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

Dalroc wrote:

Letting you modify your galaxy beforehand, is like letting a newly aware spieces build an aeroplane directly, to get around everywhere. I mean, you don't HAVE to use the aeroplane, but it's there..
It defeats the purpose of evolving your spieces further if you get the tools from scratch..
Going in and creating perfect planetary systems, all close to you. Make sure your startsystem has alot of minable asteroid belts and planets.
It defeats the whole purpose of the game.

The tools at the beginning of the game are purely to shape the galaxy, its stars, and its planets. This is to give the player a level of customization before they start playing. Or for example if the player wanted to play their game in a specific set of conditions, they would could do so. This does not interfere with the evolutionary process or the goal of the game, because the player had not yet started a species. Moreover, the goal of the game is to bring your species to dominate the galaxy, so this would set the conditions for your game. Sim City 4 had a similar system to this. Instead of just using sliders or pull down menus to define the settings of your starting area/map, you go in and tweak it hands on, as an omniscient entity. This is to allow the player to explore the birth of the galaxy, something not involved in the evolution from a cell to a space-faring civilization. They can create and destroy new nebulae, condense gas clouds into stars, and even shape...

As I wrote that, I just remembered that the galaxy will be saved as procedural seeds, and so saving all the changes you made to the galaxy would be too memory intensive. I guess instead the settings would only be able to be tweaked in your solar system, and if not that then your planet.

Dalroc wrote:

Now, noone has actually given a response to my thoughts, only said "but you don't have to". That is not satisfactory..
Sure, fine if that is how it is implemented, but then give some good reasons for it! Why should you be able to tinker your whole galaxy as a god, before you've even started the game? It is counterproductive to the rest of the game.

I don't know why I split your quote in two. Same response to this as above.

NickTheNick wrote:

The tools at the beginning of the game are purely to shape the galaxy, its stars, and its planets. This is to give the player a level of customization before they start playing. Or for example if the player wanted to play their game in a specific set of conditions, they would could do so. This does not interfere with the evolutionary process or the goal of the game, because the player had not yet started a species. Moreover, the goal of the game is to bring your species to dominate the galaxy, so this would set the conditions for your game. Sim City 4 had a similar system to this. Instead of just using sliders or pull down menus to define the settings of your starting area/map, you go in and tweak it hands on, as an omniscient entity. This is to allow the player to explore the birth of the galaxy, something not involved in the evolution from a cell to a space-faring civilization. They can create and destroy new nebulae, condense gas clouds into stars, and even shape...

As I wrote that, I just remembered that the galaxy will be saved as procedural seeds, and so saving all the changes you made to the galaxy would be too memory intensive. I guess instead the settings would only be able to be tweaked in your solar system, and if not that then your planet.

Hmm If anything, give these tools for new games, after the first playthrough maybe? But the first playthrough should be kept strict to reality, where you can't influence where you end up!

Oliveriver wrote:

Dalroc, try going to the topics where you keep getting posts from. 'Stop watching this topic for replies,' is probably written in the bottom corner of those topics. If not, then I'm not sure why it would be happening.

But I want to watch the topics, so that I get the notifications up in the toolbar of the forums. I just don't want my mailbox to be filled with "new posts in a watched thread" xD Thought about just putting the mailaddress as "spam", but that would mean I would miss out on important emails!

Dalroc wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

Heck of a post.

Hmm If anything, give these tools for new games, after the first playthrough maybe? But the first playthrough should be kept strict to reality, where you can't influence where you end up!

Oliveriver wrote:

Dalroc, try going to the topics where you keep getting posts from. 'Stop watching this topic for replies,' is probably written in the bottom corner of those topics. If not, then I'm not sure why it would be happening.

But I want to watch the topics, so that I get the notifications up in the toolbar of the forums. I just don't want my mailbox to be filled with "new posts in a watched thread" xD Thought about just putting the mailaddress as "spam", but that would mean I would miss out on important emails!

Dalroc, the game is less enjoyable if you have to bend your knee to a completely randomized setup. If you wanted to make a huge flying creature, but your planet couldn't allow for that, then there would be a problem, wouldn't there? There may be times when your forced to take on one type of role while you bide your time to take the niche you want, but you can at least try to get into that niche at all.

We want the game to be realistic AND enjoyable. And if the player can't evolve into what they want, then we lack one of those key elements. :alien: 

So, the best thing to do is to make the randomizing thing an option, and allow for the ability to customize? I think that sounds familiar to earlier posts.

That was the original concept. However, I did realize that customization must be limited to your starting planet, because the rest of the galaxy is procedurally generated.

And dalroc, if you don't want the option to customize your planet on startup, then just don't use it. There is no need to impose your style of play on all other players as well, especially considering how this is not breaking the point or the objective of the game, nor interfering with the evolutionary process,but rather allowing the player to customize the settings of their start, an element most games have or need.

dinoman has made me change my mind. I want to make a balloon creature :3

This really sounds like we're beginning to chase our tails here. (Or a collective thought loop, I'm not sure which.)

dinoman9877 wrote:

Dalroc, the game is less enjoyable if you have to bend your knee to a completely randomized setup. If you wanted to make a huge flying creature, but your planet couldn't allow for that, then there would be a problem, wouldn't there? There may be times when your forced to take on one type of role while you bide your time to take the niche you want, but you can at least try to get into that niche at all.

We want the game to be realistic AND enjoyable. And if the player can't evolve into what they want, then we lack one of those key elements. :alien: 

I totally agree with you. Which is why i propsed either sliders with a small random intervall or a few preset parameters you can choose from to get the planet of your wishes, without having the power to create it exactly as you like.

NickTheNick wrote:

And dalroc, if you don't want the option to customize your planet on startup, then just don't use it. There is no need to impose your style of play on all other players as well, especially considering how this is not breaking the point or the objective of the game, nor interfering with the evolutionary process,but rather allowing the player to customize the settings of their start, an element most games have or need.

You're still not grasping my point of view here.
How would it be if in the Sims, you could start in the biggest lot and build the fanciest house right from the beginning, without having to work your way there?
No, there should be some randomization in my opinion! At least on the first playthrough.
If you want it for displaying the stellar evolution, you could do that in a cutscene!

I think the player will be a lot more submerged (no pun intended) into the game if they start out directly in the microbial stage, instead of spending time sculpting your planet. Also sculpting your own planet would let the player know the whole planet in and out.. Every little canyon or lake they know where to go, which defeats the purpose of exploration!

Well, we're making something that should be simple...not so simple.

Dalroc, you may want to have each experience be unknown and that's fine. But there are some, like me, who actually want to know how the planet will work to take advantage of it.

I've been bothered by Spore's flying in the fact that it is not flight. You flap your wings about eight times and you can't do it again until you touch the ground. Sure, there are some birds who can't fly continuously, but there are some who CAN!

Back on topic though, I'd want a planet where I could make a proper pterosaur or albatross like creature, using the updrafts from the ocean to glide across vast distances. ACTUAL gliding, and with wing flaps few and far between just to keep stability in check.

If the planet has too high of gravity, or few oceans, I can't do that. I'm sure there will be some sort of information page that will tell you the planet's statistics, but think about this. We still don't know how you'll select a planet to play on, and if you have to search through every star system and every planet orbiting those stars...Well...it will take a while to find the one you want.

If we did it like Spore, then there would beg the chance that every planet goes against what you want, all of them have the wrong statistics and can't be used to play the game as you want.

So, the planet should be able to be edited.

I mean, a player might not want to have a swampy planet, maybe they want one ruled by desert, but can't find one. So, you'd have to edit it.

There ARE people who like to have a basic understanding of what could happen in their game. If you're not one of them, then fine, play randomly. But if I'm not able to make the planet with perfect conditions for a glider, then there's going to be problems.

Or if I wanted to make a planet ruled by desert, and I couldn't make it a desert, then, once again, problems.

Take into account what the many might want over the few. If there's a middle-ground, always aim for that. The middle-ground here is making planet customization OPTIONAL.

End of story. We're done, pack it, print it, sell it. Good? Good. :alien: 

Balanching is a difficult and complicate thing and every player is different. I endorse some good and extensive configuration possibilities. Mentioned this already long time ago with settings aswell for the evo that we can config, how the creatures should evolve and how fast and possible how aggressive they are.

We can't make it with only one preset difficulty to please everybody. Some peoples will think its way to easy, others would have problems with the game. Of course the god mode should be a goal, but it shoudn't be necessary, that some people have to use mod to get there. And for old peoples like me with slow reflecses, who are more of the slow side, it could become more difficult as for the young folk.

dinoman9877 wrote:

Good explanatory post

Thank you for that. I don't like typing long posts on a mobile, so it is good to have someone else explain it.

Now, the thing is Dalroc, you won't be carving every nook and cranny of your planet. What dinoman said, to which you agreed, is what will be in place. Parameters and conditions for your planet are editable, but the game won't remember every last crater you placed, since the world will be procedurally generated based off of your settings you set.

I have an idea for communication in the aware stage/organism mode.  We could use a tf2 style voice command box. In TF2 you can press z, x and c and a box pops up. in that box you see the numbers 1 to 0. (like 1 to 0 on your keyboard. so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) Every key has a voice command. so when you press z and then 1 you say "MEDIC!" and when you press c and then 5 you say "Go left!". I think this way of communication would work really well in thrive. In the editors you could bind keys to the menus (so for example you bind b to a box with voice commands) and then the numbers to the thing you want to "say". The amount of things you can say depends on how powerfull your brain is. So a primitive creature would be able to say "hello" and call for help. but a very complex creature could tell his friends to hide/ go left or right and other more complex "sentences". I think this could work pretty well.

dinoman9877 wrote:

Text
But if I'm not able to make the planet with perfect conditions for a glider, then there's going to be problems.

You haven't read a single one of my posts I guess? I am NOT for random planets and I'm NOT for precise editing. I want you to be able to choose parameters that will give you the type of planet of your choice, but not let you see it and study it beforehand.
If you want a creature that needs updrafts from oceans to fly, thats fine. But don't crave that you should be able to go everywhere with your creature, because my moose (no I'm not gonna make a moose, it's just an example) can't swim, so I'm confined to whatever island I end up on.
You are asking for total freedom from the beginning, which makes this game one big sandbox only.

Silver Sterling wrote:

Balanching is a difficult and complicate thing and every player is different. I endorse some good and extensive configuration possibilities. Mentioned this already long time ago with settings aswell for the evo that we can config, how the creatures should evolve and how fast and possible how aggressive they are.

Whoa, that would take out all randomization in evolution as well?!? That idea sounds like a real game breaker. Evolution is not something that has a goal in mind.

Silver Sterling wrote:

We can't make it with only one preset difficulty to please everybody.

Noone is talking about one specific preset..
My idea is a limited editing, with sliders or preset parameters you can choose (this is NOT the same as ONE preset, you choose one preset with some randomization for gravity, one preset for distance from star (for the climate) and whatever other presets might be needed, like amount of water/liquids, axial tilt, daylength maybe.. This would have to be decided upon).
Others are for total control over the planet, where you can sculpt it exactly as you want and decide exactly how it should look and work.

NickTheNick wrote:

Now, the thing is Dalroc, you won't be carving every nook and cranny of your planet. What dinoman said, to which you agreed, is what will be in place. Parameters and conditions for your planet are editable, but the game won't remember every last crater you placed, since the world will be procedurally generated based off of your settings you set.

Hmm, that is not what dinoman said.. He seemed to be talking about precise editing. His ideas are already formed out in his head and he wants to be able to reach EXACTLY what he wants, which is too much control for the first playthrough. Giving such freedom on second playthrough and forward would be no problem in my eyes.

Now what YOU are saying sounds exactly like what I have been proposing all the time.. Some settings that will generate a planet with the conditions you like, but no sculpting or perfecting every little bit. Too much control over the planet formation will be like giving a player all weapons in the beginning of the game in GTA.

dinoman9877 wrote:

Back on topic though, I'd want a planet where I could make a proper pterosaur or albatross like creature, using the updrafts from the ocean to glide across vast distances. ACTUAL gliding, and with wing flaps few and far between just to keep stability in check.
If the planet has too high of gravity, or few oceans, I can't do that. I'm sure there will be some sort of information page that will tell you the planet's statistics, but think about this. We still don't know how you'll select a planet to play on, and if you have to search through every star system and every planet orbiting those stars...Well...it will take a while to find the one you want.

Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty

There you would get a perfect planet for your glider, without controlling too much or giving too much info to the player.

dinoman9877 wrote:

I mean, a player might not want to have a swampy planet, maybe they want one ruled by desert, but can't find one. So, you'd have to edit it.
Or if I wanted to make a planet ruled by desert, and I couldn't make it a desert, then, once again, problems.

Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty

There you have a midsized, dense, desert planet. Change the gravity and/or size if you want to. Add a axial tilt to introduce seasons if you want that.

And here you got an Earthlike planet
Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty


Hope you understand how much you actually can control with this system, without getting your exact planet, but still good enough for you to fulfill your dream creatures.
Of course other parameters could be added, like amount of volcanism, daylength, amount of satellites and whatever might be needed.

Captain Mcderp wrote:

I have an idea for communication in the aware stage/organism mode.  We could use a tf2 style voice command box. In TF2 you can press z, x and c and a box pops up. in that box you see the numbers 1 to 0. (like 1 to 0 on your keyboard. so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) Every key has a voice command. so when you press z and then 1 you say "MEDIC!" and when you press c and then 5 you say "Go left!". I think this way of communication would work really well in thrive. In the editors you could bind keys to the menus (so for example you bind b to a box with voice commands) and then the numbers to the thing you want to "say". The amount of things you can say depends on how powerfull your brain is. So a primitive creature would be able to say "hello" and call for help. but a very complex creature could tell his friends to hide/ go left or right and other more complex "sentences". I think this could work pretty well.

That would be something the player sets in the Behaviour Editor.

Dalroc wrote:

dinoman9877 wrote:

Back on topic though, I'd want a planet where I could make a proper pterosaur or albatross like creature, using the updrafts from the ocean to glide across vast distances. ACTUAL gliding, and with wing flaps few and far between just to keep stability in check.
If the planet has too high of gravity, or few oceans, I can't do that. I'm sure there will be some sort of information page that will tell you the planet's statistics, but think about this. We still don't know how you'll select a planet to play on, and if you have to search through every star system and every planet orbiting those stars...Well...it will take a while to find the one you want.

Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty

There you would get a perfect planet for your glider, without controlling too much or giving too much info to the player.

dinoman9877 wrote:

I mean, a player might not want to have a swampy planet, maybe they want one ruled by desert, but can't find one. So, you'd have to edit it.
Or if I wanted to make a planet ruled by desert, and I couldn't make it a desert, then, once again, problems.

Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty

There you have a midsized, dense, desert planet. Change the gravity and/or size if you want to. Add a axial tilt to introduce seasons if you want that.

And here you got an Earthlike planet
Type: Terrestrial planet/Icy moon/Gas giant
Distance: Close/Mid/Far
Size: Big/Mid/Small
Gravity: High/Mid/Low
Axial tilt: No/Low/Mid/High/Extreme
Waterbodies: Scarce/Moderate/Plenty


Hope you understand how much you actually can control with this system, without getting your exact planet, but still good enough for you to fulfill your dream creatures.
Of course other parameters could be added, like amount of volcanism, daylength, amount of satellites and whatever might be needed.

As Nick said, the planet's landscape is generated randomly. You can't change your planet's surface because you don't know how it will look.

Dalroc wrote:

Whoa, that would take out all randomization in evolution as well?!? That idea sounds like a real game breaker. Evolution is not something that has a goal in mind.

Taking all randomization out of evolution wouldn't be possible. But it would be nice for more relaxed player to have a slower devolving environment. For peoples who want a fast and a very high challenge would be the possibility to make the evolution faster and harder. Would be nice of course, if the game tracks the development of the game and adapt the environment. The perfect case would be in my vision to have a slider for the development of the creatues, from slowest to fastest (in the god mode it was mentioned, that we can even pause the evolution, but you have to earn it first.) and a trigger to track the development of the player, so the game will speed up or slow down the evolution dependent of the player character, that he can take care, that species in a hard game are always lightly more advanced as the player and in a easy game always a bit below the player.

Then the aggresion could be annyoing for more peacefull player, who don't want a environment with a lot of aggressive creatures. They could lower down the tendence of aggression by other players. Or players who want to fight and like wars, they could increase the amount of aggressive creatures.

Of course it all have to be balanced. The game should be how already told challenging, but not frustrating.

Dalroc wrote:

Noone is talking about one specific preset..
My idea is a limited editing, with sliders or preset parameters you can choose (this is NOT the same as ONE preset, you choose one preset with some randomization for gravity, one preset for distance from star (for the climate) and whatever other presets might be needed, like amount of water/liquids, axial tilt, daylength maybe.. This would have to be decided upon).
Others are for total control over the planet, where you can sculpt it exactly as you want and decide exactly how it should look and work.

My post wasn't directly an answer to your post, yust my personal opinion. One of the reason i haven't quoted any post in my last post.
And yes, your opinion in this post is exactly what i am thinking about aswell. Sliders, who affect the seed and the generator, would be the best thing to handle the options.
How it will work with the total control is another question. The game would have to safe the changes on the planet. My personal idea would be, that the planets have a changable seed. The game would safe minor changes from the seed, something what happend trough the player, or some nature event, etc., but would slowly went back to the basic seed (changes over time), if the changes are to small to affect the planet seed. This will drop the additional informations. The home planet and player owned/ or overwatched planets could most likely have a larger tracking file. If the seed can be changed to reflect the changes, the seed should change aswell, to reflect larger changes on the planet. Possible would be some changes over time of the planet aswell, even randomly, if the seed would allow this and if it isn't to much work. But i think this would be more the playground for whoever programs the generator.

Just curious, as a newcomer- will we be able to live/build a civilization in the trees or other plant life? And since we can apparently revert back to organism mode at any time to control specific individuals, will this also be possible for vehicles constructed by my species?

I have a question. Once the cell stage is released, we will be able to play the cell stage while you guys work on the organism stage, right? What if we finish the cell stage before then? Will we have to restart the game? Or would we be able to continue playing through the microbe stage? Or would we have to save our game until organism stage is released?

Mouthwash wrote:

Just curious, as a newcomer- will we be able to live/build a civilization in the trees or other plant life? And since we can apparently revert back to organism mode at any time to control specific individuals, will this also be possible for vehicles constructed by my species?

Yes.

Atrox_Somnium wrote:

I have a question. Once the cell stage is released, we will be able to play the cell stage while you guys work on the organism stage, right? What if we finish the cell stage before then? Will we have to restart the game? Or would we be able to continue playing through the microbe stage? Or would we have to save our game until organism stage is released?

To my knowledge, your saved file (whatever it's represented by) will still be there while the developers are working on the Multicellular stage. Think of it like Minecraft, when you're running around fighting creepers and endermen while waiting for the next update so you can go over to that centaur fortress or something. That's kind of the way with Thrive, depending on how updates are handled; at best, the game has fully-fledged updates and bug fixes, and has its own update mechanism. At worst, we will have to update the game manually or download a new version ourselves, which wouldn't be able to run previous files, even if we imported them manually, since the new version of Thrive is too different from the old one to be compatible with a saved file from it.

So, let's hope for an updater whatchamacallit! If it isn't there immediately, then it will be there later. However, while waiting for the Multicellular stage update, you won't be able to finish the cell stage because the "gluer" membrane upgrade (likely) won't be available yet.

What will the scale of the planet be? Surely it wouldn't be as scrunched and exaggerated as Spore's but it couldn't be anywhere close to realistic. Unless you're going to make a system in which populations get crunched into numbers and areas rather than keeping track of every one?

Also, will we be able to make environment specific nests? Live inside flora like woodpeckers do in trees?

Mouthwash wrote:

What will the scale of the planet be? Surely it wouldn't be as scrunched and exaggerated as Spore's but it couldn't be anywhere close to realistic. Unless you're going to make a system in which populations get crunched into numbers and areas rather than keeping track of every one?

Also, will we be able to make environment specific nests? Live inside flora like woodpeckers do in trees?

Scale math was... fairly big, still not as big as earth. I really should save these posts somewhere for later, but it was a while ago. Much bigger than Spore. You are right, however: any place that the player is not currently in is a crunchy little population and variable math ball, untill/unless you go to it.

The nests and use of resources (trees, caves, etc,) are still in the bundle of planning that needs to be done for resources and niches. Which got put a little on hold so we can work on microbe stage.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Mouthwash wrote:

What will the scale of the planet be? Surely it wouldn't be as scrunched and exaggerated as Spore's but it couldn't be anywhere close to realistic. Unless you're going to make a system in which populations get crunched into numbers and areas rather than keeping track of every one?

Also, will we be able to make environment specific nests? Live inside flora like woodpeckers do in trees?

Scale math was... fairly big, still not as big as earth. I really should save these posts somewhere for later, but it was a while ago. Much bigger than Spore.

How big might it be in comparison to this? (skip to 5:50):



To my knowledge, making procedurally generated planets is easy, but making them interesting and varied is a lot harder.

Quote :

You are right, however: any place that the player is not currently in is a crunchy little population and variable math ball, untill/unless you go to it.

Hmm, so what if I zoom in on a population and then zoom out again? Will the specific details and individual creatures or buildings be saved? If so, what would happen if I went over the entire planet? The computer would have to track every detail in that scenario, would it? :p

The last place I saw planet size discussed was this thread. The size given there was a surface area of 474km², compared spores planet surface area of (estimated) 1.5km². That isn't huge in real world terms (it gives a diameter of 12.2km, comparable to a reasonably large asteroid, but it is fairly large for a game (see here for comparison, note that 474km² is about 183mi²). Also, this number isn't fixed, we may change it once we start developing actual planets.