Taming gauge model

What each animal dimension does to each motivation's gauge: 4 dimensions × 3 values × 3 motivations × 3 properties. Every cell is a draft until it has been gone through. The data is in gauge-model.js.

What changed in v10.4, and why

In v10.3 the animals came out too alike: a snail and a flea had the same split and nearly the same starting willingness. Three reasons, and a change for each:

  1. The motivations didn't act on each other. Each was a separate bar added into one total, and character comes from how needs collide. Added: three interaction rules every kid knows (below): a scared animal is neither hungry nor curious; a hungry animal takes risks; a curious animal stays to look.
  2. Averages erase character. Willingness is a weighted average, so every trait is pulled toward the middle. Added: one extreme per animal (Sonny's exaggerated rule), one property of one motivation pushed far: the jumpiest flea, the most curious crow, the hungriest bear.
  3. A resting snapshot can't show behaviour. What makes a flea a flea is the first wrong move, over turns. Added: scripted encounters per animal (bottom), with the gauge's lines (flee, friendly, the flee clock) now in the data, a trick that wears out when repeated, and the animal's reaction when it goes.

All of it is draft, to go through cell by cell; the demo actions are stand-ins for real pet skills.

Highlighted cells change something; “·” means no effect (add 0, or multiply by 1).

The lines and the clock

How the motivations act on each other

A motivation is low below its zone line, high above it.

Outside the grid

Effects that are not in the model yet.

What the cells add up to

Sample animals, worked out from the base and the cells above. Push is how far an action moves the needle (1/inertia); drift is how many points a turn it falls back to its default. Willingness at rest is each motivation's default weighted by its share.

Encounters

Each sample animal against four scripted plays, turn by turn. The number is willingness after the turn, red below the flee line, green at the friendly line; the small word is the action. A repeated action wears out (by intelligence), needles drift back to their defaults, and the rules above apply. The play ends when the animal is tamed, or when willingness stays below the flee line for the flee clock's turns: then it reacts by its strongest stat and is gone.