I've recently had a spark of inspiration on dealing with biomes. I realize now that the system I have created relies on too many "unknown" variables to determine a biome, and relies on a food chain system that is either preprogrammed or one that I hadn't yet thought of. Today, I've realized that really, biomes only differ in a few simple ways, which can be defined numerically as variables. Before this point, we've been describing biomes as we imagine them: they're biomes form earth. Our non-earth biomes have been few and not very useful in gameplay because of their rarity. With my new system, defining a biome comes down to a few simple factors- it doesn't even need a name. With this system, every single possible biome can be defined, because every single group of factors can be defined.

The key variables in the biome system are location, terrain, water, and succession.

Location depends on a couple of factors in itself, the main factor being latitude, which affects sunlight intensity, which in turn effects heat. Sunlight intensity and heat are both also controlled by atmospheric variables, which I have not yet written maths for, but the maths for them are fairly simple. Latitude also affects seasonality, which in turn plays back into light and heat.

Light will be measured by a sin function whose y values correspond to watts/m² and x coordinates correspond to time (in years)


Terrain also is a factor in biomes. The overall shape of the terrain and the elevation help determine whether a biome can reside in a certain place.

Water is a very important variable. It determines the overall type of biome. There are three of these overall categories, which are aquatic, terrestrial, and intertidal. These names speak for themselves.
For terrestrial biomes, water will be measured in mm/year.
For intertidal biomes, water will be measured by salinity and tidal period.
For aquatic biomes, water will be measured by salinity, DO (dissolved oxygen) levels, and depth (which limits light determined by location)

Succession is measured in succession stages, which correspond to nutrient values. Succession stages, of which there will be 4 or 5, are measured in nutrients/m² of ground area (this assumes that all of the area of soil underneath that square meter is usable and contains an even amount of nutrients per square meter)

Using these basic variables, we can create basic sets of variable ranges. These sets are the defining characteristics of biomes.

These biome definitions tell us the most important thing about a biome: the producers. Producers are pants. With the four variables above, we can determine what plants can live in the biome (their size, characteristics, etc) which can then help us out with consumers (the animals).

The total food chain rebuild will come soon. For now, hopefully you all understand this. In the meantime, enjoy the new forum skin, image courtesy of pezzalis. Also, check out the music from one of our newest members, WTF Berserk.