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

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Any good progress made yet? The GitHub progress bar hasn't increased, but I don't know how well updated that is.

The bar is just for some features I have picked to be part of the next release, it increases when one of those features are finished. It's not really a good indicator of progress in general but rather how close we are to the next release (It is still being discussed here: https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t1276-thrive-releases What will be in the next release, so it's not even useful for that atm.)

If you want to see general progress you can check for activity on the news page for github: https://github.com/orgs/Revolutionary-Games/dashboard

I have had my exams this past month and haven't had much energy to spend on thrive development but I'm back and working on it now

how will plant life start?

Good question -- the embryogenesis idea for storing and working with organism body plans should make creating plant or plant-like organisms easy. You simply use a L-system-based template: create a structure,  assign it to a signal, and place that signal on the structure itself. Boom, recursive growth (with signal reduction to control depth), you have branching plant-like thing. With more complicated signal use you can make more complicated things, like trunks, and flowers.

The biggest thing that discussion leaves undecided is how we (or the player) will choose whether structures grow before birth or during life -- since, obviously, it's infeasible and nonsensical for a tree to hatch fully-grown from a seed, but it's also silly to have to play as an unborn fetus.

BIG EDIT: Since that only really answers how plants are made in OE, here's some idea for how plant life will probably develop:
A free-floating photosynthetic microbe develops a cell wall. Thanks to the structural strength of the wall, when the microbe divides, it's more likely than not that the daughter cells stay attached. So, you get the growth of filaments, like algae. These form mats of floating green most likely. The microbe evolves to better coexist with neighbours, maybe even sharing food stores. They could colonize land at this point, by which time there'll be heavy pressure for members of the colony to differentiate, separating concerns.

How this will all be reflected in-game, though, is a little more up in the air.

Do you guys think Psychic power could be developed through brain upgrades? Pretty sure it's not possible in real life, and if you didn't end up adding it to the game it would make for a pretty cool mod.

Searched around a bit on the forums, couldn't find much about this.

Ok, so it's probably (not  :lol: ) been noticed that I've been pretty much away from the forum for a while. Can someone get me up to speed on what's been accomplished please?

Why shore:

Progress has been happening. Crovea and I are coding away, I've cleaned up the wiki something fierce (but you might've been here to notice), I've been (kinda) busy getting the website working on a new hosting system (not quite ready yet I'd say), I think we've gone through another iteration of the Microbe GDD, music and art teams continue growing, I think we'll have a new programmer on the team in a short while, a release is scheduled for the end of july (with a whole bunch of new features of course), and I've probably missed something cuz what comes to mind easiest is the stuff I'm involved in.

@Scottnov After thinking about it carefully, I've decided I can't see any technological way to create psychics that can do anything more than communicate with other psychics. And that's assuming brain chips. However, you can do anything with brain chips, provided you can use it to control the right tool. But I'm not sure if you'd call a brain-chip-controlled raygun a psychic power

moopli wrote:

Why shore:

Progress has been happening. Crovea and I are coding away, I've cleaned up the wiki something fierce (but you might've been here to notice), I've been (kinda) busy getting the website working on a new hosting system (not quite ready yet I'd say), I think we've gone through another iteration of the Microbe GDD, music and art teams continue growing, I think we'll have a new programmer on the team in a short while, a release is scheduled for the end of july (with a whole bunch of new features of course), and I've probably missed something cuz what comes to mind easiest is the stuff I'm involved in.

Awesome, and thank you. Have a plus vote for your trouble  :) 

moopli wrote:

Why shore:
@Scottnov After thinking about it carefully, I've decided I can't see any technological way to create psychics that can do anything more than communicate with other psychics. And that's assuming brain chips. However, you can do anything with brain chips, provided you can use it to control the right tool. But I'm not sure if you'd call a brain-chip-controlled raygun a psychic power

I was talking about the more "creature" stages, like Aware or Multicellular, actually.

Oh, well that's almost definitely ASB modding material.

@Immortal_Dragon Here, free rep for giving me rep

Will stridulation be possible in creature stage? Like say I want to make a giant cricket would there be a way to make noise by rubbing two body parts together? If so would we be able to adjust the pitch and length?

Atrox wrote:

Will stridulation be possible in creature stage? Like say I want to make a giant cricket would there be a way to make noise by rubbing two body parts together? If so would we be able to adjust the pitch and length?

possibly, we'll worry about that during the behavior development

For some strange reason, the forum stops emailing me after a while and I forget to check for progress.

So, INCONSISTENT PROGRESS CHECK! Anything significant, new releases or anything?

Also on the subject of psychics and stuff, in Mass Effect there were biotics, who were SCIENCEY psychics, due to element zero and stuff. However, there are compounds in reality (superfluid he-3) that actually have zero point energy and stuff that defies conventional physics, has no viscosity, and other weird stuff like being able to go against gravity and climb out of a container. Having some superfluids in your bloodstream could possibly, under the right conditions, make a phenomenon similar to telekinesis/biotics/magic/whatever the hell you want to call it. It sounds Sci-Fi and very unrealistic, but you have to admit it makes a little bit of sense.



(also new avatar hooray)

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

For some strange reason, the forum stops emailing me after a while and I forget to check for progress.

So, INCONSISTENT PROGRESS CHECK! Anything significant, new releases or anything?

A new release is coming out at the end of the month unless it gets delayed and a the website is getting revamped.

Do you think it would be possible to have projectile attacks? I'm sure things like spraying "acid" would be available, but what about launching a stinger?
Say a creature has a stinger on it's tail, once it is fully grown, the stinger "detaches" from the main body, and miniature "fingers" hold it in place. Now, similar to a throwing motion, the creature throws, or launches the stinger and releases it's fingers. Provided this attack lands, it could inject poison or just damage the enemy. After some time this stinger grows back (fairly quickly to ensure that hunting is easier) and the process repeats. Or am I a complete idiot and this could not happen, ever?
Also, could we talk a bit more about combat? Bits and pieces are already shown but we don't really have a good idea of what it would be like besides a few threads making suggestions, really. I think this should be added to the wiki for all the stages.

Scottnov wrote:

Or am I a complete idiot and this could not happen, ever?.

Got two solutions for you, sonny.

Well, since bees can belguiming do... this, you're probably not an idiot. (http://www.cracked.com/article_19694_7-species-that-got-screwed-over-by-mother-nature_p2.html)

Just look at #1 on the list.

Granted, it doesn't really shoot it, but it still detatches due to the sheer force. If something can do... that for mating, you can probably do that for fighting, as well, perhaps over longer distances.

Or you could read this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projectile_use_by_living_systems)

I would never have brought up tarantula hair, for example. Just doesn't come to mind, but it counts as a ranged attack.

MitochondriaBox wrote:

Scottnov wrote:

Or am I a complete idiot and this could not happen, ever?.

Got two solutions for you, sonny.

Well, since bees can belguiming do... this, you're probably not an idiot. (http://www.cracked.com/article_19694_7-species-that-got-screwed-over-by-mother-nature_p2.html)

Just look at #1 on the list.

Granted, it doesn't really shoot it, but it still detatches due to the sheer force. If something can do... that for mating, you can probably do that for fighting, as well, perhaps over longer distances.

Or you could read this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projectile_use_by_living_systems)

I would never have brought up tarantula hair, for example. Just doesn't come to mind, but it counts as a ranged attack.

Yeah, tarantula hair is more of a distraction and irritation rather than something that damages the foe.

Scottnov wrote:

Yeah, tarantula hair is more of a distraction and irritation rather than something that damages the foe.

True. But if a player got hold of an organism editor part like tarantula hair, they could do all sorts of things to it that could make it something more damaging. Especially when they're aiming for the eyes in the behavior editor.

And if something on Earth can do this, something on another planet could do something like this, too. Maybe with something else, like spikes. It'd need a means of launching them, but it's not too hard if you've got millions of years to perfect it.

Really useless post, but will steampunk things be possible?

Because that would be amazing.

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Really useless post, but will steampunk things be possible?

Because that would be amazing.

Well... Steampunk, Cyberpunk and such things I think it's possible, just like an Orwellian society (I refer to "1984", the dystopian novel by George Orwell).

Madero wrote:

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Really useless post, but will steampunk things be possible?

Because that would be amazing.

Well... Steampunk, Cyberpunk and such things I think it's possible, just like an Orwellian society (I refer to "1984", the dystopian novel by George Orwell).

Yep. Basically, you could have a particular "punk" by having a certain tech editor object (like steam engines) appear consistently in your architecture and other things. It might not be best for your species/nation (especially when you have an enemy that isn't so specialized), but it makes for some neat aesthetics.

EDIT: Couldn't find out anywhere; when you guys are animating flagella, will they be 2D-squigglers, or 3D-corkscrewers? Just a minor question.

Random and useless but still intresting idea:

During the aware/multicellular phase, your organism's brain can be upgraded, correct?

Once you advance to things beyond that, where you would get SCIENCE! to get stuff on a tech tree, which I assume is how it will work, will your brainpower affect how fast you get new technologies? For instance, if organism A has a better brain then organism B, will organism A get SCIENCE! faster then organism B?

That would allow different ways of approaching things, rather then just sticking sharp things on your species and hoping for the best.

PropTheRedstoner wrote:

Random and useless but still intresting idea:

During the aware/multicellular phase, your organism's brain can be upgraded, correct?

Once you advance to things beyond that, where you would get SCIENCE! to get stuff on a tech tree, which I assume is how it will work, will your brainpower affect how fast you get new technologies? For instance, if organism A has a better brain then organism B, will organism A get SCIENCE! faster then organism B?

That would allow different ways of approaching things, rather then just sticking sharp things on your species and hoping for the best.

This sounds like an interesting idea. However it would probably be tough to implement aside from just a small blanket bonus to say, research speed.

EDIT: I am also partially wondering about reviving the Concept Race thread and whether it is appropriate at this point in time or not.

So, from my observations, in the upcoming update which should be out in the next few days (wasn't it supposed to come out at the end of July?), the main features are allowing for plant organisms and making the graphics better?

Today is the end of July, technically -- July runs from [Jul 1, Aug 1). But you're right, we should release something already, it's been 2 months. See my edit on the milestones thread. The main features, as of now, are:

• Multiple AI species
  
• Saving and loading microbes
  
• Mutation Points
  
• Photosynthesis
  
• Zooming in and out
  

just asking when will the cells look like cells and not honeycombs?