Nutrients & Compounds

This is where we talk about biome resources and organismal nutrition and how it plays into evolution.

First off:
I posit that:
plants need nutrients
animals need compounds
compounds are synthesized form nutrients

Does everyone agree?

Plants get stuff from the planet and make it into food, animals eat the food by eating the plants, got it.

I would assume the best way to distribute nutrients would be with noise that is governed by something? IDK exactly how we manage distributing nutrients over a planet accurately, but I like where this system is going, we basically will procedural generate diverse bioms, me gusta.

Dr_Chillgood wrote:

Plants get stuff from the planet and make it into food, animals eat the food by eating the plants, got it.

I would assume the best way to distribute nutrients would be with noise that is governed by something? IDK exactly how we manage distributing nutrients over a planet accurately, but I like where this system is going, we basically will procedural generate diverse bioms, me gusta.

That sounds good for basic planet-wide distribution. I think certain biomes may always (or never) have certain materials, so maybe another layer of noise could be added biome-specific stuff, with the extra materials generally denser nearer the middle.

I think these noises can be used (well, after a slight tweak) for making a 3d noise map, so could something like that be used for the distribution of stuff in the sea (mainly salts, probably debris and organic matter too)?


Also, follows a more detailed materials thingy:

Object - Material - Required material
Sun - Sunlight (indirect transfer*) - None
Biome - Nutrients - None
Plants - Plant matter - Nutrients & Sunlight
Herbivores - Animal matter - Plant matter
Carnivores - Animal matter - Animal matter
Omnivores - Animal matter - Plant matter/Animal matter
Carnivorous Plants - Plant matter - Nutrients & Sunlight/Animal matter
Herbivorous Plants - Plant matter - Nutrients & Sunlight/Plant matter
Omnivorous Plants - Plant matter - Nutrients & Sunlight/Plant matter/Animal matter

I'm not sure if you get herbivorous or omnivorous plants, but anyway, they're there.

Fungus - Plant matter - Nutrients

If anyone's knowledgable in the area of fungi then they can continue that. I only know of around 2/3 species in the fungus kingdom, as opposed to about 100+ of the animal kingdom.

More detailed, not the best though. I'm sure the science team will be able to come up with something that allows for bone eaters, leeches, and stuff, with the actual names (i.e. not bone-eaters, but marrow-vore or something) of them. Wink.

*They do not have to be anywhere near the sun to collect sunlight, it is collected through any area of the organism with chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are applied in the editor using a painting-like method, or by auto-evo at a very early development stage.

~sciocont wrote:

First off:
I posit that:
plants need nutrients
animals need compounds
compounds are synthesized form nutrients

Does everyone agree?

Nope.avi

A nutrient is a compound. By forcing animals to eat plants, you're removing the amazing light that is Thrive --random evolution.

Rather, I would say that certain compounds wouldn't be able to be converted into energy for animals. The plants would have to do it first, and that's how you enforce it.

It'd still be cool if stuff in the soil could be directly eaten for energy on some strange planet, so we would make that kind of compound rarer.

So, amino acids, proteins, sugars, carbohydrates, etc?

If we can make those work, yes. I have no intention to simulate any of that stuff, but rather make our own functional-for-evolution version.

roadkillguy wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

First off:
I posit that:
plants need nutrients
animals need compounds
compounds are synthesized form nutrients

Does everyone agree?

Nope.avi

A nutrient is a compound. By forcing animals to eat plants, you're removing the amazing light that is Thrive --random evolution.

Rather, I would say that certain compounds wouldn't be able to be converted into energy for animals. The plants would have to do it first, and that's how you enforce it.

It'd still be cool if stuff in the soil could be directly eaten for energy on some strange planet, so we would make that kind of compound rarer.

Animals are heterotrophs, and by definition, must eat other matter to survive. This means that animals, by definition, must eat either animals or plants to survive.

I realize that a nutrient can be a compound, but for the sake of game simplicity, plants require one thing, whereas animals require another thing, which must come from plants at some level, even if it's already been processed by another animal.

I like uteen's classification so far. Herbivorous plants would be parasitic plants, or epiphytes.

~sciocont wrote:

I like uteen's classification so far. Herbivorous plants would be parasitic plants, or epiphytes.

Thanks. Twice, you included a scientific name, too.

This will be something going on in the background, so I'm not sure we need to go into that much detail, but multiple material types per organism type would be ideal (mine was largely simplified). For example, blood (maybe even blood types) could be specified as a material to allow blood-sucking parasites/leeches. I expect things like bone and horn will too (based on the weapon system discussion), although this will be based mainly off the organism editor's parts (of which there are a lot and it didn't occur to me to check). I also think I'm using lots of brackets (in just about every clause), so sorry if this is hard (or annoying) to read, but it seemed necessary.

Things like animo acids and sugars will probably be more apparent in cellular gameplay, but could probably become necessary if we start going into detail with the materials.

Line reserved for saying: 5 posts to go until I have 1000‽

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Nope.avi

A nutrient is a compound. By forcing animals to eat plants, you're removing the amazing light that is Thrive --random evolution.

Rather, I would say that certain compounds wouldn't be able to be converted into energy for animals. The plants would have to do it first, and that's how you enforce it.

It'd still be cool if stuff in the soil could be directly eaten for energy on some strange planet, so we would make that kind of compound rarer.

Animals are heterotrophs, and by definition, must eat other matter to survive. This means that animals, by definition, must eat either animals or plants to survive.

I realize that a nutrient can be a compound, but for the sake of game simplicity, plants require one thing, whereas animals require another thing, which must come from plants at some level, even if it's already been processed by another animal.

I like uteen's classification so far. Herbivorous plants would be parasitic plants, or epiphytes.

My idea for resources is to make every single friggin thing in the environment made out of specific compounds. If an organism wants energy, it will have to convert the compounds around it into other compounds through a net positive reaction, or some other source (sun). Reactions might involve compounds in the air (respiration), compounds in the ground (plants), or compounds in other animals (carnivores). This puts a reason behind evolution, and allows for very interesting relationships to form between organisms.

Plant or not, it needs to get energy somehow. When you bog down code with tons of rules, ifs, and loops, it's not as dynamic. We need something simple and dynamic, and that's exactly what my resource system is.

roadkillguy wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Nope.avi

A nutrient is a compound. By forcing animals to eat plants, you're removing the amazing light that is Thrive --random evolution.

Rather, I would say that certain compounds wouldn't be able to be converted into energy for animals. The plants would have to do it first, and that's how you enforce it.

It'd still be cool if stuff in the soil could be directly eaten for energy on some strange planet, so we would make that kind of compound rarer.

Animals are heterotrophs, and by definition, must eat other matter to survive. This means that animals, by definition, must eat either animals or plants to survive.

I realize that a nutrient can be a compound, but for the sake of game simplicity, plants require one thing, whereas animals require another thing, which must come from plants at some level, even if it's already been processed by another animal.

I like uteen's classification so far. Herbivorous plants would be parasitic plants, or epiphytes.

My idea for resources is to make every single friggin thing in the environment made out of specific compounds. If an organism wants energy, it will have to convert the compounds around it into other compounds through a net positive reaction, or some other source (sun). Reactions might involve compounds in the air (respiration), compounds in the ground (plants), or compounds in other animals (carnivores). This puts a reason behind evolution, and allows for very interesting relationships to form between organisms.

Plant or not, it needs to get energy somehow. When you bog down code with tons of rules, ifs, and loops, it's not as dynamic. We need something simple and dynamic, and that's exactly what my resource system is.

That's how I want them to work as well. However, if we specify between plant and animal tissues, and define different tissues as different resources, then animals are defined by what resources they need to live instead of if they are carnivorous/herbivorous.

Right.

roadkillguy wrote:

Right.

ok. Now that we agree with each other, we can begin.
The easiest way to do this is to start with definitions that we already have for what organisms are are made up of. This all goes back to the OE.

In real life, plants are essentially made up of three types of cells. (via wikipedia, because i'm lazy.

Parenchyma (cells with thin primary walls that retain their protoplasm)[photosynthetic/energy storing]

Collenchyma (cells with thick primary walls that retain their protoplasm)[shoots and leaves]

Sclerenchyma (cells with lignified secondary walls that have lost their protoplasm at maturity, i.e. are 'dead')[wood]

Plants can also produce things, like saps, that can be eaten. The nutritious portions of fruits and seeds are made up of parenchyma.

Animal cells are much more differentiated. However, we can split animal parts into a few different types of tissue, based on the OE.

Skeletal tissues in animals can be digested, but have little nutritional value, since they are made up largely of inorganic compounds. Exoskeletons are made of chitin, which is a sugar and can be fairly nutritious, more so than cellulose I believe. Marrow would be quite nutritious.

Chitin (also the main component in the cell walls of fungi)
Bone
Marrow

There's also muscle, the main target for predators to eat, and fat, which is an extremely energy-dense thing to eat.

Finally, animals have different organ systems, respiratory, circulatory, and so on which could yield different compounds for consumption.

Now we can extrapolate on these tissues to define compounds.

I see that my dietary tags idea has been given a facelift and come back from the dead. (Though with more science...)

All right. Keep it to a reasonable amount of nutrients/compounds, and we're good so long as Roadkill is willing to code it. Don't make me regret taking Organic Chemistry.