will i sleep in a tree or in my preys flesh

okay this one is really important and i think it wasn't even touched on "sleeping". there are many many many different ways animals sleep on earth. how are we going to make them diverse, because i mean not every creature can sleep in a tree. and what about nocturnal animals? and how much different animals sleep for from the sloth sleeping 15 hours a day to the giraffe that sleeps for only about 2 hours. okay i just wanted to bring this up over and out

While I assume it would be controlled by where the safest place in reach is, I don't know how we would tell the game "This is the safest place this creature can find to sleep."

maybe if there are no real threats and the creature is idle a "sleep" thing will appearer and if you choose lets say in the middle of a field and your creature gets killed it should say like creature was killed while sleeping or something.

Whatever is tagged as shelter for you. If you are adapted to sleep in trees - well, you'd better hope there are trees.
Otherwise you have to use the ground.

So, how's the actual mechanism for sleeping work? It's a need of some sort and you have a limited amount of choice over when to do it, but you have to sleep every so often or else suffer negative consequences?

Xenopologist wrote:

So, how's the actual mechanism for sleeping work? It's a need of some sort and you have a limited amount of choice over when to do it, but you have to sleep every so often or else suffer negative consequences?

A gradual buildup of negative consequences sounds good. A few ideas:

Effects of lack of sleep -- in-game representation

physical tiredness -- less responsive controls; slowly forced into slumping/lying down
slow responses -- delay & blur in sensory representation; echoey warped sounds
hazy perception -- blurred vision; smells' colours occasionally incorrect, and greyed colours used; electro-vision not as effective; visual echolocation flattened
Slow thinking processes -- delayed reflexes; jumping, swinging, climbing slower and likely to fail
increased need for sleep -- when they do sleep, it will be for longer; after X time sleep is forced upon the creature

Some would be quicker to take effect than others, and they gradually build up during prolonged lack of sleep.

And these effects are supposed to build up to become very intrusive to gameplay, so players find it safer to risk unconsciousness for a few hours than stay awake with them.

Good, good. Gets around those tiresome health/energy bars...

So we have consequences for lack of sleep down, but what determines how much sleep we need.

Well, modern science doesn't actually understand sleep that particularly well. Still, I'd think that this would be at least partially tied to metabolism/diet.

Also: anyone have any ideas about "partially waking" sleep, like the kind of sleep that some animals do where they're effectively still able to bolt into action at a moment's notice? Sleeping standing up or with one eye open - that sort of thing.

Xenopologist wrote:

Well, modern science doesn't actually understand sleep that particularly well. Still, I'd think that this would be at least partially tied to metabolism/diet.

Also: anyone have any ideas about "partially waking" sleep, like the kind of sleep that some animals do where they're effectively still able to bolt into action at a moment's notice? Sleeping standing up or with one eye open - that sort of thing.

I searched Wikipedia to try and summerize what they said about sleep in animals, but there was so much information I have to just link you guys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(non-human) It seems like sleep paterns tend to lean towards getting as little sleep as is safe unless more can be afforded. Herbivores tend to sleep very little but also spend most of the day in a fairly dazed manner to avoid large amounts of energy loss and fatigue. Carnivores sleep a lot more because they are more acive and in most cases don't have to worry about being ambushed in their sleep. Another strategy used by animals that have lives that require 24/7 awakeness is to rest one hemisphere at a time. This is common in aquatic mammals and birds. For anything more in depth, you'll ahve to do your own research as well.

(Also, random trivia: Sloths actually sleep for about nine and a half hours in the wild, but over sixteen in captivity.)

The Uteen wrote:

Xenopologist wrote:

So, how's the actual mechanism for sleeping work? It's a need of some sort and you have a limited amount of choice over when to do it, but you have to sleep every so often or else suffer negative consequences?

A gradual buildup of negative consequences sounds good. A few ideas:

Effects of lack of sleep -- in-game representation

physical tiredness -- less responsive controls; slowly forced into slumping/lying down
slow responses -- delay & blur in sensory representation; echoey warped sounds
hazy perception -- blurred vision; smells' colours occasionally incorrect, and greyed colours used; electro-vision not as effective; visual echolocation flattened
Slow thinking processes -- delayed reflexes; jumping, swinging, climbing slower and likely to fail
increased need for sleep -- when they do sleep, it will be for longer; after X time sleep is forced upon the creature

Some would be quicker to take effect than others, and they gradually build up during prolonged lack of sleep.

And these effects are supposed to build up to become very intrusive to gameplay, so players find it safer to risk unconsciousness for a few hours than stay awake with them.

Excellent post, and excellent use of for above. Metabolism would play a huge role in sleep. While we're at it, we can talk about hibernation and torpor here as well. These will be only during certain times of year, and will basically make you sleep until the climate is suitable again.

If scio can help me hunt down my psych notes I'll get back to you all on REM and other stages of sleep. It might not make much difference to the coding, but you never know what will be useful.

"How much sleep you need?" That's easy. Just stuff it into the OE!

Poisson wrote:

So we have consequences for lack of sleep down, but what determines how much sleep we need.

it could be determined by the things you have done and the way you evolved.Such as a large active animal might need to eat a lot or the consequence of having to sleep more. A smaller lethargic animal may need to sleep less.

mike roberts wrote:

okay this one is really important and i think it wasn't even touched on "sleeping". there are many many many different ways animals sleep on earth. how are we going to make them diverse, because i mean not every creature can sleep in a tree. and what about nocturnal animals? and how much different animals sleep for from the sloth sleeping 15 hours a day to the giraffe that sleeps for only about 2 hours. okay i just wanted to bring this up over and out

What about digging burrows

GasmaskCowboy wrote:

Poisson wrote:

So we have consequences for lack of sleep down, but what determines how much sleep we need.

it could be determined by the things you have done and the way you evolved.Such as a large active animal might need to eat a lot or the consequence of having to sleep more. A smaller lethargic animal may need to sleep less.

But then why not just eat more?

I tried to do some research (googling haha) on sleep and well, we just kind of don't know WHY animals sleep. I didn't really even get that much info on what factors result in the natural length of sleep per day, either. So... I'm not sure how this would be handled by the game. I guess it could honestly just be randomly calculated?

It should probably be related to the amount of energy the creature used over the course of the day, which would probably be roughly the same every day, providing an average sleep time that differs between creatures, and would generally be higher in predators. The rate of growth/repair should also be a factor, so the injured and sick sleep longer, as well as children (i.e. any growing creature). However, I'm not knowledgable enough in this area to know how these factors affect each other, or how they can be related to length of sleep. The energy might also be divided by the mass of the creature. Wikipedia has very little to say on this subject.

Shouldn't it be an individual aspect of each creature? It should be decided by a part that decides it in the OE.

The amount of hours that an animal sleeps seems kind of arbitrary. We sleep on average for about eight hours, or about a third of the day. I think sleep should be divided by length of day, and it should be set to fractions of a day (a quarter, half, two thirds, etc), with a little interface in the OE, like Deathbite suggested. The only flaw with that is if the day on a planet is something ridiculous, the sleep patterns will be equally ridiculous.

Think it could be also a combination of (how mentioned before) the power a pet use the day and how deep the sleep is. Could also be something we can develop in the evolution editor. Having creatures with a deep sleep (would need a guard of another animal who looks for enemies), but woudn't need so much sleep, or a creature, who has a light sleep, but need more sleep time.

Brennus wrote:

The amount of hours that an animal sleeps seems kind of arbitrary. We sleep on average for about eight hours, or about a third of the day. I think sleep should be divided by length of day, and it should be set to fractions of a day (a quarter, half, two thirds, etc), with a little interface in the OE, like Deathbite suggested. The only flaw with that is if the day on a planet is something ridiculous, the sleep patterns will be equally ridiculous.

But what's wrong with that? We generally sleep during night because we have color sight instead of night vision. So if our planet's night was longr, so would our sleep hours.

I don't think it's a good idea to make sleep a fraction of the day, because we have strange orbits and binary systems which can cause planets to have irregular days and nights.

Sleep based on light levels would probably be better, with organisms with light/dark suited eyes sleeping when they have least advantage, and waking when their preferred light-level returns. The maximum length of waking time could then be based on the amount of sleep the organism has had.

The Uteen wrote:

I don't think it's a good idea to make sleep a fraction of the day, because we have strange orbits and binary systems which can cause planets to have irregular days and nights.

Sleep based on light levels would probably be better, with organisms with light/dark suited eyes sleeping when they have least advantage, and waking when their preferred light-level returns. The maximum length of waking time could then be based on the amount of sleep the organism has had.

But by "day", I don't mean rotation, i mean light level. A rotation is an "Earth day", not a "day". And Earth is not the only planet.

Deathbite42 wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

I don't think it's a good idea to make sleep a fraction of the day, because we have strange orbits and binary systems which can cause planets to have irregular days and nights.

Sleep based on light levels would probably be better, with organisms with light/dark suited eyes sleeping when they have least advantage, and waking when their preferred light-level returns. The maximum length of waking time could then be based on the amount of sleep the organism has had.

But by "day", I don't mean rotation, i mean light level. A rotation is an "Earth day", not a "day". And Earth is not the only planet.

Exactly. Light level can't be relied on to be consistent. I probably didn't explain myself very well.

It is possible in a binary system the period of light will be longer at some times than others. When the stars are furthest apart (as viewed from the planet), it is possible one could set while the other stays in the sky, and the same when they rise in the morning. Regarding day as when at least one star is in the sky, this would cause a longer day, and shorter night. When the stars are closest (again, as viewed from the planet) the day would be more regular, like Earths. The effect will be most noticeable on planets closer to the star, and observable from an Earth-like distance.

Another possibility is an orbit which brings the planet closer and further away from the star. This would arise from a situation such as the planets spin keeping one side faced towards the sun when closest, in the same way as the moons spin keeps one side facing Earth, but when the planet is further from the sun, its progression around the sun would be much slower than its spin, causing day and night based more on its spin than its orbit.

These possibilities, while likely to affect a tiny fraction of Earth-like planets, will result in periods of light and dark inconsistent in length. Therefore, I suggest it would be better to not have a fixed time for sleep, but have a random chance of an organism sleeping at any time, a chance which increases/decreases considerably with changes in light level, in combination with a higher chance of sleep when an organism is more greatly fatigued.