Discord:
https://discord.gg/zHydgpfIt is now the Archean Eon, a time of terrible upheaval and change. The air is heavy, dominated by carbon dioxide and laden with sulfur. Earth is very active and trembles with the heat of its youth, bursting with gifts of magma. Bacteria rule the world, not eukaryotic upstarts, not roaches, and certainly not dinosaurs. Certain bacteria, however, seem to have evolved a strange malevolence. Split into two lineages differentiated by their pigments and metabolic tendencies, they seem to be working to cause or prevent something...
FC what do?The tool I'm working on to track populations and genes and such isn't quite finished yet, so we'll be working out the gameplay/realism settings first. The basic idea is that there will be a
Purple Lineage and a
Green Lineage with head starts for developing fairly different metabolisms and such competing for dominion over the World Pool. I've got a number of ideas on how to work things out, but I'm not quite sure what the average player would prefer. Feel free to suggest more options/settings.
Definitions for mechanics stuff that pops up
Divergence: Founding one's own Lineage
Lineage: Team/faction
Species: A sufficiently distinct member of a Lineage if we go with option 2->{C,D}
Strain: Part of a species, the smallest unit of bacteria a player controls if we go with options 2->{A,B,C}
1. Team organization
(A) Player vs. GM (Not recommended): Run as an SG, with players making decisions for their team and reacting to NPC lineage events
(B) Flat: Full-on democracy. No structure beyond teams and probably very little chance for Divergence.
(C) Hierarchical: Each Lineage has a founder/speaker/leader providing general directions on what the Strains should accomplish. The players in the Lineage have the freedom to decide how their Strains achieve the goal.
(D) Hierarchical with a ring of experts: KJP delegates much of the work of determining plausibility to a circle of knowledgeable folk from both Lineages, mostly only intervening to break ties.
More time to finish that thesis!2. Divergence
(A) Impossible: Once a
Purple, always a
Purple(B) Once in a game: Unlikely enough that a Divergence event only happens once or maybe twice in a game
(C) Rare: Having a sufficiently different chemistry/biology/niche is sufficient to Diverge, and this should happen a few times in a game
(D) Fanatic Xenophiles: Every player controls a different Species. This is done by adding a node to the Lineage's tree and describing distinguishing characteristics
3. Hardness
(A) Diamond (Not recommended): Go do research at
NCBI or KJP doesn't process your actions
(B) Quartz: KJP will weight gameplay over perfect realism but require that targeted genes be capable of adopting so and so new function of the day
(C) Fluorite: KJP and brave volunteers will take the time to tag lists of operons for this game so you can say "make water and air into wine"
(D) Talc: Anything goes/Lego genetics. Even psionics and fire-breathing are possible. Actually, let's not run this one4. Scope/world size
(A) Pond: A nice volcanic hot spring with all the nutrients a bacterium would need. Increased focus on direct competition
(B) Lake: A nice volcanic lake with more space and all the nutrients a bacterium would need. Focus may be hard to balance
(C) Ocean: From the surface to the black smokers on the floor, with sparser nutrients. Increased focus on global crises
(D) Pocket ocean: From the surface to the black smokers on the floor, only lake-sized! Focus may be easier to balance well, but this isn't really realistic
5. (Bio)chemistry granularity
(A) Bland: CHNOPS sources, bulk minerals, trace minerals, light and air, this mineral makes hydrogen when it touches water, etc.
(B) Balanced leaning more toward bland
(C) Balanced
(D) Balanced leaning more toward beautiful
(E) Beautiful: Chiral organics, detailed (to the best of KJP's ability/time) antibiotic simulation, bioavailability of nutrients, etc.
6. NPC microbes (viruses included)
(A) None
(B) Few
(C) Some
(D) Lots
7. Population/genetics granularity (KJP may override for computational reasons to keep his laptop from melting)
(A) Track genes for individuals
(B) Track the spread of genes in populations
(C) Just track Strain populations and use percentile dice to do mutation progress checks
8. Genetics granularity (connected to 3)
(A) Molecule: Can control individual proteins/do low-level genome stuff; KJP does basic checks to make sure a mutation is achievable in evolutionary time instead of cosmological time
(B) Gene: Can control individual genes and the proteins in them/do stuff with promoters. KJP does basic checks to make sure the gene has something to do with the effect (and the mutation can be done in reasonable time)
(C) Operon: Can control entire operons/do stuff with entire chunks of pathways. KJP does a basic check to make sure the operon has something to do with the effect (and the mutation can be done in reasonable time) (May need volunteers to help tag operons)
(D) Pathway: Can give a blurb about what pathway changes and how. KJP decides if it sounds plausible in reasonable time or not
9. Geology/petrology granularity
(A) KJP needs to (re?)learn space groups and such...
(B) Dwarf Fortress
(C) Who cares? They're all just rocks
10. I would rather be...
(A)
A reactionary Luddite(B)
A terrorist with chemical weapons
Author
Topic: Archean Critters dev thread (Read 928 times)