World simulation

One of the ideas, I've had churning in my head for years have been to develop a world simulation. This simulation would contain a self-sustaining eco-system. The eco-system would have basic food-chain systems that function all the way up to having humanoid forms.

Where to start? Well I need to start with a piece of land.

This will be my basic land unit. The world will be made up of a basic land unit. So what kind of traits will this piece of land contain? All eco systems are based on energy. Our source of energy is sunlight; sunlight has two effects heat, and provides plants with the required energy for photosynthesis. The other main ingredient is water.

The fluctuation of the energy being imparted onto a piece of land is weather. The goal is to create weather that leaves the land in a perpetual state of Eden. For me Eden is around 75 degrees Fahrenheit for the high and enough rain every few days to keep everything green.

I’m going to take a shortcut and make the assumption that every land piece is covered by grass. This combination of Land and Grass will be my vitality value.

The following is a list of the data elements that I have identified as being needed.

land_id
grid_number
cell_number
land_type
vitality
soil_moister
water_level

The first 3 are elements that will be used to identify where the piece of land is located. I’m going with a single land element = cell. A grid contains a 10 x 10 grouping of cells. As things grow I will use an area = a 10 x 10 grouping of grids. If a cell is equal to 10 x 10 meters then an area will be equal to a square kilometer. The grid and areas will help keep track of events that impact a large group of cells, or if events cause persistant lingering effects that need to be tracked.

Here is a link of the visual display of my first sample grid. Right now instead of a grid effect of the weather each cell will have its own weather event.

http://www.4rca.com/cgi-bin/world/display.php