Different coloured Sims

[ratchie]

I have been doing some testing to see if I can find any way of guaranteeing a different coloured Sim when born to parents of a normal colour and a unusual colour. I did a lot of cheating and aged the children up early.
So far the colours seem to be random.
I started off with Hebe and Adam Khalid Smith. He is green she is blue. So far they have had 13 children, 7 of which were born when I left them to their own devices. Seven of the children were blue,six were green.
I married the oldest daughter (blue) to Mortimer Goth they had three children two were blue one was normal.Their blue daughter married Michael Bachelor they have two children the oldest Victor is blue. He is now married to Monika Alto they just had twin boys they are both blue.
The oldest son married Bella Bachelor they have four children they are all normal coloured.
Second son(green) married Agnes Crumplebottom. They have three children only one is green. The green daughter is currently pregnant to Bennie Keaton I don't know if the baby is green yet.
Second daughter married Sam Sekemoto they have one child he is blue.He married Sonja Wolff they have one son he is blue.

I just cannot see any pattern at all.
I do have lots of toddler pictures but I won't bore you with them

Rachel

[Pam]

Without having to do a lot of math, does it seem to be a 50/50 chance overall?

[ratchie]

I think it probably is a fifty fifty chance.  I did have a theory that twins or triplets gave you more of a chance of having a different colour but that doesn't seem to be the case.
So now I am just entertaining myself with a quest to make Hebe and Adam related to as many orriginal townies as possible.

Rachel

[Hosfac]

I've also noticed that if you start with a darker "alternate" color, and have children with a sim who has a lighter skin tone that it can also dilute the color some, suggesting that perhaps the base color and the darkness of the color are possibly inherited separately.  Perhaps I'll do some experiments, too.

[Ankaret]

That's really interesting! I had a green Sim married to a blue Sim, but all three of their children turned out blue so I assumed that blue was more dominant, but it sounds like it's not that way at all!

[ratchie]

The one thing that has surprised me is that a light blue Sim can have a dark blue baby. I will have to experiment with darker and  lighter shades.

Rachel

[TheChronicR]

It's genetics, Rachel. For example, the first gen has a pointed nose, the second gen has a small one, but the third gen also has a pointed nose.

[ratchie]

It's genetics, Rachel. For example, the first gen has a pointed nose, the second gen has a small one, but the third gen also has a pointed nose.

Yes I know the reason why Sims have different colouring and different shaped features I am trying to find out if there is a way of keeping a specific colour in the family. I would love to have a dynasty or legacy with all blue Sims. So far the most generations I have got with all blue colouring is five(they were all first borns by the way)
Unlike most other in game genetics skin colour cannot skip a generation once it is bred out it will not come back.

Rachel

[Pam]

Unlike most other in game genetics skin colour cannot skip a generation once it is bred out it will not come back.

Are you sure of that?  I thought I had seen stories where the color skipped a generation.  I'm not sure, though.

[ratchie]

I nearly always play with unusually coloured Sims and I have never known the colour skip a generation. It is possible to get the colour back into a family but that involves having an a blue male Sim impregnating townies and hoping that one of their descendants turns out to be blue.
When I play legacies I always have the unusually coloured Sim become the heir,it is easier because you can have more then one child. It is not possible in the Immortal Dynasty because the first born is the targeted immortal.

I have been doing some experiments with Sim genetics,I am about to post my findings so far on the story board.

Rachel

[AriaGirl77]

I play with a lot of unusual skin tones and I have never seen the color skip a generation.  About 50% of the children will inherit the unique skin tone, but if the child does not inherit the color they will not have any children with the unusual color either.

[Hosfac]

I find that odd, as I've seen hair and eye color skip generations before.  I wonder why that's different.

[Saltypaws]

So far, in the Redhouse Saga, the third generation is still light red.  The granddaughter of the founder just had triplets, two were light red and one was normal color.  So what that means, like AriaGirl said, the normal colored one will probably have normal color skin babies.  So lets see how many generations it lasts, but it does not mean the colored ones are going to have colored ones either, sort of a toss up, so to speak, lol.

[Saltypaws]

For instance, in my dynasty, the founder had purple eyes.   The only ones that had purple eyes, were the kids he had outside of the house.  I am getting ready for the 8th generation and no more purple eyes or hair so far.  Would be neat if the last one had both purple eyes and hair.  One could only hope, lol.  The purple streaked hair did not last long either, just the second generation, I believe.  I am not sure why that skin color would be different, but I guess the sims only know.

[malteser60]

Thinking about the programming behind it I wonder how much of the colour inheritance is random. So, for example, if a mother is green and father blue then it's a toss of the coin if the child is green or blue. Also if the non-normal colours (i.e the reds/greens/blues) have a different inheritance system that the 'normal' colours. So, let me see if I can explain myself. There are lots of instances in gameplay that if a dark-skinned parent has a child with a light-skinned parent, the child can have a colour of somewhere in between. However a child from a blue parent and a green parent, the child won't turn out a funny brown colour (at least I think that's what you get when you mix blue and green), but either blue or green. So, let's theorise that this is what happens with the non-normal colours. So, would the colour inheritance be an equal 50/50? Or would it be random? Now, if it is random then trying to determine what the probabilities of getting a blue child from a blue/green parents can become quite complicated. At first you can mathematically show it as a probability of of 1 in 2 chances that the child will be blue. However, without delving into the maths it is entirely possible that all the kids from the blue/green parents are blue (say, for argument's sake 10 kids in total). So, you would tell me that's not random. However, it's like tossing a coin. There's lots of studies proving that you can toss a coin and call heads 50 times in a row, even though the coin toss is, obviously, random.

So, I guess to answer the question, lots of experimenting is needed. This has really peaked my curiosity and I'll see if I can run some tests and find out what the results are. 
Unfortunately (in this case that is) my mother is over visiting from Malta for a week, so it may have to wait until she leaves (I don't get to see her that often so whilst she's here everything else tends to wait).