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

NickTheNick wrote:

There are many issues with multiplayer, and they have been discussed countless times before (so please go research the topic and read about it instead of bringing it up for the umpteenth time), but basically the big areas where multiplayer conflicts with the game is with procedural generation and stage transitions. There are different timescales between the stages, such that a couple hours of the Aware Stage is representing millions of years of evolution, while a couple hours of the society stage is just centuries in the history of your civilization. Therefore all players would have to at all times be in the same stage and transition simultaneously.

Furthermore, the transitions aren't designed to accommodate multiple species transitioning.

What's more, the game relies heavily on procedural generation to keep the processing demand of the game low. This means that basically anything the player isn't looking at or near, isn't being rendered and is probably only being simulated to the most minimal degree. For example, if your creature enters a valley and spends some time there, the creatures and actions in the valley would all be simulated. However, as soon as the player leaves, all the organisms in that area are converted to simple numbers, and instead of simulating the actions that take place we simply run some algorithms to determine the outcomes of evolution until you return. With multiplayer, you would have to simulate a lot more content at the same time and some of the procedural mechanics wouldn't be possible. This would make for reductions in features and a reduction in performance.

So really the only hope for multiplayer I see is specifically within the span of one stage, where you take a singleplayer game, let your friend(s) hop in and turn it into a multiplayer match, but cannot advance to the next stage until it is converted back into a singleplayer game.

Exactly, I wish more people would read the FAQ and/or wiki.

Scottnov wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

There are many issues with multiplayer, and they have been discussed countless times before (so please go research the topic and read about it instead of bringing it up for the umpteenth time), but basically the big areas where multiplayer conflicts with the game is with procedural generation and stage transitions. There are different timescales between the stages, such that a couple hours of the Aware Stage is representing millions of years of evolution, while a couple hours of the society stage is just centuries in the history of your civilization. Therefore all players would have to at all times be in the same stage and transition simultaneously.

Furthermore, the transitions aren't designed to accommodate multiple species transitioning.

What's more, the game relies heavily on procedural generation to keep the processing demand of the game low. This means that basically anything the player isn't looking at or near, isn't being rendered and is probably only being simulated to the most minimal degree. For example, if your creature enters a valley and spends some time there, the creatures and actions in the valley would all be simulated. However, as soon as the player leaves, all the organisms in that area are converted to simple numbers, and instead of simulating the actions that take place we simply run some algorithms to determine the outcomes of evolution until you return. With multiplayer, you would have to simulate a lot more content at the same time and some of the procedural mechanics wouldn't be possible. This would make for reductions in features and a reduction in performance.

So really the only hope for multiplayer I see is specifically within the span of one stage, where you take a singleplayer game, let your friend(s) hop in and turn it into a multiplayer match, but cannot advance to the next stage until it is converted back into a singleplayer game.

Exactly, I wish more people would read the FAQ and/or wiki.

Span of one stage... post-game? where the player can make their own adventure and many peeps can do it? (basically Spore: Galactic Adventures Explansion, or SAO's «The World Seed»)

EDIT: oooorrr, a mod. a simple mod that adds multiplayer.

Right, I know multiplayer probably wont work, but I was just throwing it out there.

Oh, another thing, nobody really responded to me about the idea of a species breaking down raw materials for energy, does anyone have any thoughts about that? Like, the organism ingests metal, then breaks it down on the molecular level to get raw elements, which it could then make proteins and sugars out of. Not really scientifically accurate at all but it almost makes sense, sort of.

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Right, I know multiplayer probably wont work, but I was just throwing it out there.

Oh, another thing, nobody really responded to me about the idea of a species breaking down raw materials for energy, does anyone have any thoughts about that? Like, the organism ingests metal, then breaks it down on the molecular level to get raw elements, which it could then make proteins and sugars out of. Not really scientifically accurate at all but it almost makes sense, sort of.

You see, that is actually kind of what we do when we eat anyway. However, if your creature needs a lot of iron to survive, and it is scarce in the food it eats normally, then just increase the strength of its stomach acid, and teeth(or beak, or whatever hard part it uses to 'chew'). Then have it eat straight from the rocks. Like how elephants get their salt.

Mineral eaters are theoretically possible.

Just not pure metal eaters, they'd need more than just metals to survive.

I'll see if I can get an excerpt from one of the folks from the Spec. Evo. forums for a more detailed explanation.

SawerGreem wrote:

Scottnov wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

There are many issues with multiplayer, and they have been discussed countless times before (so please go research the topic and read about it instead of bringing it up for the umpteenth time), but basically the big areas where multiplayer conflicts with the game is with procedural generation and stage transitions. There are different timescales between the stages, such that a couple hours of the Aware Stage is representing millions of years of evolution, while a couple hours of the society stage is just centuries in the history of your civilization. Therefore all players would have to at all times be in the same stage and transition simultaneously.

Furthermore, the transitions aren't designed to accommodate multiple species transitioning.

What's more, the game relies heavily on procedural generation to keep the processing demand of the game low. This means that basically anything the player isn't looking at or near, isn't being rendered and is probably only being simulated to the most minimal degree. For example, if your creature enters a valley and spends some time there, the creatures and actions in the valley would all be simulated. However, as soon as the player leaves, all the organisms in that area are converted to simple numbers, and instead of simulating the actions that take place we simply run some algorithms to determine the outcomes of evolution until you return. With multiplayer, you would have to simulate a lot more content at the same time and some of the procedural mechanics wouldn't be possible. This would make for reductions in features and a reduction in performance.

So really the only hope for multiplayer I see is specifically within the span of one stage, where you take a singleplayer game, let your friend(s) hop in and turn it into a multiplayer match, but cannot advance to the next stage until it is converted back into a singleplayer game.

Exactly, I wish more people would read the FAQ and/or wiki.

Span of one stage... post-game? where the player can make their own adventure and many peeps can do it? (basically Spore: Galactic Adventures Explansion, or SAO's «The World Seed»)

EDIT: oooorrr, a mod. a simple mod that adds multiplayer.

I feel really bad to keep saying no to your suggestions, but I'm just putting in my thoughts on it.
The span of one stage thing was not what you were talking about, but rather like playing a strategy game with a few friends. Minigames almost. Not like galactic adventures.
As for a mod, you can't make a mod that has multiplayer. Well, I guess in theory you could, but it would be very, very difficult.
Speaking of that, will there be a "mission creator" like Galactic Adventures, or will that not be in?

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Right, I know multiplayer probably wont work, but I was just throwing it out there.

Oh, another thing, nobody really responded to me about the idea of a species breaking down raw materials for energy, does anyone have any thoughts about that? Like, the organism ingests metal, then breaks it down on the molecular level to get raw elements, which it could then make proteins and sugars out of. Not really scientifically accurate at all but it almost makes sense, sort of.

Organisms can eat whatever they want, provided their mouth allows it, but the stomach needs to be evolved to be able to digest what they eat. If they can't digest them, it will either be toxic or just become waste.

Most naturally occurring metals are already raw elements. What's more these raw elements (Iron, Zinc, Copper, Lead) are completely different from the elements that compose organic molecules such as proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids (Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen).

@Scottnov:

The Sandbox mode will allow the player to create and save scenarios.

Okay, I have two explanations on lithovores and metalivores from the scientifically inclined folks at the Speculative Evolution forums.

One of them just redirected me to this webpage:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-bacteria-mining.html

The other gave me this:

Nanotyrannus wrote:

Eating rocks will, from my current understanding, not provide complex creatures with the energy necessary to survive. Numerous creatures can obtain nutrients (tortoises, anything at a salt lick) from minerals, though, and numerous creatures (tapirs, parrots, elephants) use clay to neutralise poisons. Gastroliths are also important for many creatures, and could allow a creature to hoover up greenery.

However, there are cellular examples of true lithovores or metalivores. For example, there are bacteria only known to eat the Titanic, and uranium-eating bacteria deep underground. This still won't work as a food source for advanced organisms, as they reproduce too slowly and wouldn't be able to sustain a viable population.

My recommendation would be to just have it as a way to exploit the environment to deal with tough, poisonous or nutrient-lacking plants with gastroliths, clay and mineral licks respectively. However, if you have to have a complex, rock-eating creature, there may be one other option.

If a world's CO2 is trapped in rock, then to obtain food from plants, complex creatures will have to obtain this CO2 to allow the plants to photosynthesise. By mining limestone or dolomite and bathing it in acid, or otherwise obtaining CO2 from rock, they could create a supply of CO2 and eject the waste products into the environment. Once this store is obtained, the creature could bury itself, using symbiotic plants to photosynthesise. Respiration would allow the CO2 to be reused, but it would eventually run out, and the creature would then have to go out and mine some more rock. This does, however, bring up the problem of why there's no CO2 in the first place.

NickTheNick wrote:

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Right, I know multiplayer probably wont work, but I was just throwing it out there.

Oh, another thing, nobody really responded to me about the idea of a species breaking down raw materials for energy, does anyone have any thoughts about that? Like, the organism ingests metal, then breaks it down on the molecular level to get raw elements, which it could then make proteins and sugars out of. Not really scientifically accurate at all but it almost makes sense, sort of.

Organisms can eat whatever they want, provided their mouth allows it, but the stomach needs to be evolved to be able to digest what they eat. If they can't digest them, it will either be toxic or just become waste.

Most naturally occurring metals are already raw elements. What's more these raw elements (Iron, Zinc, Copper, Lead) are completely different from the elements that compose organic molecules such as proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids (Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen).

@Scottnov:

The Sandbox mode will allow the player to create and save scenarios.

I guess what I meant was less of metal and more non-organic materials in general that have whatever element the organism needs at the time.

continuing with the thread...
(im not putting the text because it would be too long)
one way of putting this idea on the game would be putting on the creature editor specifics spots where ingested metals or other substances (im not saying they survive purely on this) would be deposited, as example, u could put it on the scales of a reptile-like creature, so as it ages and keeps eating, the scales would be hardened by the increased amount of the mineral, this is based on the way some animals store the poison of the food they eat, like poisonous termits
Just an idea, have a good day

Bug: When your microbe travels quickly sometimes glucose and oxygen dispensers clip through you.

Quote :

Bug: When your microbe travels quickly sometimes glucose and oxygen dispensers clip through you.

Yeah it's been around for a while, just haven't been high priority as of yet. I'll write a github issue to make sure it doesn't get forgotten.

Scottnov wrote:

SawerGreem wrote:

Scottnov wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

There are many issues with multiplayer, and they have been discussed countless times before (so please go research the topic and read about it instead of bringing it up for the umpteenth time), but basically the big areas where multiplayer conflicts with the game is with procedural generation and stage transitions. There are different timescales between the stages, such that a couple hours of the Aware Stage is representing millions of years of evolution, while a couple hours of the society stage is just centuries in the history of your civilization. Therefore all players would have to at all times be in the same stage and transition simultaneously.

Furthermore, the transitions aren't designed to accommodate multiple species transitioning.

What's more, the game relies heavily on procedural generation to keep the processing demand of the game low. This means that basically anything the player isn't looking at or near, isn't being rendered and is probably only being simulated to the most minimal degree. For example, if your creature enters a valley and spends some time there, the creatures and actions in the valley would all be simulated. However, as soon as the player leaves, all the organisms in that area are converted to simple numbers, and instead of simulating the actions that take place we simply run some algorithms to determine the outcomes of evolution until you return. With multiplayer, you would have to simulate a lot more content at the same time and some of the procedural mechanics wouldn't be possible. This would make for reductions in features and a reduction in performance.

So really the only hope for multiplayer I see is specifically within the span of one stage, where you take a singleplayer game, let your friend(s) hop in and turn it into a multiplayer match, but cannot advance to the next stage until it is converted back into a singleplayer game.

Exactly, I wish more people would read the FAQ and/or wiki.

Span of one stage... post-game? where the player can make their own adventure and many peeps can do it? (basically Spore: Galactic Adventures Explansion, or SAO's «The World Seed»)

EDIT: oooorrr, a mod. a simple mod that adds multiplayer.

I feel really bad to keep saying no to your suggestions, but I'm just putting in my thoughts on it.
The span of one stage thing was not what you were talking about, but rather like playing a strategy game with a few friends. Minigames almost. Not like galactic adventures.
As for a mod, you can't make a mod that has multiplayer. Well, I guess in theory you could, but it would be very, very difficult.
Speaking of that, will there be a "mission creator" like Galactic Adventures, or will that not be in?

I don't really care whether you say no or not. the thing is. why is a newcomer answering me?

SawerGreem wrote:

why is a newcomer answering me?

Because most of your questions have been discussed many times before, and Scottnov has taken the time to read older threads to find the answers. Also, see NickTheNick's response on the previous page if your not satisfied with Scottnov's responses.

Seregon wrote:

SawerGreem wrote:

why is a newcomer answering me?

Because most of your questions have been discussed many times before, and Scottnov has taken the time to read older threads to find the answers.  Also, see NickTheNick's response on the previous page if your not satisfied with Scottnov's responses.

What he said, and thanks for defending me.
Also, ranks are not everything. It simply shows how many posts you've made or if you are staff.
Sorry if I seemed mean, I didn't mean to, I was just losing my patience a little.

So, what about your organism's home? As in, an ant hill, a den, a tree or some other thing exclusive to your planet.
Would this kind of thing be in the behavior editor, or be seamlessly made by the player's interaction with the world? For example, if a creature stayed in trees a lot, over time, more of his or her kind would start to spend time in trees as well, effectively making them arboreal. This doesn't mean the creature is then "locked" to trees, but that's simply where they live, find food, or are safe from (most) predators. You could leave the trees at any time, and even attempt to change your home.
You could also have an ant-hill-like home like I said above, that has many members in a colony, or be solitary by spending time alone with your creature only and no herd or pack members. You could also have a herd-like "home", where your herd slowly roams in areas in which food is plentiful (at least, for that particular organism).

I've searched the forum for a while to see if there was any discussion on this, and I couldn't find anything. Sorry if my searches didn't work, and this WAS discussed before.

Scottnov wrote:

So, what about your organism's home? As in, an ant hill, a den, a tree or some other thing exclusive to your planet.
Would this kind of thing be in the behavior editor, or be seamlessly made by the player's interaction with the world? For example, if a creature stayed in trees a lot, over time, more of his or her kind would start to spend time in trees as well, effectively making them arboreal. This doesn't mean the creature is then "locked" to trees, but that's simply where they live, find food, or are safe from (most) predators. You could leave the trees at any time, and even attempt to change your home.
You could also have an ant-hill-like home like I said above, that has many members in a colony, or be solitary by spending time alone with your creature only and no herd or pack members. You could also have a herd-like "home", where your herd slowly roams in areas in which food is plentiful (at least, for that particular organism).

I've searched the forum for a while to see if there was any discussion on this, and I couldn't find anything. Sorry if my searches didn't work, and this WAS discussed before.

I asked a similar question to this before, but I didn't get any definitive answer then either. I know there was supposed to be a discussion on what the balance is on player action and Behavior Editor that was mentioned, but I never saw any sign of it.

As far as I know, this really is something we haven't decided on yet. Having the game define this based on the players actions may or may not be possible, so having some sort of control over this via the editor is more likely. This could do with further discussion at some point though.

Scottnov wrote:

So, what about your organism's home? As in, an ant hill, a den, a tree or some other thing exclusive to your planet.
Would this kind of thing be in the behavior editor, or be seamlessly made by the player's interaction with the world? For example, if a creature stayed in trees a lot, over time, more of his or her kind would start to spend time in trees as well, effectively making them arboreal. This doesn't mean the creature is then "locked" to trees, but that's simply where they live, find food, or are safe from (most) predators. You could leave the trees at any time, and even attempt to change your home.
You could also have an ant-hill-like home like I said above, that has many members in a colony, or be solitary by spending time alone with your creature only and no herd or pack members. You could also have a herd-like "home", where your herd slowly roams in areas in which food is plentiful (at least, for that particular organism).

I've searched the forum for a while to see if there was any discussion on this, and I couldn't find anything. Sorry if my searches didn't work, and this WAS discussed before.

In fact, organisms would probably naturally find homes as a result of the other elements of the game. In untrustedlife's prototype, photosynthetic cells would naturally find a spot and more or less stay in that area to absorb sunlight, whilst cells that were not photosynthetic were constantly on the move to find glucose floating around in the environment. Just the same, I would presume the circumstances of the organism will dictate how and where it decides to spend its time, so there is no need to include a specific home editor in the behaviour editor.

NickTheNick wrote:

Scottnov wrote:

So, what about your organism's home? As in, an ant hill, a den, a tree or some other thing exclusive to your planet.
Would this kind of thing be in the behavior editor, or be seamlessly made by the player's interaction with the world? For example, if a creature stayed in trees a lot, over time, more of his or her kind would start to spend time in trees as well, effectively making them arboreal. This doesn't mean the creature is then "locked" to trees, but that's simply where they live, find food, or are safe from (most) predators. You could leave the trees at any time, and even attempt to change your home.
You could also have an ant-hill-like home like I said above, that has many members in a colony, or be solitary by spending time alone with your creature only and no herd or pack members. You could also have a herd-like "home", where your herd slowly roams in areas in which food is plentiful (at least, for that particular organism).

I've searched the forum for a while to see if there was any discussion on this, and I couldn't find anything. Sorry if my searches didn't work, and this WAS discussed before.

In fact, organisms would probably naturally find homes as a result of the other elements of the game. In untrustedlife's prototype, photosynthetic cells would naturally find a spot and more or less stay in that area to absorb sunlight, whilst cells that were not photosynthetic were constantly on the move to find glucose floating around in the environment. Just the same, I would presume the circumstances of the organism will dictate how and where it decides to spend its time, so there is no need to include a specific home editor in the behaviour editor.

I was talking about the later stages, like aware or multicellular, but thanks for answering, at least I know the answer for the microbial stage!

For creature stage you should allow the player to have venom and saliva with deadly bacteria in it to help kill your prey or the animal that is attacking you. But of coarse your creature would need more nutrients.

giffman8 wrote:

For creature stage you should allow the player to have venom and saliva with deadly bacteria in it to help kill your prey or the animal that is attacking you. But of coarse your creature would need more nutrients.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, but that's okay.
Anyway, as for your idea, I think so, I mean, it is possible, spiders and many other insects do it.

Here is my miscellanious question:
What size/resolution is thrive and is it changeable?

Scottnov wrote:

giffman8 wrote:

For creature stage you should allow the player to have venom and saliva with deadly bacteria in it to help kill your prey or the animal that is attacking you. But of coarse your creature would need more nutrients.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, but that's okay.
Anyway, as for your idea, I think so, I mean, it is possible, spiders and many other insects do it.

There is the Gland part that is planned to be available that the player can choose what is produced in it and what the outlet for it is. This is to allow creatures to have venomous fangs or even be able to spray venom or even with the right mixtures, shoot fire (mind you this is like a bombardier beetle where the chemicals mix outside of the body).

TheRabiesGuineaPig wrote:

Here is my miscellanious question:
What size/resolution is thrive and is it changeable?

Could you please reduce the bright redness and size of your signature? I know it's fun to make a signature unique, but at the end of the day ones that are too large or noisy become very distracting.

In regards to the question, that is entirely up to the work done by the graphics programmers.

TheRabiesGuineaPig wrote:

What size/resolution is thrive and is it changeable?

It is fully customizable, I may have included my settings for it with the last release tho. All you need to do is delete the ogre.cfg file in your bin folder and restart the game, you can then change the graphics settings.

In the future we will have these options in-game naturally.