Players already complain about not being able to move organelles around. With organelles being upgraded by having other organelles placed next to them, feels like it is going to make this problem worse.
So I think that with the current systems it would make things too complicated to have adjacent organelles affect each other.
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I like that idea, but as hhyyrylainen said, such a system would bring alot of frustration to the players. However, if we wanted to, we could probably make specialized organelles more efficient or effective when placed beside such parts. That way specific organelle placement would not be locked to the placement of previous parts or be frustrating to those who dont understand it or havent planned ahead up to this point, while still having a positive effect for players who want to plan out carefully.
That being said; This could still bring the same frustration to players if they realized they could get bonuses by planning out placement after already building up their cell.
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I made some concepts regarding this a while ago so I’ll repost them
Right clicking on an organelle would open a menu, which puts all the important features related to messing with organelles in one place. (but also means some features may require one more click than they would otherwise. imo that’s alright because organism editing isn’t intended to be super speedy, but rather deliberate)
I also made a sketch of the organelle customization menu, and I don’t particularly have much to add there, except why should we restrict organelles’ lengths (and other parameters) to the values we set as the minimums and maximums for the sliders?
In my concept I added a little plus and minus button to let the player change its size outside of those limits, potentially letting them make their pilus/flagella/whatever way more massive than is remotely reasonable. Then it’d be up to auto-evo to decide whether or not it’s viable, or if the costs of growing and maintaining it and maneuvering with it are too great, etc. And if auto-evo decides it’s viable then it’d be pretty cool to see giant cells with giant spikes swimming around
i had a dream once where I was playing thrive and I saw a pack of cells with glassy pili longer than their bodies all swimming in the same direction together, and I got the sense that the pili weren’t a preset part but rather something that was evolved emergently somehow and im not actually going anywhere with this i’m just rambling
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I really do like that menu concept, looks very crisp. As for the unlimited customization idea… It’s not something I would have ever imagined being considered, but I actually like the sound of it. Afterall, the only true limits to players should be the viability of their creations. My only concern with it would be the obvious technical and graphical difficulties it would likely present.
I have begun eyeing this topic again as of late in an attempt to think of a good solid concept that we can work with and discuss. However, I have been unable to consolidate the smatterings of ideas I’ve had into anything meaningful at the time so I’ve decided to at least bump this discussion back to the forefront of everyone’s attention. I’ll go ahead and provide everyone with the general questions and thoughts I have in order to help promote some constructive discussion.
To what extent should a player be able to upgrade their parts?
Will we simply have a sort of upgrade tree akin to a skill tree (My drawing above as a rough example)? Will we have an array of toggles and sliders to adjust values within the parts so a player can fine-tune their organelles to be as they desire (Narotiza’s concept art above)? Or perhaps another method entirely?
In my personal opinion I would prefer using both present methods, however I would like to keep the variable sliders and toggles confined to specific types such as external parts. My reasoning for this is that being able to manually adjust parts such as nitrogenase would be difficult to reflect visually which would make it difficult for players to track which parts have been adjusted compared to others. Modifying the function of such parts could potentially be covered by the use of passive proteins which would effect all the parts rather than specific ones as well. External parts like flagella and pili however are easily visually distinguished and modified, as we can give players the ability to adjust their size or shape and they would be able to tell them apart easily enough. All parts could easily benefit from the upgrade paths method, as that presents an easy and understandable path to new specially adapted variations of the base parts that otherwise couldn’t easily be achieved by presenting the player with sliders.
How should the controls be handled?
There are many ways we could handle controls, so many infact that I feel this might be one of the more hotly debated parts of this concept. Should players need to select parts to access an options menu? Should players simply need to make different actions with their mouse such as left/right/middle/double clicking?
Personally I feel that using an options menu for each part could be somewhat tiring on it’s own. However I feel that the problem could easily be remedied by the use of hotkey functions. For example, holding alt and then right clicking could immediately delete parts instead of opening the menu to allow players to quickly perform actions without much effort. I would personally prefer such a menu for parts as it would provide players with an easy to understand set of options, sort of like an interactive hub or map, that would help them figure out what options they have. We could also put the associated hotkey instructions on each button on the list to help them figure out how to quickly perform the actions without having to consult a help guide or controls settings.
And finally the last question, how should the UI be positioned or otherwise designed?
UI is very important, as we want it to be as informative as possible, while being the least intrusive as we can. Should the selected part’s options and stats be displayed in a tooltip hovering somewhere on the screen? Should the settings temporarily replace the options on the editor’s part list? We have alot of options here.
Personally I would prefer if the selected part’s parameters be displayed in the left window, replacing what’s normally there while the part is selected. I feel this might be the best option as it would not introduce any additional clutter on the screen and preserve the player’s view of their cell and selected part. I am not experienced in graphics design however, so I would certainly like to see what the graphics team has to say about that part of the concept.
That’s all I have for now, as I feel we can focus on the finer details once we have a strong concept of how the layout and overall mechanism will be managed. I hope to see what everyone thinks!
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I’m in favour of changing right click in the editor to popup a context menu, that would have options like:
- delete
- maybe view stats? this could be also where organelle specific sliders would be
- upgrade
- move (not being able to move organelles around causes some problems)
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I’ll pitch in on what the Upgrading System itself could look like. Later, I’ll pitch in my thoughts on where it should appear in the editor.
After having thought about this topic for a while (it’s been circulating for years at this point), and read past discussions the team has had on this, the design that @TheCreator offered I think is the most complete.
Let’s say we begin with the interface Narotiza created a concept for (obviously interface for this is a future discussion too):
So you click on the “Modify” button and are taken to the tab to ugprade your organelle. Well use the Flagellum as an example (concept courtesy of TheCreator).
You start at the center of the grid. This represents the earliest, simplest, precursor version of that organelle. Each vertex on the grid represents evolving a step towards the final form of one of the upgrade paths. Each step costs MP to move towards, and increases your stats towards that path. For example, you can evolve towards increased length, which increases speed but increases ATP usage. “Cross-grading” your organelle into other, related organelles can occur after you pass certain milestones. Here it shows how if you evolve your Flagellum to be thin and short enough you can crossgrade it into Cilia.
Some organelles would not have as many dimensions of upgrades to evolve along as the Flagellum, so they would have simpler shapes like a triangle or even a simple line/slider. The maximum number of dimensions we could allow for is 2 (meaning 4 paths), which I think should be enough.
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Having prerequisite values for upgrades is an interesting idea. I like that it aligns well with the concepts that have been brought up that featured intermediary steps between unlocks/upgrades. However, I’m rather indecisive about the idea, as while it would be a great way to make upgrades be more progressive and gradual, it could potentially hinder players from doing all that they want.
Take the flagellum upgrade concept you posted for example. If a player had a longer flagella but wanted a longer cilia; Would they have to push the slider down to the required levels, change to cilia, and then move back to the peak longer area to get what they want? I think in this case, I would prefer to have the upgrades be independent from the sliders.
That being said, I recognize that that leaves a bit of a void where you might want that gradual sense of progress, so I have an idea to pitch for that. Rather than being able to immediately upgrade a part to the next form at a flat cost, we could instead allow the player to invest any amount of MP they want into the upgrade they want. The invested MP would be saved between generations, and would allow the player to gradually buy an upgrade at whatever pace they choose; whether that be dedicating all their MP in one session, or simply using the leftovers from other changes.
Infact now that I’ve said it I think that could actually be a decent way to handle organelle unlocks if we like this concept.
Sorry about being so late to reply by the way, I’ve been busy with college lately and I’ve found my motivation to be lacking as of late.
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I guess to account for such situations, you would need to put crossgrades at the ends of the slider spectrum. So for example upgrading into Cilia would have to be on the short extreme end of the Flagellum upgrade map.
The reason I’m tentative towards your replacement idea is because it sounds to me very similar to the above system, except simply detached into its own system.
By the way, I’ve been drafting a list of the possible upgrades based on ones we’ve discussed in the past. Here’s a draft list so far:
No worries, been swamped with classes myself otherwise I would’ve answered days ago. My best advice is to make sure to take some days completely off. If you have no “weekends” or “breaks” from Thrive you’ll burn out. Plus, I find that by the end of those weekends or breaks I’m 10x more eager to return.
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I’m not entirely sure I am understanding this right as it sounds just like the concept mentioned previously. Could you elaborate?
What do you mean by feeling detached? Do you mean a separation of the sliders from being a requirement for organelle upgrades? A good example of what I have in mind is how the membranes work alongside the membrane rigidity slider. It’s different methods of customization that while independent, are located in the same place and modify similar stats.
The idea I brought up earlier in the discussion is similar in that the sliders would be independent from your ability to change your organelle into different forms, with the dynamic MP cost being an alternative to replace the gradual sense of progress you would get from slowly moving your cell torwards the desired form in your idea.
I admit I didn’t put much thought into the idea of the gradual spending of MP into the upgrade however, so I wont complain if your still not convinced on it or anything. Though if you like, I can try drawing up a visual concept to help clear up any potential confusion?
That’s a decent start for the organelle upgrade stats, though I feel that having the upgrades negatively impact replication costs might not be preferable. I’m also not entirely sure if you mean replication as in buying copies of the organelle or the cost of your cell’s reproduction.
Personally I would prefer if the upgrade’s trade offs were centered more on specialization rather than on a flat stat bonus at the cost of replication. For example, we could allow the player to increase the speed at which a rustycanin processes iron at the cost of it being less efficient. Or having a thyakoid require less light to function, but produce less overall glucose as a result.
Okay so it’s been a long while since I last approached this topic, I believe we should try having a go at this again as it’s features may potentially be relevant for other plans. I am going to go ahead and lay out my current ideas for the upgrades system.
Part Menu:
First thing’s first; The selection menu. I believe we have a good idea on this already with the concept that Nick posted above. I think the menu would work great, and if players dont want to have to navigate it every time, we can introduce shortcuts like “Ctrl+Right click” to access features quickly which would make things more intuitive. It is here that the upgrades system will be accessed in full depth. By default, I think just left clicking on a part could work, but if that has weird conflicts with part placement functionality than we could likely make due with replacing the right click instead.
Sliders:
Next, is the upgrade system itself. I think it has been largely decided that we will basically alter the shapes of the organelles with sliders, while applying other functional changes through the use of “specialization” or whatever you want to call it.
When it comes to flat sliders versus crossgrades, I no longer have a preference. Crossgrades make it more intuitive to change the shape of the organelle, but could potentially be somewhat harder to program, and could potentially be rather wonky when the player wants to expand multiple attributes. Flat sliders will be easier, as we already have them implemented for other features, but using these will require multiple sliders for a single part which in itself might not be great.
Maybe we should construct a poll for this sometime.
Specialization:
And that brings me to specialization itself. I have two proposals on how we could do this.
Method A: Located within the Modify menu (Potentially located to the side of the modification sliders) will be a list of specializations, which will change how the part looks and/or functions. By selecting an option from this list, the player will be able to change the functionality of their part in relatively preset ways. (Example: Player clicks the toxic pilus upgrade, which replaces their pilus with the chosen type.)
This method is relatively simple, and hopefully easy to understand.
Method B: The player is presented with a list of modifiers that can be chosen and “installed” into an organelle. Some of these modifiers could reveal sliders that would permit the player to adjust their effects. The player would be able to install multiple modifiers on a part, which could allow for interesting combinations. (Example: Player clicks the length modifier, toxic pilus modifier, and straw pilus modifier. And then adjusts their pilus to be at their desired length.)
This method could be a great deal more complicated, and is somewhat harder to explain to new players. But I feel it could lead to great customization options. We would need to think carefully on how to best balance this as well. (Max modifier limits? Downsides for each modifier? Disabling conflicting modifiers?)
Upgrade Managment
I feel that with the inclusion of changes to individual parts in the player’s cell, we should make sure that it is easy to find what is modified. Parts that have been upgraded, will have icons on their hexes in the editor that will allow the player to easily identify what they have tweaked. This should make it easier to differentiate them from untouched parts.
Additionally, we could potentially include a means of copying and pasting part changes which would allow players to quickly and easily create new parts without having to go through making the same changes again.
If either of these proposed methods are accepted, we will need to begin thinking about how costs will work with this system, as well as how autoevo will utilize it.
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It’s been some quite time now, I had been hoping to promote discussion on this topic but it seems that no one has had any additional ideas or input so I’ll go ahead and make a decision to avoid stagnation of the topic, and allow me to move on to things that depend on this topic’s full completion.
I have decided that the upgrade menu should open up as a pop-up window upon clicking the “Modify” option within the part context menu. This will allow players to be able to reference the parts list without needing to close and reopen the upgrades window.
Within the upgrade menu there will essentially be two types of upgrades. Upgrades that change the proportions of a part will be implemented as sliders, while upgrades that change the behavior will be selectable icons.
I personally believe and have decided that the previously proposed crossgrade sliders would look too messy, and be a hassle to implement in the presence of already existent normal sliders. If anyone disagrees please say so, I am willing to concede to popular opinion here.
Players will be able to select multiple upgrades as long as they do not conflict with others. When a selected upgrade conflicts with another, the conflicting upgrade will be greyed out until the perpetrating upgrade is removed. Players will be able to remove upgrades for a small cost of ATP. Slider upgrades should cost roughly the same as rigidity/fluidity changes in the membrane.
Modified parts will display a special icon that signified that the part has been customized, allowing players to quickly find parts they have changed.
This is now my present decision and plan on how we shall implement part upgrades in the future, if anyone disagrees please say so as I am always more than willing to discuss what should and needs to be changed.
Otherwise, from here on out I will now focus my efforts on planning out the types of upgrades that will be available to players, as well as the potential connections of this system to the unlocking system.
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Yeah, we can use the normal Godot sliders for, well, normal sliders. A multidimension slider selector, we would need to create a new GUI component type ourselves.
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Alright, I have come up with some rough ideas (Outside of the ones proposed by @NickTheNick) for various upgrades for the parts in Thrive. I tried to avoid anything particularly uninspiring and was hoping to provide various unique and situational changes that could allow players to further adapt to specific niches. I didn’t come up with as many as I would have liked, but it should be a decent start as we can always design new upgrades at a later time.
Upgrade Proposals
Cytoplasm:
- Capacity: Further devotes cytoplasm to compound storage, reducing glycolysis function in return for possessing more storage
Glucose consumption reduced by 0.006 and ATP production reduced by 1.5 in return for +4 additional storage capacity.
Metabolosomes:
- Thermogenesis: Metabolosome will consume extra glucose and produce heat in return.
Will consume 0.05 more glucose (0.042 glucose at 21% oxygen) and lowers temperature tolerance by 0.5C (EX: Temperature range of 21C-30C becomes 20.5C-29.5C)
Thylakoids:
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Brown Pigments: Thylakoids become specialized in harnessing blue wavelengths of light, allowing them to produce glucose in low light conditions at the cost of producing less overall glucose.
Not actually sure how to pull this one off without custom behavior reworks, my desire is that this would be more efficient at low light levels than high light levels. -
Flattened: Thylakoids are now flat in shape, reducing overall mass at the expense of surface area and glucose production.
Reduces glucose production by 0.005 glucose, and mass by 0.02.
Flagellum:
-
Length (Slider): Length can be adjusted, changing force at the expense of ATP cost.
I will need to take a look at how speed works behind the scenes but ideally something like +0.1 speed/-1 ATP per point in the slider. -
Reverse: Flagellum now operates backwards, allowing players to move forwards with front-mounted flagella.
Does exactly as it says, makes flagella operate backwards.
Pilus:
-
Length (Slider): Length can be adjusted, increasing the range of the player’s attacks at the expense of damage.
Something like -1 damage/+length per point in slider. -
Girth (Slider): Girth can be adjusted, increasing the damage of player’s attacks at the expense of more mass.
Something like +0.5damage/+0.02 per point in slider. Somewhat hidden benefit of having a wider hitbox, making it easier to block projectiles? -
Straw: Turns the pilus into a hollow tube for hostile resource transfer.
Pilus deals 4 less damage, but now steals 0.2 of each consumable resource from target cell on hit. -
Toxic: The pilus now injects toxins into target cells.
-2 damage, +2 toxic damage. Basically would allow players to bypass physical defenses in other cells by exploiting a lack in toxin resistance. Should this require toxins in storage to function?
Mitochondrion:
-
Thermogenesis: Mitochondrion will consume extra glucose and produce heat in return.
Will consume 0.1 more glucose (0.063 glucose at 21% oxygen) and lowers temperature tolerance by 1C (EX: Temperature range of 21C-30C becomes 20C-29C) -
AntioxyNT: The Mitochondrion can now assist in metabolizing toxins at the cost of less ATP generation.
Will produce 10 less ATP, but provide 0.01 toxic resistance in return. (16.17 ATP at 21% oxygen)
Chloroplast:
-
Brown Pigments: Chloroplasts become specialized in harnessing blue wavelengths of light, allowing them to produce glucose in low light conditions at the cost of producing less overall glucose.
Same issue as with thylakoids. -
Flattened: Chloroplasts are now flat in shape, reducing overall mass at the expense of surface area and glucose production.
Reduces glucose production by 0.02 glucose, and mass by 0.1.
Note that I specifically avoided upgrades to toxic parts for now as that was starting to get into agent-editing territory which is something we haven’t fully planned out or decided on yet.
You might also notice that I have proposed some upgrades that alter the cell’s temperature tolerance which won’t be effective until a later time.
My primary concern is that for some specialized upgrades to function, we may have to create situational code for them which might lead to a little bloat, which is something to avoid if my understanding is correct.
If anyone has anymore ideas regarding potential upgrade types, or commentary on what I myself have proposed, please say so!
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I suppose we would need to split the sunlight, into different wavelength types. That way we can have per patch composition of light, and then the different photosynthesis parts could use different wavelengths to have differing effectiveness in different parts.
So this would make the cell survive in colder environments? This would be related to: Environmental Tolerance Adaptations
Does this work currently like this in game? Or does it currently not allow front facing flagella to move the cell forwards? I have a feeling that it was like that at some point, but it may have changed.
I think it would make sense for injecting toxins to use up toxins in the player cell. And if there isn’t enough toxin to inject it would just deal reduced damage.
In a clean design, you wouldn’t really have exceptions. Instead you would have general purpose systems that support that variation. So far none of these sound like they need too much really specific functionality, though many of these depend on future features being done.
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We are approaching a point in development where upgrades might be more relevant, so here are some proposed organelle upgrades to ensure that we have material. Much of it is based on Buckly’s previous post above, and I simply included more organelles and slightly tweaked some existing concepts, which absolutely is open to comment and reversion.
I would like to spend some time in the near future on related concepts, such as refining the enzyme concept and defining gameplay themes across the prokaryotic and eukaryotic parts of the stage, so I would like to see if there is some consensus on these ideas.
Input would also be appreciated on how to sleekly demonstrate some important stats surrounding your organism, such as environmental tolerance ranges.
GENERAL NOTES - Perhaps right-clicking on a placed part only applies modifications to that specific part, but right-clicking on the part button in the editor GUI applies modifications to all future instances of that part placed.
I brought up in discussion with Buckly the idea of traditional upgrades - in other words, upgrades which outright buff a part’s process efficiency to make it better, with only the slight cost of increased ammonia/phosphate costs - and he said that in his opinion, it would be better to stick with specializations and tradeoffs. While I do think that flat upgrades should eventually be considered, as there are certain leaps in evolution in the multicellular stage which would be really difficult to represent through small-scale specialization, I do think it is a very good idea to focus much more on upgrades that come with tradeoffs as opposed to upgrades which outright make a part better; such is the epitome of evolution, and would make for the most dynamic approach to gameplay.
Metabolosomes
Anaerobic/Aerobic Toggle - A switch between an anaerobic and aerobic metabolic breakdown of glucose. Anaerobic metabolosomes produce less ATP, but are more versatile in habitable ranges. Aerobic metabolosomes produce more ATP and provide tolerance to oxygen, but are dependent on the presence of oxygen and will lose anaerobic function. (Variant; will need to consult with theory to see exactly how best to approach this)
Antitoxicity - Metabolosome assists with the metabolizing of toxins at the cost of less ATP generation. Four less ATP while providing .01 toxic resistance. (Slider)
In the previous concept, antitoxicity was a perk of mitochondria, relegated to being eukaryotic. I suggest that it might better to offer anti-toxicity to prokaryotic metabolosomes since toxins are really important amongst prokaryotes. If we want the antitoxicity slider to instead be a special “power” for eukaryotes to distinguish themselves from prokaryotes however, I’m all ears.
The anaerobic/aerobic toggle will be important in the arrival of free oxygen that will happen across most early worlds when oxygenic photosynthesis appears.
Mitochondria
Antitoxicity - Mitochondrium assists with the metabolizing of toxins at the cost of less ATP generation. 10 less ATP while providing .02 toxic resistance. (Slider)
Thermogenesis - Mitochondrium will consume extra glucose, providing heat to resist the cold in return. Will consume 0.1 more glucose (0.063 glucose at 21% oxygen) and lowers temperature tolerance by 1C (EX: Temperature range of 21C-30C becomes 20C-29C) (Slider)
Hydrogenosome - The mitochondrium will become anaerobic, allowing a wider range of habitability. However, ATP production will decrease by 50%. (Variant) Hydrogenosome - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Note that I suggest thermogenesis to be a unique eukaryotic capability in contrast to the previous post. Once again however, I’m not particularly pushing for this, it’s just a suggestion we can figure out through conversation.
Thylakoids
Oxygenic - Photosynthesis will now split water to produce oxygen, increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis but necessitating aerobic tolerance. 8.9B: Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria - Biology LibreTexts.
Red Pigments - Increases photosynthetic efficiency in low-lit conditions, but decreases photosynthetic efficiency in normally-lit conditions. (Slider)
Brown Pigments - Increases tolerance to cold temperatures, but decreases tolerance to higher temperatures. (Slider)
A brief google search I did seemed to indicate that red pigments were found in deep-sea photosynthetic organisms (seaweeds and other red algae) and brown pigments were found in photosynthetic organisms closer to the poles, so I wanted to reflect this to more accurately reflect life as we know it by adding red pigments and attaching Buckly’s idea to them.
The first suggestion reflects a bit of evolutionary history, where it took a while for photosynthesis to begin splitting water, and thus, producing free oxygen. It adds a cool layer I think, but it obviously can be cut if we decide that is too much detail.
Chloroplasts
Red Pigments - Increases photosynthetic efficiency in low-lit conditions, but reduces photosynthetic efficiency in normally-lit conditions. (Slider)
Brown Pigments - Increases tolerance to cold temperatures, but decreases tolerance to higher temperatures. (Slider)
Flattened - Thylakoids within the chloroplast are flattened and more streamline, reducing mass and increasing speed but decreasing glucose generation by 10% (Slider?)
Notice the lack of an Oxygenic option, which is supposed to reflect eukaryotic photosynthesis on Earth. The option can be included here as well if you guys think it is warranted.
Chemosynthesizing Proteins
Increased Tolerance to Heat - Increases tolerance to heat by .5 Celsius and decreases tolerance to cold temperatures by .5. Increases total mass by .25(?). (Slider)
Sulfur Granules - Produces sulfur granules, increasing toxin resistance by 5%. Produces 10% less glucose.(Slider)
Sulfur granules have been observed in some sulfur-respiring organisms, but I took a bit of liberty in gamifying them. Open to suggestions and comments.
Chemoplasts
Increased Tolerance to Heat - Increases tolerance to heat by 1 Celsius and decreases tolerance to cold temperatures by 1 Celsius. Increases total mass by .25 (Slider)
Sulfur Granules - Produces sulfur granules, increasing toxin resistance by 10%. Produces 10% less glucose. (Slider)
Rusticyanin
Mineralization - Creates mineralized granules which add +2 Health, but reduces ATP production by 10%. (source)
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/AEM.01492-06
Similar to the sulfur granules of the above organelles, iron granules appear in certain iron-respiring cells but their exact purpose isn’t well known, so I took some liberties in gamifying them. Again, open to comments.
Nitrogenase
Denitrification - Instead of passively generating ammonia, the nitrogenase will speed up cell processes by up to 5% depending on the amount of ammonia within the cell(?). Releases Nitrogen. Exclusively anaerobic.
I’m not 100% sure if this is solid and I just spat it out, but I want to hear thoughts. The nitrogen cycle is a very prominent component in life as we know it, both in the niches which cells take and the ecosphere’s overall health, so it feels a bit weird just having a single part of it in. I get a similar feeling with hydrogen sulfide and chemosynthesis, but of course, we should be limiting our scope in some ways.
Nitrogen-Fixating Plastid
Not so sure about this one.
Chemoreceptor
Cell-Tracing - Allows the tracking of specific cell species instead of compound clouds. (Variant)
Pilus
See Above Post
Would like to note there is potential for a lock-and-key method here, with different lengths and girths being more effective against different membranes, but we should be wary with just throwing a lot of concepts into the lock-and-key method and look at the stage holistically to make sure we aren’t overwhelming players.
Flagellum
Length - A shorter flagella decreases sprint speed but decreases the rate at which stamina depletes. A longer flagella increases sprint speed but increases the rate at which stamina depletes.
Note to the Graphics Team - I personally don’t think that there is a need for a lot of wildly different models to be created for most upgrades. I would think that most changes would take the shape of small variations. If an artist would like to spend some time discussing this, don’t be afraid to reach out or just start conceptualizing.
That sounds like even more work as that would be a separate system and it needs to be designed how that interacts with normal upgrades. I’d highly suggest we do not consider that kind of design. Only one placed organelle at a time should be able to be upgraded.
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I think these are some good ideas to start with.
When we are ready to attempt implementation, I think that focusing on the fundamental/popular parts like mitochondria and chloroplasts (and their prokaryote analogue) first will be wise. Balancing and fine-tuning this feature is gonna be pretty intensive.
I’m by no means an expert, but I personally feel that these might be either waste byproducts of lithotrophy, or some unknown mechanism that promotes oxidation from what I can understand from the journal. That being said, iron compounds being used for defensive purposes is not unheard of, at least not in the macroscopic scale. The scaley foot gastropod is a prime example of this.
We might have to consider something like it at some point if modification becomes so expansive. The problem being that with the current concept as I originally devised, you will need to manually apply upgrades to each part after you place them, which can be tedious. Hopefully it won’t be a problem.
I am admittedly rather wishy washy about this concept lately. Looking back to it after all this while, I’m starting to feel like something isn’t quite right with it. I’ve found myself in a mental mess of part variants, modification menus, and protein customization that is just not coming together. For example I’m starting to feel that upgrades like the hydrogenosome could be categorized as a “variant” which could be swapped out to replace the mitochondria or vice-versa or something. Changes like thermogenesis could be overarching modifications a la protein slots of old.
Alas It’s a big mess and I don’t really want to keep redesigning this over and over in an endless loop… So don’t mind me.
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You’re right in regard to the iron-as-byproduct comment. It is indeed a waste product of lithotrophic metabolic processes. And also, I do advocate for having something like a hydrogenosome be a variant.
And I understand where a lot of this feeling of “mess” can come from. Atleast for me, it comes with realizing there are multiple concepts, like the protein enzymes concept and organelle modifications, that can deal with similar facets of the game, like environmental tolerances. It’s definitely a lot to deal with and wrap your head around, and there’s a lot of pressure to get it right in a way that is incredibly detailed and widely applicable at the same time.
Some food for thought and perhaps you might agree with this line of reason: I think environmental tolerance adaptations in the microbe/early-multicellular stage will mostly be dealt with through the enzyme system, and will transition to modifications as the player’s organism gets more advanced and larger. In my head, environmental tolerances granted by protein enzymes have reduced effect as your organism’s mass increases. So as a prokaryote, those enzymes make it so you don’t need to go through modifications, or atleast only small modifications, but as you get larger, those enzymes will reduce in their power, hence necessitating more morphology based adaptations. I think such an idea is good because…
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This reflects real life, where unicellular cells can adapt rather well to their environment through enzymes but multicellular organisms must rely on morphology so that their various cells are all optimally functioning.
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Makes it so that enzymes can’t just carry the player’s evolutionary burden the entire way regarding environmental tolerances, forcing them to deal with morphology.
Besides that suggestion, it’s also important to keep in mind that it isn’t all or nothing; we don’t have to get it perfect in the first try, and likely won’t. Like you said, this will require a lot of balancing, so it very much is a multi-step process that allows us to stop, zoom out, and assess from time to time.
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