0.11.0 Development Thread

[Natural_20]

Blub blub blub

https://speciesdevblog.wordpress.com/20 ... m-physics/

So that's why selecting for "streamlining" never worked out right.

The Effective buoyancy of an object can vary by depth in the real world, provided it contains compressable gas, because water pressure can decrease the gas's volume. It's not the water density that changes, it's the density of the gas. It's basically the opposite of what Pratchett said, but it still makes neutral buoyancy at a preferred depth possible.

Meanwhile, balloons can only go so high before the air is too thin for them to be buoyant in. A "gas bag" creature could exploit this by making themselves neutrally buoyant at the air density just above sea level.

Remember that although water and air are both fluids, the fixed density of a liquid at a given temperature versus the variable density of a gas makes buoyancy in each rather different. A diver ceases to be positively buoyant by going too deep, whereas a balloon ceases to be positively buoyant by going too high.

[Therminator]

Wow, I haven't played the game or checked on the progress for a few months, I didn't expect this much! Nice.

I have a question for the buoyancy part. What is the end result supposed to be? A specific value that determines the position of the animal in the water column? Or just the optimal position?

After all, one thing that I imagined is animals only being able to move in their own 2D plane in the water, and I guess we don't want that. Feeding, hunting, fleeing etc should be happening in 3D as well, at least a bit.
So would animals be free to swim in 3D, but for example with an energy cost proportional to the difference between their genetic, optimal buoyancy based position, and their actual position?
The first thing that comes to mind is simply modeling a force that is a function of both of these that will point either up or down (tendency to sink or float), and sum that together with the force vector the animal generates. So the genetic movement speed could be different than the actual movement speed (and the same if it is at neutral buoyancy). This does not cause an extra energy cost per se, but is a penalty of speed if you're trying to swim out of your optimal depth. But you get a "free" speed boost for going towards it. If you want to counter this by evolving higher speeds, you increase energy cost because you need more power.
Maybe two behavioural genes need to be introduced to also set a preferential depth, and how bad the animal wants to be there (similar to how temperature works), which can be overridden by more high priority tasks such as fleeing or hunting.

One example that came to mind is a Liopleurodon that does some extra powered depth swimming (actually being too light to be that deep "comfortably", so it costs a bit extra to swim there), but once it sees a swimming prey high in the water column and it starts the hunting routine, it abandones the (suboptimal) low level and combines its powered swim with an upward speed boost (caused by the buoyancy).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCIxWHJd0A

[Guineapig004]

Qu, were are your blog posts ? Are you stuck on your satellite surrounded by zombies again? Has the government discovered your presence and started dissecting you? How is the development going?!



P.S. I'm not angry at you for missing these blog posts. If you are too busy to write them then that's okay. I just look forward to them every week. My life has no meaning! Write them now!!!

[Quasar]

Qu, were are your blog posts ? Are you stuck on your satellite surrounded by zombies again? Has the government discovered your presence and started dissecting you? How is the development going?!



P.S. I'm not angry at you for missing these blog posts. If you are too busy to write them then that's okay. I just look forward to them every week. My life has no meaning! Write them now!!!

My bad, have been busy and don't have anything specific to talk about right now.

Have been implementing some extremely basic swim animations and throwing together some placeholder underwater "trees".

Will get something written for next Saturday, though it may have to be a retrospective on 0.10.0 features or a design discussion in order to be come out as more than a sentence or two.

[Natural_20]

Qu, were are your blog posts ? Are you stuck on your satellite surrounded by zombies again? Has the government discovered your presence and started dissecting you? How is the development going?!



P.S. I'm not angry at you for missing these blog posts. If you are too busy to write them then that's okay. I just look forward to them every week. My life has no meaning! Write them now!!!

My bad, have been busy and don't have anything specific to talk about right now.

Have been implementing some extremely basic swim animations and throwing together some placeholder underwater "trees".

Will get something written for next Saturday, though it may have to be a retrospective on 0.10.0 features or a design discussion in order to be come out as more than a sentence or two.

Underwater "trees"... Kelp? Coral?

[Quasar]

Qu, were are your blog posts ? Are you stuck on your satellite surrounded by zombies again? Has the government discovered your presence and started dissecting you? How is the development going?!



P.S. I'm not angry at you for missing these blog posts. If you are too busy to write them then that's okay. I just look forward to them every week. My life has no meaning! Write them now!!!

My bad, have been busy and don't have anything specific to talk about right now.

Have been implementing some extremely basic swim animations and throwing together some placeholder underwater "trees".

Will get something written for next Saturday, though it may have to be a retrospective on 0.10.0 features or a design discussion in order to be come out as more than a sentence or two.

Underwater "trees"... Kelp? Coral?

Bingo.

[Quasar]

Blam wham bammo. Underwater coral (as opposed to the aboveground sort) and kelp trees.

https://speciesdevblog.wordpress.com/20 ... er-plants/

[naturegirl1999]

do Steam games have to cost money?

Also, is there already a key to show what the different thoughts of creatures are? if not, is that addable?

[Guineapig004]

Nice "underwater trees"! Do you think that it would be a good idea to make the oceans deeper? That would add a lot of variety for the underwater biome, but if the size is increased, it would put more strain on the computer.

[Natural_20]

Blam wham bammo. Underwater coral (as opposed to the aboveground sort) and kelp trees.

https://speciesdevblog.wordpress.com/20 ... er-plants/

To be fair, above-ground coral would be fascinating.