When you are very big and everything else is very small, it may be hard to tell which cell you are trying to make into an endosymbiont. The solution: make those cells glow, or otherwise be marked.
Now, I’ve just remembered that you can use the chemoreceptor to track specific species, so I’d say that in tutorial mode there should be a tip that you can use the chemoreceptor to help with endosymbiosis, and additionally that endosymbionts should be marked (say, with a red-orange dot) in the UI.
These are good ideas.
Isn’t there a tutorial though for the chemoreceptor? I think there is one that triggers after a while if the player hasn’t placed a chemoreceptor, that then points out how useful it is.
There is a tutorial for the chemoreceptor, but it’s still a sort of auxiliary part that most players would still ignore. It’s not difficult to find compound patches, they’re common and a lack of them would just be bad luck. There’s more interesting parts the player might want to be looking into with their limited ATP. As a result, they might just… legitimately forget and not make the connection when they’re struggling with endosymbiosis. As a result, I think it would be worthwhile to remind players of this bit of strategy.
I have trial and error calibrated them for compounds I’m always lacking, but by the time I set it up right I’m lacking for a different compound. I haven’t ever tried using them to hunt specific prey.
I also recall at times when going to a compund cloud detected by the chemoreceptor, by the time I arrived at it’s location it already despawned.