I’m aware that the developers plan on making most items customizable such as dwellings, vehicles, and related things. But what I’m curious about is if there will be a chance to customize everything. From hammers to paintings and the like. To me that seems a little over the top. So I propose the possibility of “random” creations of less significant items like decorations and carriages. I know the developers want everything to be customize-able, but there is a point when that becomes overwhelming. I am not a coder so I have no idea how this would work but a nice way to get out of this problem would be a toggle switch from everything being customizable, to only the things that you choose.
As for the tools, check out this thread. As for other things, things like vehicles and buildings are still up to debate and we’re quite not sure yet (well even that idea of mine in the thread I linked you to is, but most people seemed to like that idea). But a nice balance would be high enough customizability by the player along with not being too overwhelming. What would that look like? I don’t know.
Edit: Also a warning, the thread is pretty damn long and there is not just one topic being covered, it might take you a while to read it all and find all the info you are looking for.
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Many people seem to like the idea of customising everything. Hopefully we can add that possibility. However I wouldn’t like to spend the majority of time playing thrive just making random inconsequential items. So I’d like to have premade or randomly generated presets for everything to not slow down the gameplay.
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I think that the less complex stuff such as tools might not need premade parts, as if you don’t care what they look like, you can make something in 10 seconds, as mentioned in the Tech Editor thread several times. As for the more complex stuff, ehmmmmmyeah, that’d be a bit more complicated.
Even if it takes only 10 seconds, I would find it infuriating to do like 4 extra mouse clicks every time I get a tech just to click through, make it look like a blob. I’d much rather have a default look I need to do nothing to accept. There could be an added button there to customize if the player wants.
I have no hard statistics to back this up, but I would imagine that most players would not want to be constantly bothered about designing all the techs. And on a second playthrough, it might feel even more annoying.
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I mean… by that logic we can skip editors completely and have everything premade, even cell mutations, so that we don’t have to go to the editor every time we reproduce. And this is in high contrast with @tjwhale’s opinion about spaceships being like a lego.
I don’t mean that the cell editor, or creature editor should be optional. Also most space strategy games have defaults for ships as well. So I’m only saying the game shouldn’t make the player click a bunch of pointless buttons each time they develop a new technology.
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Thrive doesn’t have to be like most other games. And I don’t think that reproducing as a cell is “infuriating” or just “a bunch of pointless buttons”, so why should other things give the player this feeling?
I refuse to believe I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t like the idea of having to do 5 extra, pointless clicks for each researched technology (which might number in excess of three hundred). It will make the game more complex and annoy the user with popups for “go to this editor and click 3 things in order to use this new tech you researched”. So I firmly believe an editor for technology (this is very much separate from building cells, creatures or spacecraft) needs to be optional.
(this is how I’d imagine things to be if the player is forced to edit each researched technology, even by just throwing some default assets in the editor and hitting done)
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I understand your concerns, but I feel they wouldn’t be much more of a chore than the cell editor. Plus, how often would you get a new tech? If it’s like every 5-10 minutes, that feels kinda hurried, but let’s not go off topic. I really don’t find going into the cell editor tedious or boring. I feel like I’m making progress.
But with everything being premade or a preset it feels boring and uninspired, boiling some of the stages (mostly tribal and early society I would say) to Spore 2.0
Stellaris is by no means a “create everything” game, but to me, changing the spaceship loadouts is a chore I leave to the “automatic optimize” setting. If I had to design something every time I invented a new technology, that would break the flow of the game and be quite unfun.
I believe that manmade objects should be generated procedurally from premade parts - for example, researching “pottery” would add urns of many shapes and sizes to your settlements. The appearance would be determined by cultural factors : the dyes and materials available, and the designs that are present in your culture. Martial cultures may choose to customize their weapons with engravings and paint, while more ultilitarian/brutalist cultures might not even embellish their dining-vessels.
That way, tech designs are made in a broader and AI-friendly sense, rather than making them individually.
Vehicles will probably be the biggest draw of the tech editor, as well as wacky inventions : a cup-axe, where you can split logs and contain your possessions at one time.
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I do hope you understand the difference between designing the protagonist of the game, for whom you need to do everything to make him survive, and designing a random collection of items simply because they exist.
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I haven’t played a ton of stellaris, but I had the same experience. The first few games I manually made my ship designs, and I basically had to pause the game each time I got new spaceship tech (especially if I was at war). The last game I played I had auto make designs on, and it was so convenient. There was just a tiny issue with the automatic design flip-flopping between projectile and laser weapons for some reason. But it was definitely a better gameplay experience to have the auto-designs.
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Dude you can customize your species guns
Let me rephrase that their Fucking guns
EVEN DOWN TO THE MISSILES THEY FIRE FROM ROCKETS YOU CUSTOMIZE
you can customize buildings you can customize wheels
You can do anything
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So if I understand correctly, everything but the player’s species would be pre-made/generated. From simple tools all the way to spaceships. That means that stats of the thing do not matter (either they are always the same, because the thing is pre-made or they should be absent completely because random generation could put someone in a disadvantage). Which, again, boils down to Spore’s system “choose one of three premade weapons, not that your choice would matter that much”. The same would basically go for vehicles/spaceships as well, but both their stats and look would be predetermined, meaning you’re getting rid of the stats system, which was present even in Spore, despite being very, very poorly executed AND the creative freedom that comes with the look of your vehicle/spaceship.
If I understand this correctly, then I’m not even able to put into words how much I’m not a fan of this idea. Feels like a way to another unoriginal indie with a lot of similarities to Spore. Or maybe I misunderstood you, in which case, I hope I’m wrong.
I don’t want to use the tech editor to design everything my species invents. I don’t want to “design” toothbrushes, screwdrivers, dining plates, buckets, things which are simple in form and definite in function.
The tech editor should be used for important things - in architecture or the premiere in weapons, vehicles, robotics… etc. The stuff the AI pumps out should be middle-of-the-line, so designing them yourself shouldn’t confer too big of an advantage. Specialization should be the right word - and players know how to take advantage of specialization.
Kerbal Space Program is an example of the tech editor that we can reflect upon - the game is very realistic, and aerospace engineers therefore have an advantage. However, Thrive covers every discipline, and one shouldn’t need to know everything to play competently. My input on getting an advantage from the tech editor is that if you know what you’re doing, you can get a boost, as well as a slight debuff that you can try to mitigate.
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Okay, in that case I misunderstood and I’m so glad I did. From what I understood previously, these things would be designed for you, which was the part I had a problem with. These things should be designed by the player, because their design indeed matters, but things like screwdrivers, buckets or pots are free to be pre-designed, as that doesn’t have a big effect on anything. Phew, I’m so glad to hear this, I was really worried.
On the other hand, I think that the early space stage should be very much in the style of KSP. Getting into space for the first time is a big thing and it should feel like one. And a side note, the early space stage editor would be pretty okay to be just as KSP is, with the OPTION to customize the visuals, which would not affect anything, it would just be an option to change what the ship looks like if you want to. For the later space stage there’s already another thread.
Edit:
I don’t want you to think that I would want to design EVERYTHING in the game, what I meant was basically just the things mentioned by @DPHkraken in the quote above, I just misunderstood your posts and was concerned that nothing but the organism would be designed by the player. I didn’t even think about designing urns, pots, toothbrushes and stuff like these. They can, even should, be pre-made, as their design doesn’t affect anything and MAYBE we can grant the player the ability to customize them. As for me, the player should design weapons, vehicles (including spaceships) and architecture.
As for the Stellaris example, I think that once the player designs the ship, any further technological advancements of the parts can be automatically implemented, but the player should design the ship at the beginning. So, if you design your ship with “a mediocre laser with the output power that can be seen on any techno festival”, but later develop “a super-duper laser that can cut the spacetime itself in half”, the inferior version should be replaced automatically.
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honestly they should name their own currency
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