Since implementing endosymbiosis lite is at the top of the release 0.6.4 milestones list on GitHub, I figured that it might be a good time to clarify one or two things about it.
The issues description reads that
endosymbiosis lite is a system whereby engulfing prokaryotes the player can unlock organelles based on what the eaten bacteria had.
I agree that it’s probably not worth the computing power to keep track of what all of the AI species engulf during gameplay. But if this system is only for the player, we have to ask ourselves what to do about the AI. In my mind it’s fine if we keep things a bit easier for the AI as it sometimes needs a bit of an edge over the player, given that it can’t profit from a humans intelligence. I would however find it strange if no limitations apply to what kinds of eukaryotic organelles the AI can evolve. If eukaryotic organelles evolve through endosymbiosis for the player, we can assume that “canonically” that’s also how it works for the AI. It would be unrealistic then if the AI evolved an eukaryotic organelle which it couldn’t evolve through endosymbiosis under the given circumstances.
My proposal is thus to add a check to auto-evo to determine which eukaryotic organelles can be evolved by which species. Species X can evolve a eukaryotic organelle when either all of the following criteria are met:
- there is at least one species Y in at least one of the patches species X inhabits which is small enough that species X and which has the right prokaryotic organelle which would allow species X to unlock the corresponding eukaryotic organelle
- species X has a membrane type which allows for engulfment
- species X has a nucleus (I’ve also seen suggestions which would allow for non-eukaryote to also develop one endosymbiont, so I’m not 100% sure about this one but I would wager that right now the consensus is still to lock eukaryotic organelles behind the nucleus which I agree with btw)
or when species X already has a eukaryotic organelle of the kind in question.
I hope this system for the AI is simple enough and could be implemented along the player version of endosymbiosis lite.