Worlds and Effects

Now I know that this will be a very long time from now but I think its best a say it now so that it can be possibly added in the future without to much hassel. However, what I am suggesting will, if possible to be added, could very well make the biggest defference over “Spore” that Thrive can make and also would make it a way more scientifically accurate game.

  1. Gravity and Planet size: Now a lot of people would think that this would not be a very necessary thing for a game like this but they couldn’t be more wrong. This would affect EVERYTHING from the density of water in the cell stages, to the shape of the organisms on the surface, to even the difficulty of actually escaping orbit. Almost everything that the planet would evolve would be based heavily on its gravity. Planets sizes also would play a large part in what could evolve because of the amount of resources available to its inhabitants. These two forces are indeed similar but gravity is based on mass while size is based on volume, the difference is like a Blue Gaint to a black hole. A black hole with the same mass as a Blue Gaint would be significantly smaller than the Blue Gaint because it is so dense that it has a lot less volume but would still have the same gravity. This means that these should be two different things in Thrive as well if it is decided to add world modification options at all. A larger planet also means more space for spieces to expand to while a smaller planet is the reverse.

  2. Atmospheric and Ocean Densities: This would affect quite a few things things. One; what exactly would float and what would not, both in the sea and in the air. A super dense atmosphere would make it so larger organisms could fly/swim through the air while a super sparse atmosphere would make it so almost no organisms could fly. A super dense ocean though would make it so that it would be very difficult to survive the pressures at the sea floor which would induce a number of things such as a lack of bottom feeders.
    Two; radiation and sunlight levels. A super light atmosphere or ocean would also make the creatures more susceptible to UV and other forms of radiation while a super dense atmosphere would make it so almost no sunlight would reach the surface meaning life would have to find other ways of finding energy.
    And three; composition. Meaning what they would evolve to breathe or more accurately how they evolve to breathe. A super dense atmosphere may have a large amount of toxins in the air that would need to be filtered out while a super light atmosphere may not have much oxygen in it so a way of taking in more air would be needed. Same would go for the oceans, they may not be as much H2O as our oceans are and thusly could be fairly toxic to life or the water may not have enough oxygen levels in it to support some lifeforms.

  3. Planetary rotation speed: This one is almost the most important thing for any life on a planet. Firstly this would affect windspeed on the planet, with faster the rotation the greater the windspeed. Meaning life would have to evolve in order to deal with greater windspeed such as making themselves closer to the ground or having smooth exteriors.
    Secondly, the day/night cycle. A planet with a quick rotation would have shorter days and night while a slow rotation means longer days and nights. The longer the day the more the star the planet orbits has time to warm the surface of the planet and the longer the night the more a planet can cool down. So say a planet has a rotation that permanitly sets one side of the planet facing the star and the other side facing space. The side facing the star would be completely baked and extremely hot while the otherside would be completely frozen over. This would leave only the most narrow of bands stretching from pole to pole in which life could survive without boiling or freezing.

  4. Distance from the Star: This would be relative to the heat given off of the star but would ultimately affect the planet’s temperature. Everyone knows this though so mild explanation for those who don’t. The closer to the star the hotter the planet and the further from it the colder the planet.

I would love to see more comments like this one on maybe a few things a forgot or even to correct me on the things I got wrong. I did this completely off the top of my head so there are bound to be more than a few errors in it but this is just to get y’all thinking about how much a planet can affect life on it.

Askyw
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I like what you’re saying here and it sound like all of these would pretty cool features in the game. However, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t belive that the rotation speed of a planet has an impact on wind speed.

It’s definitely planned to eventually simulate planets and whole solar systems to an appropriate level of detail.

I think it would be pretty cool to see how close a moon is to a planet, because it could make stronger or weaker tides on a planet with oceans. Like having a moon would make huge tsunamis happen. Something more complex would be giving the planet a Roche limit, and if the moon gets too close, it could get ripped apart and destroyed because of the gravitational difference between two sides of the moon. I don’t think they’re going to add that last part

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Co·ri·o·lis ef·fect

ˌkôrēˈōləs iˌfekt/

noun

PHYSICS

noun: Coriolis effect ; noun: Coriolis force ; plural noun: Coriolis forces

  1. an effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis force ) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems
    This is what i meant by winds caused by planetary rotation. If fast enough the planet can have pretty much a permanent huricane across its whole surface or it can even rip off the lighter gasses and fling them to space.
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Yeah I thought about this too. Although I don’t think that last part is needed sence this is a life simulator not a universe simulator so things like that would be rather pointless.:upside_down_face:

It would’ve been cool to see though. Who knows, maybe it will be a mod in the future :slight_smile:

But the moons a planet has could totally affect how a large body of water, so that could be added.

Well the thing is say our moon was 4x closer than it is today. Every single beach would be completely stripped of all sand and most costal cities destroyed. The only safe spots would be over a mile up the coast and even then the rocky cliffs cut by the extreme tides would make it near impossible for any sea life to make the transition to land and also the seas would be completely LOADED with the basics for life but the sea its self would be to violent to even support life. And thats with just one moon who knows how bad it would be with multiple if they ever lined up over one side of the planet that side would be like “Waterworld” at least untill they unalign themselves. It could be a fun thing to see if you had a mod for like a God’s eye perspective of it but it would not be very helpful for the base game.

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Ahh, sorry I was unaware of this forces effect on weather patterns, I stand corrected. That would be a very interesting addition to the game, if they decide to take things into account. As hard as that might be for them I hope they do, it would be quite interesting to see how lifeforms might evolve on worlds that are totally and radically different.

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No problem I had to look it up myself :upside_down_face:

I like the ideas of adding realistic things into it like wind and temp, but maybe when you go to other planets the player has to make a suit with a tank because something in the atmosphere might be poisonus to your species or a lack of o2 or what ever your species may breath. This would fall under the atmosphere category because whats in the air could effect how the species will see a planet.