What does Eco Health do and what does Adaptability do for plants

[Doc_98]

Dear reader,

So far I have had a blast playing this game, however, I would like to understand a bit more about the core mechanics of the game. Currently, I feel like I am missing something. It is possible for me to create a thriving species of "fish", so much even that they will eat my plants faster than they can spread. I feel like this might be due to the fact that I do not simply understand the basis of the ecosystem yet.

First question:

Regarding Eco Health, as shown below. When Eco Health is high, does this indicate simply more biodiversity? Or does this also indicate that the organisms growing will spread faster? Often, I get high Eco Health due to the fact that Mushrooms love dead and decay.. and at some point, the system will collapse. How can I avoid this?

My second question is in regards to adaptability, is this the sum of the correct sunlight, soil type and eco health? And if yes, does adaptability of 100% improve the spreading of new seeds or offspring for animals?



I am looking forward to hearing an explanation. And I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post my thread.

Best regards,
Doc_98

 

[accident]

I'm still figuring things out too, so I can't give you any definite answers.

I will say that re: ecosystem collapse, I've had good results with seeding a large area with plant life prior to spawning any foragers. The spread of the plants will easily give you the life points needed to diversify the biosphere before bringing in any complex animals. Once you have a large area seeded with primary producers, you can gradually introduce primary consumers (foragers) while continuing to expand the habitable area. Introduce predators once you have 2-3 species of foragers established, and continue to focus on expanding the plant life as they settle in. Continue up the food chain as populations expand.

Parts of your biosphere will inevitably collapse. This is fine as long as there is relatively untouched space to expand into. In fact, it can be a good thing, as it introduces new evolutionary pressures that will likely make your creatures more efficient in the long run. I like to let species migrate or die out as a response to ecosystem collapse before I re-seed the area with new plant life.

Lastly, consider making a series of caves or a network of tunnels and filling them with plant life. They tend to be ignored at first but species will sometimes use them to escape ecosystem collapse. A few generations underground also introduces new and different pressures that can change your species in interesting ways.

 

[Tom Johnson]

Dear reader,

So far I have had a blast playing this game, however, I would like to understand a bit more about the core mechanics of the game. Currently, I feel like I am missing something. It is possible for me to create a thriving species of "fish", so much even that they will eat my plants faster than they can spread. I feel like this might be due to the fact that I do not simply understand the basis of the ecosystem yet.

First question:

Regarding Eco Health, as shown below. When Eco Health is high, does this indicate simply more biodiversity? Or does this also indicate that the organisms growing will spread faster? Often, I get high Eco Health due to the fact that Mushrooms love dead and decay.. and at some point, the system will collapse. How can I avoid this?View attachment 1308

My second question is in regards to adaptability, is this the sum of the correct sunlight, soil type and eco health? And if yes, does adaptability of 100% improve the spreading of new seeds or offspring for animals?

View attachment 1309View attachment 1310

I am looking forward to hearing an explanation. And I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post my thread.

Best regards,
Doc_98

Thank you! I'm glad you're having a good time with it. I can verify that accident's understanding is correct and second their suggestions. There was an earlier build where plants were protected from being over-eaten by foragers, but it made the plant life a little static; in the current build, foragers will sometimes clean out sections of plants, ideally opening up space for surviving neighbors to repopulate. But if you keep your forager population in check by not spawning too many, or if you already have, introducing predators to keep the numbers down, that should hopefully prevent truly massive die-offs.

The main impacts of the Eco Health value are on plant adaptability and on the initial placement of plants and creatures. Adaptability is the product of the three values you mention (though eco health is capped at 100%). It determines the plant seeding rate, so a low level can be a slow death for the plant population as they pass away from age and do not produce enough offspring to replenish their numbers, and if there are two plant species in the same area and one has a higher adaptability, it may end up pushing the other out completely. Adaptability can also kill a plant directly if it drops all the way to zero and stays there for awhile. It doesn't affect the creature reproduction rate though, it only blocks or allows their initial spawn and affects them indirectly by determining plant spread. I'll try to explain all this better in the game in the future!

(For completeness' sake, there is also a hidden competition factor to adaptability. The game doesn't show this when you place plants because when you put a plant down and it releases seeds, it will immediately start to compete with its offspring, so the value it would have displayed doesn't reflect what will actually happen. And competition is self-correcting in a way that the other values are not, because if an area gets too crowded and a few plants die, things are ok again.)

I hope this helps. If you ever get a plant die off that seems suspicious, you can always send a save game to me at tom [at] ecosystem-game.com; I can check it out and make sure you aren't just running into a bug.

 

[Doc_98]

Thank you, Tom and Accident for your clear explanations. I am inspired to create a new world with caves to hopefully keep my flora and fauna alive!