With the recent release of Andromeda 420,
ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ™ Growers & Breeders have had lots of questions about the exciting new features of our Version 4 plants. The main topic of conversation in group chat, of course, has been the new special effects trait. Let's take a quick look at how it works...
Version 4 females with a special effect such as particles pass that effect on to their Version 4 offspring. Version 3 females, even if upgraded to Version 4 ovules, cannot pass a Version 3 effect on to the offspring. To work an older foliage into a combination with a new special effect is to breed Version 3 males to Version 4 females.
To check that offspring received an effect, look at the Stats output in chat. If an effect has been passed, it will show up in the Stats. (We've also moved foliage/brightness info from the hovertext Banner to Stats as well to "clean up" hovertext displays.)
Particle effects are not displayed until the plant reaches 100% maturity (flowering). Other effects such as sound bites -- and a couple of cool effects we haven't yet released but which are lurking in the
ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ™ genome -- will be displayed whenever the owner clicks the plant.
We realize that if you're working with a lot of plants, particles may become a bit overwhelming to look at and hearing a sound bite over and over can get old pretty fast. So in the Advanced Menu, there is an "FX On/Off" toggle switch.
If you're working with a plant that has a particle effect and you don't see the effect when the plant flowers, be sure (1) to turn up the particle count in your graphics preference and (2) check that the "FX Off" control hasn't been engaged.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT UPDATE Version 3.02/3.03 PLANTS TO Version 4.18. There is no real reason to do this, since the update doesn't really affect males, and the females cannot pick up particle effects they don't get directly from their mother. Use your Version 3 females in your quest for males to breed against the Version 4 fems. There are some known glitches that occur when breeding Version 3 females that have been updated to 4.18. We hope to have a bug fix updater available within a few days, but for now
DO NOT UPDATE VERSION 3 PLANTS!
The
ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ™ Team is looking forward to seeing your creativity with this exciting new feature, and we're looking forward to making some amazing new LEs in the coming months! Happy growing!