I’ve been curious about the spell - Summon Seismosaurus Egg, lately. The description of the spell is given below.
The wiki isn’t being clear about a few things.
- Can the player move around when imprinting as long as it is adjacent?
- What happens if the player leaves the 8 tile ring around the egg? We know it stops hatching, but with a bit of work, I managed to conclude that the egg will continue hatching if the player gets near the egg again. What is the exact time threshold for this action?
- Just how long does the egg take to hatch?
For those of you who are curious, I looked into the code and here are the answers:
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Yes, indeed, the player can move all over the 8 tile ring.
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This is actually a bit complicated.
Leaving the ring — effect is immediate pause, not reset. The check happens each time the egg takes an action. If you’re outside the 8-tile ring at that moment, that tick is simply skipped — the counter neither resets nor decays. There is no grace period: even one egg action(1 decaAut) spent outside the ring costs that tick, and the countdown resumes where it left off when you return.
The only hard limit is the egg’s summon timer: summ_dur(3) = 300 aut fuzzed ±60/40 → ~120–420 aut (≈12–42 turns) of total lifetime, decaying every 10 aut regardless of incubation. When it hits 0 the egg dies, so you can’t stall indefinitely.
Footnote: if you leave the level, off-level time simulation subtracts elapsed aut from the hatch counter (timed-effects.cc:554); if it fully depletes that way, ENCH_HATCHING is deleted and the egg can never hatch.
Another thing to note is that in each hatching tick, it works if and only if:
- You remain adjacent (grid distance ≤ 1, the 8 tiles),
- At least one hostile, non-firewood monster is within grid distance ≤ 4 of the egg, within your LoS, and visible to the egg.
- 6 to 9 decaAuts, randomized, each incubation tick lowers count by 1. crack message at 4, shakes at 2.