I am working on designing a metabolism for DBs. I am going to stick my head out and guess that my make/break system together with Nums' enzyme systems will be accepted and coded into the next version, allowing all this metabolism to happen in DBs. So I am asking here, what molecules do we want to have in metabolism at this point? (remember, the system will be open-ended and will allow to easily add more molecules later).
So far I have included steps for making the following molecules from energy
1. Fat (good energy-strage compound)
2. Carbs (good energy storage, but take up a lot of space)
3. Protein (cost a lot, poor energy recovery, but allow creation of muscles, enzymes, venom, poison, shell and slime)
4. Production of urea or "waste"
I am also planning to add the following things:
4. Photosynthesis reaction
5. Creation of muscles, enzymes, venom, poison shell and slime
I've heard suggestions to add lignin, cellulose, chitin. I am not sure about the usefulness of that. These are all analogous to "shell" in their properties and we already have "shell" molecule. I see a possibility of making "shell" a property of molecules (instead of it being a molecule itself). Some molecules would provide a lot of "shell" (chitin, lignin, cellulose), others - little or none at all (fat). So the total "shell" amount is counted from all molecules that bot has and then is used to deter incoming shots. Please don't discuss this in this thread, make a separate one.
I also know that many people want to have anaerobic energy-producing reactions. I can add that, but please realize that these reactions are very inefficient. For example, if you break down glucose in aerobic conditions - you get ~120 ATPs. But if you break down glucose in anaerobic conditions, you only get 2 ATPs. This means that all your anaerobic-style bots will be barely alive.