A Hybrid Tier list based on how difficult they are to breed from scratch.

[Red Cat]

Black Cosmos are annoying this time around:

Red + Yellow = Orange (100%)

Orange + Orange = Black, but the odds are different: Some Pairs have a 6.25% chance, but some pairs have a lower chance at under 4.7%.

Increasing the chance is difficult - you can try making more orange cosmos from the original oranges, but some made that way don't have a chance of giving black ones at all. Telling the good orange from the bad are next to impossible, too.

Orange Tulips, though, have a more fixed shot at giving Purple ones - always 6.25% or higher - and new Oranges you get from them may have a much better chance.

Black cosmos are actually not that hard to obtain if you follow the process correctly. If you breed seed reds and seed yellows together to get oranges and then breed those oranges together, any orange offspring will always be at least as good as the orange you got from the seed red and seed yellow. The only way you end up with the "bad" orange cosmos you described is if you let your crop get contaminated with a white cosmos at some point.

I'd switch the black cosmos and purple tulip on the tier chart. The orange cosmos is guaranteed with a seed red and seed yellow and two orange cosmos will give you another orange 50% of the time, half of which will have superior genes. So you can quickly build up a large orange cosmos batch and give yourself a lot of chances at the black cosmos. On the other hand, the orange tulip is only a 50% chance from a seed red and seed yellow and breeding two orange tulips together will give you another orange only 37.5% of the time and only a third of those will have superior genes. This is because 12.5% of the offspring between two regular orange tulips will be island black tulips which are really good but unfortunately are indistinguishable from regular black tulips which have no chance of producing a purple tulip. The black cosmos is statistically much easier to acquire, but the method is more sensitive to contamination than than the purple tulip method.

I've been made aware that what I wrote above isn't always true.

 

[Lanstar]

On the other hand, the orange tulip is only a 50% chance from a seed red and seed yellow and breeding two orange tulips together will give you another orange only 37.5% of the time and only a third of those will have superior genes.

For Purple Tulips, the Yellow Tulips made from Red + Yellow also work to make them - not just the Orange Tulips alone. Thus it's 100% of the offspring from red + yellow tulips that make Purple, not 50%.

 

[Rosch]

I know blue pansies had 25% chance but man, I had better luck with purple windflowers, tulips and hyacinths.

 

[Red Cat]

For Purple Tulips, the Yellow Tulips made from Red + Yellow also work to make them - not just the Orange Tulips alone. Thus it's 100% of the offspring from red + yellow tulips that make Purple, not 50%.

True, but the issue with the hybrid yellow tulips is that while they have the same 1/16 chance of producing the purple tulip as the orange tulip does, they also produce a lot more garbage offspring so it's basically either purple tulip or bust with them. That and you have to keep those hybrid yellows separate from the seed yellow and other yellow offspring. Purple tulips are harder to breed than black cosmos because there is a lot more genetic variability with tulips than with cosmos flowers.

 

[Lanstar]

True, but the issue with the hybrid yellow tulips is that while they have the same 1/16 chance of producing the purple tulip as the orange tulip does, they also produce a lot more garbage offspring so it's basically either purple tulip or bust with them. That and you have to keep those hybrid yellows separate from the seed yellow and other yellow offspring. Purple tulips are harder to breed than black cosmos because there is a lot more genetic variability with tulips than with cosmos flowers.

No: The Cosmos do.

The reason is that when you Mix Red+Yellow cosmos, You get 2 kinds of oranges: 1-1-0, and 1-1-1. There's no way to tell which one is which - and if two 1-1-1 oranges exist in a pair, you get under a 4.7% chance of getting black cosmos - a very bad start. The White gene messes the odds a lot more than you think it does - And the chances of getting oranges that are good can often get offset by the bad ones that hold that gene.

I've seen this in action: I had 93 Orange Cosmos at one time, and got only 3 black cosmos spawned from that whole field - which I stopped going and just cloned what I had. Whereas I had 60 yellow/orange tulips, with 9 Purples spawned from them when I decided to stop. I knew what I was doing with tulips with their more certain odds, and was blind with cosmos.

 

[cinch]

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[Red Cat]

No: The Cosmos do.

The reason is that when you Mix Red+Yellow cosmos, You get 2 kinds of oranges: 1-1-0, and 1-1-1. There's no way to tell which one is which - and if two 1-1-1 oranges exist in a pair, you get under a 4.7% chance of getting black cosmos - a very bad start. The White gene messes the odds a lot more than you think it does - And the chances of getting oranges that are good can often get offset by the bad ones that hold that gene.

I've seen this in action: I had 93 Orange Cosmos at one time, and got only 3 black cosmos spawned from that whole field - which I stopped going and just cloned what I had. Whereas I had 60 yellow/orange tulips, with 9 Purples spawned from them when I decided to stop. I knew what I was doing with tulips with their more certain odds, and was blind with cosmos.

For some reason I thought seed yellow cosmos were pure, but now that I double checked they do have a white gene. I guess the gene masking is more of an issue than I thought. I've personally had about the same success breeding both black cosmos and purple tulips. There is also some gene masking with tulips as well, but I suppose it helps that orange tulips can be isolated down to two genotypes which have a minimum 1/16 probability of breeding a purple. I'm sure someone has done a simulation study to determine which one takes longer to breed on average, but I haven't looked for that.

 

[Aleigh]

I think pink tulips are the easiest to get for me like honestly man I have way too many and they won't stop breeding like bunnies

 

[Lanstar]

For some reason I thought seed yellow cosmos were pure, but now that I double checked they do have a white gene. I guess the gene masking is more of an issue than I thought. I've personally had about the same success breeding both black cosmos and purple tulips. There is also some gene masking with tulips as well, but I suppose it helps that orange tulips can be isolated down to two genotypes which have a minimum 1/16 probability of breeding a purple. I'm sure someone has done a simulation study to determine which one takes longer to breed on average, but I haven't looked for that.

Yeah, the white gene in the Yellow cosmos bag is quite the surprise to deal with. I haven't found any way to actually test and isolate that gene from the oranges either - Which was another reason why I put Black Cosmos up a tier.

Now, if we were real desperate about increasing the odds for Purple Tulips, there's another trick to do it: Take the Black Tulips spawned from the Hybrid Yellows and Oranges, clone them, and pair each clone with its parent. Only two thirds of those pairs may spawn Purple, but the ones that do have a 25% chance of making them. Kind of complex, but nice if you also wanted to get more Black tulips at the same time. x)

 

[Red Cat]

Yeah, the white gene in the Yellow cosmos bag is quite the surprise to deal with. I haven't found any way to actually test and isolate that gene from the oranges either - Which was another reason why I put Black Cosmos up a tier.

Now, if we were real desperate about increasing the odds for Purple Tulips, there's another trick to do it: Take the Black Tulips spawned from the Hybrid Yellows and Oranges, clone them, and pair each clone with its parent. Only two thirds of those pairs may spawn Purple, but the ones that do have a 25% chance of making them. Kind of complex, but nice if you also wanted to get more Black tulips at the same time. x)

There's no way to test that an orange cosmos lacks the white gene. Due to the way genetics work, it's only possible to conclusively determine that a flower has a 1 trait. You can never confirm a 0 or 2 trait (other than if the phenotype is different). You could test a potential 0 or 2 trait flower enough times to the point where it's almost impossible that it has a 1 trait, but you'll never be 100% sure and unless you really want a specific genotype for some reason, it's just a waste of time.

You can test if a black tulip offspring from two orange tulips or hybrid yellow tulips has the yellow trait by breeding it with a seed white. If you get a yellow or orange offspring, it's a 2-1-0 black that you can use for getting a purple tulip. I don't know if it's actually better to test instead of just clone and hope it's a good black tulip, but if you want to save space and not just water a potentially useless flower a ton of times, it is an option.

I used a similar trick to test a black rose offspring from two 1110 red roses by breeding it with a regular 2000 black rose. I got a red offspring and the only way that's possible is with the 2120 black rose which is fortunate for me in my quest to get a blue rose.