# Multicellular Parts

**URL:** https://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/multicellular-parts/1241
**Category:** Gameplay
**Created:** [March 9, 2026, 11:59pm UTC](https://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/multicellular-parts/1241 "2026-03-09T23:59:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 12

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### Author: ![Rathalos](https://thrivedevforum-cdn.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/rathalos/32/2504_2.png) [@Rathalos](https://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Rathalos)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/multicellular-parts/1241/12 "2026-09-02T13:58:59Z")

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> [@MirrorMonkey2](#):
>
> > [@hhyyrylainen](#):
> >
> 
> Another reason against this is that unspecialized macroscopic organisms exists (like slime modes during their „feeding stage“ and certain kinds of macroscopic extremely simple algae) if I‘m not mistaken.

There’s also macroscopic single cells, as well as prokaryote colonies that are macroscopic in total, but some things just fall outside our scope.

The gameplay reason here is that only acquiring 20 cells is very easily done, so if we don’t enforce it, people don’t actually play around with the stage’s mechanics. So that would require other transition demands, or make growing your number of cells much slower.

> [@MirrorMonkey2](#):
>
> > [@hhyyrylainen](#):
> >
> > -
> 
> If we take the kinds of organisms I mentioned earlier as a precedent even this shouldn‘t be a requirement to become macroscopic. Or would you suggest we just forgo these kinds of organisms in favour of some sort of required progression and introduction to important mechanics in multicellular mode? I‘d understand that from a gameplay perspective, I‘m just trying to figure out how much realism we‘d sacrifice for it. In my very limited understanding having a colony of 20 indentical cells is very very far off from being unviable due to size limitations irl.

By necessity we have a jump from 20 cells to a 1 cm organism. So our Multicellular Stage has to represent in that 20 cell frame things that are necessary to get to that 1 cm scale. So a Multicellular Species of 20 cells represents something much larger IRL.

> [@hhyyrylainen](#):
>
> > [@Deus](#):
> >
> > **Signalling Complex**
> > 
> > This is a sort of stand-in for a “nervous system”, but it is a more neutral term to accommodate the fact that plants don’t really have a nervous system - just complex signalling/enzymatic capabilities.
> > 
> > - +30% cell count cost.
> > - All adjacency bonuses boosted by 20%.
> > - Massive ATP cost, likely requiring a highly-specialized cell.
> 
> Can the axon organelle do this? Because that’s on the almost next up on the list of stuff to do: allow placing axon in the multicellular stage already.

Looking back at this again, the axon actually _cannot_ be designed to do what Deus describes here (a “general” signalling mechanic), because an axon represents real nervous cells. Like we talk about frequently, we want nervous systems and Aware status mechanically mostly restricted to motile heterotrophic species. So the axon is something that should be something that’s only useful for motile species, not _every_ species.

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