I'm still learning about how the breeding system works. I see that there appears to be some form of alleles and that N means carried, or recessive. I drew this out on a punnet square and it doesn't seem to be correct to what is actually happening when I breed.

For example, I am going to use AA for a visible gene and NN for no gene at all. NA will mean that it is a carried gene (much like I see on genes of Sylesties).

It doesn't look like the forum editor allows enough tools to draw out a fancy punnet square, so I'll save the trouble and link to a tool that can draw it for you.

The result comes out to be NA 100% of the time, so if I bred a visible gene to no gene, it should always be carried in the offspring.

So at this point, I realize that this site doesn't use actual biology, just something to represent alleles. I might also be way off track here.

Can someone please explain the algorithms used when generating an offspring?

The site DOES use actual biology. It's simple mendelian genetics.

Where you're going wrong is assuming that a visible gene is always going to be AA. The site uses dominant traits and recessive traits just like actual genetics. A is dominant over B, B over C, C over D, etc. So if a pet shows trait A there's the possibility that it also carries a B. Use this pet as an example. You can see that he carries (but does not show) calico, he shows Body Stripes (C) and while carrying D, and his gene 3 has a visible dual A.

Yes, if you breed an AA to an NN then the result will 100% be NA.

If you breed AA to NA then you'll get AA 50% of the time and NA 50% of the time.

If you breed AB to AB then you'll get AA 25% of the time, AB 50% of the time, and BB 25% of the time.

Make sense?

I'm still in the beginning, I left out probably what was the important part.

I don't have a lot of variety in my gene pool at the moment, so I am mostly working with AA (or BB, CC, DD, etc) paired to NN. What you're saying does make sense to me but I've not gotten that far yet to be mixing traits.

So as you're saying, I should be getting NA 100% of the time from breeding AA to NN. However, I have not once gotten anything but NN after breeding.

What's going wrong here?

Are you testing your pets? A pet's profile will only show visible traits unless you use a genetic testing kit on them. Once you use a test (or have someone test for you) it will show all hidden traits.

To
answer
this
question,
please
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Simple
answer:
you.can't.see.carries.if.a .pet.isn't.Genetically.Tested

(sorry, for ,some,reason, this,thread,is,refusing,to,let,me,use,spacebar????Or,eve,copy,paste,them,in????This,is,silly.)

Oh! Well, that makes perfect sense. I've not found where these are sold yet, except in player trades which is way out of my budget. Looks like what I assumed is that the genetics showed up in the offspring. All of mine say NN, which is odd to me. Seems like it should say that it's unknown, like in the egg and hatchling stages.

Thanks!

Yea, they'll show NN until you test them. The single use items are really not worth buying. You'll want to buy the infinite use one from the diamond shop.

Something additional to note. N means 'Nothing'. Also, without genetic testing, you will only see things like 'NN' if there is no *visible* trait in a slot, and 'XX' if there is a visible trait. However, you need to have the pet genetically tested to get the actual information. The info you see will show limited information based on what is visible, either 'NN' if nothing is visible, or 'XX' if X is visible. However, as you have found out, this doesn't tell the whole story.

If you see 'NN' on a genetically tested pet, then it means there is nothing in that slot, not even recessive. If you see 'XX', then it means trait X is visible, and there is no hidden trait there. If you see 'XY' (and X will always occur before Y in the alphabet, as the dominant gene is always put first), then it means X will be visible, and Y will be recessive but hidden in there. If you see 'NX', then it means there is a carried trait, but as you need two genes that aren't nothing, it won't be visible, so 'Nothing' will take precedence and be placed before the X, and nothing is what will be displayed.

Once you have two genetically tested pets that can breed, you can apply a Punnett square to each slot to get the possible results for each slot in the child.