Organ Design

Interesting. Anyways, this is getting off-topic, and untrustedlife's question is yet unanswered.

Mike, are you proposing that organs be generated through a mix and match sort of system?

Yes, I feel it wouldnt be all that hard to implement and it would make much more sense, I mean players are making organ systems , if we end up hardcoding every single object we will need MANY MANY more objects, (in the hundreds ( I emphasize the 's')) in order to to simulate evolution for every possible environment then if we just take many different base parts and give them qualities , of course Daniferrito is more familiar with c++ than me, so it is his call.

I feel it would make much more sense and would open up more possibilities for the player and for the autoevo systom, it would also make it easier for players to figure out what they want there creature to have in order to survive well.

If we dont do it this way than we are limiting the players greatly in my opinion.

I mean we would have electro teath but no poison teath?

We would have Ivory spikes but no spikes made out of any other material?

We would have a heart but no four chambered, 2 chambered or 3 chambered hearts?

We would have the ability to give yourself a kamaikazi organ that blasts acid, but no organ that blasts poison or a dangerous gas?

We wont have any 'precurser' parts? (The parts that you have to evolve to evolve better versions )

If we base every part after a base part and give them different qualities and allow the player to choose from all these different qualities when they use that part then it would be much better.


Otherwise we will just have to come up with every possible part, and this would need much more discussion then it currently has and we wont come up with alot of what people want.

For example, I am a player I go into the organism editer and decide 'Hey I want to give my creature an organ that holds posion that splatters when I kamikazi.' I look around and it doesnt exist, I do however find one that holds acid, however this is not what I want, I want poison so I decide not to add anything.

A player decides,'I want a spike that transfers electric shocks instead of teath that do that, I also want to replace my teath with posion teath' He can't find it so instead has to limit himself to electric teath and plain spikes.

You see where I'm going with this?

Well, i wouldnt say i'm specially good with c++, and anyway if it can be done in one language, it probably can be done in another.

Of course, i agree that the less objects (organs, apendix, ...) we have to implement the better. It can be easier to code, and the player wont feel so overwhemed with options.

For example, stomachs. We only have to put in a single stomach, which you can upgrade to make it fit your needs. For example, upgrade how eficiently it can digest plants. Or upgrade meat digesting to be carnivor. Or a bit of both to be able to eat everything.

I would like to treat all "pointy" or sharp things as a single object as well. No matter if it's used for claws (which can be used to damage, in adition to provide a better hold to the ground), spiked body for defense or offense, teeths (which would help in digesting some things as you increase the surface of the food).

This ones could conect to a poison-creating organ to allow them to inject poison through it, with an optional poison sac to have more poison avaible at one time. Or conect them to a electric charge creation organ (for lack of a better name) to shock things.

However, there are things we might not be able to simplify. We will have to see when we are doing it.

Speaking of organs: I have a proposition.

We have a loose collection of internal organ systems/classifications. Most of these we will never actually see outside the editor, so for now we can just concentrate on their classifications.

For example, the Vascular system: In essence, this is the heart, (unless it's an open circulatory system.) We can propose a one, two, three, four, whatever chambered heart, and the only differences between them are the object model and the blood-pumping rate and efficiency. They're all categorized under "heart," just with two different lines of code so that they have different effects. We can do much the same sort of group classification to stomachs, livers, spleens, etc: have separate instances for slightly separate ranges of functions. For stomachs we can simply connect the digestive abilities to a certain classification of food: just "plants," just "animals," both, poisonous plants etc.

Things such as the poisonous fang: well, that's a functional part hollow fang with a "poison gland" that has a couple different chemical settings, rather like the stomach. For taser-teeth, we can hook the hollow fang up to an electric eel type shock-generator.

I vote that when we organize this mess, we group all things by function, think about what variations in coding that would be needed to get to the variety we want, and overall treat these hypothetical adaptations a bit like the tech editor, reducing them to the smallest discrete parts that can coherently be put together by a player.

I guess I'll go look up the major components of all the known organ systems on earth and all the common organic toxins this weekend... belgium knows it's better than my lab report.

/ two-penny thoughts.

It would be simple if we kept from having quote 'separate instances for SLIGHT variations' we don't want too many objects for this. I like Daniferrito's take on what I said,

untrustedlife wrote:

It would be simple if we kept from having quote 'separate instances for SLIGHT variations' we don't want too many objects for this. I like Daniferrito's take on what I said,

... I think I misspoke (Instances means seperate objects in programmer, not the same thing with one new property, D'oh.) Essentially, I was agreeing with Dan: We should just have one, say, heart, and then the little upgrades in pumping efficiency would be called "single chambered heart," "double chambered heart" and so on.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

untrustedlife wrote:

It would be simple if we kept from having quote 'separate instances for SLIGHT variations' we don't want too many objects for this. I like Daniferrito's take on what I said,

... I think I misspoke (Instances means seperate objects in programmer, not the same thing with one new property, D'oh.) Essentially, I was agreeing with Dan: We should just have one, say, heart, and then the little upgrades in pumping efficiency would be called "single chambered heart," "double chambered heart" and so on.

This is how I envisioned it.

I thought you meant a completely seperate object, sorry cali.
In this case I agree

Instance in this case may mean a different type of the same object (basically a clone) maybe with little variations or a completely different object. I thought you meant the second one.

If I am in my cell prototype for instance, I actually only have 2 different cell OBJECTS at the beginning (One is player cells, and the other is npc cells), however the properties of each individual INSTANCE, of it is changed, the game itself treats each INSTANCE as a separate OBJECT, because they are basically clones of a base object. (if you can follow what I am saying)
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Sci, it seemed like the discussion was going off in a different direction then what we just agreed on so I wanted to 'fix it'.

Right, guys: I've grabbed the approved organs (through page five of this thread,) and put them on this google-doc. Do not mess with the google doc, but do read it, because otherwise you shall suffer the wrath of Calli.

Also, stop talking about dragons, pretty please. No fire, no temperatures hot enough to boil water (if external water is boiling, so are your cells!) no disregarding the laws of convection. We've done this discussion about three times on this thread alone.

Approved Organs List (WIP)

Wow, this looks amazing Calli! I've been waiting to see a compilation of all these organs for quite some time now. When I get the chance tomorrow I am going to read through this.

NickTheNick wrote:

Wow, this looks amazing Calli! I've been waiting to see a compilation of all these organs for quite some time now. When I get the chance tomorrow I am going to read through this.

Thanks. It's a messy sorting and turning the stuff (especially the glands) into programming speak, but otherwise I feel confident that we can get this thing into something resembling order. When I've caught up to more recent entries, I'll have Scio sticky it, and we can then talk about the hard maths and implementation. Oh, and toxins, which I'm sure I'll have a fun time looking up.

I have just a brief question. As an aquarium hobbyist, I have noticed many interesting organ systems that are commonly overlooked at first glance and i was wondering if these would be possible adaptations for full marine life or coastal amphibious species. (i have a whole list of these, this is only a few)

1. the chambered nautilus has large, well, chambers in its shell that it fills with gas to rise up in the water column and fills it with water to descend.

2. the pistol shrimp has a specialized claw which, when used, sends a small shockwave that can stun or kill prey or predators.

3. the knifefish (this one is freshwater) has a specialized ventral fin which allows it to swim in any direction (except sideways) without having to change the direction it is facing.

4. the species anableps anableps has a split pupil in each eye which allows it to see both above and below the water line simultaneously

if any of these are useful please let me know. cheers

They all sound fascinating, but unfortunately I'm not a biologist so I'll have to let someone with more qualification approve those.

By the way, welcome to the forums!

scorpion268 wrote:

1. the chambered nautilus has large, well, chambers in its shell that it fills with gas to rise up in the water column and fills it with water to descend.

Actually, i believe most aquatic animals have something like that, to adjust its flotability, which makes going up and down in the water extremelly easy.

Ok, who would I need to talk to that is?

Also thanks for the welcome.

Also danferrito, (sorry, I can't figure out how to quote on my phone) many organisms do have a structure that does something similar, but the chambered nautilus has a more advanced system. Fish have swim bladders that allow them to swim in a certain direction to ascend or descend, but they have limited control over it.the nautilus is able to control the exact point it wishes to go.also with these structures it is able out maneuver all but the deadliest of predators. (this includes octopus, morays, and triggerfish)

scorpion268 wrote:

Ok, who would I need to talk to that is?

Also thanks for the welcome.

Also danferrito, (sorry, I can't figure out how to quote on my phone) many organisms do have a structure that does something similar, but the chambered nautilus has a more advanced system. Fish have swim bladders that allow them to swim in a certain direction to ascend or descend, but they have limited control over it.the nautilus is able to control the exact point it wishes to go.also with these structures it is able out maneuver all but the deadliest of predators. (this includes octopus, morays, and triggerfish)

I'm currently de-facto organizer for organs, so I'm gonna reply here. (And Dan, I can't mod here, not my subforum, so would it be possible to move that over to the organs thread for everybody's convenience?)

1) Yeah, functionally the nautilus is pretty cool. In game mode, that's going to get simplified down to "highly adjustible swim bladder located in the shell."

2) Pistol shrimp is always cool, I'll see what I can do when we're thinking about organs and adaptations. Selective areas of fast-twitch muscle were a go last time I checked...

3) Did not know that, will have to add. It works like a rudder, right?

4) More work must be done on sensory organs. Once I get the currently approved organs organized, I'll be cracking the whip on that.

OK, good to meet you.

On 3, yes it is, but it is also it's form of propulsion as it has no tail, it basically works like a ribbon and as the fin pushes down the body length, the water being pushed builds up speed and pushes it forward rapidly in the direction wishes to go.i would take a video of my African brown knife but he died of a parasite.so I'll have to find a video on YouTube.

Cheers

found one

Woah, that is interesting fish!

yeah i'm still not entirely certain what caused it to evolve into that.

on the other hand, i have a new organ that i shall release.

certain species of freshwater fish (bichirs, anabatids) are capable of breathing air in the event that they are caught in water that has a low oxygen content. fully operation internal aquatic lungs

That would just be plain old lungs. A secondary breathing system is something i didnt though of. Some creatures can suplement their breathingthough skin transpiration as well.

@ Scorpion: Yeah, that's pretty cool, we'll have to put "undulating fins" in under the limbs category.

You mean like a lungfish? All right, we should allow both lungs and gills, but probably have a very small capacity on the lung. And I'll... figure something out about skin transpiration, last I heard that was invertibrates, which I am currently not doing, and some amphibians.

So, I looked at the list of approved organs, and didn't see anything about book lungs, or similar structures, so;

Book Lungs
System: Respiratory
Description: Basic Book Lungs like a spider or scorpion.
Use: same as lungs and gills, placed internally with vents to the exterior
Details: multiple panels of tissue that act like gills, but remove needed gas directly from the atmosphere, no water middleman required

That is a great idea. I approve
Thank you for mentioning them.
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we agreed on the upgrades concept right guys?
How about one can upgrade the organs in different directions which have there own upgrades for a sort of branching tree or web.
Of course someone will have to make a graph to show the different things.

I've got a few more where that came from;

Complex Nocturnal Eye
System: Nervous
Description: Eyes like an owl's
Use: vision
Details: Big, round eyes with large amounts of light reception cells

Ears, lots of ears
System: Nervous
Description: Ears in general, different shapes and sizes
Use: hearing/focusing sound to eardrums
Details: numerous kinds of ears