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Post by elementalred on Nov 8, 2015 17:56:23 GMT
So I haven't seen a lot of discussions about fungi and mushrooms, so how would they be implemented in the game? Also some mushrooms have a hallucinogenic effect in real life, so how would it work in-game (if it ever make it), will your creature start seeing weird colors while its vision become deformed or something like that?
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Post by timetraveler22 on Nov 22, 2015 20:31:59 GMT
That could be cool, but wouldn't that just be considered part of the flora? Don't get me wrong, but if there is life on other planets, what would be a fungus to them, or would they even exist? I would say just alien-looking ground cover that can be implemented to be like fungi, since fungi are pretty phallic alien-looking with either beneficial or hallucinogenic affects from different types.
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The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011 
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Nov 22, 2015 20:37:00 GMT
My guess is if fungi were implemented, it wouldn't be like "you have a chitin cell wall, so you're in house fungus (see Tully)" but more like, you wanna be a fungus? With all the sedentary lifestyle of plants and none of the autotrophy? be my guest. What I'm saying is it would probably be a playstyle, not necessarily a "special flora", at least in so far as I imagine it would be approached. The distinction is easy to draw on Earth via morphological features, but in this situation we're dealing with alien biology, and it's unlikely that another planet will have neat distinctions between their cladogram's branches. Hope this is not excessively abrasive or flat out wrong, it's been a long day.  |
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Post by TheCreator on Nov 24, 2015 1:13:47 GMT
Plants, animals, and fungi all occupy different tropic levels of the ecosystem, so it would be a pretty easy distinction to make. Fungi are decomposers that are unable to generate energy from the sun and cannot prey on other heterotrophs. Instead, fungi feed on detritus.
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Post by Moopli on Nov 24, 2015 6:46:04 GMT
Plants, animals, and fungi all occupy different tropic levels of the ecosystem, so it would be a pretty easy distinction to make. Fungi are decomposers that are unable to generate energy from the sun and cannot prey on other heterotrophs. Instead, fungi feed on detritus. What about those fungi that prey on nematode worms using little nooses  ? Anyway, I think this discussion is creating a distinction where none needs to exist. We don't have any reason to need the game to point to something and call it a fungus, we can just have a game that can support ecosystems where some organisms are a lot like Earth fungi. They'd be implemented the same way any other organism is implemented: they have a certain type of body, they eat a certain kind of food, they behave in a certain way, etc. So to re-frame the question in a way that I think meshes better with the design goals of the game: What kind of features should the game be able to support to allow fungi to exist? We obviously need to be able to support organisms that gain nutrients through "root systems" (roots, mycelium, for example) which is a big part of allowing many kinds of sessile organism to be viable, but what else? As another example, how do we deal with an organism that's so decentralized that you can't really say it has a 'body' until it sprouts sex organs (like mushrooms)? Oh yeah and about hallucinogenic effects: This would probably tie perfectly in with the agent system. Some compound that a species happens to produce will have an effect when absorbed by some other species, and the evolutionary interaction goes from there. |
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The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Nov 24, 2015 14:45:36 GMT
Are the organisms going to undergo development? Are we going to have to guide our hydrothermal anteaters from boyhood to manhood, or will it just be "hey! you were born! You're all big now anyway so go eat something!" I personally would think the latter to be more fun, but I could be wrong. If so, then the reproductive organs could just kind of be out at all times. Mushrooms for all! Another thing to consider is that fungi don't necessarily even have mycelium systems, visa vis yeast or mold. Although I suppose those are mostly just single cells, so maybe my point is moot.
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Post by TheCreator on Nov 25, 2015 2:39:04 GMT
They will undergo development. Moopli, the reason we need to make a distinction is not for the game engine itself (which should treat all organisms the same; regardless id you're a plant of not), but to make it easier on the player. Everything that lives in the water is a fish, everything that flies is a bird, everything that eats detritus is a fungi, if you catch my train of though. |
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The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Nov 25, 2015 19:28:36 GMT
This original comment was off topic, I'll make a new thread. Sorry.
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