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Hello, I'm BOb B. I'm excited about the project, and have been looking through the forums for a few days now and like the idea. In all honesty, I was first drawn to this project by my displeasure with Spore. There was so much that could have been done to improve the game that wasn't done. I know that this will be a much better game, offering real strategy and great gameplay, while actually remaining faithful to the science behind evolution. I also have a few ideas that I'll probably post throughout the forums once in a while.

EDIT:

Some questions:

-Will the animals in the multicellular stage start off in the ocean?
-Will we have the option of mapping out the organs of our creatures in the multicellular stage?
-How much will we be able to edit our base (generation 1) cell in the microbe stage?
-How big will each planet be (i.e. in spore each planet was relatively small in comparison to real planets, and they would vary in size (moons vs. planets))?
-How can space stage species interact with lower-stage species and vice versa(i.e. can you abduct cells and mutate them into sentient creatures? Or If you fly your spaceship onto a planet in the industrial stage, will the industrial-stage planet attempt to take your creature in order to do experiments and stuff on it? or as an example, if a spaceship crashes onto your industrial age planet, will you gain the option of helping them leave, or taking their tech.?)?
-Can you leave your spaceship in the space stage? (land your ship somewhere and then walk around with possibly an air shield (easier on coders, it could be a transparent shield that surrounds the creature, blocks radiation, regulates heat, and converts the surrounding matter into air))
-Can you terraform planets in the space stage (without god tools)?
-How detailed will the cities that your creature creates be?
-Will the 3D editors also use the fixed hexagonal grid that was used in the microbe stage, or will it have a more click-and-drag interface?
-How will you travel between planets?(will you manually fly to a different star system, or click on one and then your ship flies there for you)

Welcome, XeroJoy!

To answer your questions:

1. Yes
2. You will be able to place you organs where you want, if that is what you mean
3. You will start off with a default cell. The first time you can edit anything is the first time you enter the microbe editor
4. There was some debate going on recently, I think it will be around the size of Brooklyn
5. I am going to let someone else answer this
6. No
7. Yes
8. They wont be extremely detailed or anything, it is just enough for them to be functional and aesthetically pleasing to some extent.
9. Click-drag, I think
10. You wont have to fly manually, because that would be extremely tedious and hard.

Welcome to the forums XeroJoy.

The questions regarding the later stages:

-higher level species can choose to uplift another species by giving them tech I think, or choose to annihilate them with their advanced weaponry. Lower levels can probably salvage tech from higher level species.

-While the later stages can be played in the strategy mode, you can also switch to any of your species at any time with Organism Mode, and I think there are some cool options planned if you do, including the ability to pilot/drive vehicles. So you really don't have to send spaceships to places one at a time, you can use the Strategy Mode to send a whole armada.

Just wondering, is it a concrete decision not to control your ship's captain (or someone onboard), or are the designers considering changing it, because I've always thought that it would be cool to beam someone down and walk around and observe your creations from the POV of your own creature, to look up at the ships that are flying above you, and see the "cars"(land transportation) drive around, etc... and possibly do small missions such as "mine this mineral" or "save this injured animal" (with the reward of it becoming your pet or something) or help this tribal nation become dominant on its planet by fighting ___, Or to possibly try to survive if your ship crashes on a hostile planet. It just seems like there are a lot of things that can be done.

If the spaceship can beam things up and down I think you could just enter a spaceship with one creature, beam another one in your shipping space, fly to another planet, beam the creature from your shipping space down on the planet, switch in strategy mode, select the creature on the foreign planet, go into strategy mode and start exploring. (This all is based on the assumption that you'll be able to pick up objects and organisms like in spore.)
Hope I was able to help you:)

Welcome, XeroJoy! :D 

In answer to your question about controlling your ship's captain, I'm pretty sure that, like most game features from the multicellular stage onwards, it's not set in stone. However, I myself wouldn't be that much in favour of a space POV mode, mostly because that won't be the main focus of the space stage and wouldn't really add that much to gameplay in terms of game goals - plus, it sounds an awful lot like Spore Galactic Adventures, which was only an improvement upon Spore due to the scenario creation abilities rather than the space POV feature.

Also, as an aside, you might want to consider changing your signature, as at the moment it takes up a lot of vertical space for very little actual value.

EDIT: Ninja'd by MirrorMonkey.

Immortal_Dragon wrote:

-While the later stages can be played in the strategy mode, you can also switch to any of your species at any time with Organism Mode, and I think there are some cool options planned if you do, including the ability to pilot/drive vehicles. So you really don't have to send spaceships to places one at a time, you can use the Strategy Mode to send a whole armada.

I don't want to sound harsh, but this isn't happening. Do you have an idea how impossible this would be to implement? This whole idea was discarded some time ago, I think. Thrive is an evolution sim/RTS, not an RPG. Even if we were a AAA game company with all the money and employees in the world, this would still be nigh-on impossible to ever make.

Again, I hate to burst anyones bubble or sound harsh, but I am just telling this from a realistic perspective. If you would like me to elaborate further, I will.

Tarpy wrote:

I don't want to sound harsh, but this isn't happening. Do you have an idea how impossible this would be to implement? This whole idea was discarded some time ago, I think. Thrive is an evolution sim/RTS, not an RPG.

Wait, You can't play in organism mode in space stage? :pale: 
Sorry if I just missunderstood you...

What about any having a sandbox mode for creating things and planets and whatnot?

timetraveler wrote:

What about any having a sandbox mode for creating things and planets and whatnot?

I believe you should look around for information on God Mode/Post-Asscension if you wan the answers to this.

XeroJoy wrote:

Hello, I'm BOb B. I'm excited about the project, and have been looking through the forums for a few days now and like the idea. In all honesty, I was first drawn to this project by my displeasure with Spore. There was so much that could have been done to improve the game that wasn't done. I know that this will be a much better game, offering real strategy and great gameplay, while actually remaining faithful to the science behind evolution. I also have a few ideas that I'll probably post throughout the forums once in a while.

EDIT:

Some questions:

-Will the animals in the multicellular stage start off in the ocean?
-Will we have the option of mapping out the organs of our creatures in the multicellular stage?
-How much will we be able to edit our base (generation 1) cell in the microbe stage?
-How big will each planet be (i.e. in spore each planet was relatively small in comparison to real planets, and they would vary in size (moons vs. planets))?
-How can space stage species interact with lower-stage species and vice versa(i.e. can you abduct cells and mutate them into sentient creatures? Or If you fly your spaceship onto a planet in the industrial stage, will the industrial-stage planet attempt to take your creature in order to do experiments and stuff on it? or as an example, if a spaceship crashes onto your industrial age planet, will you gain the option of helping them leave, or taking their tech.?)?
-Can you leave your spaceship in the space stage? (land your ship somewhere and then walk around with possibly an air shield (easier on coders, it could be a transparent shield that surrounds the creature, blocks radiation, regulates heat, and converts the surrounding matter into air))
-Can you terraform planets in the space stage (without god tools)?
-How detailed will the cities that your creature creates be?
-Will the 3D editors also use the fixed hexagonal grid that was used in the microbe stage, or will it have a more click-and-drag interface?
-How will you travel between planets?(will you manually fly to a different star system, or click on one and then your ship flies there for you)

Welcome to Thrive XeroJoy.

It's good to see you are interested in the project. Conceptual development is unnecessary at this point in the development. What can help is skill and contribution in the fields of hard development, such as code, art, system modelling, etc.

Answers:
-Well, considering that the microbe stage takes place underwater, there's nowhere else it can start. Please look this stuff up before asking.
-Yes. Read the OE CC. Again, please look this stuff up before asking.
-Each generation there are 100 mutation points that the player can spend to evolve their cell.
-This is largely up for speculation at this point, but rest assured many times larger than a spore planet.
-Cells all disappear during the transition to multicellular. Also, the player's species will have limited to no interaction with more advanced species until they hit awakening, because of timespan disparities.
-You can land a spaceship and unload a unit, and then play as that unit, but that unit is not you, it's just one of your units.
-Yes, terraforming is a technology more than it is a God tool.
-This is a redundant question. If you have ever played an RTS/city-builder before, it'll be like that.
-Click and drag will be present in both editors. Hex grid is only for the microbe editor. If you were to read about the OE and the other editors you would see this. Please look this stuff up before asking.
-Both ways work. That's the reason there is both an organism mode and a strategy mode.

In regards to your second comment, there will definitely not be such an RPG element to Thrive. Using the organism mode after reaching intelligence basically just allows the player to gather resources, fight, and explore in the first or third person.

Lastly, please change your signature to a normal signature or just blank altogether. What you have now is inappropriately large, and really is quite pointlessly there, it's just a thumbs up.

@MirrorMonkey: You made it sound far more confusing than it actually is. You just select the unit that is unloaded and assume control of it in organism mode.

@Timetraveller: The galaxy will be your sandbox by the time Ascension is reached or God Tools are unlocked.

kk, so I've changed my signature (after multiple requests)

Also thanks for answering my questions, btw the thing about controlling one of your organisms after you beam it down onto the planet is basically the same idea as what I was thinking about if you were to control the captain. As long as I can observe the continuing evolution of the game and interact with the environment on both a micro and macro scale, I'll be happy. (yes I know you can do this in observer mode, but the big thing is interacting with the environment).

btw @NickTheNick, about the multicellular mode and starting in the water, I asked that question because the game appears to rely on your creature evolving on land in order to progress (if the player chooses to progress), so it seemed plausible that the game would automatically nudge the species towards a land-based society by making the creature start on land.

Thanks again
    -Xero