You cantho
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But how? I searched for that on google and nothing pertinent alas.
Use <sup> to superscript something. HTML editing is allowed eh
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And what about indice like the ‘2’ in ‘CO2’?
Let me try.
Homo deus breathing CO2 with pseudo cellular respiration named photosynthesis exponentinfinite sakjdhskjaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
jk thx it works
Anyway, let’s get back to thread partner
This is a wonderful idea! Obviously well thought-out through time! But as others have expressed, the system you have proposed will greatly increase the learning curve for new and inexperienced players, as well as create an entire new layer of management that the player will have to maintain in order to thrive. Now that’s not saying that this is a bad idea though!
If we were to implement enzymes, my personal take would be to either have togglable buttons in a menu seperate from organelles, or sliders that change the enzyme/substrate density. I would also prefer the enzymes to be balanced favorably from the get-go so the feature can be reasonably ignored. This menu would probably be regarded as an advanced option, with a warning for you to only mess with it if you know what you are doing so new players dont end up throwing their metabolism off balance without realizing it. That would be really frustrating!
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Like with advanced features (e.g. scripting) in Space Engineers?
Welcome to the community, by the way.
That is a good point. In this case, I feel that this is an added amount of difficulty which increases the value,replay-ability, and fun of the game, so I believe it is worth implementing. However, you are correct in saying that if we just throw this at the player, they would be very overwhelmed.
I believe if we introduce this concept bit-by-bit as a player goes through their game, then any new player could get this system with relative ease.
The nature of this enzyme concept, if implemented, would make it so that the player could not really ignore it, atleast not without encountering considerable difficulty in avoiding hydrogen sulfide clouds in the starting vents. Even if they chose to avoid the hydrothermal vents and rush towards the surface, sunlight would seriously impede your cell’s health, and eventually, oxygen could kill you off. My concept makes the detrimental effects of each environmental compound rather harsh in order to really make the player think about how they want their creature to evolve in a way that represents evolution while also adding another layer of depth and player autonomy. If set up this way, unless the player was consistently engaged with evolving their creature, their success would be hampered.
The good thing about this, however, is that as a planet’s atmosphere and the life within it develops, environmental compounds develop as well. If proto-life had to deal with an atmosphere akin to that of Earth today, then, putting it bluntly, we would have been screwed. Life did not begin with a tolerance for sunlight, temperature, and oxygen, for example; this tolerance developed as the presence of each compound developed within the atmosphere. For example, cells on Earth didn’t really have to deal with oxygen as much as they do now. Before the rise of photosynthetic life, there was not that much free oxygen in the oceans/atmosphere; it was only after their processes developed that a bunch of Earth’s life died because of oxygen poisoning.
If we use this philosophy in Thrive, the player would find it easy to engage with the enzyme system initially, and would be smoothly introduced to multiple enzymes as the planet developed. With my concept in the beginning, the only thing that the player really would have to deal with is hydrogen sulfide, as they start off in hydrothermal vents; so, the only enzyme they would have to deal with is is “sulfidase”, the one that deals with H2S. This gives them relative freedom in 3 or 4 patches, as sunlight is not strong enough to really hamper their HP in the deeper, less bright patches of the ocean. Then, if they make the decision of going into the surface regions for whatever reason, they then have to worry about only two enzymes. Only when the environment begins to oxidify with the advent of photosynthetic life will they then have to worry about all three enzymes so far.
By starting as cell life did in real life - simple, dependent on a few resources - we can provide the training wheels which a new player needs, eventually allowing them to engage with various complex enzymes.
Of course, this depends on the implementation of a dynamic patch system which would know to increase/decrease compounds in response to the presence of photosynthetic cells, so if this proves to be a Thrive worthy concept, it would need to wait a bit for it to be introduced.
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Apologies for the double post, but I have more ideas for enzymes. The first one I feel like could be a really cool system and could serve as the basis for chemical/toxin warfare; the second one I feel less confident for, as it could perhaps be simplified into the function of an organelle which can then be upgraded.
The first one was created in an attempt to basically create some sort of basic immunity system within the microbe stage. The quotation marks in the name of the enzyme (“Toxi”) indicates that when various toxins are added, enzymes which combat their specific effects can be added as well. Through this, a cell which has an immunity to one type of toxin could still be very susceptible to another, meaning that there could be a constant evolutionary war occurring in which toxins are introduced, tolerance develops, and a new toxin is introduced. And if level 4 and level 5 don’t make sense for toxicase: If toxin A damages your health by 20, then at level 4, it heals you by . If toxin B damages your ATP by 4, then at level 4, you get 1 ATP back.
The second enzyme was created in an attempt to tip the balance slightly away from becoming autotrophic, as I personally feel that there is no reason why a player would be discouraged from putting in chloroplasts on their cell considering how unfruitful predation could be. I am not sure if this necessarily needs to be an enzyme, as implementing an organelle could essentially serve the same functioning a way that doesn’t clutter Thrive. It also could be somewhat difficult to program (as I have learned by attempting to add glucose to the compounds that are dropped during cell death), but I feel that it could be a worthy addition.
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IIRC the original plan was to have a sort of ‘code’ system where each organelle/agent has a certain code, (which you can change yourself of course) and the more the agent’s code corresponds to the organelle code the more it is affected, but that idea was from a year or two back and I’m not sure if it is still on the shelf. Also, I’d assume this would overcomplicate the game even more.
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Have no fear, more enzyme ideas are here.
I’m not sure sure about how smart the inclusion of the last enzyme would be, as it could unnecessarily complicate engulfment in a way that is more obtrusive than intuitive. The other two I feel can be pretty useful, as I based them off of discussion within the development forums. I ncourage other community members to make enzyme ideas if they have one.
Note: On the benefits side of the Lysozyme, as pointed out by @Omicron, slower is supposed to be faster.
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I really like these ideas, but two small notes, one smaller than the other: It currently shows engulfment as slowing down for the benefits, which I don’t think is on purpose. The second point is a bit larger: would this not make radiation and H2S function basically the same, which is a damaging source of energy where you can decrease the damage with enzymes? The only difference is how you would acquire the source of energy, from a cloud or from a rock. (Then again, the same can be said for glucose versus H2S in the current version, so I’m not sure)
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Thank you for pointing out that typo.
I see what you mean; it does seem kind of repetitious. Thing is, I’m not too sure what else could be represented as damage from radiation. Perhaps radiation could instead hurt progress towards reproducing, so that if you swim too close to radiated material, you would have to wait a certain amount of seconds until you can reproduce. Upgrading tolerance could then simply be reducing how much time is added to reproduction for x amount of irradiation; damage could perhaps be done only at no tolerance as well.
This might be more annoying than it is an interesting mechanic however, so some discretion has to be taken. Perhaps the risk (damage) and reward (energy yield) of radio-trophy could simply be altered in a way that makes it similar to H2S but different enough to warrant an enzyme surrounding it.
I would also like to bring attention to an interesting excerpt I read regarding radioresistance. I’m not sure what exactly this could mean for Thrive, but it might be food for thought:
From the perspective of evolutionary history and causation, radioresistance does not appear to be an adaptive trait because there is no documented naturally occurring selection pressure that could have bestowed a fitness advantage to the ability for organisms to withstand doses of ionizing radiation in the range that several extremophile species have been observed to be capable of surviving.[8] One possible explanation for the existence of radioresistance is that it is an example of co-opted adaptation or exaptation, where radioresistance could be an indirect consequence of the evolution of a different, linked adaptation that has been positively selected for by evolution. For example, the desiccation-adaptation hypothesis proposes that the extreme temperatures present in the habitats of hyperthermophiles like D e inococcus radiodurans cause cellular damage that is virtually identical to damage typically caused by ionizing radiation, and that the cellular repair mechanisms that have evolved to repair this heat or desiccation damage are generalizable to radiation damage as well, allowing D. radiodurans to survive extreme doses of ionizing radiation.[12]
Sorry for another double post.
I think at this point, my general concept of enzymes is finished, as the underlying mechanic behind each enzyme is established and the list of enzymes extensively covers most of the environmental/cellular functions which are present/planned at this point of Thrive’s development. There are two other environmental factors - temperature and pressure - which I believe should be regarded more as a function of organelle upgrades (I’m thinking membrane) rather than enzymes.
Here is the full list of enzymes:
Here is a basic concept I made regarding how this information could be presented to the player. Basically, the enzyme panel would be in the organelle section, either above or below the organelles themselves (I think below would be best. I think an upgrade cap of 20 is the best currently, as it gives you flexibility even after you invest in catalase and melanin, which are going to be must haves on probably 9/10 playthroughs.
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At this point, shouldn’t you become a theorist? I mean, if you have scripting skills, I guess you have the skills for becoming one.
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We have a policy that a theorist must have a relevant university degree (or is studying one currently) for example from biology, physics, and for later stages also history.
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I’m honored that you think that of me black, but I am not sure if I would just turn into an ideas person rather than someone who could consistently implement/balance a game. I do think I’m pretty good at envisioning balanced design, but implementing that design is an entirely different skill in of itself.
And, of course, I lack strong coding skills. I especially realized this when I tried to add glucose to the compounds which are dropped after killing a cell. I have started to learn python to see if I could eventually be able to mess with C++ coding, however, so we’ll see if I can give it a crack again (much) later.
I’m currently studying political science and eventually law, so perhaps that could be of use in Thrive’s society stage; the degree necessitates a basic understanding of how a government would establish itself/function as well as how people enact change.
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Along with a minor in Computer Science?
No. A theorist does not need to know how to code or know about computer science. Though it would be a plus if they could make prototypes or help implement their knowledge in the game.
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