I think you’re putting way too much thought Into what’s considered a sexual act, at this rate is hand holding gonna be censored? Doesn’t need to be so vague and complicated, if a penis is showing, or a vagina is showing, and it’s in a sexual act of intercourse with ANY part of a body, it’s a sexual act. No need to cherry pick every variation of lewd behavior lol.
As for what’s gonna be added in or not that’s up to the devs to decide if they want those features. In all if I see it some, fine, I just don’t want to WATCH it like it’s some form of entertainment or something, do the deed and it’s done.
Basically, just don’t make it weirder than it needs to be
I think in terms of the editor, there should be a blob like organ to represent the reproductive system. No need to build anything close to the actual parts. Then there should be a selection tool or something to indicate what sex system you have as in asexual, hermaphrodite sexual, or 2 sexes sexual and another for fertilization system such as Broadcast, external, internal (live or eggs). While in the gameplay the asexual and broadcast species will be the only ones that that don’t need a scene black out skip but all other species types will. This would put some restraints or benefits on the species during the auto evo process and make the gameplay still represent the reproductive process I think.
Also, I presume the game should not show birth or egg laying.
Another question to ask is how the game should tackle secondary sexual traits such as breasts/udders. I think it’s necessary to have something like them or else people who want to evolve mammal analogs won’t have everything need for their species to function. But I understand if that needs to avoided too.
I really don’t see a need to get graphic. Designing genitalia isn’t really something I want players to do or see a large demand for.
Courtship strategies as a whole: definitely. Whether it’s ejecting reproductive matter into the water to mass reproduce, raising young, taking care of eggs, or fighting off potential rivals, reproductive strategies play a key role in evolution. But the actual act itself is excessive.
That idea sounds like ot belongs in an alien design toy more than Thrive. This is an evolution game: It’s not unreasonable to expect players to evolve things
…neurodivergency seldom makes an organism less viable (using I think the latest terms, Level 3 and high Level 2 is the exception). Because Neurodivergency is so complex where you’ll be hard pressed to find 2 neurodivergents who are the exact same (even between people with what was then Aspergers). I would get into more detail, while your suggestion could work in Level 1 cases there wouldn’t be an edit on the “behavior slider” and Level 2 just has more stimming, repeated sentence structures and some difficulty finding words to say and I don’t think custom/procedural dialog between 2 or more members of an organism is going to be present in Thrive.
(message to mods, I was writing this before I hit Hhyyry’s message about warning Blas, so sorry).
If you want my 2 pence about the original topic, either the Ancestors route (time speeds up), full censorship or an optional screen blackening. While you’d assume designing genitalia or even not censoring wouldn’t effect many people, some people have triggers which are those (or similar things) while others are just sex repulsed. While that may be a minority (so far, I only know me), it would be safe to assume people generally don’t want to see their creations reproduce or their genitals all the time. Think about other simulations, do those show those things a lot of the time? Also, if Thrive aims to gain popularity through YouTube, wouldn’t channels showing those things get demonitised or age restricted?
I’d like to point out that body parts like that won’t be as simple in multicellular organisms as they are in single-celled organisms. Most parts will be built manually so although you could make something that functions as a penis or vagina, the game won’t be able to easily recognize that since you built it from scratch.
True, I was just meaning in general tho, however reproductive systems will work later on, but yeah I agree completely. Tho I wonder how all that will work out, will be interesting to see.
If we can’t design that, then we lose opportunities. Like I said in my example earlier, not all genitals serve the function of JUST genitals. There are animals which use their ovipositors to sting. You could just evolve a stinger, but oftentimes evolution is an unexpected repurposing of other parts. The more parts you have, the more opportunities to evolve new things. I doubt wasps would be the stinging insects they are today if they didn’t happen to already have a hollow, needle-like structure on their behind used for reproduction.
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I have a brutal takedown of the idea that auto-evo will force players to see genitalia. three actually.
Mammalian genitalia are really specific. It’s like saying I should see exact Volvox clones in early multicellular stage except without the point that Volvox is such a simple and obvious design. It’s like saying flying animals will have feathers and beaks. It’s just really unlikely.
So uh, will you be examining between NPC’s legs? Cause I think that’s a you problem. Yes, genitalia can be visible, but like, fur or feathers or having the thing be retractable is more evolutionarily advantageous then being like a human unless you have efficient sweating, and most animals will be horizontal. It’s not like you’ll be flashed.
Mating ceremonies are done far away from predators. Like as a rule, it’s belgiuming dumb to mate in front of a predator. The player will not see anything unless they are like a tiny creature the mating NPCs don’t mind. And forgive me, but the camera perspective of a flea is generally not one that’ll see explicit stuff. At worst a glimpse of something comparatively bigger then you you pay no mind to.
Yeh. I don’t understand the argument as a whole, like what is so scary about having reproduction? almost everything should be skippable and anyways like why would the game waste a precious little RAM on NPC mating data anyways. The only stuff you’ll see is your own. Children won’t design genitalia, cause they won’t need them. Reminder most creatures on our planet (sexually reproducing ones specifically) don’t have a scary penetrating organ.
Mammalian genitalia aren’t the only genitalia, or even the only genitalia we’ve included in our definition. And such genitalia are a rather common and obvious adaptation
I wouldn’t exactly describe a spider’s pedipalps as being between its legs, nor are they obscured by fur or particularly retractible
I’d say most small players would want a pretty good view of the world, for both practical and aesthetic reasoning. This will include the ability to get a look at mating animals, even if that’s not what they want
There are other ways to include unique morphological features which have ties to genitalia. Talking specifically about the wasp example, I don’t see how a stinger must be derived from a sexual part in Thrive to be justified as a realistic evolution. We can attach unique abilities to the ovipositor which reflect adaptations on Earth - their use as a stinger, a tool which can pierce wood, etc. - but to explicitly denote it as designing genitalia is again excessive when the majority of players will be focused on every other part of the organism.
Multicellularity for example is oftentimes said to have initially developed due to errors in binary fission. We don’t really reflect that in Thrive, and we don’t suffer from omitting this so it’s not like we absolutely have to include detailed aspects of reproduction to maintain a consistent and worthwhile experience.
OK, let’s say we don’t design our creatures’ genitals. What do we do instead? Do you have an alternative, that’s not a dolldivine-toy drop-down menu or just designing genitals with extra steps? If so, is it worth it? Is designing and coding this entirely new system necessary to allow people to not design organs they don’t want to design?
I see what you mean, but if an ovipositor is not genitalia, it’s not an ovipositor. It’s just a stinger evolved purely for stinging and nothing else.
But with that aside… Yes, it is perfectly realistic to evolve stinging without an ovipositor, but you’re effectively locking the player out of utilizing a huge and complex system in their organism. There are so many animals on the planet which adapt their genitals in unique and interesting ways, and the ovipositor being turned into a weapon is just one such example.
You CAN evolve anything you want without an existing part placed on your organism to facilitate it. But you don’t have as much incentive as you would if you already have the basis for what you want to make on your organism. Hence why I don’t think belgiumopterans would sting if they didn’t evolve an ovipositor. In fact… Not all of them DO sting. Many of them did not evolve their ovipositor into a weapon, and those ones just so happen to have no defense beyond possibly biting.
Okay this got a bit jumbled. ADHD, sorry.
I’m going to SLIGHTLY condense/repeat my thoughts, please bear with me…
1: Any evolution without genitalia is indeed possible
2: Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean we should limit the creativity of the player. Too many possible strategies and factors for survival will be lost- I haven’t even included the fact that different genitalia include different functions in reproduction, some of which aren’t even sexual in nature- such as ovipositors being used to lay eggs in hard to reach places.
You CAN evolve an entirely new body part in the late multicellular stage… But would you want to? No, it’s better to convert something that already exists. So the more parts we can tamper with, and the less that are considered off limits, the better. The realism is just an added bonus- the real deal is the gameplay opportunities.
I like how this thread immediately deviated into ‘how do we deal with the sex aspect’. Realistically coming from a gameplay perspective, if reproductive choice is included within the game, the system would have to be simple enough for any player to understand. I don’t think a dev is ever going to contribute substantial time into a dedicated ‘customise your genitalia’ editor. Occam’s razor, copy the spore system for applying specific creature parts, model the specific reproductive parts/styles as an object, then when choosing how you reproduce its as simple as placing the part on your creature. Obviously more consideration is needed for the interphase between here and where the game is now, but in creature editor it could be as simple as a part you put on your creature, that’s the full extent. Different types could have different gameplay or traits associated, (e.g. pollen allows long distance reproduction).
Now addressing censorship, default shouldn’t be censored, its biology and we as respectable people shouldn’t inadvertently anthropomorphise/sexualise it. However obviously there are cases (YouTube) where even the depiction of these organs is not allowed, therefore the proposed ‘blob’ approach from above could be used and just replace the part models in the editor. Again any ‘mating’ scene should be skippable and I doubt again any dev wants to dedicate enough time to realistically animate sex.
Finally Rhinobot’s proposition on secondary sexual traits can also fall under the same part system, modelled parts represent types of organs (breasts/udders). Again if censorship is on it just replaces the model with a ‘blob’.