Bacteria

Bacteria.
Will bacteria exist and evolve in the creature era? I say yes!

Importance:
Deseases and evolution of deseases.
Above creates the possibility of mass extinctions by plague.
Bacteria on corpses mean the corpse could be bad to eat, causing evolved instincts not to eat rotting corpses.
Above means the strategy of playing dead works.
Also means certain organisms, such as flies, could evolve resistance and possibly a relationship beneficial to both organisms, such as: Fly thing eats dead thing. Fly thing excretes waste products. Bacteria eats waste.

The problem is programming organisms which are microscopic and number in, well, trillions?

One solution is that they could be done as a huge cloud surrounding the planet, higher intensity around dead corpses, ill organisms etc. and lower in places such as lifeless deserts.

So, what do you all think?

Bacteria should pop up randomly. Certain creatures could have higher resistances, etc. This could work for viruses and other diseases as well.

I believe we should take the approach where the bacteria are separate, evolving Organisms. Microbes will have to be treated differently than macroscopic Organisms.

GamerXA wrote:

I believe we should take the approach where the bacteria are separate, evolving Organisms. Microbes will have to be treated differently than macroscopic Organisms.

I think for the sake of complexity Bacteria should simply pop up randomly to do good or evil on the macro scale.

I think that after becoming a macro organism (ie, not a microbe), then bacteria and viruses should simply be done via calculations. A random event would trigger a colony of bacteria or viruses somewhere, and then the game could randomly decide what traits it has (bacterial and viral traits will need to be discussed for this to work). After that, the colony would be handled as a single object, with calculations to figure out how many die or survive or get inside organisms. Then, if an organism is infected in close proximity to the player (close enough to be loaded fully), it would gain a value saying what kind of bacteria/virus it had. If it then left the proximity, the species as a whole would gain a value for what bacteria/virus they had, and how many of them are infected. Then more calculations would occur every few minutes to see how many more the bacteria/virus had spread to. If an infected species entered the proximity zone, then whether or not the individual organisms are infected could be calculated with a random chance multiplied by the infection percentage.

Did any of that make any sense?

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I think that after becoming a macro organism (ie, not a microbe), then bacteria and viruses should simply be done via calculations. A random event would trigger a colony of bacteria or viruses somewhere, and then the game could randomly decide what traits it has (bacterial and viral traits will need to be discussed for this to work). After that, the colony would be handled as a single object, with calculations to figure out how many die or survive or get inside organisms. Then, if an organism is infected in close proximity to the player (close enough to be loaded fully), it would gain a value saying what kind of bacteria/virus it had. If it then left the proximity, the species as a whole would gain a value for what bacteria/virus they had, and how many of them are infected. Then more calculations would occur every few minutes to see how many more the bacteria/virus had spread to. If an infected species entered the proximity zone, then whether or not the individual organisms are infected could be calculated with a random chance multiplied by the infection percentage.

Did any of that make any sense?

I love you

Yes, in the interest of not speed, we cannot simulate trillions of microscopic organisms. We could get quite detailed with how orgnanisms spread, and weither they survive in certain conditions (i.e. an extremely cold environment would decay bodies slower than a temperate one) but yes, it would have to be in some for of script, as we don't all have supercomputers.

The Uteen wrote:

Bacteria on corpses mean the corpse could be bad to eat, causing evolved instincts not to eat rotting corpses.
Above means the strategy of playing dead works.
Also means certain organisms, such as flies, could evolve resistance and possibly a relationship beneficial to both organisms, such as: Fly thing eats dead thing. Fly thing excretes waste products. Bacteria eats waste.

I'm not sure this is being considered with these ideas, (Resistance and bacteria eating corpses)

I'm not sure about the events making colonies with ranom traits, as bacteria should evolve to get better at populating inside organisms while producing symptoms to get the creature killed so it cannot resist, and so organisms evolve to stop them. Random traits mean the bacteria either are or are not good enough, while evolution means there is a constant battle for survival.

And we want to be able to give the realistic impression of bacteria without making trillions simulted. So...

Using the idea of one area of the planet loaded at one time, I think the area should have, let's say, invisible multicoloured fog, red for cold, yellow for cough, and so on (obviously colours won't be used). In most areas, the red fog is very pale, but around an infected organism, it is denser. Every time a new organism enters the area being loaded, using such things as the effectiveness of the organisms immune system, and the average density of the species of bacteria, the chance of the organism having each one of the possible deseases is calculated. The chance is then used to determine whether the organism is infected by each desease (basically a dice is rolled for each desease possible to occur). If the organism has a desease, the invisible fog will be denser around it.

Now, the chance of infection occuring to the players organism, and those near it being simulated, is determined in a very simular way, so each second/minuite the dice is rolled. The chance of an infection occuring would be so low infection would not occur very much.

But the 'ambient' density of a areas can range, depending on what suites the bacteria best. For example, at a temperature too hot/cold the density would be lower. at the perfect temperature it would be at its highest.

Thanks for reading (If you read this, you must read it all again)

Bashinerox wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I think that after becoming a macro organism (ie, not a microbe), then bacteria and viruses should simply be done via calculations. A random event would trigger a colony of bacteria or viruses somewhere, and then the game could randomly decide what traits it has (bacterial and viral traits will need to be discussed for this to work). After that, the colony would be handled as a single object, with calculations to figure out how many die or survive or get inside organisms. Then, if an organism is infected in close proximity to the player (close enough to be loaded fully), it would gain a value saying what kind of bacteria/virus it had. If it then left the proximity, the species as a whole would gain a value for what bacteria/virus they had, and how many of them are infected. Then more calculations would occur every few minutes to see how many more the bacteria/virus had spread to. If an infected species entered the proximity zone, then whether or not the individual organisms are infected could be calculated with a random chance multiplied by the infection percentage.

Did any of that make any sense?

I love you

Yes, in the interest of not speed, we cannot simulate trillions of microscopic organisms. We could get quite detailed with how orgnanisms spread, and weither they survive in certain conditions (i.e. an extremely cold environment would decay bodies slower than a temperate one) but yes, it would have to be in some for of script, as we don't all have supercomputers.

i support this. It is simple, sraightforward, and should not be too hard to implement.

Uteen, what you are describing is basically the system Alaska described, but a little more complex, and it's not running in the background. Infections can simply be random in the game. I doubt many players will care whether what they caught has a name or not, they only care if it's going to kill them. With Alasks's system we can quickly figure out what damage the disease will do and it will take up virtually no processing power, since the script could be very simple and it only runs every few minutes.

Bashinerox wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I think that after becoming a macro organism (ie, not a microbe), then bacteria and viruses should simply be done via calculations. A random event would trigger a colony of bacteria or viruses somewhere, and then the game could randomly decide what traits it has (bacterial and viral traits will need to be discussed for this to work). After that, the colony would be handled as a single object, with calculations to figure out how many die or survive or get inside organisms. Then, if an organism is infected in close proximity to the player (close enough to be loaded fully), it would gain a value saying what kind of bacteria/virus it had. If it then left the proximity, the species as a whole would gain a value for what bacteria/virus they had, and how many of them are infected. Then more calculations would occur every few minutes to see how many more the bacteria/virus had spread to. If an infected species entered the proximity zone, then whether or not the individual organisms are infected could be calculated with a random chance multiplied by the infection percentage.

Did any of that make any sense?

I love you

Yes, in the interest of not speed, we cannot simulate trillions of microscopic organisms. We could get quite detailed with how orgnanisms spread, and weither they survive in certain conditions (i.e. an extremely cold environment would decay bodies slower than a temperate one) but yes, it would have to be in some for of script, as we don't all have supercomputers.

I also support this. It uses almost no processing power and disease/bacteria is a major part of the ecosystem. I definately support this.

Uteen, change the poll to Alaska's method, and other, please.

I also have an idea for sentience at a microbial level. How would microbial sentience play out? :?: 

You could control sapient hordes of bacteria that can communicate with macroscopic organisms, and may even develop technology of their own...

So, how would a civilization of bacteria play out?

fungus3 wrote:

I also have an idea for sentience at a microbial level. How would microbial sentience play out? Question

You could control sapient hordes of bacteria that can communicate with macroscopic organisms, and may even develop technology of their own...

So, how would a civilization of bacteria play out? :scratch: 

this was three years ago, check what the date is to avoid necroposts.

also i don't think that may be possible other than counting as a gelatinous blob with a brain, or a colony of multicellular creatures like ants, but smaller.