I’m with @TheCreator here mostly.
- DNA replication as a separate phase after growth is a good idea. DNA replication is expensive, and is worthless unless you know you’re actually able to grow enough to reproduce, which is why most cells have evolved to do so in a specific phase near the end of the cell cycle. We could make this something you could evolve, maybe.
- The growth of your organelle capacity should be continuous – mitochondria and chloroplasts split after they themselves have doubled in size and processing capacity, so there’s no discontinuity. We just need to be able to scale up an organelle.
- You still have to produce protein and fatty acids etc, always, for the maintenance of your organelles (particularly ones that get digested and need to be recreated, like lysosomes as he says). Sure, your cell might stop if it’s starving and has to prioritize getting more food over keeping itself running smoothly, but it will deteriorate, take damage, reduce in processing capacity, as long as it neglects basic maintenance.
- As for states of growth, I see 3: growing, not growing, and starving. problem is, there’s a continuum between them, so I don’t think it would work too well to have a simple switch the player can toggle.
- And most importantly, remember that ATP isn’t something which gets stockpiled and then used up – a cell generally always has very stable ATP levels (unless it is seriously close to death), and when the ATP need goes up, throughput goes up. So any checks that people are saying should rely on ATP level, would instead rely on the level of glucose/fat free.