I added a link to this thread on the wiki in the debatable features section as there’s not really that much finalized design direction here.
I’d really like to find a way to make this feature only apply after the first few editor cycles. This makes sure we don’t frontload the complexity too much. For example could we do something like say volume ratio or something only matters for eukaryotes? That point also applies to the cell edge buffs discussion. As I think it would be pretty elegant solution: players don’t need to know about it until they are like an hour into the game and we can sort of explain things with bacteria being so small that the mechanic doesn’t matter yet.
I think we can easily make the effects of this vary with difficulty so that it’s minimal for Easy difficulty but more present in Normal or Hard difficulty. I think we’ll ultimately treat Easy difficulty as the training wheels or experimental level for newer players, which allows us to implement more difficult or complex mechanics without sacrificing continuity. I’d assume more experienced players will gravitate towards harder difficulties, so they’d need less onboarding.
Smaller organisms inherently have more surface area, and smaller surface area is generally a pretty good boost in existing concepts, so players have a bit of room when it comes to the early game as a prokaryote. I guess that means new players could easily not pay attention to surface area if they immediately think of creating a long and skinny organism, but again, difficulty would help with that.
I think eukaryotes will inherently be more concerned with their surface area to volume ratio because smaller organisms like bacteria have a lot more wiggle room when it comes to maintaining efficiency.
My angle is that even if it doesn’t have any gameplay impact, showing a bunch of extra numbers to the player at once, can trigger a feeling of being overwhelmed. And when that happens trying to understand any other more important game systems is impacted. That’s why I’m trying to fight tooth and nail to try not to frontload more and more systems.
Still even if it is easy enough to not really matter, that information overload is the problem. If the player gets the initial impression that the microbe editor is an unapproachable beast, that’s not going to be good.
Then from that POV I can see the value of waiting to introduce surface area to volume ratios once the player becomes eukaryotic in an Easy or tutorial mode. Seems like I’m thinking primarily of trying to improve the experience for existing players while neglecting the potential for newer players to be confused with everything that we already know.
Perhaps from now on, any of my concepts asking for the addition of new systems should have an “Easy/Tutorial Mode Onboarding” section or something… not that I’m really thinking to add more than what I have proposed in the past few days.
I’d say “normal” difficulty should still work like that. I would suspect that most people will not want to play on easy the first time. I don’t play games on easy difficulty even if I don’t know the game. I assume the “normal” difficulty is the default difficulty that is fairly balanced for new players.
Exactly. I’m actually a bit worried that we haven’t seen new Thrive let’s plays in a while so I don’t currently know how new players feel about all of the newest changes to the game.
That’s a bunch of extra work, both in implementation and in design. That’s why I suggested finding a logical point later in the game where the system kicks in. This is purely so that we can keep a consistent pace of new stuff for the player instead of dumping every single editor feature we can think of right at the start. I even think that it might be a bit of a problem to even show the patch map initially to the player as basically all YouTube let’s plays I’ve seen the player is confused about the patch map initially and doesn’t do anything sensible with it, so it could improve the new player experience to only show the map like after the second or third editor cycle.
Fair point about the normal difficulty. And I agree about the patch movement point.
I think what I’m thinking about is when players return for additional playthroughs, since ideally the sandbox nature of Thrive would naturally lead to a lot of experimentation and a desire to try a different build. From the recent survey that came out, a decent proportion of the community wants Thrive to be more difficult, which looks to be our more experienced or scientifically knowledgable members. For those players, not including surface area to volume for prokaryotes could be a rather abstract decision, though it does make sense for newer players.
Perhaps we could benefit from a general discussion of how we will deal with difficulty levels and tutorials across different settings later. It seems that the different settings currently are a bit arbitrary whereas in a simulation aiming to be as robust as Thrive is, we seriously should cater to both experienced players and incoming players. I’ve been thinking about environmental tolerance adaptations a bit recently and have been wondering about how the system could be robust and introducible to new players at the same time.
I think we need to put quite a lot of emphasis on the potential of survey bias. i.e. people who are more interested in Thrive (bigger fans) are more likely to respond. So the responses are biased towards the group of people who are already familiar with Thrive.
Didn’t you say earlier that it would be easy to basically make all organelles count as being on the surface for bacteria thanks to their small size? Doesn’t that sufficiently explain why the new mechanic would only appear once the player’s cell gets scaled up thanks to getting the nucleus?
I see this is a much smaller problem thanks to it only appearing after the player moves patches (I assume they start off fully adapted to their starting patch). And if we hide the patch map on the initial editor entry (or the first 2 or 3), then new players won’t even be able to hit the differing environmental conditions right away. That fits really nicely with the designs I like that introduce complexity at certain intervals instead of all at the beginning.
I guess it theoretically could be abstracted in that way, I just wonder about the continuity between prokaryotes and eukaryotes if players could suddenly have their environmental tolerance ranges and metabolic processes tweaked once they put on a nucleus. If the player suddenly isn’t adapted to the patch they inhabited for example because of high surface area, they might be in a rough spot. Lower difficulties could make this less of a chance, but the risk still exists. That’s part of the reason why I think the option to have the feature be enabled from the start of the game should be toggle-able since in higher difficulties the effect of this feature would have stronger effects.
I see. You were already planning tying the surface area to environmental adaptations tightly. I personally would not make that design decision due to how it entangles the design concepts and require them to be both worked on as a unit instead of being able to do one at a time, which is easier to reason about.
Yeah, both me and Buckly mentioned decreased tolerance to environmental tolerance extremes as being a negative of having more surface area. In the microbial stage, and especially in the beginning for lower difficulties, the impact of this shouldn’t be enough to completely block players from all but extreme environments since cells will be small enough to have more versatility, but evolutionary approaches to surface area are very important to macroscopic organisms.
For example, it explains the difference in why mammoths had smaller ears than most elephants, or why desert animals have larger surface area than animals in colder weather, as well as various adaptations plants have to the cold/heat (evergreens having skinny leaves while jungle plants have wider leaves). Considering how important that is in evolution, I think environmental tolerance ranges should interact with surface area and volume.
It could also be part of the reason why the LUCA in Thrive is able to survive the hydrothermal vents right away with no adaptations; though higher surface area reduces tolerance to the cold, it allows more tolerance to warmer environments. So players in the first few rounds would probably only be prevented from joining the polar shelves, which in my opinion is fine. Maybe the alternative is having tolerances only be effected by surface are to volume in macroscopic stages, but it might be difficult to otherwise represent the ability of prokaryotes over eukaryotes to better adapt to extreme environments.
I believe it would be easier to balance if we focus on introducing upgrades/parts the player can place first, then implement SA/V’s effects on tolerances afterwards. Ensuring the player is able to realistically adapt to any new environment then balancing morphological effects around that baseline would probably work best.
I’d really like to make sure that none of the surface area numbers or features would need to be shown to the player initially and only introduce the system once it becomes significant for the gameplay.
I’ll try to look at how other complex games introduce aspects of their editor/stats without overwhelming the player at first and see if that can be replicated in Thrive smoothly. A stat like this, which focuses on the composition of the organism as a whole, reminds me a bit of KSP’s simulation of aerodynamics and center of gravity and such, which is a very complex game for new people but gives the option to be approached at whatever pace the player wants.
As a fail safe, if we can’t find a good solution, we can wait to introduce environmental tolerances relating to surface area and volume in the macroscopic stage, which won’t have such strongly differentiated patches.
At the very least, environmental tolerance is something that players will only really encounter in either the most extreme environments or as they begin to grow larger. We could use that as a means to introduce players to the feature because that is where it would begin to truely matter.
So once the player passes a certain threshold of environment-related penalties (Ideally just before it begins to make a meaninful impact on autoevo numbers or something), we could reveal the penalty in the balance bar or wherever else it might show up, reveal parts and upgrades intended to adjust tolerant ranges, and explain what it is. In a way, this acts very much similarly to how the organelle unlocks mechanic in general would work, but with hiding a UI element as well. I suppose that could be slightly more trouble than it is worth but I think the effect would be positive.
Since the first patch move will likely require moving from an extreme to a more “normal” patch, if we go with the idea of limiting patch moves for the first part of the tutorial we could introduce the topic of environmental tolerances and surface area’s effects/number there.
We could also have the osmoregulation penalty be reduced in non-ideal patches for prokaryotes, since the nucleus would be introducing all those complex enzyme pathways. In lower difficulties, that osmoregulation reduction would be stronger. Though this is more focused on the issue of introducing environmental tolerances to the player, which should be in another topic.
I should have elaborated better. I meant prokaryotes because I was thinking the introduction of more enzymes (complexity) means eukaryotes struggle to more than prokaryotes to ensure all their metabolic processes are maintained. Bird mentioned that less complex organisms are better able to adjust to extremes because complex organisms have so many enzymes that they need to ensure remain in a sweet spot, and extreme environments are not very good at providing that stability. So to reflect that, we can have the nucleus make it more important for organisms to remain in ideal environmental conditions by increasing the osmoregulation environmental penalties attached to them.
So after playtesting with Thim’s surface area/volume prototype he so generously provided a few months ago, I am very pleased with the dynamics represented in a surface-area to volume ratio mechanic for various reasons…
Decision-making extends to something beyond simply placing a part for a direct effect, as now, you have to consider your organism’s entire body structure. Rather than thinking “I need more photosynthesis, let me place a chloroplast” and being done with it, the player also thinks “should I place this chloroplast in a way that makes my organism have more volume or more surface area,” and “can I alter my organism’s structure as well to maximize the efficiency of my chloroplasts?”
All-around, provides greater depth to the organism editor as a result of this decision making process. This makes build diversity and customization much more rewarding.
Provides another layer of realism to our evolution simulator that will be present in future stages as well.
This is a concept I still believe would offer a strong benefit to our gameplay after a year of thought, so I do think it is something we should consider implementing later. Thim’s implementation seemed to rely on an algorithm that essentially said “the closer your organism looks to this very bulky thing, the more its stats will look like this” (ask him for a smart-man explanation of it).
We should make sure we represent the effects of the SA:V ratio in the GUI in a way that is easy to approach. We would need to represent the number itself as a line in Organism Statistics, but we would also need to ensure that the visual representation of metabolisms display said effects in an accessible manner.
I think balancing SA:V’s effects should prioritize in-gameplay effects. I still think environmental tolerance effects should be represented, but not to the point where the player is absolutely beholden to their ratio.
Summary
Here is a brief write-up of the concept to make sorting through the above information easier.
Surface area to volume ratios are very important physical characteristics which body plans utilize to evolve to their conditions. In Thrive’s Microbe Stage, their effects can have a noticeable impact on gameplay. It would probably be better to reserve more demanding effects related to surface-area and volume in the macroscopic stages, however.
Organisms with high-surface areas…
Are generally longer and skinnier, like a leaf
Can be folded or have protrusions, like a starfish
Generally have less mass and are smaller
An organism in Thrive with higher surface area.
Organisms with high volumes…
Are more sphere-like
Are generally thicker/bulkier, with more internal area
Generally have more mass and are larger
An organism in Thrive with higher volume compared to surface area.
The effects of having more surface area generally revolve around having more area to exchange gasses with your environment and in having more surface to conduct chemical reactions on, such as in photosynthesis.
Increased photosynthetic productivity (more area to conduct photosynthesis on)
Reduced damage from toxins (greater environmental exchange)
Reduced health (more “flimsy”; think of how leaves are more delicate)
Reduced max engulfment size (less space to fit engulfed things in)
Reduced environmental tolerance ranges (easier for external conditions to effect internal conditions)
Decreased storage
The effects of having more volume generally revolve around having more space within the cell itself, as well as greater structural integrity.
Reduced photosynthetic productivity
Increased damage from toxins
Increased health
Increased max engulfment size
Increased environmental tolerance ranges (more buffered against external environment)
Increased storage
I do think this would be a very worthwhile mechanic to represent. If anyone wishes to pick it up soon or in the future, do inform me.
If we need more complexity in the editor this will definitely do that. I wanted to quickly address just a few points.
(I wasn’t originally going to reply but then I remembered a few points I wanted to bring up and then the next thing you know, my post is already very long…)
While not as in-depth, the current mechanics already make placement kind of important. This is because the placement affects the membrane shape and thus the final mass. So organelle positions already affect the speed your cell can achieve. This isn’t super clear so there’s an open issue for making the mass clearer in the editor:
So I kind of again think that that should be done first and get player feedback before considering a system like this that I see as being much less optional to interact with, so this would make the basic editing of cells much more complex (even in a way that frontloads the learning quite a bit). Whereas maximizing movement speed I think is a much more advanced technique players will only discover later meaning there is less to learn initially but there is still depth.
One more thing I’ll mention is that unless the effect magnitude is tuned way low, auto-evo has to be updated to know about this. For example placing certain organelle types with this feature will need to bias the positioning a lot. And we probably need to model evolutionary pressures to move organelles to be more a desired shape much more explicitly. Otherwise this will be a feature that will wreck auto-evo effectiveness.
But on a fundamental level I agree that these are all good ideas to add if we find that adding all of the roadmap items for the microbe stage hasn’t made the game complex enough. That is because I think implementing all the roadmap items will add a ton of optional complexity and depth for the player to interact with and various gameplay styles that support multiple playthroughs. So I expect that we already have enough interesting content on the approved roadmap.
Of course if someone wants to start programming this feature, I won’t stop anyone, but check above for the auto-evo caveat and new player experience which will need to be considered carefully.
Hh had a previous suggestion related to the concept, asking to attach the introduction of this concept to the nucleus rather than straight off the rip. I am starting to think that is the best approach to this concept for various reasons besides those he mentioned:
Bacteria inherently are smaller, so there is very little they can do when it comes to increasing volume. They’d have no choice but to be high surface-area, which essentially means this would be an unimportant stat for new players; why bother if you can’t do much about it?
Prokaryote parts are much smaller, so there is little ability to differentiate shape in an efficient way as a prokaryote. Eukaryotic parts are much better for influencing size.
Balancing would be much easier, as besides the above points, we’d understand atleast a minimum size at which to balance for the feature.
The mechanic could be made to be a bit more impactful than it would be when balancing with completely new players in mind.
Considering the above, that should hopefully make it easier for auto-evo to deal with the feature.
I previously was worried that this would be a very short-lived mechanic if limited to eukaryotes, but the early multicellular stage, and the eventual progression to surface area for the macroscopic stage, mitigates this.
So ultimately, I’d recommend this concept, if worked on, to be relevant starting with the nucleus. This in combination with size-related costs would result in very solid editor fundamentals.
Dwelling on this more, and looking at the road map and polishing discussions, I think SA:V wouldn’t be necessary for the Microbe Stage. If anything related to optimization for this specific stage should be implemented, size-related costs would be more intuitive, manageable, and relevant.
I think where we can look at SA:V is for the Multicellular Stage, where the shape of your body plan could potentially boost certain stats. This would be better for multiple reasons:
The multicellular body plan editor, with a maximum for now of around 20 cells, should be easier to manage and balance for this mechanic, instead of the Microbe Editor where parts are oddly shaped and many more hexes can be a factor.
Introducing SA:V in the Multicellular Stage could be smoother for onboarding players. Having it be something players think of in combination of placing organelles, maintaining tolerances, and staying on top of shifting conditions would be tough.
Instead of SA:V being influenced by the placement of parts with their own specific functions, SA:V is determined by the placement of cells. That makes it a good amount easier to present; players can focus just on immediate part effects first when placing organelles, then worry about SA:V effects when placing cells.
SA:V’s has higher value as a mechanic introduced in the Multicellular Stage, where we are looking for mechanics to provide variety and represent multicellular body plan parameters, as opposed to the more feature-filled Microbe Stage.
Hhyyrylainen can claim victory over this instance of scope creep.
