Coming in very late here, but I did want to comment two things:
If we’re talking about diversity of species, the fact that we essentially only have one miche per food source (slightly split for those that have sub-types, like clouds and chunks) by definition limits how many species can exist per patch in a stable state (not transient, like with incoming migrants or new species before someone goes extinct next generation), apart from predators which have a miche per prey species. Until the system is expanded, we’re not going to consistently see for example numerous cyanobacteria alongside formidable algae (and later ponderous multicellular algae).
Though while saying this, I am also well aware that the current performance of the auto-evo system means expanding the number of species might not be the best idea.
Hooking organelles into auto-evo
Finally, if there is anything I would want to add to a “Microbe Stage wrap-up”, it’s a last push to make sure the various available cell parts and options are actually hooked into auto-evo and AI cells. I will see if and how much I can contribute to that myself in time.
Edit:
On that topic, here’s the list of “things that currently seemingly don’t have auto-evo energy/population benefit”:
-
Nitrogenase/Nitroplast -
Chemoreceptor -
Cilia (most of the time?)
-
Binding Agent
-
Signalling Agent
-
Upgrades to Toxiplast/Toxin Vacuole -
Upgrade to Cilia
Honourable mention to Bioluminescent Vacuole for actually having an auto-evo benefit, but it being pointless because the oxygen resistance slider is both cheaper in MP, and has no ongoing costs.
The lysosome upgrades have a bit of an opposite problem: just having a base lysosome means auto-evo assumes you can digest chitin and cellulose.
Please tell me if I got any of these wrong, so that I may remove them from the list.
The reason I am looking at this specifically is because a general sense of all the game-mechanics actually interacting with each other as expected is in my opinion an important part of how polished a game feels. And I do want people coming in to feel what’s here is polished, regardless of how much or little game there is compared to what they expect. I don’t want new bright-eyed players coming in with a big push for 1.0 and then running into “why is this organelle I place not increasing my population even though it is so useful”.
Having said that, the way I would suggest handling these:
Binding Agent
The two gameplay effects colonies have right now is:
- Shared resources
- Reduction in osmoregulation cost depending on the size of the colony.
I think reducing the osmoregulation cost auto-evo reads by some % would work here, representing them having some amount of cost reduction at least part of the time. Though preferably not affecting the “do you have enough ATP production to survive” calculation, only for the purposes of cost per individual.
Chemoreceptor: Iron/Glucose/Hydrogen-sulphide
Increases score for these Miches, because it is easier to get to them before others do, and they waste less energy trying to find them. Functionality is dependent on how motile you are, sessile species would not benefit from this.
This could also be tweaked to be slightly more effective at lower concentrations: long range detection is a bit less necessary when the stuff is everywhere around you.
The predation category:
Cilia
The predation score should take turning speed into account.
For example, if the predator is in theory fast enough to catch a prey, but there’s a possibility that the prey has kept moving away and left the screen before the predator has managed to turn around and face the correct direction to give chase, that should probably affect the odds of a successful hunt. Though even with very low turning speed, there should still be a chance of success, in case the predator and prey are at the right angle that this does not matter as much.
I am thinking this measure should compare predator turning speed to prey movement speed, as the prey in Thrive is not actively trying to use its advantage in manoeuvrability to dodge the predator like in one of those “leopard chasing an impala” videos. It’s just the prey running away faster than the predator can turn.
This would mainly affect purposeful hunting, not the “accidentally bump into” type of hunting.
Turning things around (pun fully intended):
For prey, not being able to turn away from a purposeful predator in order to actually use its speed to flee is also a factor, but I would say much less so. After all, any direction that is not directly at the predator, can work to outrun it.
On the other hand, I can imagine low turning speed making it easier for prey to fall victim to the “accidentally bump into” type of predation.
We can also think about how turning speed affects all the other miches, but I won’t go there right now.
Pulling Cilia
These should definitely affect predation score, it’s their main purpose!
They could affect targeted predation a bit, especially if the difference in speed between predator and prey is not too big.
But I would especially have them affect coincidental predation, as it moves the “event horizon” from the “cell membrane” to “Cilia pull range”. This also very closely matches the use of cilia by sessile predators in my opinion.
I suppose they could also slightly help with collecting chunks, but that’s secondary.
Toxiplast/Toxin Vacuole
Here things come down to differentiation.
- OxyToxy/Cytotoxin/Cyanide: Should adjust their predation score affect based on the damage they would do to the prey.
- Macrolide: Should not provide its own contribution to predation score, but having it should make the prey’s speed be counted as much lower. (I am assuming here that prey are not shooting it behind them to get away)
- Channel Inhibitor: Depending on prey’s excess ATP production, do nothing (unlikely), treat prey speed as lower, or treat speed as lower and provide additional score.
For the speed effects of the latter two, I would say the production numbers barely matter, it’s just whether you have them or not.
Signalling Agent
From a gameplay perspective I see a few uses for now:
- Throwing your species members at predators as sacrificial pawns to protect yourself. (from a species perspective this seems… questionable).
- Making the Binding Agent easier to use. (I guess having it can increase the bonus from the Binding Agent I mentioned before?)
- Calling allied to participate in mass combat.
When predation/combat ends up depending on pilus and/or toxins instead of engulfment, the Signalling Agent should provide a significant bonus. You can see a clear advantage in numbers here in-game all the time.
Chemoreceptor: Species
Increases predation score for active predation of the target species. So that’s obviously no use for the accidental type of predation.
Flipping things around again:
Prey could benefit a bit from knowing where active predators are in order to avoid them. This would obviously be of limited use against predators that are faster than them (Perhaps unless those do not have a chemoreceptor to target the prey?).
But I imagine there could be a lot less cases of “accidentally run straight into predator” if the predator can be sensed from a longer distance.
Lysosome upgrades
Turns out currently, for the ability to digest microbes with certain membrane types, the game currently only checks whether you have a lysosome, not whether you have a lysosome with the correct upgrade.
That should be split out.
Reproduction cost
So, I have looked into this enough that it at least seems feasible:
I suggest adapting the auto-evo system to in some form implement a simulation of the need for microbes to collect phosphate and ammonia in order to reproduce. Microbes need to spend osmoregulation cost while waiting for passive absorption (the main factor for sessile species) or spend movement cost + osmoregulation cost while actively moving around to find it.
So, I would suggest having these efforts deduct energy from species, therefore leading to lower populations, inversely proportional to how high the concentrations of ammonia and phosphate are. So higher concentrations means less energy (and population) lost.
There would also be one or several miche tree nodes to let species adapt to minimise this cost. The remaining organelles could be implemented here:
Chemoreceptor: Phosphate/Ammonia
Would increase score for the collect phosphate/ammonia miches. (possibly less effective if concentration is very high. But again, in proportion to how active the cell is. No effect for sessile species.
Nitrogenase/Nitroplast
For population calculation, this would be an alternate method of collecting ammonia that does cost energy, but does not increase in energy cost with decreasing ammonia concentration. So this would work much better in patches with very low ammonia concentration. (In auto-evo terms: a good score that does not depend on ammonia concentration, while the other methods do).
In order to really make this prominent, I also suggest lowering ammonia levels across the world, and/or increasing ammonia costs on organelles compared to phosphate costs. This would make Nitrogenase.
Please do comment if you have any feedback on the above.