r/RimWorld • u/rpvarela • 1d ago
Discussion The neanderthal got the impid pregnant. How does the game resolves conflicting genes?
You can see the baby's genes include cold weakness and tolerance, as well as weak and strong melee damage.
Meanwhile, the impid speed did not show up, but slow runner from the neanderthal did.
The neanderthal's strong immunity showed up, in contrast to the impid's weak immune system as well.
How can the baby be both weak and strong at something? Does it average out or is only one of the genes picked upon birth?
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u/fc_dean 1d ago
It's how it works with real genes. One of the conflicting genes will be selected, and the other will remain dormant until it's passed down to his / her children and gets selected.
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u/cattdogg03 1d ago
is which one is selected random? if so then it’s not quite how it is IRL. in reality one gene is always the dominant one, if there isn’t incomplete dominance or codominance or anything like that in the mix
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u/Velociraptortillas 1d ago
It's WAAAAY more complex than that, FYI. Dominance of a gene can be tied to the presence or absence of other genes, gene complexes and even the environment.
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u/Ill_Office4512 1d ago
Hey, geneticist here, genes being dominant/recessive is a very big simplification. The expression depends a lot on chemistry/biology/physics happening around, which is why gene modification is so difficult
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u/Louis-Russ 23h ago
Nutrition plays a big role as well. If a gene eats its spinach, it will grow up big and strong, making it less recessive.
A gene also has to be brave.
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u/Blakowitsch Samantha von Aachen 🐐 1d ago
i believe the stronger gene always overwrites the weaker. thats at least how it is when you cook your own xenogerms. if i remember correctly the exception is if the stronger gene is germline and the weaker xenogerm. then the weaker overwrites the stronger
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u/Isopod_Gaming 1d ago
I recall hearing that the pawn will get a metabolic efficiency target set between +3 and -3 and then it will pick traits accordingly but I do not know if that’s true.
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u/maymaycalculus 1d ago
That is true but only when inheriting genes, though i think it was tweaked slightly a bit after biotechs release. In this case the baby already inherited the genes so which ones are active or inactive is dictated by priority or random chance depending on the type of gene.
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u/vilius_m_lt 1d ago
If it works like the IVF - selected genes will be pretty random. Yes, I’ve made a ton of hybrid embryos to select the best candidate to put in a growth vat. The rest is easy $50
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u/redrenz123 Edit Mods, Edit Ideology, Roll Perfect Colonist, Close Game. :') 1d ago edited 1d ago
long story short, randy puts the genes in a blender and whatever comes out that does not break the metabolic rules is the baby.
Also, there should be a dna icon on the mother that you can click on to check what genes the baby has drawn.
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u/DiscombobulatedCut52 1d ago
I need to play a game where ever person in the game has some kind of genes that can be passed down. That sounds so fun
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u/rpvarela 1d ago
Well, update on this: The baby is born. I can already see the red skin and no horns. I'll have to see what manifests when he grows up XD
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u/never_any_cyan 1d ago
If you click on the baby, you should be able to check his xenotype and see which genes are active and which are suppressed
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u/rpvarela 1d ago
Thank you for this!
He inherited all the bad ones:
Strong melee got overwritten by weak melee and cold tolerant got overriden by cold weakness, but hey, that's Rimworld for you. :p1
u/LumpyJones 1d ago
Okay but what's his metabolic efficiency like? The benefit of gaining all those bad genes is generally going to be them needing to eat one meal every 2 days. Which depending what else you got he could be really good at certain things like mining on the far side of the map or nearly never leaving the research lab except for sleep. If nothing else he could handle long bunker dives better than most.
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u/HearseWithNoName 1d ago
I just had a lycan/spider baby, and I love that it only has it's body shift into spidey form at night lol. This game is so fun!
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u/StahlPanther 1d ago
I didn't know one could have weak and strong melee damage at the same time
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u/ssfgrgawer 1d ago
You can, but only one of them will be active. It's a coin flip which one you get. One child might get weak melee damage red skin and another will get strong melee damage grey skin. The next might be different again.
I've done a generations playthrough where colonists age faster so you play through generations of colonists. If you don't end up stupid inbred, you can have some real crazy colonists (I had one who couldn't eat fast enough to keep up with their required food intake. Got all the good genes of the parents and none of the downsides. I had to give them additional downsides just so they could do something other than eat.
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u/VladovpOOO 1d ago
I know some genes are assumed dominant. For example, adding a gene that doesn't allow another one from working is not working for the better gene. Overall, the game prefers the bad genes over the good IF it's not a xenogene over an endogene, but I'm unsure here
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u/maymaycalculus 1d ago
Some genes like hair or skin colour are chosen at random, other genes of the same type often have priorities attached to them and the worse (positive metabolism) genes tend to be picked. So in this case cold weakness and weak melee damage will be picked. This also follows with other genes that affect stats, so for example slow healing will take presedence over fast healing, which in turn takes presedence over superfast healing.
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u/Ferrius_Nillan Gestald Engine in a coat 1d ago
This kinda makes me want for a slight rework of genetics. Where some genes are dominant, while more valuable are recessive and require some work, but glitterwold tech can, for a steep price, turn that gene into dominant.
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u/Ionel1-The-Impaler 1d ago
The only downside to Impids is weak melee, this could fix that mightily.
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u/Red_Canuck sandstone 1d ago
Slow healing? Weak immunity? Unhappy?
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u/Ionel1-The-Impaler 1d ago
Those can be fixed with a good doctor and a few extra hours rec time in the morning. Can’t fix not hitting as hard when a Neanderthal is bearing down on you with a uranium club.
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u/CPT-yossarian 1d ago
There's a mod that helps improve the way rimworld handles gene inheritance.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3046776238
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u/NeverCallEllis Map maker or whatever 1d ago
Whenever I have a hybrid I just use cheats to change them to one of the parents Xenos, idk why I just don't like having them :P
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u/Sur2484 1d ago
im more concerned about how neanderthal got a sub species of homo sapien pregnant. isnt neanderthal a different species from humans? arent they different enough to be incompatible? or are rimworld neanderthal xenotype not actual neanderthals and just humans genemodded to be similar? lore-wise i mean. im sure game mechanics treat it all the same
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u/ldealistic 1d ago
In real life neanderthals interbred with our ancestors. The vast majority of people alive today have some neanderthal DNA.
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u/Albacurious 1d ago
Does that mean some are more Neanderthal than others?
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u/ColonelKasteen 1d ago
Yes, East Asians and Europeans are more Neanderthal on average than other population groups
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u/Sur2484 1d ago
wait how is this possible? arent interspecies hybrids supposed to be infertile? the "mules"?
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u/ColonelKasteen 1d ago edited 1d ago
Neanderthals and home sapiens are much, much, much closer genetically than horses and donkeys. It isn’t just some binary "any interspecies hybrid is sterile," the closer they are genetically the less likely they are to be sterile. Hell, not even all mules are sterile (although the vast majority are)- think about wolves and dogs mating. The main factor to whether hybrids are sterile or not are the number of chromosome pairs their parents have- both Neanderthals and modern humans have 23 pairs so it doesn't interfere with meiosis.
Neanderthal DNA in modern humans is a well-attested and thoroughly studied scientific fact.
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u/Haunt_Fox 1d ago
They were more of a subspecies. Like dogs and wolves (and coyotes should be considered C. lupus latrans, too).
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u/MasterXdoof 1d ago
Upon birth, it picks one to be active. The baby can still have the genes to hand down to the next generation, but on any conflict, one is chosen, the other is deactivated