ROLEPLAY

We have been asked to test some of the potions created by Daeronn Cegrips at Wilk Potskin's Ranger meeting today. Daeronn has created 4 different potions claiming to change the behaviors of the termites: Green allows the termites to bring back more food , Yellow multiplies the number of eggs by 2, Red allows the larva/eggs to feed and Blue is Caustic, being corrosive it will turn the eggs into food.
We're testing these potions on the 4 termite mounds in the AW. Wilk has named 4 team leaders to apply these potions: Mound 1 Team leader is Meggy , Mound 2 TL is Kiwalie, Mound 3 is Geyos, and mound 4 is Zorrargh.
We ask that you join us in studying these mounds choosing one mound and team leader. Team leaders will discuss with you the behaviors and apply the new potions when the team agrees a change is to be made. Post your findings on this thread along with your suggestions on the next potion. At this time only TLs can apply the potions and teams are informal.

Day 1:
on the 1st day of observation there were:

0 eggs 4 termites and 2 food in mound 1 the team choce to add a green potion= forage
2/2/4 2nd observation. red potion =feed
2/2/0 3rd observation. green = forage
2/2/4 4th observation. yellow = breed
4/2/4 5th observation. red = feed
0/6/2 6th observation. green = forage
2/4/8 7th observation. red = feed
4/2/2 8th observation. green = forage
2/4/4 9th ovservation. nothing applied for 8 hours

Day 2:
4/2/2 10th observation after the 8 hours lapsed then added green = forage
2/4/4- yellow breed
4/2/2 -green forage
2/6/8- yellow breed
12/2/0- blue sacrifice
0/2/26- yellow breed
4/0/24- red- feed
0/4/20- yellow- breed
0/8/8- green- forage
8/0/0- blue sacrifice ( this was an accident and I did not know I could change it after)
0/0/16- I went to a termite mound in the Lakes and carefully transported 2 termites from the lakes to AW.
0/2/16- yellow breed
2/6/4- green- forage

will keep you posted... on future observations.. feel free to leave your imput :D

Meg~

If this thread is going to get much longer, I recommend that we use descriptive terms rather than colors.

I.e. Green = Forage, Red = Feed, Yellow = Breed, Blue = Sacrifice.

It might make the experiments marginally easier to follow and analyze.

oren pyr,
The mound is ruled by 2 main rules : (big thanks to sorum for solving this out !)

-Whenever eggs + food are available, eggs eat one food and turns into termit.
-Termit (excluding newly-born) always bring one food per termit.

Now, when there is too few eggs, the mound tries to produce egg :
-If eggs are alive, egg+food transformation (like always)
-Termit produce egg and die, limited by food level (AFTER eggs transformed !) or termit number (the lowest of the two). Newly-born termit aren't counted for the production.
-alive termit (excluding newly-born here) gather food (note that termit are alive only if termit>food)

Green potion effect :

Just double the amount of food gathered by the termit.

Yellow potion effect :

Just double the amount of egg produced. It doesn't work after ~200 termit (the limit is somewhere between 166 and 210).

Red potion effect :

step 1 : half of the eggs turns into termit, and the other half into 2*food
step 2 : egg production, excluding the newly born termit.
(step 3 : food gathering, but there is no "old" termit alive since they died during step 2)

Blue potion effect :

step 1 : eggs + food turns into termits
step 2 : remaining eggs turns into *2 food
step 3 : the termit gather food (not including the newly-born)

For now, in order to get big population of termit fast, i recommand using red/yellow/green :
-the red to get a lot of termit and food, and "force" mound to produce eggs.
-the yellow one cause the mound will produce egg, and we need as much as possible eggs, so double them is fine
-the green one or you will encounter food problem.

Raw data
(a big thanks to Rangini, bitttymacod & anyume for writing down the evolution of the mound while i was afk !)

Geyos --
How can you tell what stage of the three step cycle they are in when you look into a mound? They don't seem to do anything if we just leave them alone for hours at a time (as I interpret the report by Meggy).

I think we need to standardize our notation to keep things clear. I suggest the redundant...

E(1) / T(1) / F(1) + potion / nickname => E(2) / T(2) / F(2)
E(2) / T(2) / F(2) + potion / nickname => E(3) / T(3) / F(3)
E(3) / T(3) / F(3) etc.

I have sat for a few days (IRL hours) watching the mounds as they evolve over time. It's a little tricky to find the correct time to take observations, since the four mounds are not synchronous. I am marking all my observations in a notebook.

My head is spinning! I have no clue what you are talking about, but i wish i could help, since i like roleplay. Oh well, keep up the good work, lol

I'm also unsure why we are experimenting with these Termite Mounds, and even why they appeared in the first place.

Updated my first post (how the system works + new raw data)

Unfortunately, this link is not available. The box manda.glorf.fr is up.

[OOC]I'm having some problerms with my server, you can find the data here

Thanks a lot. Great work btw.

I am not sure whether we should append notes about the forthcoming of the termite mound work here, or better start a new thread of reports (I would suggest to do so). Anyway, since the last Rangers' meeting, I am working together with Geyos to grow termites at the type A mound northeast of Pyr.

Still the population is somewhat tiny but on the rise, I expect population figures similar to those in Almati during the next few days.

The enthralling question is what will happen then. Will the termites start to attack Kitin tunnels nearby? Will they try to escape the mound and create new colonies?

We don't know, we are waiting for news from the colleagues in the Lakes.

I encountered a grave problem with the mound in desert lately. We had started growing the termites and made good progress. Within short time (ooc: 3 RL days) the termite population had grown to a few hundred termites and eggs.

The last time I left the termite mound before going to do some digging and hunting and joining the fireworks celebration, status was about 268/246/120, and I applied a green potion.

When I looked next, after the fireworks celebration, the status was 10/10/116.

I have no idea where that devastating result stems from. I do not know whether Geyos did something as I have not seen him since. But I do not think that he harmed the termite mound.

I started then to rebuild the population. Until now, I reached 26/64/48, a sad result, yet we must retry.

I would appreciate reports from the other team.

As an addendum: I spoke with my teammate Geyos who already had experienced the phenomenon of vanishing termites and eggs at the Almati mound he has taken care of. Kiwalie, too, had reported about the vanishing of termites (harvesting some mockery about her habit of snacking termites). Obviously, when the population is reaching a threshold of about 500, the termites vanish.

Geyos had already formed the hypothesis that the termites emigrate to form a new colony. Wilk had contradicted with the argument that the Almati mounds were protected by a sap barrier. This is not the case here in the open. Possibly, the termites in Almati also tried to emigrate but perished in the sap barrier. But where have they gone here in the desert?

I feel we have to discuss this behaviour with Daeronn and Ardan. Until then, I shall raise the population in the mound only to a threshold which has proven safe not resetting the population.

After the last disaster with the termite mound emptied, I started to rebuild the population. This resulted in the following sequence:

Term/Egg/Food Potion
10 10 116 yellow
20 10 96 yellow
20 20 66 green
20 20 26 yellow
12 34 14 green
2 44 64 yellow
88 2 18 green
70 20 4 green
66 24 40 green
26 64 48 yellow
44 68 42 green
2 110 136 yellow
220 2 24 red
2 110 242 yellow
220 2 130 green
90 132 4 green
86 136 264 green
230 128 86 green
144 214 256

At this point, I had stopped applying potions in order to avoid overpopulation.
Nevertheless, at the next inspection, the mound looked as following:

10 10 256

I applied a yellow potion, but after that, I shall stop any activity at the mound as long as I do not receive word from Daeronn or Ardan.

I would appreciate a status report from the lakes.