I agree, function is important. Only some of those above exist in the real world. Furfurmint, for example, I made up based on theoretical convergence of some leaf to have a protective fluff, like many desert plants, for protection against the sun. The benefit: it is also a mint-like plant, thus is edible (though small) and has a useful extract. I am trying not just for diversity of use, though, as mentioned, but for diversity of ecology. I am also trying to keep it balanced: tundras and glaciers are supposed to be hard, so perhaps I add cladina and now something can be grown in the tundra, but it is still not going to change the difficulty much, because it is slow going, and will never be high value. Know what I mean?
And I also set all of them to have very low frequency (well, as low as it goes, 1) (which I hope equates to abundance, I still need to test things to figure it out) so that no matter what habitat is chosen, and how many plants can be found there, one will have trouble getting more then a few of them, so each fortress has a different variety. For example, one fortress might find opuntia and get a sugar operation going, while another ends up making tequila. because of the differences in growth time to harvest, it changes the ecology of the fort as well. I might even equate the low frequency to the serendipity or insight required, on occasion, to suddenly recognize use of common plants otherwise thought useless and ignored.
Again, one of the big things I am going for is ecological diversity: The previous plants in the raws had about the same growth time, and relatively similar traits, and only a few were particularly habitat specific... but there were various well known habitats in which plants of unrepresented ecologies would exist. The Armok's Manna is a mixture of rock tripe which helped sustain Washington when stuck at... I think it was valley forge? And there weren't any cacti... I added subsistence foods for difficult places, novelty foods which might seem unbalanced because they can make impressively priced products but then, some things are like that (historically, some crops, despite being easy to raise, have had prices only nobility could afford on the market. It happens), and some things with more primary colonizer ecologies (think dandaelion. Example, my muleraddish. So named because raddishes usually have that sort of ecology). So particular uses isn't necessarily the important part of this mod, so much as representing useful plants with deviant ecologies. Longer lives then a season, shorter perhaps, odd habitats, ect. Though I don't shy from throwing in stuff just for fun.
Keep in mind, I don't care if people want to do whatever they want with these plants. Modify them, use them, not use them, twink them out, give them all dye colors. Take them and modify them. In fact, take them, modify them, and post them here, along with your own! This thread can be for many people to post interesting plants. One other person, above, was going to be posting some things as well, it said.
Author
Topic: Its An Ecologist's World (Read 3991 times)