Ok thanks for clarifying. I was talking about how like in Spore there was basically a progress bar till land evolution as you collected more and more DNA, but I’m glad to hear that this won’t be the case here. I love the idea of hydrothermal vents where you could have a pretty cool initial microbe creation, I’m just not fully oriented to the vision for the game so I am using Spore as a mental crutch.
On that note I feel like seagrass beds & macroalgae reefs/kelp forests would be good ones to add as well.
@BadOmen I think the problem with such a biome ist that the transition to multicellular stage is locked for non-player-species until the player becomes multicellular. Therefore there can‘t be any macroalge or kelp while the player is still a microbe.
Has it been decided that the npc species can’t overtake the player? I vaguely remember it being a possibility that the player loses because the npc species get too far, so it would be possible to have multicellular life while the player is in microbe stage. But if any npc species becomes aware the time scale changes so much that the player is basically doomed as the npcs will evolve so much faster and get to society and industrial so much earlier that the player doesn’t have a chance.
@MirrorMonkey2 I would’ve thought macroalgae, seagrasses, etc. would be more of an environmental asset. Although it would make it pretty dynamic if we could have plants trying to disperse and form new biomes elsewhere.
Well, having macroalgae as enviromental assets doesn‘t really make sense if they haven‘t evolved yet as species. But maybe I‘m wrong and npc species can become multicellular before the player as hhyyrylainen said. Can anyone confirm/disconfirm this? What is the consensus?
We might make it an option for other species to evolve into multicellular ahead of the player, and it could be a toggleable setting when starting a new game.
As for other stages, the only transition where we definitely won’t allow other species to overtake the player would be Aware to Awakening (gaining Sapience), because of the huge time difference between the stages. Awakening, Society, Industrial, and Space are all very interconnected and seamless so it’s easy to allow surpassing there. Late/3D Multicellular and Aware are also very similar and thus surpassing is allowed there.
Doing some research it looks like minerals, such as iron, are mostly found along coastlines, or near hydrothermal vents, lava beds, and fresh igneous rock near magma activity. They appear in much lower quantities in the open ocean. I’ve updated the list (though we have no biomes relating to lava beds or magma activity at the moment).
We could simulate detritus right now by having patches of atp mixed with ammonia floating around in the deep ocean biome.
I think we should allow for cave gameplay. Sure it would be exceedingly similar to deep ocean in terms of visuals, but it could have more chemicals for chemosyntgesis, and hazards like patches of sulfuric acid.
Starting in a cave biome could be fun and would be an area we will need during later stages. The issue I could see with that is how would we simulate the evolution of eyes that can adapt to light sources when there was an absence before. Do we have an idea of how the player could evolve eyes yet for any situation? Aquatic biomes come in a range of areas and from what I’ve read so far we have a good idea of that and how to simulate being in different areas.
For alien worlds we could possibly use different tones to simulate the feel of life below the surface, ice, and more. I like the idea that @NickTheNick brought up with the different compounds and quantities being different since that’s how it is in the real world. An idea for lava beds and magma activity could be the increased presence of sulfur and greater biodiversity the closer you get to the source of heat for deeper areas, but more complex life would need special adaptations for the heat separate from that of pressure. Perhaps a slightly red glowing biome section to simulate the light given off by the magma if you’re above while giving a waving animation to the water if you’re near it to simulate thermal disturbance. I would say throw particles floating around in the water to simulate the ash but particle effects can be a bit evil on hardware if we try to simulate trillions at a time.
Eyes began as little more than a light-sensitive pigment spot on bacteria in the shallow sea layers. This light sensitivity provided an advantage to survival as the bacterium with light sensitivity could avoid harsh, DNA damaging UV radiation.
As these bacteria became multi-cellular, the pigment spot stayed, and hollowed, forming an indentation, increasing the area that can capture light (enough to see light, but not much else). This indentation deepened, and the opening narrowed, and a membrane formed (the first lens). Thus is the basic form of the eye as it has been ever since.
Now we see eyes in all stages of development in mammals, fish, birds, etc.
Fun Fact: fish can see a LOT better than humans, as eyes originally evolved in a watery environment, not dry land.
Now that all the new compounds are implemented (though gameplay wise we cant test much as compound clouds arent working perfectly just yet) , and oxygen and c02 percentages all per biome, someone can go ahead and tweak the biome json, add a cave biome etc. To accomplish some differentiation. If they want more numbers to work with ill gladly add them. (such as microbe spawn chances/bacterial spawn chances per biome etc. which are all currently generalized)
For exmaple tidepools/algae bloom may have higher bacteria chances, while abyss would have less microbes and bacteria overall, but that variable isn’t in the json yet so if someone wants me to add it i would ) We do need some people brainstorming this though
At least any major differentiation has to wait until cells don’t randomly spawn in some biome.
If those don’t screw over the player randomly (my point about the random spawn biome above was about this) I think they can be done, but focus for the next few releases should be in other things.
Im mostly worried about background stuff rn .
But it is a good time for some experimentation i think in the next few releases. Also i think the bacteria spawn too often in general now after playing with the incomplete version alot over the past few months.
@Minegamer117 has been working on new biome backgrounds , in terms of new biomes for this release:
Todepool
Cave
Ice shelf
Are all being added:
In terms of finished backgrounds:
New Abyss Background
Cave
Partial: Ice Shelf
Unfinished:
For the next release we still need
New ocean
New shallow ocean (I think this may be a new biome too)
New algae bloom (though I personally want to Get rid of this biome since not all planets will have algae in the normal sense)
New vents
Hopefully we will have all these done before release
On another point for differentiation of biomes, I have improved on this for release aswell:
Each biome now has ambient color that varies (though it’s hardly noticeable and only really effects new organelles for now)
Each biome now has variables for dissolved oxygen and co2 percentages
They have also had varying compound concentrations for awhile
I think that, until we have completely proper biomes and the game knows when it should and shouldn’t include the algal bloom, we should keep the biome, because it adds variety and doesn’t really hurt much at the moment. Once biomes are fully figured out, the bloom could be used whenever you’re in a shallow ocean with a high photosynthesizer count, for instance, as discussed in this thread.
There’s more to come, I just thought I’d post these here
EDIT: Added spoilers and in-game screenshots (note that the backgrounds will probably look different from these screenshots in 0.4.0 due to engine and shader differences and stuff
Ah dammit, now the images aren’t showing up
(screw it, removing the spoilers)
) We do need some people brainstorming this though
.
