Editing A Pets Update (section)

==== Pets ====

* After almost two years of absence, Pets make their triumphant return to Bconomy!
** And for the first time, they’re part of the core experience – Pets now have a defined role in gameplay, although their mechanics will be familiar to veteran players
** If you owned any pets in-game prior to their removal in previous updates, they’ve been safely migrated, and are waiting for you to log in
*** For consistency, some pets have had their species reassigned, but other data values are retained
* Send Pets on Adventures to passively gain Items
** Pets now have an Energy meter, which is filled by feeding the Pet food items
*** Feeding a Pet a food item will grant it XP, which helps to increase its Level (and thereby its item-finding efficiency and buddy action multiplier)
**** Pets can develop Cravings, where satisfying them by feeding specific food items will grant a 4x XP gain bonus when fed
** Set a Pet to go on a Fish, Hunt, Explore or Mine adventure, where it will find items of that type for you as long as it has enough Energy
*** Each Pet species has a specialization for what kind of Adventure it excels at, and sending the Pet on that type of Adventure increases the speed at which it can find items
** While a Pet is actively adventuring and is set as your Buddy, you’ll gain a multiplier for the action its species specializes in
*** +0.01x for each 4 Levels
*** Ex: a Level 50 Pet will grant +1.125x, a Level 100 Pet will grant +1.25x, a Level 1 (Tier 3) Pet will grant +1.75x
* A new system has been introduced for Pet breeding, heritage and genetics
** Pet breeding cooldowns now follow an exponential backoff pattern
*** First time breeding induces an 8 day cooldown, second induces a 16 day cooldown, third 32 day, so on and so forth
** Pets now keep track of their Generation
*** A newly hatched Pet will inherit the highest Generation of its parents plus one
*** All Pets owned prior to this update have had their Generation set to I, and their parentage information has been cleared due to incompatibility between the old and new systems
*** Pets with lower Generation counts will be significantly rarer by virtue of the heritage system, increasing their perceived value and uniqueness
*** A Pet’s Generation does not affect any gameplay functionality
** Pets can now have two unique cosmetic properties, Skin and Aura
*** Base Skins can range between Alpha, Beta and Gamma classifications (least to most rare)
*** Base Auras can range between Green, Purple, Orange, Cyan, Red, Pink, Blue, Yellow and Black classifications (all share same rarity)
*** When hatched, a Pet may acquire a Skin or Aura through inheritance if one or more parent possessed the quality (more likely) or through spontaneous mutation (very rare)
*** If one or more Pets holds Mutagenic Sludge (formerly Neurotoxic Chemicals) or a Cursed Charm during breeding, the chance for a Skin or Aura mutation can be artificially increased significantly (but the item is consumed in the process)
*** Skins and Auras can’t be changed for a Pet once it has hatched
*** Skins and Auras are cosmetic and do not affect any gameplay functionality
** Eggs are now considered separate entities from Pets in-game
*** An Egg’s inherited properties are determined when it is hatched, not when it is produced
*** Eggs can be freely transferred to other players before they are hatched
*** Wild Eggs can be found as a rare drop from loot-bearing actions, provided you have space available for one
* New Pet-related stats are now tracked (Pet Items Found, Pet Items Fed, Pets Bred)