Test of Khefre's Children

English	Deutsch	français	magyar	Türkçe

Khefre is a god of the sun, he who pushes the celestial disc across the heavens each day. The scarab beetles of Egypt are sacred to him. In the Test of Khefre's Children, the first Test in the Discipline of Art and Music, you will breed beetles of marvelous colors and compete them against other breeders.

Overview

Breed beetles with beautiful colors and patterns on their shells, and display them in Scarab Gardens for others to judge.

Principles

• Catch a Wild Beetle
• Grow Cabbage
• Place a Male in a Terrarium
• Place a Female in a Terrarium
• Breed a Beetle to 0%-50% Ownership
• Breed a Beetle to 51%-75% Ownership
• Breed a Beetle to 76%-89% Ownership
• Breed a Beetle to 90%-99% Ownership
• Rename a bred beetle
• Vote on a Garden
• Mix any Reddish Paint (Any paint color that has "Red" in the name)
• Mix any Yellowish Paint (Any paint color that has "Yellow" in the name)
• Exhibit a Beetle in a Garden
• Build a Khefre's Locker

For the paint, you only need to take the paint from a pigment lab; you can get someone else to mix the right colours first. Verified - Razalguhl

Demonstrate the Principle

• 100 Cabbage Seeds

Beetle Breeding

Legacy Beetle Breeding Guide full of useful if slightly dated stuff.

To breed a beetle to a % ownership you must trade a bred beetle with someone and then interbreed that beetle with your own stock.

Any beetles you breed where both Female and Male are 100% yours will create a 100% yours sub beetle

• Male's give the color and Female's the pattern 90% of the time to the children - Tawret

• From discussions with other players it seems that for some people the above statement is reversed, ie females give the colour and males give the pattern, - Mortality

Beetle Showing and Judging

Technically, what you put on display is not your beetle, but a statue replica of your beetle assembled by you. The beetle itself remains in your possession, and you can take it home for further breeding, or for display in a later competition. (Or, if it displeases you, mulching.)

To display your beetle, take it to a Scarab Garden along with the required materials for your statue (see below). Judging at the Scarab Garden will begin once all seven display slots have been filled. Until judging opens, all beetle designs will be hidden.

Judging remains open until a sufficient number of votes have been received from players. At that time, the winners will be announced, and all of the beetle statues can then be torn down to make room for the next competition.

Building a Beetle Statue

To build a Statue of a beetle in a Beetle Garden you need:

• 2 Mud Granite
• 2 Small Ruby
• 10 Concrete
• 20 Clay
• 12 Gold Wire
• 5 Paint of each of two colors.
  • To find the required paints, display the beetle on your terrarium, and use the "Special" command.
  • It is possible for them to be the same color, and it's common for them to not really be the colors you think your beetle is.

NOTES:

• You must have your beetle in your inventory to build. The beetle is not used up.
• A beetle must be at least 90% yours to display it.
• For Level 2 and 3, you must have your Certificate from the previous level in your inventory.
• You can build a beetle statue once every 168 hours (1 Teppy week), probably to prevent you from entering multiple beetles at once.

The Competition

Every Scarab Garden in Egypt is designed for either Rank 1, Rank 2, or Rank 3 competition. At first, you must display your beetle in a Rank 1 garden. Winners of a Rank 1 competition receive a certificate enabling them to enter beetles in Rank 2 competitions (they do not have to use the same beetle that won at Rank 1). Those players who have won in a Rank 2 competition may, in turn, display beetles in the Rank 3 garden.

If you win a Rank 3 competition, you pass the Test of Khefre's Children.

Tearing Down Statues

After a competition ends, the beetles remain on display, with the winning beetles highlighted with a glow. At this point, the owners (or their spouse) have a few days during which they may return to the Scarab Garden and tear down their statue, regaining materials as per the normal salvage rules.

Beetle statues that remain unsalvaged after a few days are free to be salvaged by anyone.

Once all the statues in a garden have been removed, it is open for new statues and a new round of judging.

Scoring of Beetle Gardens

The ranking system for beetles is actually based on the number of unique beetles that your beetle has beaten. People voting on the garden determine the placement of the beetles and points are calculated based on how many unique beetles were beaten. At level 1, you must beat 4 other beetles to place (hence 3 passes at level 1). When you enter a beetle into level 2 or 3, the number of beetles you've beaten at previous levels will count towards whether or not your beetle advances, regardless of how it places - hence is is possible to have variable numbers of beetles advance in the later ranks. It is important to emphasise that it's unique beetles beaten, so if you beat beetles at level 2 that you've already beaten at level 1, they don't count towards your score.

The wins are actually recorded on the beetle certificate you use, meaning you can enter different beetles at different levels - you're actually competing against other people's certificates, but :it's easier to explain in terms of beating other beetles. So for a level 2 certificate, it has the names of all the players (not beetles) you beat in round 2, and all the players *they* :beat in round 1. The total number of unique names is what matters for determining an advancement. Note that because player names are recorded, not beetle names, you can beat a new beetle :from a previously beaten player and not gain points.

You can determine how many wins your certificate has by examining it (tests->Khefre's Children menu when holding the certificate in inventory).

The scoring system is designed to prevent 'incestuous competition' - winning against players you've already beaten (possibly by proxy). However, this means that it will be impossible to pass the higher ranks until the beetle population in competition is large enough.

Your beetle will be given a win of strength X, where X denoted how many distinct beetles/breeders you have beaten. At level 1 it will be upto 7 (you "beat" yourself too if you have the most votes). At level 2, your strength of win includes not only the actual beetle/breeders you have gained more votes than, but all the beetle/breeders that they beat in their level 1 wins, minus any duplicates. A level 2 win could be upto 49, however this would be uncommon as it would have to mean that you won on strength 7 and beat 6 other beetles that all won on strength 7 wins and did not have any duplicate beetle/breeder entries. At level 3 same thing happens again, you get a strength of win of the number of beetles you gain more votes than, as well as points for all beetle/breeders they have beaten on their way to level 3, again, minus any duplicates. Hope this simplifies all the below description for people. For a level 3 win you theoretically could have a strength of 343 but it will usually be considerably less.

In other words, you gain points for each beetle/breeder you get more votes than, plus any beetle/breeders they beat, minus duplicates as you go through the higher level gardens

The following example will hopefully show how scoring works (note that it refers to 'beetles' for ease of comprehension, but means 'players owning the competing beetle'):

Rank 1 contest

   * A - 1st place
   * B
   * C - 3rd place
   * D
   * E
   * F - 2nd place
   * G 

Now, A has beaten B, C, D, E and F, G (7 points), while F has beaten B, C, D, E, G (6 points) and C has beaten B, D, E, G (5 points). Say some of these beetles compete with others in a rank 2 garden (which have also won level 1 contests), it might look like this (second level indent shows which beetles each has beaten in the past):

Rank 2 contest

   * A
         o placed 1st against B, C, D, E and F, G (7 points) in rank 1 
   * F
         o placed 2nd against B, C, D, E, G (6 points) in rank 1 
   * C
         o placed 3rd against B, D, E, G (5 points) in rank 1 
   * V
         o placed 1st against X, D, P, Q, R, S (7 points) in another rank 1 
   * X
         o placed 3rd against P, Q, R, S (5 points) in another rank 1 
   * Y
         o placed 3rd against C, I, J, K (5 points) in another rank 1 
   * Z
         o placed 2nd against C, I, J, K, Y (6 points) in another rank 1 

If A, C and Y place first, second and third by votes, they will have beaten other beetles as follows:

   * A beat B, C, D, E, F and G in rank 1, and also beat F, C, V, X, Y, Z in rank 2, which beat:
         o F: B, C, D, E, G in rank 1
         o C: B, D, E, G in rank 1
         o V: X, D, P, Q, R, S in rank 1
         o X: P, Q, R, S in rank 1
         o Y: C, I, J, K in rank 1
         o Z: C, I, J, K, Y in rank 1 

Accumulating all these, A has directly beaten B, C, D, E, F, G, F (again), C (again), V, X, Z and by beating beetles in rank 2, it has beaten (B, C, D, E, G), (B, D, E, G), (X, D, P, Q, R, S), (P, Q, R, S), (C, I, J, K), (C, I, J, K, Y) by proxy. These are all combined into a single list as follows:

   * beaten A 2 times (always beats itself)
   * beaten B 3 times
   * beaten C 5 times
   * beaten D 4 times
   * beaten E 3 times
   * beaten F 2 times
   * beaten G 3 times
   * beaten I 2 times
   * beaten J 2 times
   * beaten K 2 times
   * beaten P 2 times
   * beaten Q 2 times
   * beaten R 2 times
   * beaten S 2 times
   * beaten V 1 times
   * beaten X 2 times
   * beaten Y 1 times
   * beaten Z 1 times 

In total, this is 41 'wins', but only 18 unique wins, so A now has 18 points. Because C & F competed with A again (they were in the first rank-1 with A), A does not gain extra points from having beaten them again. Similarly D was beaten by V in another rank-1, and A has already beaten D in the past and does not gain from beating D via V. However, A does gain from having beaten other new (to A) beetles by proxy.

To advance from rank-1, your beetle needs to have 5 points. To advance from rank-2, you must have 15 points. Advancing from rank-3 and passing the Test requires 70 points.

In this example, A will advance to rank 3 with 18 points, having beaten (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, J, K, P, Q, R, S, V, X, Y, Z).

The theoretical maximum points are 7 points from rank-1, 49 points from rank-2 and 343 points from rank-3 (assuming all beetles are totally unique).

Beetle Garden Locations

Map_of_Scarab_Gardens