Following my own advice, I create this topic to discuss the following possible change:
With metabolism coming, we can substitute some of the functions that we had before with actual molecules. Here is an example:
now we have "shell", it is simply created by spending energy and protects bots from incoming shots
in new system we can have many different types of molecules that provide the same "shell" function: we can have shells made of silicone, calcium, proteins, carbs. From carbs we can make two different kinds of shells: chitin (for insects), cellulose (for plants).
Maybe we can drop the "shell" molecule out and replace it with variety of different molecules that provide "shell"? Some of these molecules (like cellulose) may be even digestible, but it would take a long time to digest them. To me this sounds like a way to go, but a lot of people have bots thay rely on making shell and that would make those bots non-operational. So I'd like to hear from them.
Another feature that can be replaced is "waste". At this point in metabolism that I designed, the waste directly corresponds to a single molecule - urea. But maybe later we can have different kinds of wastes. So maybe we can also make "waste" to be a property of molecules, its harmfulness. Some molecules will be less harmful, some more and it would be upto bots to figure out which ones it is worth to dispose off.