Also would the sizes be:
“Small” - Prokaryote,
“Medium” - Big prokaryote / Small Eukaryote,
“Big” - Medium/Large Eukaryote?
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That could work, though to get the monstrosities we use to see, hex size might be better. I’m not sure. We might also want a forth size, just for the really big one.
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I agree with something similar to “size based” miches. I actually mentioned it preciously in this thread, though flipping it around as a “low reproduction cost miche”. Size by itself does not immediately help a species survive that much. The current miche selection criteria are really trying to only measure the performance of the cell.
Though having a miche for small cells does not solve the endosymbiosis problem: another small cell can still kick out your target species and instantly destroy your progress (even a cell that just split off from your target species).
As for giant cells: the miches for predators should already be trying to create cells large enough to eat you.
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Good point.
I haven’t seen a giant cell since 0.6.7. I think the miche system is what killed them.
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By the way, as we are talking about endosymbiosis, it seems like that the player has to cancel the endosymbiosis even if the target species went extinct from the planet. Maybe some sort of a message should pop up if that happens?
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Yeah, I can imagine it’s two things:
- The miche system tries harder to meet survival objectives. As a result cells only get large enough to engulf what they need, not any larger.
- The previous system did not actually use the MP limit, so AI species grew much faster than you could. The new system mostly has the same limitations as you, the player. So if you grow at a normal speed, the AI will not be much larger than you.
You can try to increase AI mutation speed in the settings.
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Having the AI and the player have a similar mutation speed will make the regular creation of species capable of engulfing the player rather difficult…
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Logically yes, assuming you are growing at the maximum speed. Maybe you are spending MP on other things? On the other hand maybe in trying to be a predator, autoevo should be placing more simple cytoplasm?
I think this is more a general Auto-evo algorithm question, and less about specific miches.
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I mean, if the autoevo predators can’t engulf you, they can slash/inject/shoot you instead. Engulfing is not the sole and only option of killing in the game, even if it gives the most resources back to the killer when compared with the other methods.
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Bit of a proof of concept:
Adding a “Glucose Conversion Efficiency Pressure” Miche (in addition to the “minor” variant the main tree already has) to split the photosynthesis part of the miche tree in two:
Sometimes they’re filled by the same species, but other times, they’re not:
I guess technically this is creating a miche for photosynthesizers that are unusually efficient with the glucose they create? Which does not necessarily have biological meaning I suppose. But I have proven to myself that I can create more space for species diversity once I create more appropriate “Selection Pressures”.
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Does the game feel more interesting, realistic, etc with this extra miche included?
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To be honest, not sure yet. Both in the current live version and this development build (but I think especially the latter) I am seeing more “randoms” than I remember from before. Species with very high populations that, according to the UI, aren’t really the best at any of the miche slots. They sometimes seem to go extinct soon after, perhaps. But I will have to play a bit longer to see if there is any real difference. What does not help is that what I used as placeholder is not a very distinctive selection pressure I believe.
Edit:
But sometimes, it does seem to result in more different species being at high populations on the same food type:
(Top and bottom of the list)
And this at least, was indeed visible in-game.
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I suppose this slot makes the miche system more forgiving to such “undefined” niche species?
Is implemented size-based niches next on your to-do list?
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Does any currently existing miche take size into consideration?
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Not that I am aware of.
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I suppose you’d need to add miches favouring species at some size ranges at the “tips” of the current miche trees?
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You suggested some size possibilities earlier in the thread…
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I think “Medium” would no longer include “big prokaryotes” as those aren’t really a thing anymore, at least when it comes to matching the size of small eukaryotes.
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Spicier change: Separate miches for avoiding being eaten by predators:
The standard and slightly modified miches are taken by Para etan and Modata iminian:
However, Modata myiom gets its own miche:
For apparently being slightly better at avoiding being eaten by Para vapian, a horrific predator that hunts all three:
Resulting in a population distribution of:
At least, that’s what I hope is going on. I do see Modata myiom only just split off from another species, so the population could just be coming from there. I did not add any energy to the new miches yet this time, so they might not benefit much. I guess this might at least prevent it from being killed automatically by lack of having a miche? (I think that’s supposed to be a thing?)
My hope is that by adding things like “avoid predator” miches, species will come to different sizes as the solution to a problem, rather than the goal in itself.
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