Viruses?

Current Game Microbe Stage
62

Since one of the three main hypotheses for Virus evolution is the Escape Hypothesis, perhaps there could be a small chance of exogenous DNA chunks being viral in nature and infecting cells. Because Thrive is alien life, plasmid evolution of viruses could happen earlier than what occurred on Earth. This would ideally work in along with added plasmids and the S-pilus (which transfer plasmids between bacteria in real-life), as you would not know whether the exogenous DNA is beneficial or harmful.

Source on Virus evolution:

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63

Are those DNA chunks still planned? I think they were theory-only…

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64

I mean, my original suggestion was focused on not Life As We Know it, so it’s totally possible that you could evolve a nucleus as well, but if we’re focused on LAWK only then I would say it should be an irreversible evolution, and the DNA again could be only included in not LAWK.

The idea that there could be bits of DNA floating around that could be viruses is also a very interesting idea, and I think that over time as well, they could grow to have exteriors. I also had an idea for a bacteriophage kind of idea that might work if that was a path you chose at the beginning of the game (Virus/Bacteriophage)

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65

They’d evolve to be made with them, viruses don’t grow stuff themselves.

Then that’s a dead end and the developers don’t want to spend their time on those.

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66

Pardon my simple language there, clearly I’m a newbie. If you can’t choose to be a virus from the start, I don’t know how this would work, since the barebones DNA isn’t implemented, you start as cytoplasm instead.

Edit: Other than the original new pilus idea

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67

Viruses could be NPCs you can’t play as. Or use a different system from “regular life” completely.

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68

What would a different system look like? Could this work for not LAWK only?

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69

It could be like a mirror image of the regular evo system but for viruses. And they obviously wouldn’t be able to attain much complexity.

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70

I mean, that could work, but that still seems like a menu that would need to be decided early on in the gameplay, or is this a tab you could flip to in the editor? Or something else?

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71

No menu would be needed if the player can’t play as a virus.

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72

I mean, I guess if that’s an AI evolution that would be fine, I would just enjoy to be able to play as a virus, or is the AI incapable of evolving like the player?

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73

It uses the auto-evo system which does use an MP equivalent to my awareness but otherwise it’s much different.

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74

So it would be infeasible for the player to not evolve their own species of microorganism?

When I put it like that it sounds dumb, but would it work for the player to let the ai take the lead in evolution?

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75

No, it would cause a game-over most likely, at least on the hard difficult. Not sure about easy/normal, but it still could put you in a grave spot.

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76

If only the player could be a virus (and the other ai of that species) though, could they technically survive that way? Being the only one of the kind?

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77

I think if viruses were to be included, they’d also need to get an evolution algorithm of some sort. So they would very soon be no longer the sole ones of their kind…

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78

Okay, so the player can compete with other organisms now, and the player can survive, could the same work if the player was a virus, could the player compete with other viruses and survive?

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79

They could live… but it’s pretty pointless if they can’t progress far, don’t you think?

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80

I guess, but if the other cells can develop defenses, then the game could progress to the point of macroscopic life while the player can develop traits like airborne or could give different effects to cells it infects, and maybe could fight off immune cells if the AI can advance that far.

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81

Yes but they wouldn’t be able to build a virus civilization, right?

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