(06-06-2014 06:03 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote: The question is risk vs reward. To be honest, the odds are your starter does NOT have much to brag about. But it might. The risk is wasting a breeding cycle where that supper-dupper partner could be off doing something better than discovering that your starter hides Siamese Seal. The reward would be getting Aby Dark Chocolate from an Aby Dark Chocolate partner (so your starter is either hiding that or you're primed to discover a new most-recessive).
Part of the breeding puzzle is using your available resources effectively. You only have so many L$, can only cuddle so many cats, have so many prims available, and, of course, you only have the cats you have on hand. The best breeding pattern in the world won't work if you aint got what it takes.
Hahah, yes, my starters usually hide Chateau Cream and White. I guess I didn't mean to limit my question to starters at all ... I'm interested in seeing how people view the idea of countering a weak trait with an ultra-strong one -- or of using an ultra-strong trait to bring out a hidden.
In fact I "sat out" the Valentine's kitty round, and ... oh even Christmas. And Easter ... Taking on starters is expensive and can be unrewarding, unless you find the costumes themselves to be a nice reward. And I did attend some of Liriel Garnet's classes about starters -- how they are only guaranteed to be hiding 7 traits, and so on.
I'm just seeing 2 schools of thought re: bringing the best out of a weak cat. One is "Hit Me With YOur Best Shot," clobbering the cat with a standard : Foxie Salty with Odyssey Bellini eyes, Porcelain Shade, Shorty Tail, MOF ears and preferably some pretty great whiskers. The weaker cat cannot escape . But maybe then the weaker cat shudders and backs down and gets scared and hisses, and throws all its genesis attributes. The second is ... "Just give it the minimum that it needs so that you can tell if it has thrown its hidden trait or not ...then, breed together the ones that show that it was thrown ..." (the gentle way).
Maybe a picture example would make more sense? I'm attaching "Morrie's Pedigree." I got the mama late in life and she lacked many things, but was hiding swanky whiskers. I was happy that Lindy Lou was only showing Mysterious whiskers, giving lots of room to be able to tell if she "threw" the whisker shape. So ... following pretty much along Liriel Garnet's teachings, I put her with a male showing Plush whiskers. Then any baby showing plush or better would be hiding the swanky, right?
In earlier days i would maybe have tried to get her a mate with the best whiskers i have (currently light wave I guess, in my cattery). But then for the next generation i would be hard pressed to find something in between swanky and light wave ...
But then, Lindy Lou also had Genesis eyes. I kept thinking this mate i chose for her, Aspin, was not "powerful enough" that way -- with his pretty dominant Crystal Sun eyes. Some kind of impulse made me want to run out and buy Lindy Lou a mate with ... probably Odyssey Bellini.
Morrie's pedigree shows "the mild mannered way" -- the mate Aspin is 9 traited, but not a dynamo of whiskers or eyes. I wasn't expecting to "pull the whiskers" of Lindy Lou -- just to make a decent offspring and be able to tell if it was still hiding what i wanted. (I can't stand that "pull " term -- especially when talking of eyes!)
Reason tells me that the traits of a cat's mate do not affect what that cat "throws" during the coin toss (i.e., Lindy Lou would throw her genesis eye color, or not, regardless of her mate's eye color). Irrational urges, on the other hand, tempt me to take a cat like Lindy Lou and give it a mate with Blonde Light Wave Whiskers and Grotto Eyes, just to "encourage" her to come forth with the goods.
I hope that made clearer what i was trying to ask.
(06-06-2014 08:03 AM)Ivy Norsk Wrote: When I'm working with starters, I gradually fill in the hiddens that I've found into the online pedigree and what I've noticed is that the hidden "cat behind the cat" is generally very good looking. Everything seems to match nicely. Which sometimes makes me look at the hidden starter stats and think, hmmmm, that fur would look very good with dark chocolate whiskers... I wonder if there are those whiskers hidden there, which would make me more likely to pair the starter with a latte-whisker cat. (Most of my 9T starter mates happen to be 2 tone, plush whiskers, but I'm working to better that.)
To answer the question of "forcing" revelation, alas, no.
P.S. I'm an old D&D gamer and it was amusing to see your analogy of Experience, Wisdom, Strength...
Very cool, Ivy -- that you are actually finding inspiration as the mystery- kitty's traits are slowly unfolded / revealed. I can really see the value of doing as you suggest with starter mates -- maybe getting ones with more than 2 tone plush whiskers nowadays, especially as there have been so many interesting whisker colors and shapes discovered in the last year or two.
When we ask about how traits are rolled, we always hear "it's random," but there are so many ways of generating a series of random things. It would be fun if there were in fact "bonus points" that get rolled at the end ... applied maybe to size, or to boost one of the other random tosses.
