The planned 0.4.2 release is approaching so here is a release candidate for testing.
We have changed graphics engines so there will likely be some issues regarding that. It would be nice to fix any graphics related crashes before the full release, but that’s perhaps too optimistic.
Before reporting an issue please see the end of this post for how to.
Note: for Windows you still need Visual C++ 2015 redistributable installed.
Reporting
This time I’ve uploaded the symbols for the release candidates to the crash dump processing tool: https://dev.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/crashdump-tool
So if you get a crash go to thrive/bin folder and see if you have a file with hexadecimal digits as it’s name, like this: e709d739-416a-43ee-7b902580-9f81d05a.dmp If you do use the tool to decode the dump. Once you get the result text take that and put it on pastebin.com (or another text pasting service) and post a link here.
When reporting a crash or another issue you should include your ThriveLog.txt (also put that on pastebin).
Lastly you should avoid posting known issues (you should always post about crashes). Here are a few of the major ones I don’t want to see any reports about:
Lag after a ton of cells spawn
Lighting being different
The patches not being very differentiated / balanced. This will be addressed before release but it didn’t make it to the RC
https://pastebin.com/tUDkYTBw
I was very much looking forward to testing out all the new stuff n making sure things are working. Unfortunately, game crashes on launch for me.
Hey devs, I don’t know what you did with compound rebalancing, but it is not great. I nearly always run out of atp, glucose and hydrogen sulfide are consumed way too fast, and my cell, despite the good upgrades I did, never produces enough ATP. I noticed we now produce 7 atp/s instead of 32, which is bad in my opinion. 32 seems way more realistic and better.
In order to combat organelle gluttony and feelings of it being not really important which organelles you cram in, energy was made harder to come by in order to require more thoughtful cell building.
I have good and bad news. The good news is that my game did not crash and the patchmap looks great. I think the report screen needs work, though. Reading that wall of text is difficult, and there is much unused space on the right side of the screen. I suggest having pictures of the organisms with their names and data under them.
The bad news is that I have the same problem I had last time I helped test: my screen is black. Despite the black screen, the game is somewhat laggy. Here is a picture to show what I mean.
Yeah energy is much harder to get now. I’m going to nerf hydrogen sulfide today too
The goal is that the main challenge of the game comes from having energy and fighting it out with the other cells. I may have gone too far but I’m not sure how much of that is it taking some time to adapt to the changes and how much is that it’s actually badly balanced now.
So you always get the blackness instead of gameplay? I hope that this is basically the same thing as crashing on intel drivers (from you using windows 7 I’m guessing that you are using an older computer), this time it just barely manages to avoid crashing but doesn’t render anything useful. We are basically at the mercy of the bs::framework developer to get a fix for intel integrated graphics.
Yes, it is always black. You are correct that I am using an older computer, and I would not be surprised if that is the cause of this issue. I wish I had the income to buy a new gaming laptop! Oh well. If there are any data I can provide that might be useful, I would be happy to do so.
Everything works alright. Patch map is awesome.
Stuff that would be very helpful: some indication of the patch you currently are in would be awesome. Also, descriptions of patches are necessary, ideally with some numbers (oxygen, light, resources, etc). These numbers are shown at the top of the screen when you play (except for the light, cant find its value anywhere), but it would be very helpful to have these numbers availible in the editor.
On a side note, why player’s cell population is so small? Feels weird.
Now lets talk about the gameplay. I have spent the whole game in the hydrothermal vents and I had no trouble finding enough glucose for my cell after placing a single sulphur-earing-thingy (forgot its name). The game is much more pleasant to play when you dont have to build your cell purely for atp production.
It is weird that me and blackjacksike, both going into the game blind, had such a different experience. Maybe we started in different biomes?
Everyone starts in the same biome. I think you used chemosynthesis, which was not nerfed before the release candidate. The release version will include more balancing changes.
Yes, on the map screen. I meant that it would be handy to have some visual indication of the patch you are in even when it is not selected. For example, some colorful frame would do the trick.
For me it works fine, no issues whatsoever.
I really like the report screen, since it allows you to know better what’s actually happening.
Not really a fan of the patch map though, due to the aforementioned lack of information, making it weird to travel. (Since it’s basically a coin flip to see if you end up somewhere better)
ATP and the like is not really an issue either, as long as you don’t buy too many ATP-consuming stuff like flagella.
That always happens, due to how import RNG is in these versions. I’ve had tonnes of runs where the entire run would be different because of, for example, there being less toxic cells, or less eukaryotes, or slower cells, etc.
Completed one playthrough, migrating all the way to a river. No crashes or bugs I noticed. Maybe I should wait with my general feedback until the general release? I read there’ll be some changes in that one.
Yeah, I just re-tested the game, and you really need to think twice before upgrading. But there is one main problem: nucleus upgrade. I began the game by rushing with hydrogen sulfide and ATP, and it lasted ~8 gen. At ~8th gen, some eukaryotes appeared and it was very dangerous. Thus, I moved to the next patch (sea vents to sea floor) and upgraded the nucleus (because I had a lot of ATP and glucose). However, the eukaryotes (only them) followed me and it turned into a warzone. It was nearly impossible to survive, since there wasn’t any glucose (even when cells die, they don’t drop glucose, they only drop phosphates and ammonia), so I was just rushing to reproduce and I could only reach 95%, then I’d die. Really, I think rebalancing compounds just wasn’t a good idea after all. I know it’s for fighting organelle gluttony and all, but, in the end, it’s just way too hard, even though I was always thinking on my upgrade (I was even using a calculator, just to tell you how well I was thinking). I think trying rebalancing the MP was way enough to fight organelle gluttony. Now, I’m missing the good old days with 32 ATP/s with a mitochondrion.
As QuantumCrab once said, “Honestly, it’s likely the rose tinted lenses of nostalgia.” And also, it’s just way too hard, regardless of the thinking (unless you’re Omicron who can defeat the belgiumed Elders regardless of the difficulty ).
No offence, but I think your math was wrong at some point. 5 cytoplasm produce enough ATP for building a nucleus. Thrive is a very snowbally game - it is hard to come back from a bad start. So, the longer you take to build the nucleus, the harder it is to play. And 8 generations is a really long buildup
In my run, I went for thylakoid and chemosynthetizer. After that I build 4 cytoplasm, which allowed me to put a gen4 nucleus. Nucleus gives you access to mitochondria, which require almost no glucose to function, so, from that point, you shouldnt have much problems keeping up with the glucose consumption.
Sorry you’re having a tough time with it. A few things in case they’re any use:
I’m not sure that increasing MP really changes anything when it comes to organelle gluttony, it just means it takes longer to get massive rather than actually stopping you. A lot of organelles can only be added 1 at at time at the moment so that can’t really even be slowed. So reducing energy is one of the main long term ways to stop organelle gluttony.
Atp from glucose and getting glucose in the first place are kind of different problems. Most of what I have done is made it harder to find energy in the environment rather than making it harder to run your cell, though I agree you need more energy producing organelles.
I’d suggest staying small if you want to explore. For example just the single hex of cytoplasm is a good cell now, it uses very little power and can move quite fast. Cells with 2-5 hexes are good too I think.
In terms of getting a nucleus I’d advise trying to get somewhere with a lot of energy. So the vent will be a good one where there’s a lot of hydrogen sulfide, the tide pool will be another as it has a lot of sunlight.
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