Introduction
There are three (actually more, but this is all I'll talk about today) known variables relevant to a chao's age and lifespan:
- RemainingLife1 - The remaining adult life time.
- RemainingLife2 - The remaining adult life time (bonus).
- EvolutionStrength - The strength of the current gradual evolution, either as a child or as an adult.
- RemainingLife1 cannot increase beyond RemainingLife2; if it does, it will be capped at RemainingLife2.
- RemainingLife2 (and consequently, RemainingLife1) cannot increase beyond 9999.
- An adult chao dies when RemainingLife1 or RemainingLife2 reaches 0.
- Only RemainingLife2 seems to be important, so for simplicity you might want to forget that RemainingLife1 exists.
- EvolutionStrength cannot increase beyond 1.2.
A child chao starts with its RemainingLife1 and RemainingLife2 variables set to the same value. I'm not yet fully sure how this is determined, but there seems to be an element of randomness to it. I can say the following:
- It should always be equal to or greater than 3000.
- My six starter chao started off with values of 3800, 3700, 3800, 3600, and 3800.
- After reincarnating, it generally seems to get set back to its original starting value from its first life; although in certain circumstances, it could take a higher value than it did before.
- Mating my first two chao, who had starting life values of 3800 and 3700, created a new egg with a life value of 3300.
The RemainingLife1, RemainingLife2, and EvolutionStrength values can be increased in the following ways for a child chao:
- Each bite of any fruit adds 3 to RemainingLife1.
- Each bite of any fruit adds 5 to RemainingLife2.
- Each bite of any fruit adds 0.005 to EvolutionStrength.
- Every few minutes, EvolutionStrength increases by 0.01666667.
The following information does not necessarily apply to special chao, such as Chaos Chao.
When a chao evolves, its EvolutionStrength gets reset back to 0. This is why you don't see it having any second evolution right away. You need to again go through the same process of giving your chao animals or Chaos Drives to give it the gradual evolution that you desire, and waiting for it to take effect.
These values can be increased in the following ways for an adult chao:
- Each bite of any fruit adds 3 to RemainingLife1.
- Each bite of any fruit adds 0.00125 to EvolutionStrength.
- Every few minutes, RemainingLife2 decreases by 6 or 7.
- Every few minutes, EvolutionStrength increases by 0.00416667.
What does all this mean? Can anything useful be obtained from this data? Sure:
- Feeding fruit to a child chao will prolong its adult life.
- Feeding fruit to a child chao will make it evolve quicker (which shortens its total life, in a way).
- Feeding fruit to an adult chao will speed up its second evolution, but not lengthen or shorten its life.
- Each bite of a fruit should increase a child chao's total life by roughly 2 minutes.
- Each bite of a fruit for a child chao should save you roughly 1 minute towards its first evolution (0.5%).
- Each bite of a fruit for an adult chao should save you roughly 1 minute towards its second evolution (0.1%).
- Each complete fruit (four bites) should increase a child chao's total life by roughly 9 minutes.
- Each complete fruit (four bites) for a child chao should save you roughly 3.5 minutes towards its first evolution (2%).
- Each complete fruit (four bites) for an adult chao should save you roughly 3.5 minutes towards its second evolution (0.4%).
- It should take roughly 3 hours for a child chao to evolve, if it doesn't get fed at all.
- It should take roughly 12 hours for an adult chao to get its EvolutionStrength to 1.0, if it doesn't get fed at all.
- It should take roughly 14.5 hours for an adult chao to fully max out its second evolution with an EvolutionStrength of 1.2, if it doesn't get fed at all.
- It should take roughly 29 hours for an adult chao to die, assuming it starts off with life values of 4000.