Thanks, sfrose.. I guess I'm not doing too badly then, at 254 discovered using just my own grids. (The "boring" part for me is waiting for plants to pollinate.) I didn't look at Borg's either until I'd found all the MP's and nearly filled in all the foliage/plant type grids. I just worked on filling all the holes for each cross breeding and species, using my grids to choose breedings. (and yes, I used another game or two at times to fill in holes) I deliberately didn't look up the MP's until the last one, then succumbed to curiosity. But I was continuing my methodical crossing intending to look up how to get to the MP, when a crossing I'd already done turned out to be it. Funnily enough, that night, and again the next night, that MP's seed showed up in the shop. I think I'd have been disappointed if that had been how I'd gotten it!

It has appeared to me that there is a pattern, but I think I'm not quite far enough along with my species grid to pull it out yet. I've carefully not examined Borg's too closely.

(sigh) the old dinosaur programmer in me is flexing its arthritic joints a bit. LOL I'm now playing a bit again with Fish Tycoon, which I originally played pretty randomly as just a pastime, and got tired of it after finding 5 MF's because I had no method or records and was spinning my wheels.