Miscellaneous Bugs And Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Thread

I was going to answer, and then i saw all those other answers. Well, i'll add my own answers as well:

0) There will be a solar system editor, but as it wont matter at all for microbe stage, we are skipping it for now.
1) One galaxy is big enough, we wont simulate more
2) No
3) Yes. Anything that gets sucked into it will get destroyed.
4) First one.
5) Yes
6) There will be binary systems, but they wont probably colide (unless the player manages to make them colide)
7) Yes
9) Yes

Of course, this is just planned. I'm sure KSP has planned to have the dervis crash realistically instead of destroying it inmediatly.

Onward to another question, planets vary in size, and smaller planets would be easier to simulate I guess. Is Thrive going to simulate different sized planets, or are they all going to be of the same size?

Hmm, I would lean towards all the same size, because I'm not sure how much this would impact gameplay to be honest. Though it would be good to come across some huge planets to explore in space stage, but this could just be one off or scripted?

It does affect gameplay as the size will affect gravity. The further you are from the planet's core the less gravity has an effect, there was an equation I used for a science project once to calculate gravity but I don't know where it is. It also takes the mass of the planet into consideration as well, but calculating the mass of a planet is probably a lot for a computer.

Regardless, the size of a planet does affect gameplay through affecting gravity.

Most of the time, a bigger planet means more gravity. Given the density of a planet and its radius, it is trivial to calculate the gravity in the surface.

Daniferrito you had the simplest awnsers so thank you for that xD

Also,I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT ASTRONOMY I KNOW WORMHOLES AND BLACK HOLES AREN'T THE SAME THING I KNOW OUR CLOSEST SAR SYSTEM IS A TRIPLE STAR SYSTEM AND I KNOW WHAT A AU IS O_O

Also...

Binary systems sometimes collide on they're own (Neutron Stars,Normal stars etc.) and create a A:Bigger Star that lives longer than the previous ones OR B:A black Hole and GRB :I

So...
Thank you Daniferrito for the short awnsers :3

To me it's easy to have planets with different gravity...And much needed if your aiming for precission!

And ALSO
Creatures taht go on them would be affected by the gravity because they grew up in different gravity...Also
U CAN'T HAVE MOONS WITH THE SAME SIZE

Is our Moon the size of Marses 2 Moons?

No

I VOTE NO FOR TEH SAME PLANETS

Planet sizes could also have an impact on space warfare as the sizes of planets would have an impact on orbital bombardment and drop pod accuracy etc impact.

Inca wrote:

Planet sizes could also have an impact on space warfare as the sizes of planets would have an impact on orbital bombardment and drop pod accuracy etc impact.

Maybe suicide ships 40Km long turned missiles launched against dyson sphere
Total chaos and SHAKY CAM Yes Battle of Endor 2 here I come.
Also can i re tool things like said in the post load a ship full of explosives and ram it into an enemy ship

I've noticed one thing people haven't seemed to figure out, how the lifespan of a creature will work. They're all focused on how the changes will take effect and I'm not sure what to say about it...Besides this.

You should be able to play as a certain individual as long as you want. (unless you get killed by something, of course)

I mean, eventually, you'll get bored of the creature being the exact same thing, and move on, but forcing the player to advance seems a little...iffy. What would be simple is letting the player advance when they want, and then all the species will evolve accordingly. The longer you play as one creature should drive the evolution. If you're a glider and trying to stay airborne as long as possible, the computer should then realize you want to fly, and could, over multiple generations, make it happen. Just as well, the more a species of animal is hunted, the more they'll evolve to avoid that happening.

All I've seen is people talking about how each generation will make one tweak,and that's it. I know that it would make sense for only small changes to happen in a short time, but they can't happen without the computer having data to go by, so it could change something at random, which could happen anyway.

This brings me to another topic, what if you're happy with the design of your species, but the computer insists on making a change that, for all you know, could hinder you? Can you reverse these changes, or block the computer from forcing a change on you? I know that this game is about evolution, but look at the Horseshoe Crab. They haven't changed since the Jurassic period!

So could someone explain this please?

Ok, in order:

Yes, there is not much on lifespan.

We wont force anyone to move forward. If someone wants to stay as-is, we will allow him (but other species could adapt to your never changing specie and eventually out evolve you).

That is lamarckian evolution, and it's not how we are doing evolution (althrough we are doing something similar).

The computer will have all the population dynamics data to work with, in order to make decide upon evolution. This data is independant on the actual player game-play, so how the player actually acts is not important (unless when going to a society), but what the player sees will allow him to know its environement.

The computer wont evolve the player's species. that will be left for the player to do, unless he decides to let the computer handle all the evolution himself.

While I'm thinking, and on how there's not much on a certain topic: hunting and fighting in the organism stages, and plenty of other new questions. These will ALL relate to when you are in Organism mode, no Strategy or observer, and the microbe stage is not included.

I've seen nothing on this, and I'm curious to how it will work, and I didn't want to make a new topic because I knew it would be moved here anyway.

The way I see it, any prey animal in their right mind would run and keep running, unlike in Spore where as soon as you hit them, they go into a blood frenzy. If there's some stamina upkeep needed for running, assuming there is both walking and running, then we can't exactly keep running after the prey and delivering bites or slashes. Will there be tackling and pinning, or tripping at all? How many animals do you see today who bite their prey and then keep chasing it. I've yet to see one. And then do you have to keep attacking the prey or can you go in for a choking bite like a cheetah? I know this seems VERY advanced, but we want to go as far away from Spore as possible, preferably the only link being evolution simulator (If we can call Spore that).

On the topic of combat in organism stage, how will that work? Not just the physics but the fighting at all, I'm sure it's not random but how will you tell your animal that you want it to slash or punch your enemy in the face over biting it? (Also, I'd like to know if it's possible for a quadruped with claws to USE those claws, over needing a certain part)

I'm certain that biting and clawing, in terms of being able to hit, will be decided on how close to the enemy you are, but what about the aforementioned pinning? Usually, getting pinned means your dead. If we look at lions today, when in a fight, one lion will try to pin another, while at the same time making the 'this is my territory' message extremely clear. Not only that, but I feel that it should be programmed into the AI to know if and when they lose and go 'No more! I yield!" and quickly try to get away from the danger zone.

Another point of combat is the planned poisons that can be expelled. For a start, let's say that a creature can shoot venom from...Something, I don't know what. Venom, of course, can be a neurotoxin or necrotoxin. The only problem with this is that they affect the brain or muscles, respectively. And unless the target is already nearly cut to ribbons, the only way it can affect the animal is if it's swallowed, because it would be transferred into the blood and therefore able to go through it's deadly cycle.

If there's going to be a poison that would do something like that, it would need to be on a wounded animal, because I don't remember a case of a cobra spitting at a man, and he dying later from the venom, because the venom can't affect the outside of the body. Acids or chemicals like that of the bombardier beetle's, however, are a different story.

Another question about a 'spitting' attack, is the 'missle' problem Spore had. Bite, Charge, and Strike could all miss...Spit could not, that was the only one with 100% chance to hit. There is not one time in creature stage where I or another creature was not hit with poison, despite how far I got once the attack was launched. Please tell me that once the poison or acid is shot, it goes in just one direction, and can be dodged...PLEASE!!!

Now onto other questions that I thought of before or during the creation of this post.

For this, I will number them, and accordingly, anyone who can answer can number their answers.

1. Can you choose if your creatures live alone or in groups?

2. Can you make your creatures effectively like lions, with one or two males protecting a territory and a group of females with young? Or like meerkats, with a breeding pair and many subordinates? (I know, I'm getting in depth, but I want to know the extent of the programmers abilities. I know that they won't go that far, I just want to know if it is at all possible, over if it will be added.)

3. With the above point, can you make it so that any strangers of the same species can be quickly evicted from the area, through attacking them, of course.

4. Will there be stamina at all? Otherwise my hunting argument is down the drain.

5. Depending on the size of the target and the one doing the targetting, is it possible to pick smaller creatures up? An owl grabs a mouse and carries it off. Could a huge mutant pterosaur thing pick up a not so huge mutant goat thing and carry it off for lunch?

6. Will you be able to determine the number of offspring had by creatures at any time, and what way those offspring come into the world? You can assume that a reptile would lay eggs, but there's a type of constrictor which gives live birth. They're born alive, not in eggs. Alive, and in the dozens, as well. But what if I want my mutant snake dinosaur to lay eggs, but only lay two or three, so there's not as many to look after, but there's less likely odds of them all to make it to adulthood.

7. Will behavior be generated based on the look of the animal, if it's not made by a user? I don't want the tiny lizard to try and tear me in half while the giant rhino like creature screams like a little girl and runs away.

8. Hopefully, it will be possible to have a saber-toothed animal, and you can determine the strength of those teeth, whether they're good for a brawl or not. If they are, what happens when they go into the shoulder of the target? Do they come back out through the other side?
Nature:Nope.
Programmers:(insert answer here)
What I'm asking here is if it's possible to cling onto a target. With larger prey or enemies, this helps weigh them down and would be good for pack animals.

9. Weather. I assume there will be some, given the disasters, and that it will change randomly for however long you play as an organism, with signs of it of course. If we have a flying creature, and we see clouds in the distance, the smart thing to do is find some place safe to wait it out. Or we can just hope it will pass us and just keep flying. Then the storm hits...Dead flying thing from a broken neck. I already looked for damage from falling and found nothing on it, even though ~scio says there was something on it. So this is actually three questions in one:
9.1:Can the weather make it difficult for certain actions to take place, such as flight.
9.2:Can you take fall damage?
9.3:Can your position of falling change throughout the fall? If a flying animal tries to right itself, many times there's just more wrongs.

10. Mid-Air fighting...Possible?

11. Will there be stalking of the prey involved? This, again, goes to the stamina. If you charge at the prey from a long distance away because they've seen you from a long distance away, you're tired by the time you get to where they were, and they're half a mile away by then.

12. Will prey automatically know that they are, in fact, prey and when a predator comes about? I'm sure that if the player is a carnivore and they kill one, they'll get the message, but what about beforehand?

13. Procedural verbs. Dragging prey. Yep. We wants it. Will it exist?

14. Will there be ragdoll physics? Not going completely and utterly insane ragdoll physics like when a giant hits you in Skyrim, but just normal limpness. A dead thing just limply flails when rolling down a hill, a live thing does not.

15. Will there be a physical change in a carcass when it's eaten from. Will you actually be able to see it be cleaned to the bone?

16. Even the most nimble creature can make a slip up. Can you effectively trip on uneven parts of terrain, like a rock? As such, what happens if your creature trips, and then meets a slope. Will your creature begin rolling down the hill? This would be effective if it could be pulled off in a hunt.

17. Will some prey try to make a last stand if they absolutely must, such as if you corner them on a cliff? I wouldn't like to see my possible meal just kamikaze to their demise, if there's fall damage, that is. It's worse to see them kamikaze to safety.

18. Can you drown? I know that there are gills that can be added for an aquatic creature, but what if you don't want those? This would mean you'd have to surface to get oxygen, but what if you forget to? Will it lead to the demise of your creature?

19. I asked this question before, but it was quickly dropped. Can you determine the movement of your creatures? I should assume from the being ignore that it would be no, but someone may want to have their species move in a different way compared to what the computer would assume based on the design. A simple yes, no, or maybe will suffice.

20. Can you choose the gender of the individual you play as? In Spore, you were automatically an assumed female, since you laid the eggs...What if I don't want to lay the eggs?

21. Will the environment change based on the animals there? I've already seen ideas for there to be burrowing animals, but can you see the burrows? It would seem rather stupid to make it so they just disappear into the ground.

22. If a large creature steps on a small creature, does the small creature die?
Nature: Yep.
Programmers:(insert answer here)

23. Can you forgive me for the long post?

I will try to answer these points to the best of my ability.

For up-to-date answers on aware stage combat, go to this thread.

For things like behavior, this thread.

On stamina, I think the energy bar would be what you're asking about, it will deplete if your creature sprints.

The differing sizes thing is something I brought up as well, that has been ignored atm.

Reproduction, I'd recommend looking at the OE CC, same for saber-teeth

For stalking prey, I'd suggest this thread on how, plus crouching makes your creature's silhouette smaller.

Mid-air combat, I'd assume it is the same as regular combat, just in the air.

You can have multiple genders for your species, so I assume you can choose the gender you play as.

You seem to have biomes reversed, the creatures will adapt to the environments around them, not the other way around.

Anything else I can't answer for lack of knowledge.

Thanks for numbering, that makes it much easier to answer. Actually, there is so much that after i was finished reading the last question, i forgot about the first part, so i'll assume the things you wrote there are questions on the second part as well. Feel free to ask anything i might have not answered:

1. Hopefully. This might end being decided by the AI, as it chooses whether being alone or in groups is better.
   
2. It is possible.
   
3. Probably wont happen, as any creature that gets far from the player gets deleted, there is no way of telling if a creature is from a group or from another place. It could be easily done if we aproach how to handle creatures in another more permanent way.
   
4. Yes. Stamina is actually a very close aproach of what it happens in nature.
   
5. Yes.
   
6. Yes. You have mostly two options. Having few childs but most of them geting to adulthood, or having many many kids but only few surviving.
   
7. How a creature "looks" is not something a computer can tell. However, the characteristics of the creatures is something the computer could work with. If your small lizard could potentially kill the big rhino, either alone or in a group (probably through toxins) AND it could eat it (it is carnivore) It will probably attack. The rhino is probably nmot interested in the lizards as food, so it will either stomp them or try to shake them off and get away from them. If they pose no danger to the rhino, it will just ignore them.
   
8. Hopefully
   
9. Yes, yes and yes. Flying creatures will probably be handled as if you are using a plane or any other flying vehicle (but wont need a runway to take off, obviously)
   
10. Yes.
    
11. Yes. The prey wont start to run away until they notice the predator, either by sight, smell, sound...
    
12. Yes. It would be a problem otherwise, as the predator doesent know it is a predator and wont try to kill the prey.
    
13. I dont understaund this one.
    
14. Yes
    
15. Hopefully
    
16. To some extent, yes.
    
17. It depends on how the AI ends up working, but some AI (including the one i plan on implementing eventually) do those kind of things. Even if it is a guaranteed death, it might just jump off. Staying would mean 5 more seconds of being alive, while jumping would mean 10 seconds (untill it splashes into the ground). It might also decide to suicide to deny the predator of food.
    
18. Yes
    
19. We will see. I didnt answer to this one before because i didnt have an answer.
    
20. Yes
    
21. Yes
    
22. Yes
    
23. Yes
    

Thanks for all the answers Dani, you're giving me wonderful insight into this game. (So I might be a bit more useful now that I know how the only stage I know anything about will actually work)

What I mean about procedural verbs is that in the 2005 demo of Spore, Will Wright said that verbs could be cleanly mixed. After he killed the hoppy thing, he had his creature go to eat from it but also walk away, which invented a dragging animation.

In Thrive, maybe we're not focused on 'verbs' as a whole, and there would be some other way to drag a carcass. This way we can either move it away from where a ton of other carnivores could be or we just want to see in what funny way the food will get dragged.

I just want to know, because in the released version of Spore, you just grabbed a chunk of meat from their body and snacked on it without it actually going down the throat. (THEY DON'T HAVE THROATS)

I have a few more questions in number form I should've added, but did not, or I'm bringing up some more again from earlier to better explain them. (I made that post at about three A.M. so I felt like little explaining was good.)

1. I made the point that poison being spat at the outside of an enemy is useless (unless it has acidic properties). How would a non-acidic venom affect a perfectly healthy animal?

2. Spit in Spore homes in like a missile with 100% chance to hit. Is the direction of a spit attack static and therefore able to be evaded?

3. Can you pin an enemy or prey so they can't move?

4. If you can pin them, can you just deliver a fatal 'killer attack' rather than having to go through a huge set of attacks to slowly kill the prey?

5. Will an enemy know when to throw out the white flag and get away from the danger as quickly as possible?

6. Going back on the lizards and rhinos. Let's say that the lizards are just small and fast. The rhino, of course, is huge (with a giant horn, if you wish an alien rhino to have one). Would the computer take into account these characteristics to determine behavior? In the 2006-2007 versions of Spore, when the cartoons came in, the behavior of a creature was determined by it's looks, but in the released version, everything is angry at you. In Thrive, it would make more sense that a small reptile with few weapons would not want to fight, and it would make sense that a large mammal with a huge horn on its face would not be happy with something trying to take a chunk out of it, and therefore attempt to impale the attacker.

7. I also need to elaborate on the predator and prey question. Let's say we have a dinosaur and a herd of antelope. The antelope would never have seen a dinosaur before, so they wouldn't know what it was. Would they associate the characteristics of a carnivorous dinosaur with those of their normal predators? (Sharp teeth and claws.) When the player goes on their 'first hunt', let's call it. Will the prey know that the player is, in fact, dangerous? Will it be programmed for them to automatically know that whatever carnivorous thing the player made is trying to eat them?

8. The trapped on a cliff problem I brought up. A prey animal jumping to it's own demise would show signs of intelligence, would it not? It would rather die and let the predator starve over becoming a meal? I know it's possible for another species to become sentient besides the players. But would a prey animal not try to conserve its own life by making a last ditch escape effort? I saw a video of an impala jump into a car to evade cheetahs. A car with the people still inside!

Needless to say, the cheetahs gave up, and the Impala just walked away like nothing happened when it was let out. Sure the animal will be deleted from sight when it does get too far away, but if the computer is supposed to keep a basic understanding of the population of that species, it still technically exists in that world, just not in the sensory range, because the individual 'avatar' representing one of the animals in that population was deleted from the game. (as you brought up Dani)

With the thought of the ultimate goal of survival in the wild being 'passing on your genes', it would not make sense for an animal to just decide that it's given up and jump to it's death, when it has a chance, a small chance, but a chance, of making it past the predator and escaping with its life. I just think that having an animal kill itself to avoid being eaten is, without any other words I could think of, wasteful. If the whole species was programmed to let no one eat it by jumping off a cliff, then it would not last long in the grand scheme of things, intelligent or not. (I highly considered making a parkour joke.)

Hopefully I better explained these this time, now that I'm not dead tired. :alien: 

1. Your initial assumption is incorrect. animals such as bombardier beetles and spitting cobras use projectile fluids for defense.

2. Yes

3. Yes

4. Yes. There isn't going to be a clear "hitpoint" system- an organism dies when its organelles/organs can no longer function properly. We're not going to make you have drwaen out fights, because that just doesn't happen much in nature- when something is attacked, it either gets out of the way, defends itself through some simple, instinctual method, or gets killed quickly.

5. If an animal is being aggressive, other animals will know, and they'll understand the risk of interaction.

6. Behavior is editable and will evolve just like the form of your creature.

7. This is something very difficult to program. Most likely, interactions will be gauged on the relative size of the animal in question. Animals, however, will all most likely have a variable in their behavior that sets a baseline level of skittishness.

8. It depends on the danger. Basically, an AI is going to weigh the drop and the predator for how likely they are to kill it. The predator essentially has a 1 in 1 chance of killing it, while the cliff may have something more like a 99 in 100 chance, so the AI moves to the cliff.

1.Will I (The Player) be able to specificly edit the FEMALE and/or male to look different and behave different (Lions and Lionesses) and maybe how my offspring look...

2.Will there be handicaped members of my clan (like smaller,missing a leg,has more fingers etc...)

3.Can my creature live in a Acidic atmosphere if it has some specialy adapted organs... (for example a stomach that inhales the acid and uses it to eat and I have a bio-armor plating on my creature from the inside and out...) (I think it can if I edit it to live in there)

4.Aerial Combat is going to be implemented Ik

But will we be able to like...GRAB a creature and carry it to mah nest for mah children to eat :O

or will I have to kill it and eat it myselfe..

5.Will other members of a pack EAT,DRINK,SLEEP etc..
(In Spore They Don't and tehy don't behave if you are not them!)

6.Ragdoll deaths?

7.Grapling on different parts of the creature?

8.How many parts will the game have???

9.Armor Editor for the creatures in space WILL or WILL NOT have the same stuff like in Ancient and Medieval Times like in spore...

10.Can you name periods of your creatures history by names???? (That would be AWZUM!!!!!!!) (The Moon Age :O) (Like SUB-AGES) (Like when you take the Aware Stage and catalog it xD)

11.Will the creatures be animated ripping off parts of a prey creature and eating the part so that the size of teh creature can make the feast differently enjoyable... (For example a Elephant has more meat than a mouse...)

(That was wrong in spore)

12.More than one Moon

13.Maybe cataloging the Evolution Tree when your in the AWARE stage...

14.https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=32lRAgZZdmY#at=21 will I be able to walk around in my ship as soo... (like in this video) and add furniture...

15.Asteroid Life?

16.Climable Ledges and Cliffs?

Another batch of questions. In the previous ones, i agree with scio answers completelly.

1. Eventually, yes
   
2. Probably not
   
3. Yes
   
4. You can do either way
   
5. Yes, all creatures will
   
6. Yes
   
7. Yes
   
8. ??
   
9. Will have everything from older times, plus more fp avaibles
   
10. Yes, but that will be only for yourself, it wont have any real beefits.
    
11. Hopefully.
    
12. Obviously
    
13. Actually, evolution trees will be mostly linear. I dont know what you mean here
    
14. Eventually
    
15. Last time i checked, there was a debate wheter it would be realistic or not for life to evolve there
    
16. Yes
    

Ok, don't know if this has been thought up before, but what about something, like a God Machine, or simply a superproject, that eats planets. As in, say an alien race creates something, a planet sized machine that uses gravity projectors or something like that to simply tear a planet apart and use its resources to power the machine and create other things, such as pieces of war materiel.

And yes, this is inspired by Unicron from Transformers.

That would be a matter-to-energy generator with an energy-to-matter machine in the other side. But yes, it is possible.

Okay, got two things here, numbered for ease of use!

1. If playing as a machine race, what about if some of your technology/brethren is discovered and reactivated by a less advanced species, will you regain control over it, or will it simply go rogue? (Would make a great story)

2. If an ascended species, what happens if you get into a civil war, if those can be had at that point?

I would think for the machine race it would go rouge.

Don't know about the ascension, I wouldn't have thought you can have a civil war. After ascension your species will be in a state of peace and kind of omni.

Wow, should have clocked that response, that was fast.

All joking aside, I don't know about the civil wars thing myself, I know there can be rebellions, did my homework on that one.

But I look to the Arnor of Galactic Civilizations, they were two species, both were immortal and created by the god-like Precursors, and became like them before they split. The reason being their views on the new mortal races, the Dred-nir wanted to keep the mortal races under their thumb, the Elas-nir were the opposite. So the Dred-nir became the Dread Lords and the Elas-nir became the Arnor, and they fought until they disappeared altogether.

So okay an ascended species may just be able to just reach an Omni state and there not being wars, but even beings of energy could have differing opinions, I think so at least.

Another thing, do you still control the empire you made in Space stage after reaching Ascension?

Speedy ;).

I was thinking that when you ascend then you would move onto spreading your power as a religion by covering people to your faith and when they worship you, you can influence/control them. Maybe this could even be another stage in itself.

I guess its possible to have civil was though, it just depends how we choose to handle the ascension.

The images I get from an ascended civil war is worlds, entire galactic arms burning, innocent species caught in the crossfire perishing so the warring factions can deny their opponents valuable resources, entire solar systems collapsing into dead barren wastes of asteroids and gas *devolves into random foaming rambling*

Okay, onto my point, what happens in the aftermath of such a possible conflict? How will life find a way after such destruction?