Proposal: Hypothetical Genes
Add the following new rule titled “Hypotheses”:
Each Genetic Engineer has a privately tracked Hypothesis, which is either empty or a sequence of 4 or more Nucleotids and defaults to empty. As a virtual action, a Genetic Engineer may pay 1 Research Point to set their Hypothesis to any valid Hypothesis that is not a subsequence of the Genome.
Add the following as the last step of the Synthesis action:
* For each Genetic Engineer whose non-empty Hypothesis is a subsequence of the Genome, increase their Understanding by N-3, where N is the length of their Hypothesis, and set their Hypothesis to empty.
To the rule “Research points”, add
Each Genetic Engineer has a publicly tracked number of Understanding, defaulting to 0.
This should create some asymmetry in players’ Mutation motives and make it less predictable
JonathanDark: he/him
“A Virtual Action is a type of action that the Head Researcher performs on behalf of a Genetic Engineer.”
I don’t think it’s necessary to make setting the Hypothesis a Virtual Action, but there’s no harm in it other than the delay of submitting it to the Head Researcher and having them do it.