Will various organisms smaller than you (the Player) be able to “colonize” part of your body? Sort of like the game Wandering Village. Perhaps when the Player is smaller, they could also “colonize” part of a bigger creature, which looks like an entire patch from the smaller perspective.
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Parasites (and symbiotes)! They’re a real interesting possible bit of game design.
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Just how much larger than species 1 does species 2 need to be for species 1 to view s2 as a patch?
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Suggestion: When first evolving to a Macroscopic creature, you could default to a hydrostatic skeleton but, depending on what cell walls your creature is using, be able to upgrade it to:
- an Endoskeleton
- an Exoskeleton
- a Shell
- Wood
- a Herbaceous Stem
- Whatever Fungi Have
- (Insert option I did not think off here)
- Possible 2 of these things? Not sure about this one.
What do you think?
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I guess hydrostatic being the baseline makes the most sense.
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For some reason, I thought of the Klyntar from Marvel Comics. You know, the Symbiote Aliens like Venom. I do wonder if it is possible to make something similar to Venom and his species in the game?
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They seem to be giving way too large of a boost to properly balance them out. Would have to be nerfed.
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Almost certainly not. Two reasons: those things are like liquid. Those things can work for any species. (third reason they’re goddam magical) If you were to try to buff only a few species, you could even effect their mood to steer them intelligently, for example there are snail parasites that make them fearless so they’ll be eaten. If a parasite gave you weapons, that fearlessness could be helpful. If it gave you speed or stamina buffs, replacing fight/flight/freeze instincts with flight instincts could be great.
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Would that pretty much be a “symbiont” at this point?
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Yeah. I mean the line between symbiote and parasite is thin, but you get it.
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Are there any actual symbionts which infiltrate a creature’s tissues and help it? I guess intestine bacterias exist…
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Interestingly enough, I helped with a Cancer research project doing this exact thing during the completion of my Master’s Degree last year.
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What were the symbionts in this case? Were they supposed to kill the cancer?
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I can’t give all of the details due to confidentiality, but I can confirm they were supposed to kill the Cancer cells.
Oh, I thought for a moment it was supposed to be cancer cells made to somehow “help” their hosts…
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I think this is an active area of research…
Ah right, hypertumors are a thing afterall…
By the way, should cancer be present in the gameplay directly?
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I can sort of understand why you would wish to have macroscopic start with a skeleton, and, if that remains your intent, I still think having Hydrostatic Skeleton as the default and upgrading to other thinks makes the most sense, however, I’ve been thinking about this, and I keep coming back to the following:
1: Non-Vascular Plants
A: Aquatic Forests (Edit: Seaweed/Kelp)(Biome)
B: Plankton or Equivalent (which comes in both microscopic and macroscopic sizes) (for food chain)
C: Early Land Plants (able to thrive in Barrens due to lack of roots)
D: Some Deep Cave Plants
2: Most Fungi (other than Mushrooms) (For Decomposition of material, which creatures nutrients for other organisms)
While it seems unlikely the player would wish to play as any of these organisms, for balancing ecosystems such species will likely be needed. Will the AI be able to evolve such basic macroscopic lifeforms that serve vital background purposes?
Edit: Also, more than half of the planets oxygen is produced by non-vascular marine plant life. Grant it, most of this is used up by ocean animals, but it still has to come from somewhere. Another reason non-vascular plants are important.
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Don’t plants need sunlight to live through?
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I believe there are some parasitic plants.
And there is one like Dodder, which punctures and “sucks” the nutrients out of other plants like vampires drinking blood!
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