting in theory, I don't support this. Adding the coding elements to successfully implement this with whatever restrictions and conditions that would be required in order to keep this from being exploited would take time that I personally would want spent on other game features. Mutagen is fun to toy around with and just about everyone can get their hands on it as it shows up in explore a lot (in my experience). If you have a fully upgraded Astrologist and set that to Mutagen you can get even more of it.

If anything, if this were to be added in any way, I think it would best be done with a Gene Splicer item that could only be bought with gold in the Premium Shop and even that would need a limit as to how many could be used on a pet. I think using it once should be the limit but that would be up to the staff.

The point of this game is to breed the genes you want and this seems like it could be used to defeat that purpose if not strictly regulated and controlled. So yeah, my vote is no.