Factors that make up a Biome

All right - since we're painting them on, we need to start outlining different types of biomes, and all the variables that they entail.
Biomes (in real life) are determined by physical factors, such as temperature range, precipitaition/liquid availability, as well as ecological factors, which determine what lives there.

Physical Factors
Temperature: we need it in there somewhere, to make sure that physical properties remain consistent, but it will be largely under the hood.
Ground vs. Groundwater vs. soil type: As far as I know, we're flagging different groundcover types with values which will determine whether they are sand, rock, soil... presumably, these tags would include a variable about water retention - whether they would dry immediately or become muddy and swampy.
Precipitiation: we need to remember to include something for how often and how much liquid will fall from the sky. Some places will rain/snow/liquid methane a lot. Some will not.
Elevation: Except in specific cases, this consideration will be modified by temperature. Still, there are some biomes that will need flat land, to be underwater, or to be just above the water table, such as a cave.

Ecological Factors:
This is all about the autotrophs. In real life, fast growing autotrophs inhabit places that are frequently disturbed, whether by fire, avalanche, tides, or whatever, while the more stable the area, the more diverse the number of autotrophs and the longer it takes them to grow or replace themselves. This is why cutting down rainforests sucks for the whole surrounding area.
Some Biomes will be more fragile than others.
How I think we can/should handle this is that certain biomes, which are less-disturbed, will have a greater amount/variety of autotrophs populating them when we just paint them in. This means that competition and specialization in the area will increase: There will be more available living resources, but stronger competition for them.

There's probably bits and pieces of this scattered everywhere across the PPG forum, (and maybe we've already dealt with bits and pieces of this over in programming,) but I did want to explain the variables that would make a biome "realistic" instead of just cosmetic, and open up the thread for further questions/comments/explanations.

We're also going to want variables for underwater environments, such as currents, geothermal activity, etc, as well as factors for elevation.

The factors that determine a water environment could be;
1. Depth
2. Ground (if any) make up. Like, rock seaweed, sand, etc.
3. Water currents
4. Light received (which could probably also go with depth)
There are probably more, theses are just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head.

Oh, and I have another biome;
An underwater environment centered around one massive organism. It would have spongy skin so that some plants and coral-like animals could grow on it. It's basically a giant, moving coral reef. The main creature would stay very close to the surface (about 20ft down) which would allow aerial predators to feed on fish. The creature would go with the currents, so the others would, too.
Would require-
-A massive animal, the max size one can be
-Aerial predators, which should be able to dive, and digest meat
-Plants that can survive under water
-Coral-like animals
-Small plant eating fish
-Medium plant eating fish
-Small predators
-Medium predators
-Large predators that come and go

PCaddict wrote:

The factors that determine a water environment could be;
1. Depth
2. Ground (if any) make up. Like, rock seaweed, sand, etc.
3. Water currents
4. Light received (which could probably also go with depth)
There are probably more, theses are just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head.

Depth and light would be covered by elevation. Ground will be needed, but anything that doesn't have a bottom would just be an "open water" biome.


This link explains ocean levels.

Therefore, we will have to restrict some biomes by the rendered elevation of the planet and some by whether they are underground, underwater or both.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Therefore, we will have to restrict some biomes by the rendered elevation of the planet and some by whether they are underground, underwater or both.

I think it's easier to determine aboveground/below sea level by elevation. Any place that spends some time above and below would fall into a "tidal" biome category. I think underground should be included with the biome above it, except for caves, which should be considered their own biome.

Unless we have a cave/cavern, we don't have a seperate biome. Soil is the basis of what sits on top of it. Period.

~sciocont wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Therefore, we will have to restrict some biomes by the rendered elevation of the planet and some by whether they are underground, underwater or both.

I think it's easier to determine aboveground/below sea level by elevation. Any place that spends some time above and below would fall into a "tidal" biome category. I think underground should be included with the biome above it, except for caves, which should be considered their own biome.

QFT

How do we mathematically define where these said biomes are?

For instance:

We know treeA goes in biomeA.

Where do we put treeA?

I think we have a procedure lurking somewhere to randomly place large autotrophs, based on elevations and distance from the others.

roadkillguy wrote:

How do we mathematically define where these said biomes are?

For instance:

We know treeA goes in biomeA.

Where do we put treeA?

We will probably have a resource-first procedure- species cluster around a resource (usually a stream or lake. Then spread for there in a more random fashion, with the highest biodiversity and density of orgs at the resource.

Reasonable. Elevation fluctuations may have to play a role too, but other than that, should be good.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Reasonable. Elevation fluctuations may have to play a role too, but other than that, should be good.

Elevation fluctuations?

Pines like to grow on steep slopes, because they can get much more light in that way. Elevation plays a big role.

Commander Keen wrote:

Pines like to grow on steep slopes, because they can get much more light in that way. Elevation plays a big role.

We could include overall slope pf the land in a biome, possibly.

Sounds good. The pollinator should also take the orgs' slope preference in account, but that belongs into different thread entirely.

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

How do we mathematically define where these said biomes are?

For instance:

We know treeA goes in biomeA.

Where do we put treeA?

We will probably have a resource-first procedure- species cluster around a resource (usually a stream or lake. Then spread for there in a more random fashion, with the highest biodiversity and density of orgs at the resource.

Wait, so when you guys make the planets, you'll only have to place down a few of whatever belongs there, and then everything will grow automatically and in random ways? Or will that happen when somebody changes the planet before they play the game? Or while they're playing the game?

I finally posted in this forum...

Hi, Dudeman - Welcome aboard, man.

To my knowlege, the "random pollinator" works more or less like this: when we have premade organisms flagged as belonging in a specific biome, wherever we "paint" a biome on, a certain number of them will appear, in proportions more or less fitting to sustaining the ecosystem. (Much math will be done on that later, but for now we need biomes, premades, and time.)
So there are going to be a really intense amount of biomes being created, and they'll change over time due to changing conditions. For example, if a resource is no longer available, organisms needing it will either a) migrate b) die off or c) adapt. So biomes won't be static.

Hope that helped.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Hi, Dudeman - Welcome aboard, man.

To my knowlege, the "random pollinator" works more or less like this: when we have premade organisms flagged as belonging in a specific biome, wherever we "paint" a biome on, a certain number of them will appear, in proportions more or less fitting to sustaining the ecosystem. (Much math will be done on that later, but for now we need biomes, premades, and time.)
So there are going to be a really intense amount of biomes being created, and they'll change over time due to changing conditions. For example, if a resource is no longer available, organisms needing it will either a) migrate b) die off or c) adapt. So biomes won't be static.

Oh, so you create a biome and put in what belongs in it, and then the whole thing gets painted on the planet and the biome gets randomly multiplied! I thought that you made an area to be a biome and then put something in it and that something multiplied to the edge of the biome... I get it now.

But that still doesn't tell me when the biomes multiply... Or when we create them. Will Thrive create them, will the players create them, or will the makers of Thrive create them?

Sorry, I have a lot of questions. And I'm barely a teenager, so I don't know anything about programming...

Thanks.

Dudeman wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Hi, Dudeman - Welcome aboard, man.

To my knowlege, the "random pollinator" works more or less like this: when we have premade organisms flagged as belonging in a specific biome, wherever we "paint" a biome on, a certain number of them will appear, in proportions more or less fitting to sustaining the ecosystem. (Much math will be done on that later, but for now we need biomes, premades, and time.)
So there are going to be a really intense amount of biomes being created, and they'll change over time due to changing conditions. For example, if a resource is no longer available, organisms needing it will either a) migrate b) die off or c) adapt. So biomes won't be static.

Oh, so you create a biome and put in what belongs in it, and then the whole thing gets painted on the planet and the biome gets randomly multiplied! I thought that you made an area to be a biome and then put something in it and that something multiplied to the edge of the biome... I get it now.

But that still doesn't tell me when the biomes multiply... Or when we create them. Will Thrive create them, will the players create them, or will the makers of Thrive create them?

Sorry, I have a lot of questions. And I'm barely a teenager, so I don't know anything about programming...

Thanks.

Firstly, welcome! Nice to see new members. Why don't you make a welcome thread to introduce yourself?

Anyway, the Thrive team will create them, with help from fans (on ModDB), and certain conditions are programmed into the game that can categorise a location as a biome. Then, when you begin a game, the planet will be randomly generated with a random planet generator, and then the planet will be 'looked at' by the game and biome labels will be given to every location on the planet, depending on the conditions there. Then the game will 'observe' the planet as it develops and the biomes will be updated to fit the changes, with more variety of biomes as life becomes more varied.

But the player can set areas on a planet with god machines/god tools (Probably on the wiki somewhere). Basically, when they use a god machine/tool, they can open the editor and add their own biome areas, which are then shaped and populated accordingly.

I think that just about covers it.

Yeah, more or less, though I'm beginning to wonder if we've updated the wiki since we decided on god tools (or at all lately - when I find the person who has the keys to the wiki, I have some updates to dump on them.)

The wiki has been last updated about 14 days ago, and that's a long time. I'll make a temporary thread for it.

Commander Keen wrote:

The wiki has been last updated about 14 days ago, and that's a long time. I'll make a temporary thread for it.

Good, because I have a couple pages of translation to dump on you. (Unless someone just wants to make me a metaphorical spare key...)