So at the moment, I know that the society game mode is a very early and basic version of what it will be in the future. I wanted to bring up the idea of having the buildings be more dynamic than they were in spore. When going into a building editor, the player should be given the resources that their species can currently harvest, create and utilize. Depending on what a player does, the size, structural integrity of the building, structure health, storage/population increase can all be changed. When it comes to placing the structures into the world though, I think it would be interesting to have the size and resources used when creating the building in the editor determine the resources and space required for it. This would prevent the spore issue of having a building made of three spheres being the same cost as an extremely detailed building. If a building is updated in the editor, the player’s species would have to obtain the resources for the upgrade to any previously built versions, or they can remain as they are and let the player decide to demolish them before building the upgraded version.
I also thing the buildings should be created in an editor similar to the way the cells in the multicellular stage are handled at the moment.
Curious as to what other developers think of this idea.
This is basically the idea I already had in my head regarding this.
I think how indepth the building editor needs / can be, needs to be determined only after the society stage is more complete so that the overall complexity the player is expected to manage is kept at a reasonable level.
Well of course it would only be added after it is fleshed out more, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else had given it any thought so I wanted to put it out there. Plus, it could even be manipulated to allow tree-house style structures as well for arborial species
I can almost guarantee that any idea you might have for Thrive has already been thought of and posted by someone on either the community forums (the old abandoned forums go back so many years) or even on discord. Or if not the exact same idea then at least a very closely related idea.
Still, it’s good to have a place to discuss the official design decisions of the idea. It’s kind of been whispered among the devs and community that we would prefer to find some way to allow for unique building styles between species/societies so we can at least agree that it’s something worth discussing. Of course timing is another matter, as the society stage is very far ahead of our current focus.
Regardless, there is much to consider.
How will we determine what a building can be made of?
How will we determine the purpose of a building?
Will material costs and size of a structure rely on the amount of parts placed, or be fixed to maintain consistency?
How will part placement work, and will the parts be pre-designed or morphed?
Will materials used effect the possible shape of a part in any way?
How can we get the AI to build a building that isn’t a piece of abstract art?
Will the design of the player’s creature impact the need and constraints of a building?
Do we want players to have to design each building? Some players might find the task time-consuming and dull. Presets? (Presets might be helpful for autoevo to build off of too actually)
There’s alot of things we need to discuss and decide on, but personally I would rather focus on the earlier stages for now. My energy for Thrive has been hard to muster already as of late, and I want to spend it where it’s most needed so I won’t want to be taking a significant part in this discussion for the time being.
Of course. No need to go crazy about things that will be in later stages at the moment, but having an idea or bringing something up for a later stage can help the creation of said stage go easier perhaps. This is also one of the reasons I have done some discussion on the space stage and ascension gate creation so it doesn’t become a hurdle as Thrive finds itself close to the finish line.