But you can’t stop me! (To be fair, I didn’t read it in one sitting)
I want to start by saying that I strongly agree with both the general principles in play here, and the basic layout of the systems. I really hope this can assuage some people’s concerns about a principally parts based system being too limiting or unrealistic. When the basic parts have extensive enough modification to them, it does not feel limiting (as you have in my opinion demonstrated). And realism compared to for example Spore does not come from “not having parts”, it comes from not being able to instantly overhaul your species, not upgrading by replacing parts with entirely different looking “superior” parts, and instead having a natural progression of adaptations to existing structures.
I think this has numerous benefits:
- Allows auto-evo to work well (and this is absolutely critical)
- Is consistent with both the design of the previous two stages and the player experience of the previous two stages.
- We can take this essentially as far as we have time/resources for, continuing to add layers upon layers of modifications and more options for the various layers. Or cut it short to less options if necessary, to hopefully be expanded later. It is extremely scalable.
- Since each layer of options is hidden by a previous layer, this limits how much a player is exposed to at once. Don’t need to worry about the slider for nails until you have nails, don’t need to worry about nail options until you have digits, don’t see digit options until you have limbs, etc.
So since I mostly agree, the rest of this comment will just be suggestions for refinement, and perhaps some nitpicking on specific examples for future reference.
General Comments
- gradualism and adapting existing structures: I think I would like to see a bit more gradualism in the final design. Some things seem a bit too much like sudden big steps, instead of gradual derivations of existing structures. For example “placing mandibles” instead of “forming mandables out of gill arches”. Of course you so already have some of this like with the wings. But I think some things should be more explicit. For example, “foot with prehensile digits” should in my opinion be a required transition stage from “leg” to “arm”, not just an alternative solution.
- stereotyping: I feel like some of the attributes you are ascribing to some parts and modifications are more things we associate with certain animals that have those traits, rather than attributes directly related to those parts/modifications. For example, the modification to “hoofed” suddenly making the streamline measure of the limb count more towards mobility.
Starting point
There is a conversation to be had on what the Macroscopic stage should start you of with. And that is strongly related to how far the multicellular stage takes us. The latter design is also not finished yet, I believe, which makes things more complicated. But I think my current impression is that expecting players to come out of multicellular with something like the Urbilaterian(a worm-like thing with at least a mouth and bilateral symmetry), might be a bridge too far. And I think that’s exactly what would be necessary for something that is easily converted into:
a length of metaballs connected to each other, akin to Spore… Should be symmetrical by default.
And note that with this level of complexity we would expect them to already have a mouth. I think our current trajectory on multicellular points more towards establishing the type of tissues you start macroscopic stage with, but not a strong body shape. Some things our sponge and jellyfish friends also seem like they would have diverged from the rest of us animals post-multicellullar stage’s 20-max cells. If this is the case, starting out with the type of organism you describe might be a bit odd. In which case:
A possible solution is to start you of without any inherent symmetry and just one metaball, that contains the tissues you made in multicellular. You can make it larger or smaller, perhaps add some patterns and repeating shapes to it, but you can’t place any more metaballs until you evolve a type of symmetry (which may have bilateral as the only option), at which point you are at the starting point you described here. Continuing to scale up your one metaball without placing more can end up with something like a sponge or placozoan.
(P.S. Thinking about this more, it might be possible to just make multicellular end with more complex structures than we expect at that number of cells, thereby letting the end-point of multicellular be for example the ubilaterian. Of course, this would mean that multicellular is the critical point where you decide on body types, symmetry, etc. I would still like a back-up option for evolving symmetry in macroscopic in case you didn’t do it before. Unless we want people to be accidentally be stuck as blobs.)
That selection of symmetry actually leads me to my next point:
Repetition and linked parts
In my mind, symmetry is just one variant of repetition: where in biology some things are seemingly copy-pasted (and maybe mirrored). The left and right arm are instances of the same thing, and genetically altering one typically also affects the other. Symmetry (in its various forms) is the obvious example, but you’ve also got repeating segments with legs in millipedes, leaves on plants, segments of plants, etc. There’s even partial repetition where some, but not all, attributes are shared between two parts. Your hands and feet are different in many ways, but hand and toenails did not evolve separately! Other examples are vertebrae, ribs, teeth, fins, etc.
So, I would like there to be a repetition or “linked parts” mechanic in the macroscopic editor, where parts are linked, and altering one automatically (and forcibly) alters other instances of the same part at no extra MP cost. In fact, breaking the linkage, in just one or multiple attributes, should cost MP. I can imagine a few variants of this:
- Symmetry: wholesale repetition of the entire body.
- Metamerism, or repitition of metaballs (and things attached to them). IRL this doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing for vertebrates (apart from the vertebrae themselves), but it definitely is in arthropods. So, rather than making it cheap for arthropods to add more metaballs and legs, this would mean arthropods (can) have a slider on their metaballs/segments for “how often do you want this segment to repeat?”. There’s your millipede.
- Related Appendages: As in the limbs of us tetrapods. Some with mostly maintained linkage (elephants), others with very broken linkage (birds).
- Branching: (This may be a big picture option in the same category as symmetry) As in plants. Essentially you (or auto-evo) just design for example a root, branch and leaf, and then set how frequently they should branch and repeat.
Bonus points: There is already precedent for this in Thrive! The multicellular prototype lets you place multiple cells of one cell type. Then editing the type means editing all the individual cells at no additional cost. Unless of course, you deliberately choose to split off a new type. (If I had my way, I would also eventually backport this to microbe stage for organelle modifications)
Comments on examples
Mass
- I would like to see mass mainly be viewed as something of a side-effect of the changes you are making, rather than something you specifically increase in certain parts. For example, don’t increase the mass of a limb (thereby increasing some attributes), but instead increase the muscle volume of a limb (with appropriate results) and as a consequence, also increase mass. Because increasing bone density, adding armour and large claws also all add to the mass of the limb, but don’t feel like they should do the same as increasing the muscle volume.
- The mass to speed effects seem a bit off to me. Particularly in the limbs: larger mass in limbs means more muscle power for locomotion (especially with my suggestion above). This would logically lead to higher speed, not lower. Having a trade-off between mobility and combat ability does not really make sense here (as anyone that has been kicked by a horse could attest).
- Mass is not weight, and the centre of mass is not the same thing as the centre of weight/buoyancy. Weight is mostly your mass, but modified by the difference in density to the surrounding medium. This might seem like a trivial difference, but in my opinion it is not. Adding a giant swim bladder while you’re underwater (or the infamous hydrogen balloon above water) will increase your mass, but decrease your weight. Putting said bladder at the front of the organism moves the centre of mass forwards, but the centre of weight backwards.
Mass and the centre of mass determine how the creature moves in response to horizontal pushing (by outside forces and the animal itself), while the weight and centre of weight determine how the animal interacts vertically with gravity. Obviously, if you use it as a measure of overall metabolism, that’s mass, not weight.
If you don’t want to track both things separately, I would recommend only looking at centre of weight instead of mass (relevant underwater). Also for underwater animals, you do want to track overall weight and mass separately, unless you just ignore the difference and use a different system to reflect buoyancy.
Limbs
Is the free placement of metaballs on the torso, and then free placement of joints in 3D space still too free-form sculpting (especially for auto-evo). Though I guess in the end a position in 3D space is a set of 3 sliders. So that’s something for statistics and auto-evo to work on. Might even be nice as an alternate fine movement system for player use.
Vertebrate Wings
Definitely a big deal, and I am glad you were able to come up with a system that handles it so well. I especially love the option for which digits to include in the wing. However, for some reason I find myself disagreeing with a lot of the other small details here!
- Is there any chance you got some of the steps backwards here? It doesn’t seem like fusing some joints will suddenly significantly arrest your fall. Joint changes is what I would expect in the transition to powered flight from an animal that already has flight membranes. Look for example at sugar gliders, with clear flight membranes but no powered flight.
- On requiring a wristed appendage: I have to point out that by your definition bat wings are non-wristed (they walk on them).
- On non-wing digits being weakened: I would much rather turn things around. Have the excess digits be mostly functional, but weaken the functioning of the wing as long as they exist. Thus providing potentially a gradual transition from fully functioning grasping hand to fully functioning wing, rather than the digits suddenly becoming worse for initially little benefit when you start transitioning to wing form.
- I don’t think the flight membrane should simply transform into a feathered wing when you switch to feathers as skin cover. It’s a substantially different anatomy that has a lot of different implications, so it should be a complete alternate option that has feathers as a pre-requisite.
- As an example of the gradualism I talked about at the start: instead of wing adaptation suddenly adding new effects to limb surface area, could we have the addition of a flight membrane unlock a slider for the surface area of specifically the flight membrane?
Mesoglea
As far as I am concerned, Mesoglea is not a skin attribute. IRL it is sandwiched in between the two main layers of cells that make up the body of cnidaria and ctenophores. So if anything, it is a form of skeleton/body cavity/transportation system. (their body structure is just very weird). Sponges have something very similar.