Considering that the majority of peimitive lifeforms eg bacteria bacteriophage and other "living " lifeforms have no substantial control over their actions how will the player interact with the evolution of the lifeform.
And yes you could argue that humans are just a massive amount of extremely complicated biochemical reactions as well but still i would like to know what sort of input we will you to control these early lifeforms.
We will use an editor, in the vein of Spore, to control the evolution of these organisms.
http://thrivegame.wikidot.com/organism-editor
This should tell you all you need about the organism editor
Have you played the game? We use an editor.
Don’t try too hard at keeping your game in line with darwinian evolution, and other recognised scientific concepts.
As long as the laws of physics are consistant within, follow some common sence, and the game is still fun; it shouldn’t matter if it follows the real laws of phyisics.
Besides, Darwinian Evolution is a half truth that mainsream science is too stubborn to reconsider at best, and propoganda at worst.
What now? You got any source/arguments backing up on that claim? Because that’s a pretty bold claim, and most of the arguments can either be explained by ignorance (I.E. irreducable complexity’s biggest arguments are caused by people not being very familiar with biology/chemistry) or just by saying “we don’t know why yet”, which is exactly what people do in physics, and that works out great
Also, I personally feel like the game should at least try to conform to the current evolutionary theories, since that’s kinda the thing which caused most people to find Thrive: Because it’s like Spore, but science-y
I knew I was going to get flack for that last part… Yes. I have evidence bacing it up.
First, though, I would like to explain why I’m concerned about the game (wich I want to sucseed) trying to be too realistic.
I am worried that if evolution is overdone, that it will reduce player control and creative input ingame, thus making it less appealing to much of the target audience. Maybe the devs could pull it off I.D.K.
Also, how is ingame intersteller spacetravel going to work without sci-fi F.T.L. tech?
As for me dissagreeing with Darwinian Evolution: (not Evoultion in-general per-say; just Darwinian, survival of the fittest, natural selcetion evolution in issolation)
I personally belive in InteligentDesign of complex-specificity. And I came to that conclution through an online lecture providing aditional scientific evidence; Not because of any sort of faith or religion.
P.S. I actually liked the cartooniness of Spore personally. It just felt like the game was incomplete. [Thanks alot E.A! 
] I’m not saying Thrive should neccisarilly cartoony though, because it is a seperate entity, and should do what works for it.
As for me dissagreeing with Darwinian Evolution: (not Evoultion in-general per-say; just Darwinian, survival of the fittest, natural selcetion evolution in issolation)
I personally belive in InteligentDesign of complex-specificity. And I came to that conclution through an online lecture providing aditional scientific evidence; Not because of any sort of faith or religion.
The fact that you decided to claim evolution is propaganda on a forum devoted to a game about evolution is rather silly. I think you were trying to get a rise out of people. But ill not make that assumption a, so lets continue.
So you saw a lecture and was like “darwinian evolution is false” okay, please link to the lecture. Irreducible complexity is false, For every claim of irreducible complexity and intelligent design there are several papers debunking it, eyes, flagella, it all.
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html
Though funnily enough, my psych professor (who is also a neuroscientist, who i told about thrive) is a proponent of the concept of intelligent design or at least saying there is a difference between micro and macro evolution. Its safe to say, i disagree with him. But i respect him GREATLY and i respect his opinions greatly.He of course, is no biologist, and even points out how convoluted and undirect the brain is (which in my opinion proves it is not designed). I shoudl really ask him why at some point, just to get that perspective. But i think its just because he happens to be an evangelical christian and so perhaps cognitive dissonance?
Intelligent design is , at its best, pseudoscience and a means to bring up we don’t know much about abiogenisis and at its worst, religious propaganda.
Now to properly answer your question, sorry for the ramble.
About evolution “hurting the game” , the player designs their creature, the actual evolution is happening to NPC species and branches of your species breaking off. So no need to worry about it reducing player choice. Also it has been done to great effect, in games like Species ALRE and many other evolution games, so i dont think it would hurt the game regardless. Also, unfortunately, we cant do proper Darwinian evolution in thrive specifically because with the amount of simulation we are doing, having proper Darwinian evolution (simming every individual, etc) would kill every modern home computer. (Though there are many with proper Darwinian evolution i can link you if you have interest)
Im not sure about ftl travel, as a programmer im quite focused on the microbial side of things right now. Someone else could answer that better.
Well, I appolgise for bringing up my opinion on evolution i.r.l. in this forum, expecially in such a confrontational way.
Ultimently I want Thrive to, well, thrive! Ever since the computer I played Spore on died, and I found out about Thrive about… a year ago.
Also, I read about the editor inbetween posts. My fears on that are mostly relived, but This is NOT goning to be an E10 game, is it?
Anyway, I will have to find the lecture again, but perhaps we can just agree to dissagree on that one It’s not like either of us are going to change the other’s mind anytime soon.
Its all good, i hope i didn’t come off as too confrontational aswell, you will notice i made a few edits, , i hope i answered your first question a bit at least. What does E10 mean?
EDIT:
Oh you mean the rating heh. I doubt it will be e10, you already do proper mitosis and sexual reproduction will probabbly make it into the microbe stage. (There are many microbes who can sexually reproduce)
Once you pass the current technology level the game enters scifi territory. And I support us having FTL and all kinds of scifi things, that don’t break the laws of physics too much (FTL is one thing I definitely want to have).
There’s a cool catalogue of FTL methods: STARFLIGHT in Science Fiction - Google Docs
I doubt thrive will be officially rated any time soon…
Glad we could calm that down.
E10+, for everyone ages 10 and up? As in the E.S.R.B. videogame content rating system. (Don’t ask me what ESRB stands for, I don’t know. I’m not even sure I’m using the right acronym.)
Also, yes. I made a few edits. I didn’t remove anything. I just added a tag at the end about the graphical asthetic of Spore vs. Thrive, a sarcastic remark about E.A, and later an emoji was added to the sarcastic remark.
Well, before it is rated, it needs to be relised, and before it is relised it must be finished. Don’t rush though. Take the time to make it right. I will be patently waiting; and probly chiming in every now and again.
Also, If you are a devoloper or moderator, thank you for not imediently banning me for bringing up a contrivercial, semi off-topic subject. You would have been within your rights to do so in the terms and conditions.
Althohough that does make me curious about ingame phylosophy and politics in later stages, but that’s a topic for another section of the blog.
Nah man, subjects won’t get banned very fast, unless you start a discussion spanning several hundred posts, multiple threads (of which most are locked after a while) and ends with the subject being banned (again) cough cough underwater civs cough
Okay, well thank you for the lively… debate? discussion? I have to go now. Goodbye.