Cradle

The course of a life: ages and stages, couples, births with inherited traits, and departures with grief and inheritance. Named for Westworld’s Cradle, where the hosts’ minds are kept and new ones made.

The ideas come from Merryfolk’s genetics (children who blend their parents’ traits with a little of their own) and life simulations generally. For genes with dominance, talents and instincts, add Delos.

• Ages and stages
• Couples
• Births
• Departures
• State
• API
• Terms, events and log
• Config
• With other modules
• Example

Ages and stages

A person’s age comes from PersonDef.born (a time in minutes, usually negative for people older than the world): (now - born) / config.year, in years. People without born are always 30 (ageUnknown).

world.person('pip', { home: 'apt_1', born: -9 * 365 * 1440, tags: ['child'] });
world.cradle.age('pip');     // 9
world.cradle.stage('pip');   // 'child'

The stage is the last of config.stages whose starting age they’ve reached: by default baby (0), child (3), teen (13), adult (18), elder (65). Each midnight, Cradle notices stage changes and emits stage (not the first time it sees someone).

A game with short years (Merryfolk’s year is 12 days) sets year:

Tyrell.create({ moduleConfig: { cradle: { year: 12 * 1440, lifespan: [60, 80] } } });

Couples

Partners are kept by Fellowship. Cradle pairs people:

• by the game: cradle.pair(a, b) (an input) makes them partners, gives each a ‘my partner’ sentiment (+0.3, partnerSentiment) and emits paired;
• on their own, each midnight, when config.autoPair is set: two adults or elders (pairStages), neither with a partner, whose regard and attraction for each other both reach the thresholds (0.6 and 0.5 by default), each side’s thresholds divided by the headline knob courtship (the world’s times their own; 0: never). Set autoPair: null to leave couples to the game.

Births

Each midnight, every couple where both are within the fertile ages (20 to 42) has a child with probability fertility × births / days in a year (25% a year), births being the headline knob (the world’s times both partners’ own; 0: none). People without born count as 30, so they’re fertile. The game can make a birth happen with cradle.birth(parents, def?, id?), an input that returns the child’s id at once.

A child:

• gets an id: the one given, or 'born1', 'born2'…;
• inherits every trait either parent has: the parents’ average plus a draw in ±0.12 (traitSpread), clamped to 0..1. With Delos in use (anything declared), it inherits a whole genome instead: the traits Delos carries, talents and instincts come from it, and only the parents’ other traits are blended this way;
• gets a name from cradle.namer(r, parents) and the rest of its definition from cradle.template(r, parents) (both take the child’s own stream r); def overrides both;
• lives at def.home, else the template’s, else the first parent’s home, and starts there;
• belongs to the groups in def and the template, and to each parent’s household;
• is born now, tagged 'born';
• has each parent keep a ‘my child’ sentiment (+0.5, childSentiment) about it.

world.cradle.namer = (r, parents) => r.pick(['Asha', 'Ben', 'Cleo', 'Dov']) + ' ' + parents[0].name.split(' ').pop();
world.cradle.template = (r, parents) => ({ data: { hair: r.pick(['black', 'red', 'brown']) } });

namer and template are definitions: set them on every start. They run during births in the simulation (and again in replays), so they must be deterministic: use r.

Departures

world.cradle.depart('tomas', 'died');

depart(id, why) (an input) takes someone out for good, with consequences:

1. Grief. Everyone active whose regard for them is 0.35 or more (griefAt) gets the grief feeling and a loss memory (importance by regard, 5 to 10).
2. Inheritance. Their own money goes to their partner and children (active ones), split equally, into their own money. With no heirs, it goes to their household’s purse (with Ceres).
3. Gone. They’re recorded as departed (departed()), and removed (status: 'gone', the gone event).

Old age is a departure too: each midnight, people with born past lifespan[0] (72) may die, more likely the older they are, and almost surely past lifespan[1] (96: a 20% chance a day on top, pastLifespan). The headline knob deaths scales the chance (the world’s times their own; 0: nobody dies of old age).

world.remove takes someone out without grief or inheritance; Cradle still records them as departed.

State

In world.s.mod.cradle:

A person’s born is in their state.

API

world.cradle. Input methods are recorded and safe from the game.

Terms, events and log

Terms: age, stage / stage:<name>, married.

Log entries: paired, born, stage.

Config

Tyrell.create({ moduleConfig: { cradle: { ... } } }):

A person’s own tune: { cradle: { courtship, births, deaths } } multiplies the knobs for them. See Tuning; during play, world.tune('cradle', { ... }).

With other modules

• Fellowship keeps partners, so couples, automatic pairing and daily births need it; so do grief (by regard) and children joining their parents’ household. Without it, cradle.birth still works, without the sentiments and households.
• Reverie gives grief and loss memories on a departure.
• Ceres: with no heirs, a departed person’s money goes to their household’s purse.
• Delos: births inherit a genome (looks, traits, talents, instincts) when anything is declared.

Example

const cradle = world.cradle;
cradle.namer = (r) => r.pick(['Juno', 'Ravi', 'Mei', 'Otto']);

const baby = cradle.birth(['mara', 'tomas']);
world.get(baby).def.traits;            // blended from Mara's and Tomas's
cradle.parents(baby);                  // ['mara', 'tomas']
world.fellowship.household(baby);      // 'h_okafor'

world.on('born', (e) => showToast(`${world.get(e.id).name} was born`));
world.on('gone', (e) => showToast(`${world.get(e.id).name} ${e.why}`));