I can guess the siderophore agent will be produced from atp, like the toxins?
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With CO2 gone from the process, I can imagine now an iron-eater will be even stabler of a lifestyle than it already was.
I think that would make the most sense.
Iron parts are now much more stable, in both usability at different times and energy produced (as the CO2 levels automatically scaled the process speed).
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Also, after siderophores get added, would you still be able to engulf large chunks by becoming very large of a cell?
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Yes, you could still do that. The siderophores don’t affect engulfing ability - unless you count enabling small cells to engulf large chunks, by breaking them down and swallowing the small pieces.
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Well once (if) you got to the size needed for whole-big-chunk engulftion, siderophores wouldn’t be all that useful anymore. Not like many get to that cellsize anyway…
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They could still be useful in macroscopic. I am curious to see where that goes. Assuming they get finished.
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I guess for better digesting the chunks? Like lyzosomes but for ironeaters?
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That, or if you can still spit it, you could still use it to make chunks smaller before eating them. Either way. Maybe both. Like how a spider injects prey with digestion fluid and then drinks them, a creature with siderophores might digest iron by spitting at it and then drink it up.
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I guess eventually this could still converge onto a more human-like form of digestion, where the chunks are swallowed whole and siderophores only are released in the stomach.
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Saliva also contains digestive enzymes. Amylase. I could see it working as stomach enzymes or as salivary enzymes.
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Or maybe it could work as both if siderophores can be specialized into types in the later stages?
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Specializing it is a good idea. Do you think there could be specializations that digest other metals?
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That’d mean adding other metal metabolism types, which I’m not sure is something the devforce is aiming at developing.
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Alright I’m curious theoretically, could a macroscopic organism evolve from just eating iron rocks. What I wanna know is if it’s possible.
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It should be possible to achieve, albeit I could see the game requiring such organisms to integrate other foodsources to their diet if macroscopic ironeating isn’t good enough on it’s own.
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Do you mean in game ? Or in general because the in game fer métabolism is not as diverse as in real life so it limit the potential
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I think they meant in-game.
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I meant in general, but in game works too.
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