New here - Student of Biology

I saw your post on indiedb asking for biologists. I'm in the middle of my first year at university but I have a good 16 hours worth of lectures on organelles (which seem to be a major part already) so I think I can be of use to you guys right now.

Since I'm new and about a week late to the call I'd greatly appreciate it if someone directed me to the right place.

I don't know much about the project so far but I haven't yet seen the words parasitism, reproduction or virus. Just putting that out there.

Welcome, Thoughtopay!

As the first thing you ask for is a place to go to, i'll send you to the microbial compounds and organelles thread. You can igonre the last two pages between ido and me, as they just speak about the phisics side of propulsion. We still need to know how much force each propulsion organelle puts out.

Other than that, we need a description of what does each organelle does. We alredy have some lists of organelles (at least 4), but they only have early descriptions. I'll quote myself on what we exactly need:

Spoiler:

I may have missed some things, so reading the whole post is advised.

Welcome...!

Have fun... and about compounds and organelles talked with Seregon, he is the main programmer, but he also did most of the work about these stuff.

Toughtopay wrote:

I haven't yet seen the words parasitism, reproduction or virus. Just putting that out there.

The first is like symbiosis, which we have discussed. I think the main problems with these is that simulating them if difficult with our current auto-evo (automatic-evolution) concept (this).

Reproduction. Discussion of this topic consistently leads to backwards progress. (Prepare yourself…)

Viruses have been decided to be simply a semi-random chance of infection (higher under certain conditions) in multicellular. It is questionable whether they are even a form of life, so whether they exist as an organism or just semi-random chance (like multicellular) in cellular is fine either way, in my opinion. I'll try to refrain from making the obvious joke that would present itself if Thrive contained viruses… But it seems like I have already failed.
Viruses have been discussed a lot, in various topics. Since the forum's built-in search doesn't seem to understand that threads consist of posts, with words in them which it could search through, here's a couple of Google searches of the forum: virus, disease

Oh, and welcome! Any more questions can be posted either here, or in the misc. thread.

Ah, that's a handy trick to know. Googling for the forum + the topic I want.

Thanks for the various links, I notice that asexual reproduction isn't getting much love because it's basically cloning and doesn't lead to much diversity, but a lot of the time an organism with the option of asexual reproduction also has the option for sexual reproduction, which ultimately means it's a way to ensure the survival of the species and more often than not allows more diversity, even in the short-term.

Following is a quick, questionable demonstration of this concept I just made.

Warning! Math!

Spoiler:

Of course there's a ton more factors to take into account, but it could offer a definite advantage early-game and some variety. Or do you play the entire microbial stage as the same cell? This definitely wasn't the place for this but I got carried away and I don't want to just let this disappear by not posting.

Thats a good point about mixed reproduction. It actually benefits even more the asexual way, as being only sexual means that if you can't find a mate, you dont reproduce at all. However, as there is no way we can keep track of every specimen on the game, each with its own caracteristics, we would need to have a simplified way of keeping track of the population as a whole.

For the search, the best way is to use the search bar on the left, but choose the google search option.

Actually, don't bother seregon too much. He has recently been accepted on a prestigious college where he lives, and can't spend much time on here. For the programming side, you can just contact me. Or if it is questions on how feasible (whether it can be programmed) something is, just ask in the pertinent thread.

Daniferrito wrote:

Thats a good point about mixed reproduction. It actually benefits even more the asexual way, as being only sexual means that if you can't find a mate, you dont reproduce at all. However, as there is no way we can keep track of every specimen on the game, each with its own caracteristics, we would need to have a simplified way of keeping track of the population as a whole.

For the search, the best way is to use the search bar on the left, but choose the google search option.

Actually, don't bother seregon too much. He has recently been accepted on a prestigious college where he lives, and can't spend much time on here. For the programming side, you can just contact me. Or if it is questions on how feasible (whether it can be programmed) something is, just ask in the pertinent thread.

So who could we bother about the more theoretical side?

What do you exactly mean by theoretical?

Anyway, when in doubt, as long as it isn't too deep into biology or chemistry, you can bother me, i'll gladly help you as much as i can.

Ah, noted about Seregon. I've already sent him a pm a few hours ago but I will refrain from sending him any more.
There are some pretty basic equations for population evolution which I have written down somewhere. I noticed there's a thread about the topic though, so I'll read that tomorrow and then if I still feel those could be useful I will post them there.

Daniferrito wrote:

Actually, don't bother seregon too much. He has recently been accepted on a prestigious college where he lives, and can't spend much time on here. For the programming side, you can just contact me. Or if it is questions on how feasible (whether it can be programmed) something is, just ask in the pertinent thread.

Actually, Scio's the one who just got accepted (one of the reason's he's also very busy), I'm 4-5 months away from finishing my PhD, so also very busy and stressed. I do still manage to read most threads here, but posting takes me a lot more time, so I'll only do that if it's on a topic I know best. Do feel free to pm me or ask me a question in a thread, I'll respond as soon as I can, but it may take a day or two. Any questions on the compound system, populaiton dynamics, or ecology I'll probably be the most help, though there are others here who know those subjects too.

Seregon wrote:

Daniferrito wrote:

Actually, don't bother seregon too much. He has recently been accepted on a prestigious college where he lives, and can't spend much time on here. For the programming side, you can just contact me. Or if it is questions on how feasible (whether it can be programmed) something is, just ask in the pertinent thread.

Actually, Scio's the one who just got accepted (one of the reason's he's also very busy), I'm 4-5 months away from finishing my PhD, so also very busy and stressed. I do still manage to read most threads here, but posting takes me a lot more time, so I'll only do that if it's on a topic I know best. Do feel free to pm me or ask me a question in a thread, I'll prespond as soon as I can, but it may take a day or two. Any questions on the compound system, populaiton dynamics, or ecology I'll probably be the most help, though there are others here who know those subjects too.

Oh... Ph.D? Dynamics analysis, right?

Good luck with your theses!

Also, you know best most of the current discussion's topics.

P.S.
By "theoretical" I referred to the compound system and such.

Also, will be glad to bother you about practical programming.

Seregon wrote:

Daniferrito wrote:

Actually, don't bother seregon too much. He has recently been accepted on a prestigious college where he lives, and can't spend much time on here. For the programming side, you can just contact me. Or if it is questions on how feasible (whether it can be programmed) something is, just ask in the pertinent thread.

Actually, Scio's the one who just got accepted (one of the reason's he's also very busy), I'm 4-5 months away from finishing my PhD, so also very busy and stressed. I do still manage to read most threads here, but posting takes me a lot more time, so I'll only do that if it's on a topic I know best. Do feel free to pm me or ask me a question in a thread, I'll respond as soon as I can, but it may take a day or two. Any questions on the compound system, populaiton dynamics, or ecology I'll probably be the most help, though there are others here who know those subjects too.

Oh. Ok, then. I remember hearing that someone got accepted, and that you were busy, and i supossed it way you. My fault for being lazy and not searching back where i read it.

@ido: Bother me as much as you want. I'm personally bored at my college. Last time they teached me how a while loop works three diferent times.

Welcome to the Thrive forums Toughtopay!

It's great to see another daunting soul join this epic project. It's amazing to see someone with your caliber of biology joining us. There are a lot of threads discussing the microbe stage, but the one Dani gave is a good one for current discussion. I'm glad to see our news update has brought in some talented artists and a biologist.

Thank you all for the warm welcome, by the way. This is a really interesting project for me, just as much because I want to see the game made as because it pushes me to dig deeper in my studies.
Plus I already feel that this is a great, friendly and motivated community, and it's just the kind of spirit that I value incredibly much.

Here's to ambition.