Hello from ExtraSolar!

Hi there! I want to start out by saying that I'm a huge fan of this project. I got onto the Spore boat back in '06, and fell in love with the concept, particularly the (then) physics-based creature editor. Many a year was spent creating possible planets, and I learned quite a bit of science back then. Anything that can recapture that feeling is top-rate in my books, even better if it aims to actually deliver the final product I (and a boatload of others) were waiting for. I've lurked off and on for the last year or so, but I've finally decided that, if I'm so excited for this project, then I should help you out in any way I can.

I have knowledge of Astronomy, Biology, and Earth Sciences, and have taken college courses on the latter two. I'm also am comfortable with math up to and including first-year calculus, and halfway decent at UI design (more layout than aesthetics, though.)

Unfortunately, I don't much more than the absolute basics of programming at the moment, just basic logic, and I know what you're really looking for right now is programmers. Still, I feel I have the time and resources to make a good effort at learning whichever language(s) you're using, it just may be a while before I'm directly useful to the effort.

Welcome to Thrive Extrasolar!

Don't worry, your skills are awesome! It's great to see you well versed in sciences, maths, and a passion for gaming. What fields of the current development interest you?

Thanks for the warm welcome, NickTheNick!

I'd love to help out with planet/system generation and biome distribution, as well as crunching some numbers for organism locomotion. I've also considered doing some sort of system for determining damage in combat, but I'm unsure of exactly how deep we're simulating that, and whether we even need a system that differentiates between, say, puncture wounds and slicing wounds.

Planet/System generation, hmm, interesting. Since you cannot post any new threads right now, post what you want to contribute so far in the "Miscellanious Bugs and Questions..." thread to stir up some discussion. You should also do some reading on the forums and wiki to see whats been done so far. I'll help you out with that.

Biome distribution as well, same process as above.

Organism locomotion sounds interesting as well. Do you mean things like calculating the speed of an organism based off of leg muscles, weight, height, etc?

Determining damage in combat would be very useful. Post what you can on that here for now, and in the meantime I'll research that as well.

Edit: I found this on creating planets, but not generating them.
http://thrivegame.wikidot.com/planet-editor

Aha! Perfect!
https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t124-ppg-procedural-planet-generator
Don't worry about necro-posting. Its a well deserving thread.

Wow, thanks so much for all that info!

Quote :

Organism locomotion sounds interesting as well. Do you mean things like calculating the speed of an organism based off of leg muscles, weight, height, etc?

Pretty much. Maybe some things on which form of locomotion (bipedal, quadrupedal, various gaits, etc) would be more efficient/likely based on relative limb lengths and ratios between lower and upper limb bones, but I'm not sure how well I can apply that to, say, a three-limbed org with five joints in each leg. (Though, honestly, one can make an argument that more joints are superfluous and don't lend more to fitness than they detract in possibility of failure/degrading, but, then again, we don't want to be too constraining just based on Earth life. *shrugs*)

Quote :

Determining damage in combat would be very useful. Post what you can on that here for now, and in the meantime I'll research that as well.

Here as in this thread, or over in the Misc. Bugs and Questions? I've done a bit of looking around, but all I could find was how combat was going to be controlled/animated and whether or not we wanted to include separate damage for different body parts, no actual damage calculations. I'll try posting over in Misc. Bugs and Questions once I have a decent mock-up.

Ahh, interesting. Start one of those discussions here, and another on the Misc. Thread, just so they dont overlap.