I am trying to keep track of whether I am getting life loss on my monster by checking the duration of life stages, but the Game Clock theories left me with a question as to what numbers I should be checking for. So I made a Dragon and tested what happens if you give a monster a Peach their first week of life.

A quick recap of the theories:

Theory 1a: Eating a Peach sets your monster's "clock" back, putting them into the stage of their life that they passed 50 or 25 weeks prior. If you eat a Peach before they have lived sufficiently long, you lose the effects.

Theory 1b: Eating a Peach sets your monster's "clock" back, putting them into the stage of their life that they passed 50 or 25 weeks prior. If you eat a Peach before they have lived sufficiently long, you get the additional weeks added on to the beginning of the monster's life, I.e., you go back into "negative weeks" somehow.

Theory 2: Eating a Peach adds 50 or 25 weeks to the monster's total lifespan, and the remaining life stages are calculated based on the new lifespan.

I can tell you now, it's not Theory 2.

Parameters:

Test Subject: Brimstone
Purebred Dragon from Tusk:
Liked Potatoes
Disliked Milk
Dragons are Neutral to Tablets by default

Raised in this pattern:

LD	LD	LD	Rest	Food
Any	Nuts Oil	Any	Any	Tablet

(Spent a lot of time feeding them Sour Jellies to get them to stop cheating, and Smoked Snakes to counter Spoil. I had a very hard time keeping them out of Soft.)

Control:

Raised Brimstone 1 through the first week of Adolescence. Each stage was precisely as expected:

18 Weeks of Infancy, May 2nd Week through September 3rd Week.
18 Weeks of Childhood, September 4th Week through February 1st Week.

I stopped there, but I still have the file.

Test:

Gave Brimstone 2 a Golden Peach his first week of life and raised him on the same pattern as Brimstone 1.

If Theory 1a is correct, I should see no effect at all, because the Peach would be setting me back from week 0 to week 0 of his life. So, an 18 week Infancy followed by an 18 week Childhood.

If Theory 1b is correct, I should see a 68-week Infancy followed by a normal Childhood.

If Theory 2 is correct, I should see a 20 Week Infancy followed by a 20 week Childhood.

Results:

67 Weeks of Infancy: May 2nd Week-September 4th Week the following year.
16 Weeks of Childhood: October 1st Week-January 4th Week.

Conclusions:

Theories 1a and 2 are out.

Theory 1b is the closest to reality.

If Theory 1b is precisely correct, I was getting life loss somewhere.

If I was not getting life loss, there is some effect on the length of life stages when you feed a peach.

*****

It is not impossible that I was getting slight life loss, but it seems unlikely to me. None of the items I was using are listed as adding to Stress or Fatigue in the Effects of Items thread, and a 20-point buffer on LI should cover anything I screwed up before it had time to cause problems.

So, in general, this supports the idea that you feed Peaches 50 or 25 weeks into Prime, as relevant. And never feed them until you reach Prime- no one should have to deal with 60+ weeks of Infancy. I can't believe people intentionally raise monsters that do that by default. The horror... Might be better if you aren't just killing time, though.

FF

It's weeks not years...

There's also the weirdness that happens if you feed a peach after
the old age warning, it usually adds a few weeks not the full 25/50.

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Quote:

There's also the weirdness that happens if you feed a peach after the old age warning, it usually adds a few weeks not the full 25/50.

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Jellies somehow affect their Nature. Not directly, due to the phantom parameter, but they do have the general effect of making the monster head the correct direction. There has been various speculation as to how the heck that works, especially since the number required to get a monster to shift a step is extremely variable.

I was feeding Sour Jellies to move them towards Good, because Good and Best monsters tend not to cheat, while Bad and especially Worst monsters can be real pains that way. Sorry, I didn't realize it could sound like I meant to keep them from cheating directly.

FF

I would just rest every other week to make sure no life is lost.