Implementing Pollution

So this is some highlights of the discussion from the Function Part Discussion thread. Check out that thread, pages 2-3, for the background to the topic.

Now, some important things to note are that the atmosphere is treated as a stockpile. It can store and release compounds that are gases.

Fires, Forges, Smithies, and other early FP's that require energy release small quantities of emissions, since they process in small quantities and they process quite slowly.

Casting Plants, Assembly Lines, Refineries, and other later game FP's that require energy release larger amounts of emissions, since they process larger quantities and they process more rapidly.

Modifiers are not needed to be added to the emissions to make early FP's release little and late ones release a lot, since they already do that.

Last thing that is important, note how I said these FP's require energy, not fire or combustion. This means that you can hook them up to things like solar panels, water turbines, wind turbines, or other green energy sources, and as long as they get the energy they need, they will keep processing without emitting any gases.

When we get to defining the properties of compounds, one important property is "Emissions". The gases that are emitted when a compound is burned as fuel is dependent on the compound, not the FP.

So, obviously we won't implement every gas, but at the same time I am wary as to reduce them to Toxic Gas and Greenhouse Gases. The two solution so far mentioned are:

Use the actual compounds, aka CO2, SO2, NO2, etc.

Use the simplified compounds, aka Toxic Gases, Greenhouse Gases.

What are the pros and cons of each?

Pros :
Very real environments. where you and you nation stumble blindly, just blindly noticing crops aren't doing so well.

Cons:
Might be a bit frustrating.
Too many variables. You're talking at least 5-6 variables, with virtually the same gases they do the same thing. And that's greenhouse gas.
the fact that you may not mention them, some of the 'minor gases' like ozone might actually be made from some factory and you fail to mention it because its not as "well known".--- keep in mind it's not about your creature anymore, you're going to be juggling politics (peace and war),as well as economy.

The fact that you may have to worry about SO2 from a volcano or from carbon-monoxide poisoning by living by a lake for the cratures stage is way different than trying to balance a whole planet environmentally.

I know you hate it, and I don't you blame because it does ruin some small bit of realism there. But when it comes to managing a planet or a species, it takes a group of people (experts and advisors). Those meters and warnings are like your advisors in this case.
You don't want to leave a city builder, RTS, or RTT to guessing.

I thought I'd already posted this, but apparently the forum swallowed it?

A quick note - if we use the current concept of the compound system, we won't need emmisions as a compound property. Rather, each combustible compound would have a combustion process which uses it, along the lines of:

fuel (the compound) + oxygen -> heat + co2 + water + other (the emmissions)

The heat from this process could be captured by an FP to produce energy, do work, smelt something etc.

It's not stumbling blindly Sundu. CO2 will have to be added anyway since it is one of the main compounds releases by animals and needed by plants. Adding water vapour is also probably necessary, since it is required by Steam Engines.

I likewise worry about the added management on the player, however, it wouldn't be to such a terrible extent. The GUI would include tables and charts for the player to have easy access to the atmospheric stockpile composition, as well as the places it draws from and releases to.

The player won't have to worry about the environment, since it will for the most part stabilize itself independent of the player. It will mostly be the player's actions, ie the development of their civilization, that would start to destabilize the quantities of gases. The extent to which the player would cause this destabilization would be diminished, and the player will have sufficient opportunities to balance the environment with solutions such as green energy.

I like the idea Tarpy mentioned for pollution in the Funtion Part Discussion thread.

@Seregon: Would the oxygen be drawn from the atmosphere? Also, I know that water is part of the equation, but should we really include it? It seems to me like that would mean a lot of factories and blacksmiths will produce large amounts of water.

Also, to simplify things, I think it would be easier if the only quantities in the equation that would change depending on the fuel be "Heat", "CO2" and "Emissions". My train of thought was, CO2 could be merged with the other emissions. So, the only independent variables would be "Heat" (Energy) and "Emissions". Then, instead of showing the player a balanced equation, it would just show them the two properties, amongst the other properties, as shown below:

Energy Output: X kJ/kg
Emissions (per kg): X kg, Y kg, Z kg

It would be displayed in a manner similar to the tables halfway down this page. The numbers for the energy outputs of the compounds would also be drawn from that link.
What do you think?

NickTheNick wrote:

It's not stumbling blindly Sundu. CO2 will have to be added anyway since it is one of the main compounds releases by animals and needed by plants. Adding water vapour is also probably necessary, since it is required by Steam Engines.

Yes, we all know how a steam works. But, the process isn't so chemical...
And, need I remind you, not every ounce of pollution is cause by fire, factory production sometimes causes pollution by the chemical processes they use.
And while a lot pollution occures toxically, and we could use very interesting effects. Greenhouse gases all work the same, while you may be able burn some (methane), some cause acid rain (NO2), and some of them are harmless to life (CO2, H2O).
While we can add simple numbers (alien figures) to make alien tech. We don't need to make this too earthly, this sporelike game after all. If I wanted real, I would go and do actual living by making my own farm, blacksmith, or what have you.
There's are a lot of technology you could take advantage of that never took root here, but could've somewhere else under different odds.
Electric-Steam Locomotion for example...


And while I do admire the use of chemical compounds in the Origins of the game, and the creature stage... you're going to live with the fact that everything in this world doesn't live around exacting numbers.

Sometimes a simple Red-Green gauge is enough, and a simple interface tweak that lets you know whether something is helping the environment or hurting will help.
Believe me, I'm one of those people who was all over the minecraft (BTU; simulation), decisively picking planks or slicks and etc. But not everyone likes play like that. And yes I know this game isn't for everyone, but complexity has killed games in the past...

You can make the internal programming as accurate for real life purposes as possible, but make the actual appearance simple.

For example, carbon scrubbers make perfect greenhouse gas cleansers, and for all intents and purposes it would work wonders on big cities (They do have specific cleaning rates, as a factory will have a specific output too). An acid rain or two would help clear the atmosphere of NO2... and they could be the actual physics of the game. What saying is that you shouldn't bother adding such detail to game menus and gui's. No one playing will particularly care how much CO2, NO2, and H2O being produced other than it is being produced, and they like to know it's suits their style. Or, it suit situation, when the planet is random. Who knows, there might not be Oil or coal to rely on... maybe they use alcohol, or bio-diesel right from the start.

When I was arbitrary numbers up there, I was merely suggesting what they could look like. Like said your system could take down every ounce of detail and dumb it down for the user. The percentages of pollution could be different in every planet due to the atmospheric volume, and to the player it's arbitrary and simple. But you the programmer, can make the game based on very realistic figures.

All these specific pollution instances will still happen, it's just it's been dumbed down for the sake of fun. For example if you plan trees, but place a factory that pumps out NO2, the trees will still help with global warming because it's taking care of the Carbon... if you replace the factory with a greener alternative same thing will happen, for the sake of the player. But in the actual coding is detailed enough and very realistic mechanics and intricate variables.

Let the nerds among us figure how the system really works, like the people at have done with minecraft ovens


FURTHERMORE, I think there is merit in directly separating the tribal, civilized, and space age. Because you don't start out aware over emissions, and pollutants. So I think tribal phase should be void or lacking in environmental knowledge, until you start the civilized or industrial phase.

@Nick - yes, the oxygen can come from the atmosphere (though it may be possible to supply it from other sources if you wanted to, e.g.: liquid o2 in a rocket). The water will be released as water vapour, also back into the atmosphere (this is why clean smoke is white, it's the water vapour from combustion that you can see, most of the other emmissions are clear). I think including the water is pretty crucial, as it replaces the water taken from the atmosphere when various fuels are made (especially wood).

For similair reasons, we need to have multipliers for each input and output. If the equation isn't properly ballanced, we will end up either losing or generating compounds somewhere in the system. So if producing wood takes x co2 and produces y o2 per unit, those same number of co2/o2 should be produced/consumed when burning. The only inballance should be in the heat produced, which should be somewhat less than the energy used when the wood was created.

In terms of what you display to the player, we can do whatever we like, so listing co2 as an emmission would be fine. I'm only talking about how the game will do calculations internally. All the information we might want to show would be:

Energy produced per kg
Oxygen required per kg
Emmissions per kg (kg's of co2, water vapour, etc.)

@Sundu: I know, I am just referring to any FP's that produce emissions. Fires, Assembly Lines, Mechanical Looms etc. are all included.

The Research Web isn't where the variety comes in. The Tech Editor is where the player takes their technology and makes it unique, either like that of Earth or something different. The player would have to Research Electricity, and then Steam Power, and then they could go make an Electric-Steam Locomotive in the TE.

Compounds are going to be used throughout the entire game. That is the very nature of the system. It is universal to the game, and applicable to all stages. It was designed for this very purpose.

Gauges, charts, tables, and/or graphs would naturally be included in the information the player would have access to regarding the environment. Obviously we wouldn't show them the inner workings. However, gainging access to these is not based on reaching the next stage, they are unlocked by researching the appropriate Researches. Weather Lore reveals basic information, and then Meteorology gives more detailed information.

Nevertheless, it is quite important to show the player the composition of gases in the atmosphere, so that as the emissions from their factories increase they can take steps to reduce it. Since it will mostly be the player's actions that would cause unstable emissions, an effect that would be diminished anyways to reduce difficulty, and since the player would have ample opportunities to ameliorate this predicament, it shouldnt be too challenging or complex at all.

@Seregon: Ah, okay, that's a good point. What should the list of compounds look like then for the main gases to include? From Tarpy's list I remember:

Water Vapour
CO2
Methane
NO2

What emmissions we include rather depends on what combustable compounds we have, but I would consider adding soot (or other particulates), and so2. Both of these can lead to climate cooling (I think, someone correct me if not).

I think having various type of gas would be a good middle between realism and gameplay. I don't think it would be too complicated to implement.

Do you see pollution as different level depending on location of the planet or as a uniform atmosphere pollution that would be different between planet ?

The former would be harder to implement and use much more computer ressource. The later would be pretty straightforward but would make something appears on one side of a planet impact the other side.

RodGame wrote:

I think having various type of gas would be a good middle between realism and gameplay. I don't think it would be too complicated to implement.

Looks like I've lost this argument. That makes person number 2 say, YEAH MORE GASSES MORE FUN!
Oh well

I agree I think pollution should be planetary... Isn't it always with weather/wind currents.

Elevation is a good touch, but I fail to see how it changes things. As they say that the factories will be cranking out specific volumes in the game. Good thought though, Russians made pollution worse by added taller chimney stacks to help keep smog out of the city.

Well, having different pollution level according to altitude could be simple to implement as a function.(i.e Pollution = 5 * Altitude^2)...

Having some hotspot linked to village or volcano activity would still be quite simple to implement. A complex pollution level with wind and such would be really complicated.

No, I was just thinking the pollution occurances would be random. No that there would actual weather patterns (we don't know our own well enough, much less another planets!)

Sundu wrote:

YEAH MORE GASSES MORE FUN!

No, that's not what we're saying. We have repeatedly said we are including only the significant gases, many of which would have to be included anyways for other reasons.

I was thinking that it be applied per biome, but then again climatic maths are not my forte.

4-5 vs 1 or 2 big difference bud. (CO2, NO2, SO2, CH4, and H2O)--(Greenhouse gas level or toxic gas level)
besides, I was more concerned with the way it's presented. (You could have 20 variables for gases in the actual simulation for all I care).

Besides I said "I surrender" did I not. Like 4-5 said they would like more input into the gases in the game. Nothing against you... Geeeez.

Moving on.
Can't you apply a saturation level... And once it get high enough the temp increases everywhere, and the stuff like smog and acid rain occur randomly.

How were you think of placing biomes I a planet I may have an idea for the map of the planet though I may have to do a simple paint drawing or pencil/paper sketch... To get my point across.

Sundu, whether you surrendered or not I would like to make clear what the point was. Choosing 4-5 as opposed to 1-2 is not equivalent to "more gases more fun".

Don't worry, you didn't offend me. The presentation to the player would be simple and clear, as I said many times.

Biomes were covered a long time ago, so I'll have to go check up the final concept on it and link it here; or hopefulle someone from that discussion could post here.

Quote :

Sundu, whether you surrendered or not I would like to make clear what the point was. Choosing 4-5 as opposed to 1-2 is not equivalent to "more gases more fun".

Buddy, I know your restricting the amount of gases. I know that was the plan, but 2 or 3 people had said... they like your model better because it adds a more realistic feel. Hence my more gases more fun, I in no way thought that anyone thought even more gases than you suggesting was more fun.

Believe it or not I've this sort of argument over an RTS game, and he was adamant that 1 resource was better than 3... when comes to resources, or limiting factors people get a bit vocal.--- unlike here, so that's I drop my thought to your 4-5 gas model. Besides the pace is going to be slower than other RTS games.

I tried looking at what you were talking about but I could find it. All I found was what kind biomes are going to be there.

Picture in Spoiler

Spoiler:

RUSE is a good example. If you look closely there are sectors (you don't have make it that shape, you could make the map a globe with sectors you can shose to take or just look at). You could have Global Climate in the GUI, with pollution of gas level and etc. The pollution could change biomes, like artic regions wouldn't be so artic and ect.

And, as the saturation increases from said stockpile. Random occurrences happen such as smog and rain, over random sectors. Could be the different Biomes in the planet. Or just a designated sector, like a piece of the biome.

What is being done with the idea of the oceans absorbing CO2, and increasing their temperature (which could eventually lead to changes in ecosystem structure)? Also, do you have anything which simulates the oceans' currents/gyres which could spread pollutants over large distances?

@Sundu: Ahh, okay. I still haven't looked up the concept on biomes, and I probably won't be able to until later today or tomorrow. I know that sciocont, and most likely seregon as well, probably Daniferrito too, know about it.

Btw, the pictures are awesome, but you should put them in spoilers to not stretch the page.

@BioMike: Sadly, that again falls out of my knowledge. You'll probably have to ask the members I mentioned above on that.

BioMike wrote:

What is being done with the idea of the oceans absorbing CO2, and increasing their temperature (which could eventually lead to changes in ecosystem structure)? Also, do you have anything which simulates the oceans' currents/gyres which could spread pollutants over large distances?

Ocean currents are really complex systems, so we're probably going to handle them in a pseudorandom fashion.

~sciocont wrote:

BioMike wrote:

What is being done with the idea of the oceans absorbing CO2, and increasing their temperature (which could eventually lead to changes in ecosystem structure)? Also, do you have anything which simulates the oceans' currents/gyres which could spread pollutants over large distances?

Ocean currents are really complex systems, so we're probably going to handle them in a pseudorandom fashion.

Couldn't have said it myself. This is an area were energy shouldn't be focused too hard. Some other places will yield more result for the energy needed.