How to Read Parents Stats

Once you're breeding ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ past the first generation, a "Parents" button appears in the plant's menu. This displays the plant's parents' genetic information in local chat (or only to the plant owner depending on how the "Public/Private" option is set).  The output looks pretty arcane, but once you know the format, it's easy.

"Mom: strain, potency, growth rate, lighting, width, bright, height
 Dad: strain, potency, growth rate, lighting, width, bright, height"

For example, consider the following output...

Mom: NY Diesel X Super Skunk, 2.500000, 3.500000, 1, 1.750000, 1.000000, 2.045000
Dad: Super Skunk X NY Diesel, 2.500000, 3.500000, 1, 1.750000, 0.020000, 2.045000

Uh oh, you say, I smell another math lesson coming on! Yep! So grab your calculator.

An Ancient Hand Calculator

Since these parents have mostly the same stats - in fact, they had the same parents - the offspring will have the same numbers across the board, except for the bright mutation, which averages to 0.51. (When the parents' numbers differ, just calculate the average.)
 
Compare the parent stats with the offspring's below. (For growth rate, add one to the result. In this case, 3.5 + 1.0 = 4.5).

NY DIESEL X SUPER SKUNK
Gender: Female
Maturity: 1%
Foliage: NY Diesel Bright (0.5)
Potency: High (2.500)
Growth Rate: Very Fast (4.500% per cycle)
Lighting: Indoor/Outdoor
Size: Normal
Height: 2.045 meters
Width: 1.750 meters

A Little Statistics Lesson

It's fun to try to predict the offspring from your CannabiSL breeding activities. Several of your plants' characteristics can be calculated in advance of breeding. For example, height and width are simply the averages of the mom and dad plants' height and width. Just look up the stats for the parent plants, and grab your calculator!

Potency, growth rate, and indoor/outdoor lighting requirements aren't hard to predict, either. Again, look up the stats. Beside each text label like "very high," you'll see a numeric value. This is the actual breeding value for that plant. When the text labels are applied, the value is rounded up or down and then used to look up the label on a scale of zero (0) to four (4). When breeding into advanced generations, it's a good idea to check those numeric values, since two plants can have the same text label but almost a point difference in their actual breeding potential. For example, two plants might display a "medium" growth rate, yet one could be "almost fast" (2.4) and the other "almost slow" (1.5).

These characteristics show up in the offspring as averages, too. If you're able to plan your cross-breeding pairs, you can engineer plants that have higher potency, slower growth, and larger or smaller sizes. Couple that with a cool foliage, and you will have created a unique strain!

Other characteristics add an element of chance to the breeding process. As almost everyone knows, males are always in demand among breeders. That's because when a seed or seed brick is germinated, there's only a 13% chance of getting a male. And you can't breed your females without a male.

There are other odds-based inheritance patterns, and they add an element of surprise to the breeding process.  There's a 25% (one in four) chance of getting a bright mutant, and a 20% (one in five) chance that the offspring will inherit the father's foliage. Dwarves, giants, and ultra-fasts are even rarer. These mutations can affect the growth and appearance of future generations as well.

It's essential to understand one thing about statistics: The odds are the same for every seed you germinate. That means that it doesn't matter if you've already germinated four or five seeds from the pack, the odds that the next one will be a male are still 17%.

So... What are the odds of getting a bright male dwarf ultra-fast that has his father's foliage? If you know the individual odds it's not hard. Just multiply.

    Odds of bright = 25%
    Odds of male = 17%
    Odds of dwarf = 2%
    Odds of ultra-fast = 1%
    Odds of father's foliage = 20%

    In other words, what is 25% of 17% of 2% of 1% of 20% ?
    Remembering to convert percents to decimals, calculate it as: 
   
    0.25 x 0.17 x 0.02 x 0.01 x 0.20 = 0.0000017 = 0.00017%

That's slightly less than one chance in 5,000! So get planting - you might get one from the next seed you sprout!

More Version 2 Info - The New Menus!

Version 2 is now undergoing intense testing at the Secret ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ Skunk Works Lab! As we've said before, the long-awaited new version features females that are capable of producing up to three offspring, and we've added an upgrade system to ease the pain of new version updates! Flowering plants now have a countdown timer so you'll always know how much time they have left. We're really excited about these major changes, but there's more...

Version 2.10 Main Menu

The Owner's Menu now has a Main panel with the most-used buttons, and an Advanced submenu with the controls you don't need so often. At the right is a sneak preview of the new Main Menu from a flowering female.

Since this is a first generation plant, there's a "-" button in the second row where the Parents button appears in later generations.  In the top row, you see another "-" button. This is where the Feed button appears in vegetative plants. In current Version 1.420 plants, this button changes to Remove when the plants flower. We had a few -- not many but a few -- growers accidentally tap Remove and neuter their breeding plants. So we've moved this function to the Advanced menu as a safeguard.  Finally, the Harvest button does not appear for flowering males. This will prevent one of the most common "disasters" in growing ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ.  Now, it won't be possible to harvest those valuable males by mistake!

Version 2.10 Advanced Menu

The Advanced Menu (shown at left) is home to less frequently used controls:  Rename, Remove, Private/Public, and the HUD activation button.  New to ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ, is the Update control.  Used in tandem with a special tool that we'll distribute when upgrades are available, this control will let you ensure that your plants' babies are always equipped with the latest and greatest internal organs!

Version 2.10 (it's half of 4.20) is right around the corner! Keep an eye on this space for more progress updates!

Happy Growing! It's 4:20 somewhere!

Hot Pink Passion & White Hot Focus!

Hot Pink Passion for Valentine's Day!

Here's our most compact plant yet -- only one meter tall & one meter wide! Hot Pink Passion features original "art by Gleaux" and is a medium-growing, high potency indoor variety that is sure to add the "wow factor" to your breeding projects and grows.

To make your Hot Pink Passion grows even prettier, we've revamped the Compact Grow-Lite to include a color changer menu, so you can have a hot pink Grow-Lite, too!

L$300 for four seeds at our in-world stores and affiliate vendors.

For the hardcore breeders, the long-awaited version 2 system is nearing completion. Version 2 has some basic enhancements - a safeguard against harvesting males, a new menu system to put seldom-used functions off the main menu -- and some seriously awesome new stuff!  There have been lots of rumors floating around for the past five or six months, so we'll set it straight:  Version 2 will have an updater system and multi-seed capabilities.

We've also included some "behind the scenes" sccipting to provide the  capability for some exciting things in the future, too!

The blurry pic at the right was snapped at our double secret grow plot and shows the hovertext for a 10th generation female capable of producing three seeds. (And yes, it all works.)  We're keeping this female on ice next to several frozen space aliens, but trust us... Things are gonna get interesting right about now.


In case you're wondering, your Version 1 plants will be fully compatible with the new release, so watch this space for updates! For the time being, "pay attention to those males!"

Happy growing! It's always 4:20 somewhere!

Cannabis Mardi Gras King Cake recipe

Cake is perhaps one of the most common pastries the world over. It is especially loved because of its sweet taste and the array of options in which it can be taken, whether as a snack or an appetizer. Add a dash of Cannabis and you have yourself a great way to experience the highs of your favorite strain. When ready, this cake bears a close resemblance to the more traditional rich bread. Just as the name suggests, this cake is decorated in the Mardi Gras colors, namely green, gold and purple. Traditionally, these colors were symbolic and had different meanings. Purple was symbolic of justice, and has for a long time been used to denote royalty. Gold on the other hand is included to symbolize authority and power, while green is depicted as the color of faith. It is important to note that King Cakes are a fundamental part of the Mardi Gras tradition.

The cake has its roots in the Feast of the Epiphany, a festival which was the culmination of celebrations held to mark the birth of Christ. This also explains the long tradition of inserting a little doll in the cake. For this cake, you could choose to replace the doll with tiny plastics; these are usually available at bakeries as well as shops that specialize in cake decoration. Taking your daily Cannabis does not call for any special occasion, so go ahead and indulge in this lovely cake. The following ingredients are required for this recipe:

. 4 cups of all-purpose flour
. Half cup of cannabis butter
. 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
. 1 egg and 1 tablespoon for milk
. 5 egg yolks
. Half cup warm milk
. 2 table spoons of yeast
. 2 teaspoons of salt
. 1 teaspoon of lemon zest
. 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
. Half cup sugar
. Half cup warm water
Ingredients for the icing include:
. 3 cups of sugar (specifically confectioner’s sugar)
. Quarter cup lemon juice
. 5 tablespoons of water
Finally, ingredients for the decoration:
. 2 cups granulated sugar
. Coloring, food grade- yellow green and purple
. Plastic doll
Mix the yeast and two teaspoons of sugar in warm water in a bowl. Let the ingredients sit for a while before mixing the two vigorously. At this point, the mixture will be forming bubbles, thanks to the action of the yeast, so there is no reason to worry. Allow the yeast to increase in volume up to at least double the size. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar, ground nutmeg, salt and lemon zest. Mix the yeast, the milk and the egg yolks in an electric mixer or a blender. This is done to make the yolks as fluid as possible. Failure to do so results in a cake mix that is lumpy, and this makes the cake uneven. In a different bowl, add the rest of the dry ingredients, including the cinnamon, and the remaining flour. Melt the Cannabis butter in the dry mix, adding flour as is required to get a soft and mass.
Knead the dough continuously until you get smooth and elastic dough. You may need to add some flour to achieve this consistency. Keep at it for about 15 minutes. During this time, the yeast also acts on the flour. Take a second bowl and butter the sides, and then transfer the dough to it. Cover this bowl with a clean towel and let the dough sit undisturbed, away from any interference. This will allow it to double over the period of 2 hours. As this is going on, take time to prepare the rest of the ingredients. Take a large sheet and apply a layer of butter. Put this aside, and when the dough has risen, remove it, kneading it down afresh.
Add the cinnamon onto the dough, and create a cylinder with it. Form a circle with this cylinder, picking at the ends to form a circle. Cover the dough yet again and allow it to rise for an hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to about 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare egg wash by beating 1 egg in a bowl to which 1 teaspoon of milk has been added. Use the egg wash to cover the sides of the cake. The egg forms a kind of barrier that holds the cake together. Bake the cake for half an hour, after which it will acquire a golden brown color. After the cake has baked, allow it to cool on a rack prior to the icing and the decoration.
Icing and decoration
There is reason why the English man coined the term ‘icing on the cake’, and this is largely due to the fact that this is the last, yet fundamental stage of cake baking. For this Cannabis cake, the icing serves to complement the flavors of the Cannabis as well as to create a great finishing look for the cake. To prepare the icing, divide 1 and a half cups of granulated sugar equally into 3 shallow bowls. Using a toothpick, add each of the colors to the bowls. This way, you will have three different colored sugar bowls: green, purple and yellow. Mix each of the colored sugar well to ensure that the color disperses well. This sugar is what will be used to create the different colors discussed in the text. This also blends well to create a visually appealing Cannabis snack.
In a separate bowl, add the confectioner’s sugar to the lemon juice. Mix the two well before adding 3 tablespoons of water. The water is kept to a minimal because you want to preserve as much of the authentic flavor as possible. It also ensures that the mixture remains smooth. This is crucial because it is important that the icing is easily spread on the Cannabis cake. Spread the icing over the cake, and add the colored sugar too. The key thing however, is to alternate the sugars so that you have rows of purple, yellow and green in alternate patterns. Lastly, place the decorative doll and enjoy the cake.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

It's Carnival time in New Orleans, and the ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ Team is celebrating with our first Limited Edition of 2013: Mardi Grass!

Featuring traditional purple, gold, and green Mardi Gras colors and a happy Carnival mask, Mardi Grass is sure to be a distinctive addition to your breeding stock and collection.  A high potency outdoor variety, these bushy plants (1.65 meters tall) have a medium growth rate. And all first generation plants are bright mutants, so that fancy foliage really "pops!"

Mardi Grass seeds are available now at our in-world store for L$75 apiece. They'll be on sale until midnight on Fat Tuesday (February 12), so don't miss your chance to grab a few!

Clearing the Air About Feeding

<sound effect: Febreze being sprayed>

Recently, there has been some confusion about feeding ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ plants.  Let's clear the air...

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There is a tiny bug-let (we're tempted to say "it's not a bug, it's a feature") in the ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ scripts related to feeding. If you click "Feed" in a plant's menu, the banner text over the plant will display "Plant Fed (8 cycles remaining)" even if there is not a Plant Food Spike within the specified 1.5 meter range. This is because plants don't actually scan for food until the reach the next growth cycle (every 90 minutes).  The "Plant Fed" banner will revert to "Not Fed" at the next growth interval if there isn't a Plant Food Spike in range.

We realize this may be confusing, and fixing the banner display is on our to-do list for the next version.

Also, there has been some discussion in group chat about taking Plant Food Spikes back into inventory to "stretch" them beyond the regular 48 hour limit.  This will in fact work, but bear in mind that if a plant has been "fed," it will scan at every growth cycle (90 min) to see if there's a Plant Food Spike within 1.5 meters.  So if you take your plant food back into inventory and forget to put it back out when the plant cycles again, the plant will revert to "Not Fed" status. So if you use the take-back method to make your food spikes last longer, you will need to work a lot harder to keep your plants fed.

As a final note, feeding is optional and sometimes not even necessary.  An unfed plant will grow at a rate of one percent (1%) every 90 minutes.  Feeding allows plants to grow at their genetic rate, which may be up to four percent (4%) per cycle.  Along these lines, bear in mind that plants with Slow growth rates have a genetic potential to grow 1% per cycle anyway, so feeding has no impact on their growth anyway!  (Hey, how many other breedables work just as well without food? We can't help it. We were lit when we wrote the code! Seriously, it's another part of our commitment to making ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ affordable and low maintenance!)

Hope this info is useful.  And again, we'll have that Fed/Not Fed banner bug fixed in the next version! It's always 4:20 somewhere!

- The ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ Team