Before anything i am new here, so hi to everybody. And i don't know if this is somewhat silly, but i already entered forums that had a place to introduct yourself, i didn't see any topics for that but if you have i would like to make a thread there. Anyway...
Well, i know Life Evolution is only going to appear at Alpha 21 2 light years after now, but as a placeholder, i have a way to make people happy about their habitable planets get growing life. Right below "Life Likelihood", we should have these four value:
- Microrganisms(Protozoan, bacteria and viruses)
- Plants and Funghi
- Animals
- Sentient
They would represent the number of species that the planet has, the plants/funghi, the animals, or the sentient. Let's take an example Earth(a very unaccurate example that i found in the internet):
- Microrganisms: ~50000
- Plants and Funghi: ~3000000
- Animals: ~10000000
- Sentient: 1(lol)
So, depending of the percent of life likelihood at the planet, species will appear through time(and disappear too). And events like refrigerating or heating planets will change the number of species. In the case you throw Moon at Earth the number will almost get to 0(it won't because of water-bears) but after sometime(this if the Earth is in the Solar System normally and you add atmosphere again) the number will start rising again due to the Earth conditions. Sentient species may appear only waay long after the planet has a good percent of life likelihood(and you may have more than one sentient species!).
Something simple like that is enough to satisfy people terraforming planets, and make the game more realistic. I don't think it is something hard to program, i am not pro-programmer but for what i know it is very simple. Well, thanks for reading every single word i wrote texted and have very nice day.