Right, which is why I tried to specify a category that includes the climate and terrain variables without ecosystems, so that wouldn’t actually be a “biome”.
What I am getting at is that even pre-life a Barrens (tropical flatland), Barrens (Polar hills) and Barrens (Temperate mountains) are different, and will look and feel different. Similar to how our current microbe patches have their own terrain, environment conditions and music, even though they’re really not biomes.
Do we for example want to show these different not-biomes on the map for players to see?
The system you set out in principle makes sense I think.
But what I am wondering, as above, is whether the actual “Biome” (as purely the end result of what the ecosystem is like because of the local conditions) is sufficient as a visualisation and decision making point.
For example, should a flat desert and a mountainous desert use all the same soundtracks?
Not making any definitive statement here, just asking the question.