Finally had a chance to go through the list of changes and here are my thoughts:
The list looks great so far. I have a few questions about some of them:
Microvilli: Why does microvilli increase the yield of compound clouds? Why not have it do what it does in real life? (Which is increase the rate of absorption/secretion)
Antifreeze Proteins: I was imagining the environmental adaptation mutations a bit differently, since a cell that only takes half damage in hotter water will still die but only half as fast. Instead of reducing damage it would simply increase the range of that factor which you can tolerate (i.e. be immune in).
Heat Resistant Proteins / Pigment Protein: Same as above.
Lysosomes: I don’t think it’s necessary to reduce the reproduction cost to represent the digestion performed by lysosomes, since the digestion of lysosomes would already directly represented by them netting you more compounds harvested out of large chunky food.
On the topic of receptors and the receptor mutations, I feel like that’s a good question and I’m not too sure on any answers to it yet. I’ll think about it and get back to you guys once I have any thoughts on it (also it might be worth discussing that one on the protein reception thread).
The idea behind this is that 100 mutation points represents 100% of the possible evolution in a generation.
That’s a very good question. Prokaryotes should be able to evolve the proteins themselves, and eukaryotes should be able to endocytize the prokaryotes to turn them into organelles (called endosymbionts) like mitochondria and chloroplasts. Then the question becomes, could eukaryotes evolve the proteins themselves? Do we want to allow that option? I’m unsure on this so I’m interested to hear what you guys think. Andross suggested that eukaryotes be able to evolve either proteins or endosymbionts. Endosymbionts would be a lot more efficient, but can only be obtained through successfully assimilating a prokaryote.
Another question this touches on is, should all mutations other than endosymbionts be available to the player from the beginning? The original concept for this was no, but I think we should rediscuss this. For example should a player be able to place an Adhesion Protein the first time they enter the editor? If some mutations will start locked how will they be unlocked?
One idea if we have mutation unlocking is that you could start the player with a random selection of mutations unlocked. Players can then unlock new mutations by engulfing other cells (5% chance to unlock a mutation they have), engulf free floating particles of DNA (20% chance), or exchanging DNA with other cells using Horizontal Gene Transfer (Plasmids, Sexual Reproduction, DNA Injector Pilus).
I think that we should keep them as an idea but not worry about adding them yet. I’m not sure what chemicals a thermoplast would use or how it would work. Technically a thermoplast is not even meant to be used on a site of high heat intensity but actually on a site of a big heat gradient, which by its nature will be very temporary.