create an ecosystem mode

[dreamy vault]

Ecosystem Balancing Mode Concept

This mode revolves around balancing an ecosystem by carefully selecting animals that fit into their respective niches and managing the interactions between them. Each species would play a crucial role in maintaining a thriving environment. For example:

• T-Rex: Apex predator, controlling populations of large herbivores.
• Edmontosaurus: Grazer, feeding on low-growing plants.
• Cave Lion: Medium predator, hunting smaller herbivores and scavenging.
• Apatosaurus: High browser, consuming tall vegetation.

Gameplay Mechanics:

1. Survival Focus: The goal is to ensure both predators and herbivores survive as long as possible. This requires balancing prey populations, food availability, and predator-prey dynamics.

2. Research System: Instead of entertaining guests like in traditional zoo simulators, the mode focuses on research. Players will manage researchers who study the animals, their behaviors, and their environment.

3. Science Points and Unlocks: As animals are studied, players will earn science points. These points can be used to unlock new species or genetic variations, allowing further customization and refinement of the ecosystem.

4. Niche Interactions: The mode would emphasize the importance of ecological niches. If a predator overhunts its prey, it might face starvation. Conversely, if herbivores overpopulate, the ecosystem's plant life could suffer, impacting all species.

[halcyon warren]

I believe this can be done in the future in the sandbox mode itself! But I liked the topics

[modern marsh]

^It'd be a lot easier to just work with that rather than focus on all this middle man stuff.

[dreamy vault]

The idea was to create a different type of challenge mode, offering the player a meaningful playthrough, rather than just watching the animals eat each other.

[modern marsh]

Another thing is that what you're suggesting is pretty damning, performance-wise. Between how many animals you'd need to maintain an ecosystem long-term (we're talking several hundred at the very least) and parameters like plant-life being stripped by herbivores, it's just not that feasible.

[dreamy vault]

We will eventually have full AI systems, like for hunting . paleobotany, which will affect both animals and gameplay. However, I think the opposite is true. For example, in Jurassic World Evolution 2, you can create an ecosystem with hunting and animal interactions. The game only needs to track how long the animals live before they are hunted or die from disease.

[plucky swan]

IMO this is deviating way too much from the game's core concept of making a zoo/park with extinct animals, there are already a ton of games out there which focus on ecosystem simulators and I don't think this is a great idea for PK for a few reasons:-

• Balancing issues: the game's roster is not set in stone, so there could be a very high chance that the game may have more carnivores than herbivores, which already ruins the balancing if the carnivores need to eat more than how fast herbivores can reproduce. This is also not including special exhibit animals which may or may not be interactable.
• AI problems: As highlighted above, this can also cause balancing issues, especially if a herbivore AI decides "in order to be safe, I must kill everything" (looking at you, Saurian trike).
• Development time: The devs don't have a large team to work on the game, and there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out in the Trello Backlogs (path rework, ambienc QOLs, guests improvement, more animals. etc). Them taking time off to work on an ecosystem mode, and balancing would also mean other features get delayed or backlogged further.
• Plenty of Other Games: The Isle, Beasts of Bermuda, Path of Titans, etc all already function as a dinosaur ecosystem roleplaying game. I do not think PK needs to dive into that somewhat heavily diluted genre, when the only other contemporary in the dino zoo management niche is a JW franchise game.
  -** Gameplay Loop Issue:** This is also an issue since I believe that games should have some sort of interactivity to keep you engaged with it. In a proposed ecosystem mode, it will literally boil down to just watching the animals walk around, waiting for a kill to happen. This may or may not, in practice, be just watching an animal do nothing for hours until one kill happens. I cannot say this in regards to other people, but for me this is just a rehashed Sandbox Mode and would get extremely stale within the first 2 hours.

and I also want to highlight that JWE2 has a very flawed ecosystem simulator, which is only controlled with disabling alot of features in Sandbox Mode. If left to their own, the dinosaurs will kill each other regardless of needs or wants. Not to mention certain species dislike each other (looking at you sauropod racism), but like other species which can and will kill them.