Now that the developers had completed the microbe stage, I started wondering how will multicellular stage look like. So I decided to share my ideas with the community.
Just like in real life, multicellular organisms reproduce both sexually and asexually.
It may be possible that during early multicellular stage, players may not need to switch to sexual reproduction, and they can enter the editor easily after their organism matured. It would make sense to later switch to a sexual reproduction, probably because it may give players buffs such as more mutation points.
For a sexual reproduction, players need to create a new cell type, also known as a zygote. I’ve seen that the devs are looking for ways to encourage for players to create new cell types, and this may be one of them. This cell is not meant to live long, and it is meant to die not soon after it disconnects from your organism. Zygotes are meant to be produced in the last order after the organism matures, and instead of instantly entering the editor, we could make it so that zygote seperates from your organism. Player’s perspective may switch to the zygote, and the zygote has to find another organism to give its genetic information. If a zygote sucessfully merges with the mating partner, a player will go to the editor screen. If it dies before reaching a mating partner, the camera switches back to your original organism, and you may not enter the editor.
Im not exactly 100% sure if someone has suggested this already, but feel free to debate about my idea.
Theoretically, it would effect mutation points, how easy it is or isn’t to reproduce, and possibly life stages (a creature that splits from 1 adult into 2 adults does not need to “grow up” the way something born from an egg does)
Now that I think about it
What if we add a new organelle? Hear me out, if you are transfering genetic information and you can get more mutation points, then you can add more genetic information. Of course, there will be some sort of cap, but the multicellular stage is meant to be about creating a complex organism, right?
that would have the same problem as moulting. You wouldn’t be in your ideal physique when you have double the limbs right before reproducing. And would be easily hunted. Other reproduction types would be the surviving ones. Though it wouldn’t cause a big problem for cells and cylindirical worm-like / caterpillar-like multicellulars.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
8
Fun fact: Technically, this is also true for (eukaryotic) sincgle-celled organisms.
Note that irl a zygote is the result of the fusion of two gametes. In other words, fertilisation.
For this type of gameplay where you release a cell to seek out others,you’re looking for the word gamete, not zygote.
But for what it’s worth I definitely agree that the development of gametes (or gamete-producing cells) should definitely be how you start sexual reproduction. And that should perhaps even be a requirement to advance to the next stage.
We’re still working on what kind of benefits sexual reproduction should have. While an MP discount might makes sense, that doesn’t actually grant immediate benefits to the species, that goes both for our auto-evo system and real life. The species evolving faster doesn’t help the first organisms that develop sexual reproduction. Increased genetic diversity might for example directly affect only disease resistance, which is something we don’t have in Thrive.
And that’s while sexual reproduction does have a very real cost in energy and effort, in real life and for the player as well.In fact, some hypotheses suggest that sexual reproduction is indeed very beneficial, but mainly for the genes that cause it…
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
10
Would this necessitate the S-reproduction to have some kind of a special weight to it in autoevo or could it be handled normally still?
Irl, jellyfish, ants, hammerhead sharks, etc are asexual animals. Whether it should be a requirement in order to advance to the next stage, i dont really know about that, altough that would make sense.
We obviously dont know exactly whats the philosophy behind sexual production, and why are we using it. Perhaps, asexual reproduction should probably have a debuff by default.
3 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
12
Pretty sure these still reproduce sexually? (Don’t know where the shark one came from)
Okay so it appears that some animals are actually capable of Parthenogenesis, but I wasnt exactly right about the hammerhead shark. Even then animals still use an egg cell.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
14
I think the asexually reproducing animals don’t last long despite them having larger fitness than their sexually reproducing cousins at times. Might have to do with those unrepresented values as already outlined by Rathalos.
Perhaps I should refine my previous statement to “having cells focused on reproduction” being a requirement to advance, rather than sexual reproduction specifically.
4 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
16
Speaking of gametes how would meiosis be integrated?
In multicellular I assume that in sexual reproduction, as soon as a gamete is engulfed by a mating partner you switch to the editor, unless the developers have a different plan in mind.
1 Like
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
18
By meiosis I meant the cell split that happens specifically when making gametes or their progenitors.
No plans on it yet. But a very simply way would be “if you hit the reproduce button, your reproductive cell(s) spit out a gamete”. In Thrive we don’t exactly care about the specifics of the genetics.
Essentially everything needs special auto-evo integration unless it affects stats that auto-evo already considers (speed, ATP production, etc.)
1 Like
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
20
Would you always play the “lesser” gamete if your species is not izogamic?
