How do “we” make it intuitive and realistic yet not overcomplicated? The most closest thing I can imagine is TFC and Vintage storys knapping, but both of those use crafting grid and are voxel games (in TFCs case a mod for a voxel game)
We could just give the player different materials and have them simulate actually crafting an item. For example, they take a long stick, put a sharp stone at the end, then wrap some rope around it to make a spear. You know, make crafting interactive instead of like in Minecraft where you just put some stuff in a grid and get stuff out of it. Then to make it less repetitive you can save recipes to auto craft them. It would also allow you to create custom items.
nice question for the future
I think it could work, but would you need a sort of gui for it. I would just make it simple design and not overcomplex, preferably simpler then the gui of microbe editor.
Uuh are you a dev?
no me is not a developer
some AI must evolve into trees or there is no sticks
Sticks would be a pretty common ocurrence, unless earth is an exception among life bearing planets.
trees are one of the most successful multicellular photosynthesizers on earth so they would be almost universal unless your planet had a dead star or life originated underground with no way to the surface in which case trees would not exist or they would come from whatever first broke through to the surface.
For crafting purposes, we wouldn’t necessarily need wood. Crafting recipes that are dependent or semi-dependent on organic materials from earth could simply define them by shape or function.
For example, instead of ‘stick’, the recipe could require a long, sturdy but flexible, and fairly straight rod-like object of some kind, whether that be stick, bone, large insectoid leg, spine, or some other material.
how can aliens be dependent or semi-dependent on organic materials from earth when they already have organic materials ?
No, I mean for game purposes. We are familiar with recipes dependent on materials from earth. To put those into the game, one could put parameters for what an object has to be like instead of requiring a specific object, so that playthrough of Thrive isn’t ruined if, for example, no tree analogue evolves that has the required shape to make a spear or something of the like.
I wasn’t saying the aliens were dependent on earth materials, I was saying the crafting recipes/methods as we know them are. As such, parameters would be more useful than having set materials from a gameplay perspective, though they would be harder to program into the game
i’d say based on how thrive works parameters would be less work because, for example, otherwise every possible stick shape with every possible species name with every possible composition would need to be programmed as a crafting material for a tool rod. if i understand this correctly
Not necessarily
So the parameters could be fairly broad, and while that would definitely allow for nonsensical looking creations, I think it could be for the best.
What I mean is the parameters could be, for example, something of above x length but below y length, and below z width, which is strong but flexible.
That could, for example, be the parameters for the shaft of a spear or something. Length of something is a measurement I would assume the game would know prior to this, as well as width. Strength and flexibility of the material isn’t quite as necessary for the game to know otherwise, but could be helpful outside of crafting (ex, knowing how much force a bone can take before it breaks, or how far it can be bent before the same thing happens, etc.)
Then, anything that falls into those parameters could be used. It wouldn’t require coding thousands of items, though perhaps getting auto evo to record the flexibility and strength of a creatures bones or something would be difficult, I don’t know enough about coding to say.
Then, it would just generically be [Spear], or if the devs decide to be fancy [spear tip material name] - tipped [shaft material name] spear. These fill in the blanks would help prevent the need for thousands of items, and this need would be bypassed altogether if they went with the former, simpler approach.
Please let me know if I didn’t explain it well enough, I feel like I left something out but can’t remember what
that is basically what i just said. the parameters required to make something into a tool rod would be far simpler to program than every single possible ingredient for a tool rod based on how thrive works because of the fact that new ingredients would be made every playthrough.
My bad, misread your comment and thought you were trying to provide a counter argument to my point
