Color of Chlorophil

Ohdear. Yes... but.... the chemistry....

Okay. High concentrations of Ozone in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. = blue.
Lots of Iron dust = rusty reddish.

Everything else... I guess I'll start trawling for hypotheticals. This one's a little harder than chlorophyll, because it's dependent on atmospheric structure and chemistry, rather than life taking advantage of physics.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Ohdear. Yes... but.... the chemistry....

Okay. High concentrations of Ozone in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. = blue.
Lots of Iron dust = rusty reddish.

Everything else... I guess I'll start trawling for hypotheticals. This one's a little harder than chlorophyll, because it's dependent on atmospheric structure and chemistry, rather than life taking advantage of physics.

If it's too difficult or obnoxious, don't worry about it. It's even less important.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Ohdear. Yes... but.... the chemistry....

Okay. High concentrations of Ozone in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. = blue.
Lots of Iron dust = rusty reddish.

Everything else... I guess I'll start trawling for hypotheticals. This one's a little harder than chlorophyll, because it's dependent on atmospheric structure and chemistry, rather than life taking advantage of physics.

If it's too difficult or obnoxious, don't worry about it. It's even less important.

Atmospheres are going to follow basic gas laws (duh), and will have to have enough of certain gases (o, co2, n) to support life. It shouldn't be too hard. But most planet atmospheres that you will live on will appear blue or green from space I think. Samme from the ground, mostly blue due to the scattering of light by water molecules.

Now that I think of it, I doubt it's even theoretically possible for life to evolve without an Ozone layer. (Which is created by the reaction of diatomic upper-atmosphere oxygen with the sun,) so an atmosphere sufficiently dense should probably be greenish or blueish, unless there was an overriding factor, such as the dust on Mars. But mars isn't viable, so what am I talking about? It is the thinness of it's atmosphere that gets the dust suspended up there in the first place.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Now that I think of it, I doubt it's even theoretically possible for life to evolve without an Ozone layer. (Which is created by the reaction of diatomic upper-atmosphere oxygen with the sun,) so an atmosphere sufficiently dense should probably be greenish or blueish, unless there was an overriding factor, such as the dust on Mars. But mars isn't viable, so what am I talking about? It is the thinness of it's atmosphere that gets the dust suspended up there in the first place.

Okay, so in a nutshell: all the planets that matter will have a green or blue sky, and thus will have green-ish or blue oceans.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Now that I think of it, I doubt it's even theoretically possible for life to evolve without an Ozone layer. (Which is created by the reaction of diatomic upper-atmosphere oxygen with the sun,) so an atmosphere sufficiently dense should probably be greenish or blueish, unless there was an overriding factor, such as the dust on Mars. But mars isn't viable, so what am I talking about? It is the thinness of it's atmosphere that gets the dust suspended up there in the first place.

Okay, so in a nutshell: all the planets that matter will have a green or blue sky, and thus will have green-ish or blue oceans.

Oceans will always be blue, since water is blue. But yes, they will on the surface appear a little more green on a green-atmosphered planet.

Water is refractive. Any color is due to impurities, but to answer Tenebrarum's question, your seas will be blue or greenish blue, period. Much easier for us.

So we're going to have all life evolve under oxygen, similar to Earth? What about other planets that might have completely different systems where, say, they might do the opposite and have carbon in the air and the plantlife breaths in oxygen? Would that not be possible?

WTFBerserk! wrote:

So we're going to have all life evolve under oxygen, similar to Earth? What about other planets that might have completely different systems where, say, they might do the opposite and have carbon in the air and the plantlife breaths in oxygen? Would that not be possible?

Two steps back and one to the left while I explain this. Yes. Stand right there.

1. Ozone is not the same as Oxygen. Different molecules. O3 rather than O2.
2. Even on dead planets, there is a percentage of Oxygen in the air, just like any other atmospheric gases. The difference being that there just isn't so much of it. There's more than enough, if your atmosphere has a decent thickness, to be broken up by the UV rays of the sun in the upper atmosphere and produce ozone.
3. The Ozone<-->Oxygen cycle (notice the two way arrow?) in it's simplest form is just cycling between two relatively stable molecules that are made of Oxygen atoms.
4. Photosynthesis increases oxygen in the lower air, it doesn't really interfere with the ozone layer. Unless your plants are stupid enough to introduce CFC's into their environment, which I prefer to think is a human trait.
5. Your CO2 exhaling plants would literally starve to death, because they're putting out more than they're taking in there. See, DNA is made of sugar. So is Glucose. Glucose is the fuel of life as we know it, and it is mostly made of carbon. If your plants are giving away their carbon for free, then it's sorry, you loose good day Sir!
6. It is possible that plant approximations could take in CO (Carbon Monoxide, which we cannot breathe,) but the chemistry isn't as neat.
7. Plants can absorb chemicals in ways other than "breathing." (transpiring, if you want to get technical.)

In summary, and repeat after me:
1. The necessity of an ozone layer has no bearing on the chemical processes of the plants and animals in the game. All it means is less UV exposure for them and a blueish sky.
2. Chemistry is important. I will not attempt to introduce massive amounts of entropy into Calli's classroom.

Good. You may now leave: Class Dismissed.

I hope those questions were answered, any longer and I'll need a spoiler.

So you don't think that somewhere out the in the universe that there is some planet with life on it that takes in, say helium or nitrogen? Other than that, I believe you're right on the Ozone thing.

Helium: Does not bond with enough stuff to be useful.
Nitrogen: A possibility. It makes some variety of bonds.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Helium: Does not bond with anything at all
Nitrogen: A possibility. It makes some variety of bonds.

Nitrogen really can't work for respiration, because it bonds differently than oxygen. You see, bonding is dependent on the number of free electrons in the outer electron shell of an atom. All atoms "want" to have eight electrons in their outer shell, because that makes them stable, or inert, like the noble gases (which include helium and neon). To get more electrons, the atoms bond with other atoms, either sharing electrons with them or taking away/giving away electrons to achieve an outer shell of eight electrons.

Oxygen has 6 outer shell electrons, so it can bond with two other atoms at once and create compounds like Oxygen Difluoride (oxygen bonds to two fluorine atoms, each having 7 electrons in their outer shell.

Nitrogen has only five outer shell electrons, meaning it must bond with more atoms to get a full octet. This is why Carbon dioxide exists, but carbon dinitride can't exist.

And that is why we stick to earth chemistry.

The reason I suggested the idea was because I remember seeing a show on the science or discovery channel about the possibility that life on other planets might not use oxygen is it's main element of sustenance.

Nitrogen was suggested not exactly as a replacement for oxygen, but as a possible whole new system.
But really, there's a reason that every creature on earth breathes oxygen, and that Nitrogen (also needed by plants,) has to be "fixed" and put in the grould before it can be absorbed.

Earth chem continued, if no one has any more objections.

I for one, demand Earth chem and only earth chem until science makes a few more steps forward.

It'll make the game a bit more simple, as well.

Thank you both for simplifying my life. Have some cookies. :cookie:

Huh. The smiley doesn't work.

Back to the color of plants, I'd like to say that for the sake of being science-based, it should not be an automatic, "my star is that color so all plants must be this color" type of display. I like the point that a dark-colored violet plant will be overheated on a planet orbiting a bright blue star. Therefore, I think that it's best if the color of plants are determined by auto-evolve, and quite simply for the purpose of best fitting the energy output of the star. This way, we'll get a majority of plants which have the color required based on the star, but there could be a species or two that has slightly off coloring, a realistic representation, no?

GhengopelALPHA wrote:

Back to the color of plants, I'd like to say that for the sake of being science-based, it should not be an automatic, "my star is that color so all plants must be this color" type of display. I like the point that a dark-colored violet plant will be overheated on a planet orbiting a bright blue star. Therefore, I think that it's best if the color of plants are determined by auto-evolve, and quite simply for the purpose of best fitting the energy output of the star. This way, we'll get a majority of plants which have the color required based on the star, but there could be a species or two that has slightly off coloring, a realistic representation, no?

Yes, or we can do what we're already doing and code a range of plant colors for star color. It's simpler and does the same thing.

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, or we can do what we're already doing and code a range of plant colors for star color. It's simpler and does the same thing.

Well I was thinking that auto-evo would be more interesting, but I suppose the color can still be simply found by the color of the star. Just thinking about in galactic stage if we ever allow plants and animals to be placed on planets which they aren't native to, it might be better to have auto-evo handle it.

GhengopelALPHA wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, or we can do what we're already doing and code a range of plant colors for star color. It's simpler and does the same thing.

Well I was thinking that auto-evo would be more interesting, but I suppose the color can still be simply found by the color of the star. Just thinking about in galactic stage if we ever allow plants and animals to be placed on planets which they aren't native to, it might be better to have auto-evo handle it.

True, but I think normal auto-evo shouldn't be affected by colour. It would be annoying to have a predator get an advantage, and you respond by turning cerulean. An extra random mutation per generation strictly to change the colour, perhaps? That would keep things looking different to if a colour change was just very unlikely.

The Uteen wrote:

GhengopelALPHA wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, or we can do what we're already doing and code a range of plant colors for star color. It's simpler and does the same thing.

Well I was thinking that auto-evo would be more interesting, but I suppose the color can still be simply found by the color of the star. Just thinking about in galactic stage if we ever allow plants and animals to be placed on planets which they aren't native to, it might be better to have auto-evo handle it.

True, but I think normal auto-evo shouldn't be affected by colour. It would be annoying to have a predator get an advantage, and you respond by turning cerulean. An extra random mutation per generation strictly to change the colour, perhaps? That would keep things looking different to if a colour change was just very unlikely.

Why have the color of a species separated from other auto-evo functions? It has an element of natural selection, so there could always be an evolutionary reason for color changes.

PS: My posts should be read in an American accent, btw.

GhengopelALPHA wrote:

Why have the color of a species separated from other auto-evo functions? It has an element of natural selection, so there could always be an evolutionary reason for color changes.

PS: My posts should be read in an American accent, btw.

I see your point, and we're doing our best to cover that. In an ideal world, we'll be able to cover camouflage. That's something we really want to be able to do, as it is particularly endemic of the natural world. When it comes to chlorophyll though, including it in auto-evo would b=certainly be cooler and more fun, but not at all simpler. In order to fit it in, we then have to add equations for overheating, the rate of absorption of energy, and color's effect on both of these. It's a lot of work for such a minor point in the game, and I only proposed the idea of consistent chlorophyll in the hopes of "Oh hey, that's kindof neat." We're trying to simplify and cut down right now, and honestly, I'd rather see this cut than language or disease.

Tenebrarum wrote:

GhengopelALPHA wrote:

Why have the color of a species separated from other auto-evo functions? It has an element of natural selection, so there could always be an evolutionary reason for color changes.

PS: My posts should be read in an American accent, btw.

I see your point, and we're doing our best to cover that. In an ideal world, we'll be able to cover camouflage. That's something we really want to be able to do, as it is particularly endemic of the natural world. When it comes to chlorophyll though, including it in auto-evo would b=certainly be cooler and more fun, but not at all simpler. In order to fit it in, we then have to add equations for overheating, the rate of absorption of energy, and color's effect on both of these. It's a lot of work for such a minor point in the game, and I only proposed the idea of consistent chlorophyll in the hopes of "Oh hey, that's kindof neat." We're trying to simplify and cut down right now, and honestly, I'd rather see this cut than language or disease.

QFT
It's the same reason we'll code in classes for heads, limbs, etc into the OE. It's way easier to do it the fast way, and works much better in the game.

~sciocont wrote:

It's the same reason we'll code in classes for heads, limbs, etc into the OE. It's way easier to do it the fast way, and works much better in the game.

Not to mention that the simpler the code is, the few bugs we'll have and the easier they'll be to remove.