Compound Tags and Properties

Compounds form the very basis of all the stages of gameplay. They are an integral asset to organisms, biomes, the tech editor, and many other fields, but here we will focus mostly on their application in the Strategy Mode.

Now the issue has raised several times of compounds being tagged as "x" or tagged as "y", or having a property of value "z", so here we will finally nail down all of these tags and properties into a comprehensive list for future reference.

Tags

Tags are used by the computer to identify something, or to categorize it. For example, if a lizard was tagged by the computer as "reptilian", and then a command was fed to the computer to kill all "reptilian" organisms, than the lizard would be killed. Another use for tags is for organization. If there was a list of organisms, the player could filter it to only show "reptilian" organisms, and lizard would be on that list.

Tags are also referred to as Boolean values, since they are either a true or false, yes or no. An organism cannot be 3.72 "reptilian", and it cannot be -5x/8^0.6 "reptilian". It is either "reptilian" or it isn't.

Properties

Properties on the other hand are numerical values, not just yes or no's. If I asked you for the density of iron, true would not be a sufficient answer. A numerical value, like 7.874 g·cm−3, would be a sufficient value. Properties are common to all objects within that class. All compounds must have the density property, there can't be some that do and some that don't. However, some Properties can only exist for certain compounds, provided there is the appropriate tag. For example, Steel does not have the tag "Combustible", and so it does not have a numerical value property for "Energy Output", even though some other compounds do.

With that explained, in this thread will discuss any tags or properties to apply to compounds within the game. Below there is a template compound which will contain all of the finalized tags and compounds. Quotation marks indicate the term as a tag, whereas no quotation marks indicates that it is a property. An asterisk means it is a unique field.

Template

Compound

*Name:
---Properties---
Density: (g/cm3)
---Tags With Properties---
"Combustible"
>Energy Output: (MJ)
>Oxygen Intake: (Mass-kg)
>*Emissions: (Compounds and each one's Mass-kg)
"Decayable"
>Decay Rate: (%/time interval)
---Tags---
"Solid"
"Liquid"
"Gas"
"Metal"
"Wood"
"Rock"
"Radioactive"
"Conductive"
"Oxygen"
"Fibrous"
"Synthetic"
"Organic"
"Food"

Tags:

-Solid I would divide this into two kinds of solids. "Solid" solids are things like wood, metal or plastic. "Non-solid" solids are things like sand, which technically are solids, and can be stored like one, but cannot be used as construction material.

-Conductive (for electricity)
-Oxygen (to tell the computer that this is the other component in thecombustion reaction, even if only oxygen is tagged with it)

(i had so many ideas about this. Now that i have to write them down, they are not comming out.)

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but tagging something as combustible isn't really the neatest way of doing that. Instead, combustible compounds will have a 'combustion' process associated with them, which includes most of the other useful information needed (reaction rate, ratio of compound used : oxygen used : water/co2/outputs produced : energy produced). We could deal with radioactive decay (+ fission/fusion) the same way.

I haven't got time to comment on the rest for now, but I'd be interested to see what you come up with, and I'll keep an eye on this thread.

Daniferrito wrote:

Tags:

-Solid I would divide this into two kinds of solids. "Solid" solids are things like wood, metal or plastic. "Non-solid" solids are things like sand, which technically are solids, and can be stored like one, but cannot be used as construction material.

-Conductive (for electricity)
-Oxygen (to tell the computer that this is the other component in thecombustion reaction, even if only oxygen is tagged with it)

(i had so many ideas about this. Now that i have to write them down, they are not comming out.)

I think it would be better to just create a new tag called "Construction Material" or "Building Material" for compounds that can be built from, instead of "Non-Solid" for those that can't. Conductive and Oxygen are two good ones. I know exactly what you mean with getting to posting and then forgetting what you wanted to say.

Seregon wrote:

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but tagging something as combustible isn't really the neatest way of doing that.  Instead, combustible compounds will have a 'combustion' process associated with them, which includes most of the other useful information needed (reaction rate, ratio of compound used : oxygen used : water/co2/outputs produced : energy produced).  We could deal with radioactive decay (+ fission/fusion) the same way.

I haven't got time to comment on the rest for now, but I'd be interested to see what you come up with, and I'll keep an eye on this thread.

Yeah, I remember that suggestion, and it's taken into account. I'll edit the OP, since I think I wasn't very clear, but the tag enables or disables the process. The properties of Energy Output, Oxygen Intake, and Emissions (which are all based off of each kg of said compound combusted, so the proportions are taken into account) are only enabled if the Combustible tag is true.

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I also got some more tags to add.

"Synthetic"
"Organic"
"Fibrous"
"Food"

Another tag.

"Ceramic".

Have you got any further ones Dani? Any one else got anymore?

Here are some tags, "luminescent" and "Plasma".

Plasma sounds good but what would luminescent be good for?

Nick he probably meant this:
Luminescent (creates light)
Think bioluminescent bacteria.

maybe..

edit:
I just realized we need to add light creating bacteria to thrive anyway so creatures can evolve bio-luminescence as a form of communication.
This could be a way of going about it?

No, this is specifically for tags to compounds. What purpose would there be to tagging a compound as luminescent?

I dont think think compounds will create light.

This tags are for compounds. Bioluminescent creatures are a different matter.

Plasma tag. What would that be used for? What compound would actually be taged as plasma?