Environmental Tolerance Adaptations

[NickTheNick]

@Buckly

I remember suggesting light be a hazard in the past as a counter to photosynthesis and the active theorists at the time declined the idea, stating that water acts as an effective shield against UV radiation and heat so make of that as you would.

Oh that’s strange, because I could’ve sworn Light has been planned as an environmental variable/hazard for the Microbe Stage since the start of the project. Plus there’s actual scientific evidence of it as a hazard, which I covered in this thread:

Evolution of Early Planets

The transition of planets from molten masses of rock during their inception to worlds with oceans and continents and the first life involves several major natural phenomena. I think these are important to the Microbe Stage because when the player first starts the game there should be lots of big environmental changes happening over the generations, and this affects biomes, compounds, sunlight, temperature, and many other factors. First we need to understand how an Earth-like planet would evolve…

Basically before the development of an ozone layer for your planet, the deep sea is the only place life can survive and evolve away from the deadly radiation of sunlight.

@Buckly

One thing I’m somewhat worried about is the player feeling overwhelmed by all these barriers. It doesn’t seem like much right now but it can quickly add up once we move on to hazardous compounds next. It’s certainly something we will have to experiment with a bit to make sure it’s fun.

I was worried about that too, but I realized the other day that some of these variables don’t change much from patch to patch. For example, salinity will almost always be the same in all ocean patches (typical saltwater levels), and the same in all river/lake patches (freshwater levels). Then, the one exception to this would be rare patches like a salt sea / salt lake where it would be very high. pH / Acidity is another one that mostly won’t change except for rare examples.

@Buckly

Otherwise I feel there could be some satisfaction to choosing to specialize and adapt to a specific environment for greater returns as it’s sure to provide the player with a nice sense of progress.

I know very true, I know one of the aspects that added at least an hour to my latest Microbe Stage playthrough was trying to migrate from the Hydrothermal Vents to the Tidepool, and the challenge kept me hooked to keep playing every time I died trying.