Conversions at 99 Sun in order of them happening (see below)
| Water* | Oxygen* | Conversion |
| > 79 | Any | 10 Nit -> 3.3 Asc |
| Any | < 49 | 10 Car -> 5 Asc |
| Any | Any | 10 Fol -> 20 Asc |
| < 29 | Any | 10 Asc -> 20 Bio |
| Any | > 89 | 10 Pyr -> 10 Bio |
| Any | > 69 | 10 Pot -> 3.3 Car |
| Any | Any | 10 Asc -> 10 Car |
| < 39 | Any | 10 Thi -> 20 Car |
| Any | Any | 10 Pot -> 2.5 Fol |
| < 59 | Any | 10 Nia -> 30 Fol |
| Any | < 49 | 10 Thi -> 20 Fol |
| > 69 | Any | 10 Pyr -> 5 Nia |
| Any | < 39 | 10 Thi -> 10 Nia |
| < 39 | Any | 10 Nit -> 3.3 Pyr |
| Any | Any | 10 Car -> 10 Pyr |
| Any | > 79 | 10 Fol -> 20 Pyr |
| Any | < 49 | 10 Car -> 20 Thi |
| < 49 | Any | 10 Nia -> 5 Thi |
*The table uses the displayed values rather than real ones for H and O. It's easier to keep track of what happens that way.
The Thistle Cycle
Each tick something happens, and you see things change in your thistle garden. Below is our theory on what exactly happens.
- 10 is subtracted from the values for Nit, Pot, H2O and Oxy (the nutrient uptake)
- The program performs all Asc creating conversion that are active this tick. Conversions that happen are determined by 3 things:
- The conversion must not be inactivated this day.
- The water, oxygen and sun levels have to be in the required ranges for the conversion to happen.
- There must be more than 0 of the resource needed by the conversion available at this point of the cycle. Should there be less than 10 of the required resource available, a reaction will happen only partially (ie, if the conversion is 10 Asc-> 20 Nia then 8.3 Asc gives you 16.6 Nia). All conversions seem to require 10 of some kind of resource, and resources can be either Nit, Pot or different vitamins themselves.
- Something being already at it's maximum value don't stop the program from trying to produce more. The conversion will still happen, but the value of what is being created stays at the maximum (99.9) even though the resources are being used up. Also adding the H, P, O or N can never make the value in the garden for these 4 higher than 99,9.
- The program moves on to creating Bio. No more Asc is created this tick, even if some conversions to create it become available through other conversions later on.
- The same thing is performed for all the vitamins. The last one to be created is Thi.
- The order of reactions performed is therefor reactions creating Asc, Bio, Car, Fol, Nia, Pyr & Thi.
- After the program is done with conversions creating Thi, the resulting amounts in the garden are displayed on the next row.
- The whole process takes about 6 seconds
- Everything starts all over again using the data on the new row (a new tick).
More of the current theories and various observations
- Nit and Pot are pure inputs. The only reason the garden uses them for is as resources for certain reactions. You don't need to have them in the correct range in order to make things happen. What you DO need to keep in correct ranges are water and oxygen (and maybe Sun, but it pretty much does it's own thing) (check the tables above).
- All conversions seem to be following this rule: 10 of one thing -> certain amount of another. I have yet to see a case where the base conversion would be making something out of a different amount than 10.
- All decimals seem to be truncated in order to display them. However, this will only happen for visual purposes, the actual value can still have decimals in it. What it means in practice is that you seem to get 2 Bio out of 10 Pot every odd tick, and 3 Bio every even tick (just an example).