Biomes

Future Game
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Plankton moves, and its the vegetation that allows for Open Ocean to be habitable. Blue Whales live on mobile Plankton. The theoretical Hydrogen Balloon Plant would move up and down, as well as be blown around by the wind. Sargassum is moved by ocean currents. I guess this comes back to “What is Vegetation” (sigh). I think of it as an important part of the food chain, except possibly in certain Allochtonous Zones and Barrens. As long as it stays in the same general area (does not migrate), it will still define that area if it can move a little. Grant it, some Plankton actually moves between the Mesopelagic and Epipelagic zones daily, but that returns to the same are every day.

Edit: Let me try it this way. How do you define Sessile? Several species are classified as Sessile for different stage of their life but not others. For example, Sponge larva can swim but adults Sponges cannot. Are the adults Vegetation? Actually, some Sponges are capable of moving a few centimeters a month, would these count as Sessile? If a Forest made of a million Tree-like creatures evolved to move a few centimeters a month, would you call and visually depict it as a Grassland (Herbland)? Would the Tree-like creatures get kicked out of the Vegetation Miche (if there is one)? I would understand a limit on how much they can move in a day/season/year, but I think an adamant rule about anything that moves cant being Vegetation will cause problems. I attempted to meet in the middle with a system that I though could work for both Visual and Miche purposes (though it has a few kinks to work out). I do not see a reason a slow enough moving species cannot be a background illustration.

My climate system was strongly based on Koppen classification. I included a few combinations of factors used by Koppen that do not happen to occur together on Earth, as well as Hyperpolar and Supertropical, the second of which is actually though to be coming to Earth soon due to Climate Change. Also,

I really hope that is supposed to only be Climate. Combining Climate, Terrain, AND Vegetation into so few regions over such a large area seems . . . unrealistically limiting. Not to mention Oceans are not on continents.

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Since it’s supposed to be the smallest unit of area (ig?) I think it would also be the smallest frame for those mediums aswell

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True, but this is microscopic life, not vegetation whose mere presence has effects on terrain, miches and movement outside of direct feeding. Microscopic life is probably going to be low-detail clouds in macroscopic stages.

As represented by a simple prey-predator relationship in auto-evo.

We’ve had this discussion before. Food chain effects are entirely unnecessary to take into account as a separate system, since auto-evo will handle it automatically. The reason to have a forest classified as a forest is because it is kind of different to move around and live in than grassland on the same terrain, even when ignoring eating the plants directly.

So vegetation classification = “biological terrain”

Vegetation = sessile organisms that determine vegetation classification and would be used by the LOD system as “flora”.

Now these examples, I could kind of sea. Needs a careful solution. Because obviously they can form a kind of terrain, but the engine will not be able to handle them in large numbers.

For Macroscopic and beyond, this will be anything that does not move at all, as far as in-game simulation logic is concerned. And from what I remember of the planned LOD system, them being completely unmoving is a hard requirement. Otherwise, the system can’t display a whole forest of them. Even something like a carnivorous plant can only exist at fauna-density, not flora-in-a-forest-density.

I guess for auto-evo and display purposes a creature might have a speed of centimetres per month, but while walking or swimming around, they would be completely unmoving. Since I think vegetation-terrain can only be determined by flora existing in large quantities, the vegetation classification system would use the same classification of sessile.

So as another example: these would be sessile. But their movement would be 0 for 99% of the game’s purposes.

Like above, they would be Sessile, and it would be a forest. The movement speed would not exist, as far as the game is concerned. If their movement was high enough to be relevant, they would have to be simulated as motile, and they could not exist in sufficient density for it to look like a forest.

I don’t expect there to be anything like an explicit vegetation miche. But for example in miches that complete over for example sunlight, I would expect there to be such scoring that the organisms holding them are most likely sessile (and thus can be vegetation).

But we might end up having to force auto-evo to have organisms holding certain miches to be sessile/vegetation, because as said we cannot simulate motile life in sufficient numbers to fill the world with life.

This is an interesting thought. Assuming we develop significant life stage systems at all, I can imagine a few options:

  • The motile stage is too small too matter. The species would be considered sessile/vegetation/flora (LOD). And the larvae could use whatever we use for a system that also covers seeds.
  • The organism’s mechanics are considered too complex for the flora system to handle, so it can’t be flora (LOD). Larva are spawned at fauna-amounts and can swim around and become adults. Adults are also spawned as sessile, but only in fauna-amounts, not flora-amounts. Because they cannot be spawned as flora, they would also be set to not be vegetation/ not affecting the vegetation classification (much).
  • Larva are spawned at fauna-amounts and can swim around and become sessile adults. We also spawn sessile adults as part of the flora system (large amounts). They would affect the vegetation classification.

It was supposed to be combining climate and terrain. But these would then be treated as “units” for auto-evo, so one region would have one set of vegetation. Of course, when you’re actually walking around that does not mean it is completely uniform. A forest can have clearings, different plants around a river, etc. But any two rivers in the same region are going to have the same types of plants living next to them.

That’s just how auto-evo has to work. You can consider each region a dynamically created “patch”, as in the microbe patch map.

7 regions in one continent was obviously an arbitrary example, but: The number of regions we divide the world into is simply a matter of how much the typical system will be capable of simulating in a reasonable time frame. This is really not a question of realistic design or development effort. We go as detailed as we can get away with, or as limiting as we need to be.

We could also divide regions based only on climate, ignoring terrain, and then just say “this region also has 20% wetlands, so give 20% of sunlight available in this region to a wetland miche”.

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Would plants still be able to despawn if, say, you lived long enough for some to have reached a point by which they would have died?

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A Plankton/Algal Bloom can sometimes effect terrain. Though, if the system has a general idea of where the Plankton “lives” and its preferred food and temperature, this could probably be handled as an “event” triggered by an increase of nutrients in/change of temperature of the water the Plankton lives in.

Being able to move via method A (example: Climbing Trees) vs B (example: though the dense undergrowth) will effect Miches. This will be more true of an “Old Growth” Forest. Because this effects both reaching various food and predator avoidance.

It is my understanding the plan was always to have Life Stages, Gender, and Social Castes combined into “The Caste System”. I guess the better question would be, assuming their are sessile miches, whether the different castes can fill different miches.

Considering how many plants have a one year life cycle, or partially die every winter only to come back when it warms up, I hope so.

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Speaking of plants, they don’t always have the exact same bodyplan across specimens as animals for instance. How would we make the editor/autoevo not always spit out the exact same bodyplan for a plant species then, assuming differing one-species plants are viable from a game efficiency standpoint?

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How we’re going to simulate time in Macroscopic has not been decided yet. And we would have to see what the flora system allows.

Good point. Microscopic life can determine terrain, that’s also been discussed before. But even if it’s technically motile, we’d probably treat it mostly as sessile to allow for that. Having big clouds of algae is much more possible than a forest of moving trees.

Very true, and this is my point. The reason to have a vegetation classification is for the flora to have exactly this “peripheral” effect on how all the other interactions in the ecosystem work. For simple “herbivore eats plant” interactions, you don’t need the vegetation classification. That’s why I said before to ignore what “flora” are actually eating. It’s not relevant to what we’re trying to accomplish with the flora “terrain”.

There have been ideas, but I would hesitate to call that the plan.

This is a very different topic, so I would suggest you find or make a different thread to discuss that. But to keep it on the Biome topic: while I had a few ideas for different growth patterns, I think it was said that for the flora LOD system, all members of a plant species would have to be the same.

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Pretty sure it being planktonic more or less means it is incapable of moving against the current, so practically like a free floating “sessile” organism, where the sediment is the surrounding liquid instead

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I think this only works if Planktonic Filter Feeder Sessile Heterotrophic Organisms are distinguished from other relatively Sessile Heterotrophic Organisms. Sponges, Oysters, and many Corals depend on Microscopic Organism to be carried into them by the currents. They are technically Carnivorous, but they function very differently than “Carnivorous Plants”. I think half the problem you had with my suggested vegetation system was my awkward attempt at Filter Feeding Reefs and Animal Forests (the other being my suggestion to allow small movement). So allow me to suggest:

Vegetation = Sessile Autotrophs and/or Filter Feeders (This would technically include most Carnivorous Plants, which are not actually heterotrophic, and in fact, many are more sessile than oysters) (note: if there is another factor that would exclude these, please point it out)

This does bring up the question of Lysotrophs/Saprotrophs (Fungi), presuming they make it into Thrive in some form. Perhaps then:

Vegetation = Sessile Autotrophs, Filter Feeders, (Lysotrophs/Saprotrophs), or some combination thereof.

If either of these definitions are acceptable, I can try to fix the few related pieces of my suggested Vegetation classification.

As for Climate, I understand your opinion that that many Climate choices is to much, but for the most part I just including combinations of factors in the existing most referenced system that do not always get listed together or all appear on Earth, and a couple Extremes that seemed plausible. It is possible a few of these combinations do not need to be distinguished from each other, or perhaps there is a reason I don’t know a few of these don’t happen on Earth, but I figured it was better to be thorough and let the Devs vote pieces down than the other way around.

As for Subterranean, I will want to spend some time reexamining that, but will not have the time to do so for a while. If anyone else wants to tackle it, they are welcome to do so.

I stand by my comment that, IRL, Soil is the main difference between a Sandy Coast with Palm Trees and a Mangrove Swamp. Perhaps there is a simpler way to handle this and the formation of Peat (which would be a valuable Civ resource), but I have not seen any other suggestions for that yet.

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Don’t most carnivorous plants only/mostly get nitrogen from their prey, which’d still make them “sessile autotrophs”? Unless we assume the “trophization” of an organism also roots itself in the bare resources the said organism lives off from and not just energy

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Yes. In fact, while a few move their leaves, most move less than Oysters. But that was a response to this:

I think Rathalos is either mistaken or there is another factor that makes that the case, in which case, it needs to be properly identified. I will edit my earlier comment.

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I think they might mean the types of carnivorous plants that do move since moving is a major constraint for flora in the simulation

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It’s a question of “Do leaves opening and/or closing count?” Consider that some flowers open there petals every night and close them again in the morning. Are those “Sessile”? They are rooted in place.

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They probably would’ve included this in the “fauna density flora” list aswell

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Yeah, I’m always thinking about how this works with HyperbolicHadrons planned world mechanics (as I understand them), regarding the amounts of game entities with certain properties that can be placed in the world. Fully stationary objects are cheap compared to things that are mobile. But perhaps a very large cloud can still act as a single object, allowing us to give it some passive movement in the currents? It don’t know enough to be sure.

I think this is a valid distinction if sessile filter feeders can exist without heavy mechanical calculations. If they need to actually consume/interact with clouds of plankton, they might still not work as flora. If we can just ignore the feeding/metabolism and assume they’re gathering enough distributed in the water, I think that can work.

I am trying to clarify the terminology I am using, so to make it explicit:

Flora = Organism type that the new world LOD system will be able to place everywhere. Needs to be a sessile organism that is also computationally cheap, so no active interaction with other organisms. It is essentially a piece of terrain that can be climbed on or eaten. Grass in a grassland, trees in a forest, coral in a reef, etc. A carnivorous plant that needs to interact more, is not Flora for this system.

Vegetation = Organism type that the world generation system will use to determine what vegetation classification this region gets. 90% tree cover makes a forest, 80% of seafloor covered in tall coral makes it a reef, etc. I’ve come around to thinking this actually can include organisms that are not Flora. However, because we physically cannot have non-flora exist in large numbers, they cannot effect it much. So a sessile carnivorous tree can count a bit towards making something a forest, but it would only ever be 1% out of 90% trees. So perhaps it would make more sense to only consider Flora-qualifying organism for Vegetation classification. (because those are the ones you will actually see dominating the landscape.) That will practically be the case anyway, since they will outnumber Flora so much.

So this:

Does make more sense to me.

Makes sense, I hope we can have a large enough variety. We can see how much HyperbolicHadron needs to pare it down later on.

I really like cave adaptation as a phenomenon, so I hope we can have it in the game. But it might end up being less of a priority compared to other features, both for development effort and computation time?

Perhaps this can also be baked into the terrain side of things? I think HH already discussed wetlands as a part of terrain in general. The player usually does not need to directly see the exact reason there is wetland in a certain area, the same way that the don’t need to know what causes low rainfall in a desert.

We’ll have to see whether a switch like this is doable for the LOD system. If we can just switch between two models depending on the time, maybe it’s fine.

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The thing is: some terrain is dangerous. I don’t know what will or won’t be implemented, but, I am assuming creatures cannot swim through lava. I could see many other potential dangerous terrain effects. Theoretically, if there can be terrain that is dangerous to walk on/over, could there not be Flora that is deadly for a small creature to climb or land on, or toxic to eat or touch? I believe only 25% of Carnivorous plants have closing leaves. The rest are entirely Sessile, like dangerous terrain.

Has there been any discussion of “traps” in later stages, or in terrain for that matter (like quicksand)? If traps do eventually get implemented, could the 25% of Carnivorous Flora with snapping leaves be like natural traps?

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Trapping IS a part of their strategy so it would make the most sense to consider these natural traps.

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Edits to original based on recent conversations.

First, I think “Vegetation” should be defined as: Sessile (or Floating?) Autotrophs, Filter Feeders, (Saprotrophs/Lysotrophs), or a combination thereof. This allows a much more diverse variety of “Vegetation”, such as Thermosynthetic Vegetation, Sulfur or Iron Eating Vegetation, or even Radiotrophic Vegetation (this also allows for Electotrophic Vegetation, but that ability is not currently represented in Thrive (yet)). Outside of Allochthonous Zones (described in more detail below), Vegetation is also the “Primary Producer” of any biome.

Naming is not a strong suit of mine, but here are a few suggestions for prefixes:

  • Phototrophic: By Color (example: Green, Brown, or Red Seaweed Forest)
  • Thermotrophic: Thermic/Caloric/Thermophagic
  • Chemotrophic: Sulfuric/Theîophagic
  • Lithotrophic: Ferric/Sidērophagic/Ferrophagic
  • Electrotrophic: Galvanic/Anodic/Electrophagic
  • Methanotrophic: Methanophagic
  • Heterotrophic (Filter Feeder): Planktivore (this could include Zoo Plankton like Krill and Brine Shrimp)
  • Heterotrophic (Engulfer/Detritrophic): Carnivorous
  • (Heterotrophic) Lysotrophic/Saprotrophic: Fungal

and my suggestion for the Prefix order:
Photo – Thermo – Chemo – Litho – Electro – Methano – Hetero – (Lyso/Sapro)

First: the “Simple/None” Vegetation

  • Microscopic (Any Rigidity): Plankton (which will likely be handled mechanically more like compounds than organisms)
  • Soft or Medium MMC: Algal Mat
  • Hard MMC: Crustose Mat
  • Short Simple Multicellular: Seaweed
  • Tall Simple Multicellular: Giant Seaweed

Allochthonous Zone: An Aquatic Biome Lacking in Complex Vegetation:

  • Planktonic System: An open surface area that contains Clouds of free-floating Microscopic Organisms (Note: Other areas may also contain Clouds of Plankton, but they will defined by other traits).
  • Photic Reef System: Contains a shallow water Reef.
  • Deep Water Reef System: Contains a deep water Reef (no sunlight).
  • Animal Forest: Contains a large number of Sessile Heterotrophs/Filter Feeders whose exteriors are too soft to classify as a Reef.
  • Flux Zone: Currents carry in food from outside the biome (listed as (Subtype) Zone):
    • Subtidal: Waves and/or nearby Estuaries disperse Energy from the nearby Intertidal Zone.
    • Upwelling: Prone to frequent Upwellings.
    • Geomorphic: Due to Geological features, currents are funneled into/through the area.
  • Open Depths: A deep water are whose main source(s) of energy is/are Marine Snow and/or Clouds of Plankton.
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Would the Ediacaran Charnia count as an animal (underwater?) forest maker species?

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Would this also apply to a collection of various types of underwater fungus?

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