0.8.1 Release General Feedback

Current Game
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0.8.1 is out now. Devblog is coming later today, but here’s the Github release with all the patch notes:

Please post your general feedback about this release in this thread.

There’s been a small patch, 0.8.1.1 released to fix the multicellular stage. Also put any feedback about the patch here as it is not a full release that would get its own thread.

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Pretty sure it’s been present before, but there’s this strange bug (I assume) which causes microbe chunks to be placed around the area you spawn in when you move to a different patch if you exited the editor last time whilst still having engulfed microbes inside your cell. Is there an issue for this bug?
(Image for how this looks like)

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Depends on how much your storage was and how much ingested matter there was immediately after you exited the editor.

If a cell loses ingested matter capacity it will be forced to eject anything that doesn’t fit within the new storage constraints. That’s an explicit feature to prevent keeping something ingested you shouldn’t be able to store.

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I see. Through the chunks seem to spawn at quite some distance away from the cell at times…

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This is a pretty rare feature so I’ve probably not really managed to test it. If the chunk happens to accidentally spawn within the microbe’s physics body the physics engine could fling it quite hard, instead of softly pushing away. Or it could be that the ejection physics force (that was slightly balanced to be lower after a release or so of the ECS refactor) is still too high.

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I just noticed, there is no tolerance tab in the multicellular editor and entering multicellular also seems to mess up your tolerances (for me it appears that the oxygen tolerance bar has been reset for instance).
Also the display of in which patch you are gets broken when entering multicellular too.

Edit: Multicellular in entirety seems unplayable, my organism nearly instantly died after growing a second cell.

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Multicellular as a prototype stage did not get any consideration for the tolerances; it will be implemented later.

(I forgot to open an issue earlier)

Can you actually start from the beginning and describe what exactly happens with tolerances in multicellular?
It should be the case that multicellular species are unaffected by the tolerances system. Or you might need to die and respawn to clear out previous tolerance settings.

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After I exit the editor, at first the gameplay is relatively normal, but weird things happen when your organism grows it’s second cell.
It appears that when that happens, the game’s objects freeze, but their processes are still ongoing. The game also appears to have speed up for some reason in this state. I’ve seen that in this state, the organism will start growing new cells in such a way that every time a new cell is grown, the progress of the two compound switches (so for example when you enter the freeze state, at first the ammonia bar gets filled up to some point, then a new cell pops and and right when that happens it switches to phosphorus bar, and once again it fills up somewhat and an another cell is created, the bars get filled even if you don’t have any ammonia or phosphorus around you or inside your cells, and it only stops when your creature’s all cells have been grown and editor has been reached, if you don’t have enough glucose or iron during that process however, your cells will die very fast, and it doesn’t seem like you’ll get respawned in the frozen state).

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After playing on the Thrivestream, I can confirm that something goes very wrong with the second cell of a multicellular species, though not so catastrophically wrong as I assumed (there’s no errors in the game happening, which is good but also bad as it will be harder to track down the issue).

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So effectively Multicellular is impossible cheatless in 0.8.1 unless you somehow manage to evade the bugs?

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I will work on a patch very soon. Unless the issue is very hard to find and fix, expect a hotfix release on either Monday or Tuesday.

Edit: I created a release milestone for the hotfix:

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I just watched the part of the stream with you testing the bug, and it seems like I got a far more “advanced” version of the bug. I can provide a savefile which’s setting seems to always result in this more severe bug if one’s wanted.

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That would be helpful for additional verification that the root cause is the same, because I wouldn’t want to make a hotfix that then didn’t actually fix a similar problem someone else was able to trigger.

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Here it is (warning: instant download)
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1nkL5r6aMMS1iQGF-a3PQG8YxliihWD-c
(the save is just before entering multicellular, the 5 needed cells are already bounded, only the button needs to be pressed)

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After playing 0.8.1.0, here is my feedback on it…

What I like:

  1. The Banana Biome Easter Egg is hilarious.
  2. I was great to see the new Sulfur chunk.
  3. I really liked the new chartreuse glowing Radiation chunks, and how they damage entities if they get too close.
  4. I also enjoyed using the Melanosome.
  5. I like the bars showing the temperature range regardless of whether the organism has Thermosynthase. It is extremely helpful for finding the optimal temperature in a biome.
  6. I like how pressure and temperature are varied now. It makes the world feel more unique and realistic.
  7. It was great to see the AI finally mutate the Slime Jet and Mucocyst!
  8. I like that there is a button to show/hide coordinates on Grow Order. It helps make the screen less cluttered, but allows those who want to see it still use it.

What could be improved:

  1. The newest version appears to lag my game far more often. My game stutters a lot more than 0.8.0.0. FPS drops to 5 regularly. It was never this low, and did not happen in 0.8.0.0. What is possibly causing this?
  2. There is very little perceptible difference when turning on and off thermal view. Perhaps making the orange tint pop more, and/or choosing a more reddish-orange color, would help.
  3. Why in the Cell Processes, does it show Thermsynthase having 0 degrees C?
  4. I feel like Thermosynthase needs to be buffed, as 4 ATP seems to be low. Perhaps increasing it to 5 ATP at highest temperatures would make it more worthwhile.
  5. I personally liked the older Iron Chunk models better. However, it would be fine if some of the Iron Chunks also looked the new model along with the older Iron Chunk model.
  6. There should be a red “Warning” flashing somewhere on screen about getting too close to a Radiation chunk, since I accidentally went too close out of curiosity and died from too much radiation. Maybe radiation damage should slowly increase as radiation level increases, instead of occurring once reaching maximum radiation levels.
  7. I could not see how I unlocked the Melanosome, since the tooltip was too long and I cannot scroll down to see the rest of the Eukaryotic organelle unlocks.
  8. It was difficult to find Radiation chunks. Perhaps increasing their occurrence to 1% would help.
  9. It did not feel like a very large difficulty jump with the Auto-Evo strength while playing Normal. However, it might be for new players. Perhaps Auto-Evo strength could be adjusted to be default 40% for Normal, and default 60% for Hard.

What I would like to see (I was not sure if I should put these in the category above):

  1. The pressure range flexibility seems to be low. Perhaps when enabling “Non-LAWK”, pressure resistance flexibility range can be increased to twice than what it is in “LAWK”.
  2. It would be interesting to see Radiation chunks in more biomes besides Volcanic Vents and Caves.
  3. I don’t know if this planned, but it would be useful for the Chemoreceptor to also be able to detect Radiation chunks. Perhaps it can be an upgraded as a separate “Radiation Receptor” instead, if it is deemed unrealistic.
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I think melano unlocks itself if you happen to live within a patch containing radiation sources even before becoming an Eukaryote, which means that melano is always going to be unlocked if you choose to start in the vents.

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Are you sure the Melanosome does not have a requirement to get irradiated first? I started out in a vent that has radiation, but it was not until I got irradiated the second time, on turn 14, that I unlocked the Melanosome.

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That might be the case, in both the RC and the main-version playthrough I happened to encounter a radio rock and get irradiated before proceeding to the editor on the 1st generation.

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I haven’t played much of the new version, and I don’t know if this is the placebo effect, but I noticed the game seems to be way smoother. I really like the new changes with the tolerance system.

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