REVIEWING OUR PART SELECTION
There’s always room to improve, but we can’t stress about everything. This post seeks to identify the most valuable changes we can make.
If we decide to change things up a bit in terms of how the parts work, I think we get the most ROI on improving the game as a whole if we work on these parts:
- Chemosynthesizing Parts - Making H2S slightly damaging to organisms which don’t have H2S, and not damaging to organisms which don’t. Makes the compound very unique and introduces cool reflections of life, which I mentioned in my previous posts here.
- Iron-Respiring Parts - Siderophore implementation, where iron respiration gameplay focuses on extracting iron from chunks instead of clouds emitted from chunks. Should be balanced to make it so that you must compete over a limited amount of extractions with other cells. Larger chunks give more extractions, smaller chunks less.
- Nucleus - Discussions all over the development forums, but essentially, making the nucleus less of an energy drain, giving it an unlock condition of size, and making it relate to size-related costs allows us to have less of a disruptive and unyielding effect in the middle of the Microbe Stage.
And then maybe, if easy enough of a tweak:
- Nitrogen-Fixing Parts - I’m not so sure about this now, but one potential solution can involve having the bonus growth apply only when not moving, but buffing that growth bonus. Though simple, this at the very least alters behavior and strengthens the part.
- Bioluminiscent Vacuoles - Concept here (Bioluminescence - #7 by Deus), which essentially makes it so that bioluminescent vacuoles give effects which can stack in proximity to other of your own kind.
As the list at the end of this post points out, there are tweaks I point out which could improve the functionality of other parts; but those tweaks are more specific to improving niche functions or parts of the Microbe Stage. The first three parts play big roles to the game as a whole, meaning changes to these compounds would be very consequential, and tweaking nitrogen-fixing parts and bioluminescent vacuoles makes it so that there isn’t really a “useless” part in the catalogue.
Three Most Important Miscellaneous Tweaks
Beyond those main areas of the game, I will mention the three tweaks which I think will be the most rewarding for gameplay quality to implement. There are more changes which we can consider, and I have a list of these tweaks breaking down each part in the game at the end of the post for those truly interested, but it’s hard to rank things listed one after the other in terms of importance.
If a volunteer wants to improve things but doesn’t know where to start, here are the three things that I think would be most valuable in tweaking part function, upgrades, etc.
- Flagella Length Modification Change - Current implementation has a simple ATP v. Speed trade, which is pretty bland and means little else other than just adding more flagella. Ideal implementation involves changing sprint behavior - longer flagella develop strain more quickly but gives a greater boost to speed, while shorter flagella develop strain less quickly but gives less bonus sprint speed. Introduces an endurance vs. explosiveness dynamic that would be interesting on gameplay effects.
- Injectisome Pilus Toxin Change - Currently, this modification simply switches the damage dealt from being sensitive to toxin or physical resistance. This means that if you inject an organism with a membrane that nullifies toxin, the injectisome will do almost no damage, which doesn’t make sense and makes the part pretty useless compared to normal toxin projectiles. Injectisomes should completely bypass membrane effects, serving as a counter to resistant membranes, differentiating it from external toxin projectiles, and giving it use.
- Pilus Lengthening Mechanic - Longer pilus slow down rotation and general speed and lower damage, but increase how far away damage is applied. Shorter pilus have less of an effect on rotation speed, general speed, and shorter range, but increases damage applied. Nice little defensive v. offensive capability, as well as a general arms race mechanic (a fun part of pilus gameplay is sparing with other piluses, trying to get to the flesh of your prey before it can get to your flesh). A similar effect can be present for injectisomes, but instead of damage being changed, its how much venom you can inject at once (longer proboscis means less venom, and vice versa).
Catalogue
Here is a breakdown of the entire rest of the catalogue.
Internal Parts (Prokaryotes)
- Cytoplasm - Boosts size, which can be important for engulfment resistance and capability, and is a cheap way to get more storage. My patch increasing engulfment size disparity requirement for engulfment should help to make it more important.
- Hydrogenase - I think hydrogenase is solid right now due to its impact on tolerances. Flat rate of conversion is a bit of an issue, but balanced otherwise by tolerance impact.
- Metabolosome - Pretty solid as of now. If anything, the window of time between using the metabolosome and unlocking mitochondria could be pretty small, but that’s a general pacing issue.
- Thylakoids - Constantly the source of balancing scrutiny. I’d prefer to balance other aspects of the game first and then see how photosynthesis feels.
- Thermosynthase - Pretty niche, but generally one of the cooler mechanics in the game. Solid part.
- Oxytoxisome - Solid part, just needs some agent balancing, which I am dealing with currently.
External Parts
- Pilus - Pilus need to be buffed, as it otherwise is pretty difficult to use it offensively or be harmed. It serves more as a deterrence to engulfment right now than a weapon, which is fine, but pretty passive in terms of gameplay effects.
- Chemoreceptor - I’ll once again mention the “range v. strength” modification tweak I bring up in developer meetings, where instead of both of these being changed independently, you exchange one for the other (so short range but very sensitive, long range but requires a greater amount to detect, etc.)
- Slime Jet - One of the better parts in the game in my opinion. Slow-down effect could be a bit buffed and mucocyst storage use needs to be changed, but both have been corrected in pending pull requests.
- Cilia - Pretty solid part overall, not much to complain about.
Internal Parts (Eukaryotes)
- Mitochondria - Pretty solid overall in my opinion.
- Chloroplast - Like thylakoids, constant source of balancing scrutiny, and one I’d prefer to consult when we’re more confident on general stage polish.
- Thermoplast - Same as thermosynthase.
- Lysosome - This is more than just a basic tweak, but we desperately need immunology functions related to toxins.
- Vacuole - Pretty solid part.
- Toxin Vacuole - General agent concerns I alluded to above, currently working on it on GitHub.
- Signalling Agent - Fine, just generally not very useful. Useful as the player becomes multicellular, allowing easy colonial behavior, so will become more relevant once the multicellular stage starts development.
- Melanosome - I think it’s as unique and useful as it could be considering the nature of radioactive material in Thrive.