Chocobo Dye Experimentation

[Percyphanie]

Findings: It took 5 Plums to get my bird to Sylph Green, but only one Apple to get him back to Desert Yellow. Why a much lower number of apples to go back to Desert Yellow?

The reason only one was needed is because you had one feather message to go up... and one to go down... the number of fruits needed to get the message is kinda irrelevant to the color change... only the feathers message.

[Codex]

The reason only one was needed is because you had one feather message to go up... and one to go down...

My assumption is this:

Think of the dye colours as being sort of on a colour wheel, with a pin on Desert Yellow. When you were in that colour, you started pushing the pin in one direction using your Plums. When the pin crossed the 'border' from Desert Yellow to the resulting colour (in this case Sylph Green) you stopped. It only took one push in reverse to cross back into Desert Yellow, because you initially only had one 'push' or 'step' into Sylph Green.

This is tricky, though, because we can't see this theoretical 'wheel' and don't know where each colour is placed, nor where it starts and stops. Or if a certain colour might have multiple 'plots' on the wheel, which could explain why people are getting the same results with different feeds.

[Codex]

To continue:

It also gets complicated when you feed more than one type of food per feeding, because the pin on the wheel no longer travels in a straight line. Would it be based more on a curve making some sort of ratio/average between the different foods? Or would it implement each individual feed as a 'push' in that fruit's direction?

All these are just thoughts that I've been having, but they seem to make sense (at least to me). Any thoughts?