StarFlower 2.1

StarFlowers

This is the next generation of starflower, a descendent of the original C3 “pinky flower.” The first iteration of starflower gave it a growing cycle and edible seeds, along with some new color variations, and made it pushable and carryable. (For those who like nitty-gritty details, norns get a good plant stim when they push it, and played with toy when they pick it up.)

Norn carrying a starflower

Version 2.0 includes some ecological controls. The flowers will grow and multiply wherever there is soil, but growth rate is based on availability of light, moisture, and nutrients. If none are available, they will still grow, but just verrrrry sloooooowly.

The plants will use up some moisture and nutrients as they grow, assuming there are some to use, and will return some when they die.

Seeds will remain dormant if conditions are too crowded, but can be transplanted to other locations, and will sprout if placed on soil.

Minor update: v2.1 corrects the PRAY code so a more informative sprite is displayed in the comms room injector when the agent is selected.

NOTE: This version is now obsolete. See this post for the latest update to StarFlower.

11 thoughts on “StarFlower 2.1

  1. I’m not noticing any kind of reproductive cycle, but I’m probably just impatient. These are a nice way to brighten up Veridia. Perhaps an option to make them non-carryable by creatures (such as by shift clicking) would be a good addition? Norns are so cute when they pick them up, but sometimes it’s nice to have things like this stay put.

    Eagerly awaiting more plant agents from you!

    • They live a pretty long time, like 10 times as long as it takes them to grow to full adulthood. They don’t produce seeds until just before they die. That’s one of the things I’m wondering about…is it boring, just having them sitting there for such a long time?

      Are your norns carrying them around THAT much? πŸ™‚ Mine don’t seem to pay much attention to them; just every once in a while one will pick one up for a bit. I’ll have to think on it…I’m not THAT advanced with CAOS yet! It would have to remove the pickup urge when they’re pushed as well as making them non-carryable, I think, or it would be confusing to the norns.

      I have more plant agents in my head, just haven’t gotten them into digital form yet. I want to update the water plant in the trout pond too, but it’s a little more complex, so I’m still working out what it’s doing with its invisible leaves and stuff…I keep getting distracted from it by ideas for tweaks for the things I’ve already made. πŸ™‚ I still need to make the faerye useful in some way…

      • No, they don’t really pick them up that much. The improved Treehuggers might, depending on if they interpret them as flowers.

        It’s only boring when gardening. In the background it should be fine. You could add an agent to control growth rates, but that’s probably getting overly complex.

        I think the blog theme you’ve chosen is very fitting given these agents πŸ˜‰

        • The growth rates are controlled within the agent script itself. The TICK setting is calculated each time through the timer script, based on current availability of light, moisture, and nutrients. Changing the growth rate is just a matter of changing the base TICK setting the ecology calculations get applied to, and changing the lifespan is as easy as changing how many times I let it cycle through the timer script before it starts to die.

          Do you know how the treehuggers identify flowers? They do emit flower scent, if that does it. I guess I should give the improved trehuggers a try and see! This week is the heavy end of my work schedule, though, so I won’t be quite as productive on the Creatures end of things.

          I’m glad you like the theme. It’s actually an “out of the box” one, but it fits so well I haven’t even done any tweaking! I’ll probably eventually come up with a more nornish header, but that can wait. πŸ™‚

  2. Not sure about the flowers to be honest. Apparently it is an instinct so it depends how objects are identified when using an instinct. I don’t know that.

    • I’m not real sure either, but there’s no “flower” classifier, and no “flower” stim, so I’m pretty sure flower smell is the only thing left.

      I *have* now seen caterpillars climb up the starflowers, so I know they are recognizing them as plants, which makes me happy. I also watched in total fascination for about 5 minutes while 6 ants tried to carry a dead Kingfisher up the slope of the hatching pad in the meso, and kept slipping back down and trying again. It has nothing to do with the flowers whatsoever, but it was awesomely cool, because I have absolutely NO idea how you’d write the code that made them do that!

      • There is a ‘flower’ classifier – switch the help on (question mark next to the hand) and click on the cactus flowers. They should say ‘flower’. πŸ™‚ Other ‘flowers’ are the foxglove head, the bramboo petals, the explodonut flowers and the Hardman chili pepper flower.

        http://creatures.wikia.com/wiki/Classification_system#Creatures_3.2FDocking_Station_genus_numbers

        has a list of the genus numbers – the categories that all objects in the world are put into.

        • Ahhh, you’re right! I *must* have known that at some point…I wonder when it slipped out of my brain? Hmmm…so do you think I should have used flower classifiers for the starflower and bleubell, or was I right to classify them as plants? I think all the ones you listed are parts of complex agents, aren’t they?

  3. It has occurred to me that my lifespan calculations are still not “right.” It makes sense that a plant would take longer to reach maturity in an area with fewer resources, but not that it should live longer once mature. So I need to do more than just increase the TICK if resources are scarcer…I also need to reduce the number of timer cycles by some factor, so a plant that takes 10x as long to grow doesn’t also live 10x as long. Hmmm…

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