[ARCHIVED] Sims give birth to clones - Genetics don't mix

Oh my, is my favorite bug from 2018 back? Gonna go and test it on my favorite dynasty I was forced to put on hold for 6 years because of it! A screenshot from back there is attached (father and two sons from different mothers) just for lulz and nostalgia (I hate it). No, seriously, I will check it and if it's back I'll lose my mind. That was horrible. 6 confirmed clones within 9 couples - each has at least one 100% clone as an offspring. And I understand it's not very fair to refer to a bug from so long that might be a different one, but it looks and sounds pretty similar to me. So yeah, gonna be back in a few days (or weeks). God, I hope my different save I played instead of my main one wasn't affected, because I've had some of the most beautifully mixed kids there. To me a bug like this is really a reason to not play at all.

I have the same problem. I have experimented in different saves and the problem persists. Children are born either clones of their parents or of each other. Previously, I had children who mixed the traits of their parents. The presets always changed a little. Now they are the same. This is very sad, because I play Dynasty and want to see how genetics change from generation to generation. In the first picture there are three brothers, they are not twins. The second picture is of a father and son. I don't want to play exactly the same sims in every generation

I've read this conversation and thought that I have avoided this bug. And then I aged up my family's daughter. She took her father's eye color and hair color, but all the features are exactly as her mother had in this age. I don't want to play the same looking sim again, and for my legacy playing genetics is really important. Please fix it.

Disclaimer: I'm bad with keeping my thoughts at bay and spitting just facts, so there's gonna be a lot of waffling, sorry. But I'll try.

So... First thing first, before I go into the future (or present), I decided to take a deep dive back. Thankfully, I have a backup save back from 13.06.2018, and with the magic of recovery, it transformed into a 07.06.2018 save file. I also have very few, but still have, screenshots even from the end of 2016, but there were no heirs until January of 2017 (probably - I have one screenshot with a crib from 16.12.2016 but that might be Bella and Mortimer's second son I adopted after Mortimer's death). My first one was born before the toddlers and pools update. Thankfully, he had a long lived trait and died just recently - I had him while even his son's soul had already been released. Sadly, as many beginners with MCCC, back then I deleted the founders' ghosts, like empty-portraits deleted. And that's truly sad, because I have no CAS photos of my founder, or even a good screenshot, but by certain angles I have some suspicions that I made this ugliness with my own hands (while I wanted to make a handsome Scandinavian woodcutter). So, now to the reason I'm writing it: screenshots.

First documented CAS screenshots: second half of 2017. Tiny takes of my founder, and I believe you know how Bella Goth looked, and their first son - the very one born in January 2017. His wife sadly wasn't captured like ever (only from a semi-turned characters' panel, if you remember they had such previews, instead of looking straight forward, portrait, like now), BUT, judging by the screenshots I took, I don't believe she was involved in the conception anyway. Sadly, I couldn't recover the first child's son to remove his sideburns... but that very 'anyway' - to me personally he looks exactly like his father anyway.

ALSO, due to some another bug with the Life and Death DLC, my first daughter appeared kinda alive on the households panel (even though I saw her ghost in the tree while tracing many other relatives and she somehow had no traits) born on 12-14.01.17. So, as you can see, she's not 100% clone of Bella, but the upper half of her face is. I'm not sure about lips though, as the female version of their first son (and her brother) has completely different form.

So, back to that screenshot. "Son" (the son of the first kid born in the game; i.e. 3rd gen) and his NPC-generated-and-born wife (who has a 99% clone brother, except for their noses I believe) have a son. Jesus Christ, that was the first time I edited a Sim, prior to that believing they must inherit genetics naturally. But I'm glad I kept at least one photo (I believe I was so shocked I decided to take a proof). So THIS is the boy I showed in my first message before I did my best. I believe he's a so-called mix of his mother's everything except for his father's mouth (not sure about the nose either). His brother that is not included was kinda the opposite taking everything from his father except the mouth and the jaw. Still ugly, but he was meant to die young, so... anyway. The third gen was born about 23.07.17, judging by the screenshots.

Now, back to my first 3 clones screenshot (which was originally the sim you'd delete if seen in the world) - 4th gen, born on 24-25.02.2018. I attach his 5 of 6 kids file, all born between March 2018 and September 2020. The 6th one (also born within those dates, and technically the 3rd one) will be in my second message since that will show the kind of genetic I expect from the game. Daring of me, isn't it? So, 4th gen has kids with 4 women: the first one took his mother's nose - everything else is from his father; the second one just took everything from his father; the third one took everything from her father but eyes; the fourth took everything from her mother but nose and eyebrows; the fifth one is her mother's clone. No, the last two are not twins.

Now, 5th gen's kids (the pale one's). He has 5 kids born somewhere between 2020 and 22.10.23. He was raised as an NPC if it matters, and I even dare to say his kids were blended better. First two kids are probably twins as they have the same birthday, and their genetics is actually acceptable as I can see even their eyes and noses not being a 100% copypaste from their mother. Everything else is from their father though. The third child is also a softer mix, especially in the jaw and eyes but everything else is either her father of mother's copy. The 4th child is mostly her father's daughter except for her nose and maybe eyes, as her eyelids are different. And the last one takes the different route and is her mother's daughter except for her father's eyes.

And now to the conclusion since the post allows me to attach only 3 files and I have 2 more.

I will boldly name this post as "what I expect and want" (haha who cares).

Starting with one of my 6 kids - the 4th generation. A single one blend out of 6 kids. Ugly but DIFFERENT. Look at him. He mostly looks like his mother, yes, BUT. His nose is a mix - actually different parts of nose were somehow blended into a unique one. His jawline is his father's but his chin is different from both of them. And his lips! Where are these lips from? Those are no one's! Those are his! He looks different from his parents in both male and female versions, but still resembles them very much, looking like their child and not their clone even if "mixed".

Now, example from my other save. He is actually a first child in this save, falsely making me believe the genetics became better and my other dynasty is just permanently corrupted, and is also a nice, soft mix, looking much like his father but still mostly different. His eyes' shape blended from both parents, his nose took its shape from him and its size from her, his lips... well, those are his mother's I believe. Despite having his chin and lips kinda copied, he still was blended, merger, mixed, whatever. SOFTLY. And I want it to work like this! But it's such a rare event that I'm actually afraid of letting them age up and die because I know that their kids will most likely be those copypaste clones with "father's eyes, mother's nose, father's mouth, mother's skull, yeah, will do."

There was supposed to be a third pic, but those kids are actually generated by the copypaste method, just parts well "chosen" to make the sims seem prettier. My bad.

What do you expect to see? Kids. Children of their parents. But unique ones. This problem (if it's even a problem and not how genetic works by default) haunts me for 8 years! I abandoned my dynasty after my first son aged up into my clone, just like my father was a clone of my grandfather! Make the blending softer! There are so many sliders for every part of a face and those sliders usually do not mix up within a single part to make a unique sim? Why? Why having a nice mix of a father and a mother is a happy and highly anticipated accident? It took 8 children and 4 born in the game generations to get something unique. That's just... I just can't. I have no kind words.

I understand that's not exactly topic related but I have a feeling that's the problem of the entire genetic system. Whether it's a 100% clone or a 75% clone - this is still upsetting and devaluing of all the progress made and experienced. This game CAN generate children of both their parents. And that's all I want. I'm genuinely tired of seeing composites.

Btw, I have a vanilla game family/save created solely for the purpose of completing the events since my game style and tempo doesn't fit the EA's. So, during the first one two kids were born: father, son, and daughter switched to masculine type (for the screenshot). So yeah, still pre-Life and Death patch, but... sigh. I tend to believe some of my many gameplay mods are positively affecting genetics, since I've been gradually adding them since March 2018 - that's also when my first son (the pale dude) was born (days after that to be precise). But the mods affecting childbirth were 95% likely added after all current kids were born (100% except for my little boy of Chris Hemsworth and Morgan Fyres from the other save), except maybe for the last daughter of my pale clone son. So, maybe my save file IS corrupted. Maybe having one good mix out of 10 is how the genetics work. But something in vanilla just doesn't work right even if it's the way it's designed to work. As absurd as that sounds.

Okay, I hope that's all I have to say about the pre Life and Death times. Time to move forward. Yes, it's a sore point to me, I sincerely apologize, but no one else seem to complain.

I can't reproduce clones in my save (I own LD, but started the save a little before getting it), but after reading this post and doing some CAS experiments I feel like the risk to get really ugly Sims is a lot higher than before (and by "ugly" I mean unnatural and weird looking). But maybe this is just my perception because I looked closer now...

Since I'm currently playing a couple with mixed skin tones (one quite dark and one medium) I'm also wondering: have skin tone genetics always be so bad? How can a dark skinned mother and a medium skinned father get a child which has lighter skin than both of them? That doesn't feel right.