Nice conversation, but it is offtopic. Lets move the discussion to a topic in the “future game” category:
I have a cell of two cytoplasms and a flagella. When I swam, the ATP went down until I took damage - it never damaged me in a previous run - and I had to stop to fill it back up. But then, suddenly, it costs zero ATP to swim and just reduces my glucose instead. So somehow glucose was not being converted while swimming and now it is, for zero discernible reason (I was not in a cloud).
First and foremost, the player needs to have some idea of what the rules are.
I totally agree that the game needs to give more information to the player and be more clear with the information it gives.
For your problem, I think I get what are you talking about and I think I can explain. First of all, it doesn’t cost zero ATP to swim. All cells have a certain max ATP production value(in your case, 10 per second). Then, all cels have an osmoregulation cost - an amount of ATP constantly drained from your cell, no matter what you do (2-3 in your case, i dont remember correctly). And some amount of ATP is required for movement. If your ATP production is higher than your ATP requirements, it would feel like moving costs zero ATP, but, if you take a closer look, you could notice that your ATP value is fluctuating around max value.
Secondly, glucose is always converted, but really slow, so you probably haven’t noticed. The fact, that you started to lose glucose might be connected with damage you took, since healing takes ATP and glucose.
Lastly, the cell will always take damage when you reach zero ATP. Idk why you wasn’t taking damage in your previous runs, either you managed to stop for a refill just before the first tick of damage or there is some flagellum magic going on.
It probably was, but that’s not the problem here. My question is why ATP wasn’t regenerating just a moment before, when I had just as much glucose on hand?
As I said, healing costs ATP so your ATP regeneration will be slower if you are not full on hp
I was running out before I was damaged (come to think of it, I think I was already damaged). The faster regeneration only started afterwards.