How is the Cilia development coming along?

I imagine Cilia will be an upgraded version of flagellum. In the current game the flagellum stacks up quite a bit when you try to make a bigger cell.
Anyways I wish you guys lucks on development.

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Cilia is still largely in the design phase right now, but it was recently brought up in the last week as I was debating on if it should be included as an upgrade to the nucleus, or have it’s own designated section in the membrane tab.
I still don’t really have an answer for that I am afraid… If it’s just cilia alone as a feature I am loathe to put it in the membrane tab because how would;d we represent it? A slider? A single stand-alone button toggle?

What I can tell you, is that at this point I firmly believe that the basic motile cilia should be implemented as a membrane-wide feature, that will augment the cell’s turning and movement speed. Many folks want to be able to use cilia to “suck in” food and prey but I believe that will have to be packaged differently, like an upgrade to the cytostome, should it ever be implemented.

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I guess I massive misinterpreted what Cilia is. I imagined it like what it was in Spore. Sorry I can’t help, my programing skills won’t be up to Thrive standard for another 4 years.

I just opened up the game to look at the creator and I have to throw my hat into the ring in support of Cilia going into the membrane tab. I think Cilia should be a slider so that you can extend and shorten the length of it which would affect your speed.
TL;DR I agree with your opinion on Cilia.

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Nope, no fish fins here, true bona fide cilia and their function.

Hmmm I suppose a slider could work, since it wouldn’t be too out of place sitting alongside the rigidity slider.
But from there we need to consider an appropriate and meaningful tradeoff between long or short cilia. I’m not familiar with how exactly the length of cilia would effect the motility of a cell, longer cilia seem like they would begin to create too much drag, and be too hard to move for motility alone.

I suppose worse case scenario the slider comes out like;
<— Less ATP cost, less movement | More ATP cost, more movement —>
But as it stands right now, I predict that players would just default to far right similar to how they currently prefer the far left on rigidity…

I don’t know how scientifically accurate this idea is but what if the cilia was activated with a check box and then the slider was used to decide if the cilia would specialize in speed or helping you absorb.

I’m super new here, but I’m really interested in this game, and time permitting, I’d love to help out with development at some point.

I agree that cilia being in the membrane tab probably makes the most sense, since they generally cover the whole cell instead of being a standalone part like a flagellum. A nucleus upgrade also makes some sense, as IRL cilia are exclusive to eukaryotes, and single celled cilliates have different nucleus structure than other eukaryotes, but that would require implementation of an organelle upgrade process. The micronucleus itself could potentially be just a cosmetic change to the normal nucleus when cilia are added via the membrane tab. I guess the micronucleus could also be a separate organelle that can be added to give the cell cilia, but that just seems weird, since that’s not the actual purpose of the micronucleus.

The simplest implementation would probably be as an expensive membrane upgrade button, like the double wall/cellulose/etc. options, which would give a large increase to mobility (as well as cilia as a graphical effect), while increasing movement cost by some multiplier. Development resources permitting, a slider like Buckly mentioned also makes sense, although since the purpose of motile cilia would likely be to move as fast as possible, I’m not sure what purpose it would serve, except to smooth out the ATP curve so cilia can be evolved earlier, and improved as more mitochondria are added (which, now that I think of it, may be a worthwhile QOL option in the future).

This is probably because currently, being fast is the best way to survive, unless you go full plant or give your cell a gun. Cells that are small enough to consume with phagocytosis are usually much faster (and really good at avoiding the player), so unless you max out mobility they’re impossible to prey on. This is an issue that the design team will have to deliberate on, but IMO might need some adjustment, as from what I’ve seen in videos of amoebas feeding (for example), prey cells seem to have a high tendency to blunder into predators. It’s also difficult to get resources needed for cell division when faster cells steal them from you.

That’s probably a discussion for another thread, though.

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A cytostome part would be awesome. It would stop spines from being the answer to every predator. Some cells are so spikey that you can only combat them with poison and if you play a long time, every cell is like this.

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That’s easy. Long cilia would use more energy.

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Please avoid double posting, you can instead quote multiple posts in one post to reply to multiple things at once.

(I would have let this slide, but someone flagged your post).

How do I do that? I only just found this place and am still in a Reddit mindset for comments.

You can select a part of the text in a post and then a “quote” button appears.

Kuvakaappaus - 2022-01-03 16-38-44