Could chemo-plants also be a thing or would oxygen always have destroyed the h2s before the move to land?
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Perhaps if alien plants did not use oxygenic photosynthesis? 
But this is Thrive, so likely does not mean guaranteed . It’ll likely be at least possible for something grass-like to evolve before something tree-like does. What happens to the succession tier pattern when grasses exist but trees do not?
Could Bamboo then be dominant type of “tree”?
Maybe there could be worlds where Prototaxites never truly went extinct. Since Bamboo is basically grass becoming tree-like, could Prototaxites become more tree-like with branches on possible worlds (since players can make fungi-like photosynthesizers)?
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Well that’s not a thing in the game so it wouldn’t be possible to do photosynthesis without oxygen getting produced.
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Yet. I assume in the Galactic stage that new types of theoretical and otherwise not implemented life for non-Earth-like environments will end up getting implemented. Because people will want to discover them on other planets. But that is a long ways off. Still, it’s good to plan ahead.
I consider Bamboo to be “Wood-y Grass-like.” Most “trees” have branches or fronds, but there are other Wood-y plants, like Lianas and Prostrate Shrubs, that do not, and Aborescent Herbs, like Bananas, that look more like trees than Lianas or Prostrate Shrubs do, despite being entirely Herbaceous. And then there are the Subshrubs, with Wood-y roots and Herbaceous stems that pass for Shrubs. I assume there are tall versions of these but . . . my research into them was inconclusive on that matter, so I am not sure if any could be mistaken for trees.
It’s actually rather interesting how many different times it appears plants have transitioned back and forth between Herbaceous and Wood-y, and the multitude of middle stage plants (of which Subshrubs are appear to be the most common, though certainly not only, category (some plants appear to have a stem somewhere in between)) Horsetail transitioned from a Tree Fern-Ally to a Grass-like Fern Ally, Grass transitioned into Bamboo (and a few bamboo-like reeds), and then there were the Herbaceous Gymnosperms. That, and the fact that both Wood-y and Herbaceous Fern and Fern Allies share the Bryophyte “absorb water and nutrients through the skin” ability are why I haven’t been able to decide how to make them work with the Integumentary System Customization Dues made for animals. I think the Fernwoods ability to absorb and distribute water even after being cut down and carved is something likely worth a skin type/ability for, once plant skins are figured out (imagine an Amphibian with a wooden roof that absorbs rain water and then moistens the inside of their house).
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If they are to be added to other planets why couldn’t it also develop on the player’s planet?
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That’s actually pretty wild.
Though from the Thrive perspective I have to say that we do probably have some limits on how much different types of biomes we want to have, and how small in area we want them to be. But even something like this would be theoretically possible if we exaggerate the scale perhaps?
I agree also that purely “wetland” as a biome feels a bit odd to me.
And this is going purely off of what auto-evo is doing right now with the existing cell membrane types. We will get macroscopic species with unusual cell membrane types unless we explicitly prevent it. And then it’s just a question of how far we go with modelling how that would actually affect the organisms.
There are of course living things like Giant tubeworms living around hydrothermal vents, performing chemosynthesis via its symbiotic bacteria. We probably want to represent those, and if so we will have available methods for macroscopic species to do this. I don’t see us explicitly disabling this for land species, so it will probably be technically possible, but unlikely to be viable for the reason you mentioned.
This is for me definitely one of those cases of “hopefully we can back and do this once Thrive has advanced much further”. And as far as I can tell, it should not be extremely difficult to do. The main question would be balancing, of the organelle, compound environment and auto-evo.
I think they were trying to say “Adding things for alien planets is a good reason to go back to add stranger things to the earlier stages“.
Well, that doesn’t exactly follow from what you quoted. But indeed if something grass-like evolves into something bamboo-like, without any other tree-forms existing, then all forest would be bamboo forests.
Interesting stuff, I guess I wass thinking of bamboo being “grass-trees” mainly from an ecological perspective.
Prototaxites is vague enough that I’ve seen discussion shift on what it actually was, let alone its ecology. So I am not sure if we can talk specifically about making prototaxites-like things evolve (and continue to), when we’re not sure of how it lived in the first place.
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What should be the smallest a biome can get in the game?
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Should this be used as a selling point for the game to new potential customers, if it isn’t already?
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Yes, this is exactly what I meant. Right now, Thrive is concentrating on Earth like, and that is fine, but much later, I believe that Microbes and Biomes will be overhauled to allow for more exotic environments and lifeforms, all playable. At the moment, they are not worth delaying moving forward, but eventually, I think they will be worth going back for.
I don’t believe we should “prevent” anything that is actually doing well (unless we feel that a balancing issue is cause something that shouldn’t work to do well), but we should have a plan for how to (loosely) categorize whatever needs to be categorized. While Aquatic biomes are more complicated, Terrestrial and Aquatic/Terrestrial Hybrid Biomes are incredibly based on plants. On Earth, these categories broadly seem to take size and “body type” (Wood-y, Herbaceous (Grass-like), Herbaceous (not Grass-like), Macroalgae, Microalgae, Bryophyte, etc.) into account.
- Trees (Forest) vs Shrubs (Scrubland) (purely a height thing)
- Tall, Mixed, or Short Grassland
- Algal Meadow vs Algal Forest (Seaweed) (height)
- Leafy or Thalloid Bryophytes (Bryophytes in general have not been given biome names by humans that only care about Vascular plants) (ahh31425 suggests “Bryophyte Field”)
- Grassland vs Herbland (herblands are very uncommon in modern Earth, but used to be a thing)
A few definitions I was working on:
Forest: Dominated by Tall Wood-y plants, and having a closed canopy.
Woodland: Dominated by a mixture of Tall Wood-y and Short Wood-y plants.
Scrubland: Dominated by Short Wood-y plants.
Savannah: Dominated by a mix of Wood-y and Herbaceous plants, spaced so as to not have a closed canopy.
Grassland: Dominated by Herbaceous Grass-Like Plants and having less than X% Wood-y Plants.
Herbland: Dominated by Herbaceous Forbs and having less than X% Wood-y Plants.
I think telling Thrive it can’t evolve plants encased in silicate or carbonate rocks would defeat the purpose of Thrive, but . . . I have no idea how such a plant would be classified. Fernwood is not considered to be “wood” by some scientists (it is softer than soft wood and has traits that make it problematic for many human uses for wood), but Ferntrees are still considered trees for purpose of biomes. So would plants encased in silicate or carbonate rocks qualify as trees and shrubs, or something else?
Edit:
Might I suggest some Wetland Subtypes: Tidal, Estuary, Riparian (River/Lake), Vernal (exists seasonally), and possibly Flooding (not 100% sure if that last one is necessary or not, but I think it is worth debating). Any should be able to apply to any non-Desert (even Barrens can be wetlands (Bogs)).
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I went ahead and added these as subtypes for Wetlands, as well as Floodplain.
There’s some great discussion going on in here, though I unfortunately don’t have the bandwidth to closely respond to everything. I’d be very interested to see what you come up with regarding classifying plants @Poodelicus .
I absolutely agree with this, and in fact I think representing wildly exotic but plausible alien life, even maybe alternate biochemistries, is one of the things I’m most excited for in Thrive’s long-long-term future. Hopefully by then there’s people way smarter than I am coming up with a more universal biome system.
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I would wait until we actually reach the point of macroscopic and we actually implemented some differences between the cell membrane types for that stage. We don’t want to use something as a selling point and then realise “implementing significant differences here costs too much time we can’t afford”.
Modifying plant categorization by membrane type may be quite simple. Just have for example “rock tree” as a category next to “wood-y tree“.
But I am now wondering if biomes should be indeed a bit more restricted. With for example something counting as a forest if it has tall sessile organisms, regardless of whether those are wood-y, stony or fleshy and even regardless of whether they are running on photosynthesis or something else.
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Would Wadi (Seasonal desert rivers) belong in there?
What did get replaced here?
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If it is dominated by Herbaceous plants, it is a Marsh. If it dominated by Wood-y plants, it is a Swamp. If it is a good mix of the two, Earthlings didn’t bother to name it yet. If it is “barren” (includes being covered with Moss), it is a Bog. There are also Fens, but I am not sure what separates Fens from other Peat Wetlands (example: there are Peat Marshes and Grassy Fens, and also Peat Swamps and Wood-y Fens, and I am not sure what distinguishes them (might have to do with PH and Nutritional value of soil, but those vary greatly amongst Fens, so . . . maybe just has to not be “normal”?)).
Interesting. That might work for some Biomes, but what about the ones where the plant is the main source of food in the ecosystem? How would a Stony Grassland support life compared to a Herbaceous Grassland? Actually, define “Grass-like”, cause I actually couldn’t figure that one out. Maybe that’s where the answer is. Same for Algae (Seaweed/Kelp are Macroscopic “Algae”).
Depends on how fast it drains. Seasonal wetlands fill with water, than slowly drain over a period of months.
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Speaking of, should the player then have to live for long enough to complete at least one such cycle of a Wadi?
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How long rounds in the Aware stage should be are still very debated, but I believe they should survive a round of seasons, each with there own day and night.
Actually, maybe a minimum stem hardness? Ferntrees are softish, but still stronger than Banana plants, which are considered Herbaceous (albeit Arborescent ones). Perhaps “fleshy” plants could fill the Herbaceous niches and “stony” plants could fill the Wood-y niches?
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So 1 day = 1 season for the gameplay part?
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Minimum. I am open to longer rounds/seasons, but I think 4 days and nights, each a different season, would be the absolute shortest to determine if something could survive. I personally think it should be longer, but then how long will the game actually be?
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I think a round should absolutely not last more than an hour at most. I could see there perhaps being 2 full days a season if we decided to go for the higher end of our available time spectrum.
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Would seasons be dependent on initial world customization settings, since as of right now, I think Day/Nights can vary from 60 seconds to 300 seconds.
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Yeah but shouldn’t it be longer in the 3d stages?
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