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:
-
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!