Muscles, Fat, and Chloroplasts

[Zinc Avenger]

If you're considering this change, might it be worth considering changing the way feeding shots work?

How about changing it so that instead of simply returning a lump of nrg, a feeding shot triggered a return of a proportion of the target's various substances? So that a bot feeding off a very "fat" bot would get a little nrg and a large amount of fat, for example.

Perhaps this could be expanded to include waste (so bots maintaining a high but non-lethal amount of waste could be a viable defense) and perhaps muscle and chloroplasts (although the idea of an animal gaining chloroplasts might be a bit unbalancing, so perhaps muscle and chloroplasts could be converted to nrg or fat before being returned).

Just a suggestion.

[Sprotiel]

How about changing it so that instead of simply returning a lump of nrg, a feeding shot triggered a return of a proportion of the target's various substances? So that a bot feeding off a very "fat" bot would get a little nrg and a large amount of fat, for example.

That's a good idea, to some extent. The returning shot's composition should depend on the target's composition, but it should also depend on the feeder's shooting method (currently either nrg feeding shot or body feeding shot, but we could expand the range of choices).

[EricL]

I like the idea of having only a single kind of feeding shot (we can leave nrg and body feeding shots and just add a new type) which causes the victum to give off shots of many kinds in proportion to it's substances.  A preditor doesn't say "gee, I'll think I'll take a bite just from fat and then the next bite will be just muscle".  A preditor just bites.  What he gets when he bites is a function of the prey's composition.  What the preditor chooses to swallow is another matter (I.e. I favor making shots visable and interrogatable).

[Numsgil]

I would have nrg shots remain as they are and change the way body shots work.  Have body shots take a nibble out of whatever the other bot has.  We're changing the concept of body altogether, might as well change the associated shot type.

However, chloroplasts and muscle shouldn't be recieved as they are.  They need to be broken down into some other substance (you don't directly gain muscle by eating a steak.)

I'm not sure what that substance should be, though.  We could introduce the idea of proteins, which are like the basic building blocks needed to build muscle and chloroplasts.  Muscle and chloroplasts you get back are converted into proteins automatically.  You can use proteins to build your own chloroplasts or muscle, for a little bit of energy maybe.  You can build your own proteins using a certain set amount of energy.  Maybe 100 nrg or something like that.  Or maybe you convert a fat into a protien.  The rules don't need to really make that much sense.  You'd get very little nrg for breaking down proteins.

Although I think I suggested this a long time ago, and people weren't all that excited with the idea.