[spoon-discuss] Materiel

["Glotmorf" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A thought on the finding of resource units...

Mr. in a Spacesuit had an interesting idea in terms of having more than one type of 
resource unit, but tried to develop it in far too arbitrary a fashion.  Might I suggest 
something more similar to that used in Star Wars Galaxies?

You start with top-level categories.  We could go with resource unit as a top-level 
category, but I suspect we're eventually going to be wanting to subdivide into energy 
and matter eventually, so I'll suggest top-level categories of energy, organic and 
inorganic.

There may exist units under a given category.  There may also exist categories 
under a category, such that there may be units that can be recognized as belonging 
to the higher category, but also exist in a more specialized form for particular uses.  
For example, under Inorganic we might have Metal and Rock, and under Metal we 
might have Iron and Gold.  A unit of iron would also be a unit of metal and a unit of 
inorganic, but there could exist units of inorganic that weren't metal, or units of metal 
that weren't iron.  In those cases where any old metal would do, one could use iron, 
gold or generic metal, whereas in those cases where iron is required, gold or generic 
metal could not be used.

Higher-level-category units could be refined to attempt to produce lower-level-
category units, with a given chance of getting a particular lower-level-category unit 
(low compared to other possibilities), a higher-level-category unit, or sludge (no unit).  
In the above example, refining generic metal may result in iron, gold, inorganic 
matter or nothing.

Hybrid materials can be made from combining multiple materials.  They can be 
separated again into their component materials, but not without producing some 
sludge.  They can also be used at their lowest common category and up -- if copper 
and tin could be combined to make bronze, bronze would be usable as a metal as 
well as itself -- but if so used they become units at that level.

Good points of this system include:

-- It's backward-compatible.  Higher-level-category units don't have to be converted 
when lower-level categories are created, and build recipes involving higher-level 
categories don't have to change.

-- It's sideways-compatible.  If plastic is created as an organic category, then later 
changed to an inorganic category, neither the units nor the recipes involving plastic 
have to change.

-- It works with made things too.  If one makes or finds, say, a starter motor 
(presumably only useful if someone has a recipe that involves a starter motor), said 
motor could be broken down into different metals, according to its recipe, or simply 
melted down in its entirety to be used as generic metal.

So...what should the first top-level categories be?  Matter and Energy?

						Glotmorf



-----
The Ivory Mini-Tower: a blog study in Social Technology.
http://ix.1sound.com/ivoryminitower

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