09-22-2008, 02:51 AM
Quote:Also, I wish certain body parts would stack bonuses instead of only getting the highest bonus for your creature from one body part; it would be nice to add like 6 pair of legs and run extremely fast! The way Spore handles body parts makes it so your shoehorned into choosing specific body parts later on no so much for cosmetic appeal, but to get the highest ability levels.
Hello Meat,
I don't know if that's intended, but by the way you describe it, it sounds like those body parts are actually handled "correctly," from a Biology point of view. While certain functions are indeed scalable (such as, say, breathing, in which the efficiency of the respiratory function increases as you increase the exchange surface for CO2 and O2), others are essentially limited by the most efficient element of it.
Following your example about legs take, for example, the cockroach. This is a 6-legged insects (as all insects are), and the usual movement mode is to use the legs alternatively, keep two legs grounded on one side (front and rear), one on the other (the middle one), while moving the other three legs forward, then swap and repeat. If you make the cockroach run faster (by chasing it, I suppose, although it can be better seen in the lab with a tiny threadmill and a camera), it will use four legs, raising the front two, in a manner not dissimilar to a horse. Make it go even faster, and it will start running on TWO legs only (the rear ones). This, of course, is not universally applicable, as you look at bigger animals, other considerations such as body mass or the animal's habits must be taken into account. While the Cheetah is the fastest land animal in short sprints, with its four legs, ostriches can run as fast as 70 km/h when sprinting, and also sustain around 40-50 km/h for longer, giving other four-legged animals a run for their money (pun intended!).
Anyway, long story short, such a setup for the system to limit the "boost" to the best performing upgrade is not a bad idea, even though it may not necessarily correlate with how things could work 100% of the time:)