After reading the developers’ forum, as well as my own experience, I realized that this game lacks mechanics that encourage proper placement of organelles. I have some ideas for similar mechanics.
The first thing that came to my mind was clusters of organelles, which would be more effective than scattered organelles. For example, if you place metabolosomes next to each other, then the production and consumption of metabolosomes will increase by +2% for each metabolosome standing next to them.
This also works not only with proteins/organelles, for example, a flagellum located next to metabolosomes will have a bonus of -0.2 osmoregulation for each metabolosome nearby.
A similar system can also exist at the early multicellular stage, but instead of organelles - cells.
The point is that there should be a difference in how and where to place the organelles, as for example in KSP, it is not only the number of engines on the rocket that matters, but also how they are located. However, this system should not penalize the player too much for incorrect organelle placement (at least on medium and low difficulty settings)
The developers are talking about similar mechanics, but only related to the surface area of the organelles in relation to the external environment. I think if they can implement that mechanics, they can implement this one too (these mechanics are very similar in design).
4 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
4
I guess so, but at the same time not pushing the 1.0.0 release forward is the top priority at the present. So adding features like those could significantly push it into Q3 of this year. I guess it can still be implemented after 1.0.0, but by then the focus would’ve shifted to multicellular.
It’s not exactly the same thing, but currently, placing an organelle in one place or turned one direction will effect your speed and turning differently than putting it one space over or, in some cases, turning it 180 degrees. Additionally, flagellum and cilia give varying boosts to speed and turning dependent on where you place them. For best results, always put your cilia front and center.
2 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
6
I wonder if we’ll ever get some sort of “speed cilia” upgrade…
as aah said there isn’t a lot of time left for this stage, i only picked it up recently but i can see this game’s development has been dragging on for years and they only have a fraction of what the final product should look like. Tbh i think this idea would work for multicellular stage, as players specialize cells they should be rewarded for turning them into Organs rather than leaving them as non-differentiated cell goop.
Definitely, this is Specialization, and would greatly enhance early multicellular, though making it work in the microbe stage as part of the early multicellular stage development should work.
1 Like
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
9
To my awareness, “multicellular intermediate” and cell groups turning into organs are generally considered scrapped features.
I’m not sure if this was discussed publicly on the dev forum but we’ve talked about this exact same idea within the dev team (that organelles would have efficiency or other effects when placed next to other organelle types). And well basically two issues came up: compounds in the cell cytoplasm are pretty much uniformly distributed so it doesn’t make scientific sense why organelle placement would have efficiency impact. Though there are various ways around that like maybe organelles could combine into bigger ones or we make certain organelles want to be at cell edges like photosynthesis parts could be explained to be more efficient when there are less organelles in front of them blocking light. So yeah a system like this could probably be designed with a bit of effort.
However, the bigger problem with this idea (like already was brought up) is that we are really hard trying to get microbe stage to completion. So adding a major new feature like this would push that back a lot (this feature would need a lot of GUI work, tutorials, and auto-evo simulation as well as mutation code changes so that it all worked nicely). Even after an initial implementation a big system like this likely would take multiple releases with player feedback to get into a well polished state.
5 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
11
As expected. Not much (if anything) new is going to be added to the microbe roadmap.
Which is why both @GOLANX and myself suggested its should be early multicellular, but if this WAS implemented in multicellular, it would likely be as easy/easier to make it work in single cellular as well than to ONLY work in multicellular.
2 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
13
Let’s hope the developers will find time to code this in during multicellular development…
I fail to see why that would be the case. If code was written so that certain cells in the layout gave different bonuses based on their positions, that would have no impact on the microbe stage. So adding this feature afterwards would basically be the same amount of effort than beforehand.
If the suggestion in Reconsidering the Multicellular-Aware Transition - Gameplay - Thrive Development Forum is accepted, they will have more time to work on things. Might seem to hurt things in short run, but I honestly think in long run it could help the game. And THIS would help make Early Multicellular/Late Microscopic/Multicellular a more interesting stand on its own stage if that does come to pass. If not, maybe they can go back and add it later. It might also help with the transition from Early Multicellular to Late Multicellular/Macroscopic.
If, post 1.0, this was written to take effect in the microbe stage, how would this “have no impact on the microbe stage”?
If it is “the same amount of effort” to put it in either the Microbe stage or the Multicellular stage, bearing in mind I am not asking for this to be on the road to 1.0, why would you choose to implement it to only effect Multicellular?
it would likely be easier to make it work in single cellular as well than to ONLY work in multicellular.
Which I see you already clarified by editing it a bit. I was just saying that feature programming just doesn’t appear out of thin air, and the way I see it there’s actual very little programming overlap between making a feature like this in the microbe stage versus the multicellular stage.
I’m not? Hopefully I’m not forgetting something I’ve said before, but I’m just saying that implementing this feature for both stages is basically 2x the effort than putting it in just one. The only reason why I have a slight preference for only having this in multicellular is that that way we are less front loading complex systems, which is a major problem as it requires very careful tutorialization and tuning to ensure it doesn’t make new players overwhelmed. We need the microbe stage to be a gentle and steady on-ramp to the Thrive experience for new players.
Do you have to reprogram every organelle, ability, and statistic separately for Microbe and Early Multicellular? I figured there was some amount of forward compatibility for mechanics. If not, then making this only work in multicellular makes a lot more sense.
There is, but if I go and write code for cells to get bonuses to stats and those bonuses are calculated by looking at where the cell is in the bodyplan (what it is next to) then there’s no code reuse to be done for the microbe stage (and obviously as there’s no bodyplan in the microbe stage this feature would have no impact for the microbe stage). Thus writing that feature and then a feature for organelles to affect each other based on placement will be roughly double the work.
3 Likes
aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
19
While i certainly don’t need the complexity of learning how to create a spleen. i do think some degree of organ development should be important, basic Muscles, Digestive, maybe respiratory, important also an Epidermal Layer.
I like that idea, turn a Mitochondria into a Mega Mitochondria. or combine a bunch of metabalosomes into a Mitochondria.
depends on how modular the code is, creating a system for proximity bonuses once can lay the groundwork for copying and using in other places, think it would also be useful in the awakening and civilization stages. add more sticks/rocks to a wall makes it stronger, grouping houses together for neighborhoods, grouping Cookhouses simplifies the logistical processes of a civilization, could also mean combining buildings into apartments, restaurants, storage =>Warehouse
