Creature affinity

What sets a creature's affinity? Its planet: the type gives its creatures one affinity, and a few kinds carry their own. Mechanical comes from no type at all: it needs an Uncharted system, where one in ten planets with full life hold machines and nothing else.

By planet type

The type sets the affinity, and nothing else about the creature does: not its cave, not the sea. All the coloured and Weird worlds count as Anomalous, Swamps as Toxic, and Lava worlds as Fire. The part left over goes to the kinds below.

Kinds with their own

These keep one affinity on every planet. That is how a Fire world can hold a Tropical creature.

Mechanical creatures

A planet holds them when three things meet. Its system is Uncharted. It has full life, the top of the life levels, since a planet with sparse life never draws. And one draw in ten comes up, which replaces the whole list. 8.8% of Uncharted planets come out this way, and every creature there is a machine, on the ground, with nothing in the air, the water, or the caves.

Such a planet lists three creatures or four, about even at 50% and 50%. The planet type does not matter, except that a Waterworld has no ground to put them on, and Dead worlds and gas giants hold no life.

Uncharted systems hold 15% of planets, so 1.3% of all planets come out mechanical. The table shows that holds in every galaxy type.

Machines roll their grades as any creature does. A short list makes an all-S machine rare: 1% of three-creature lists hold one and 1.3% of four-creature lists. Creature grades has the odds.

What affinity does in a battle

Affinity decides who beats whom in a battle. A hit against the affinity it is strong against counts 1.66 times, and against the one it is weak against 0.66 times. Every affinity has one of each, and they run in a ring.

What a creature does in a battle, whatever its affinity, comes down to its five battle moves.