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

Loony Toony wrote:

I released the 0.2.3 tutorial video (I hope it's 0.2.3, the link for 0.2.3 sent me to that download but it says 0.2.2 in the bottom right corner). To watch it search "thrive 0.2.3 tutorial" on YouTube, and it's around 6 and a half minutes long. I covered pretty much everything I knew about (or think I know about) from simple movement and orientation to cell processes. I know the video quality is... poor... but it's up nonetheless. Please let me know if I missed something or I got something wrong!

Cool video, really informative and well paced. Good work!

OK, I added an annotation when the carbon dioxide comes up saying they can be used in chloroplasts, and said how to add chloroplasts. Anything else I missed or got wrong?

Loony Toony wrote:

OK, I added an annotation when the carbon dioxide comes up saying they can be used in chloroplasts, and said how to add chloroplasts. Anything else I missed or got wrong?

... I think that's about it. Good work!

Guys, I know it's a bit late in development to bring this up but has anyone discussed radiotropism? Do you think it's too late to suggest creatures that feed off of ionizing radiation?

Atrox wrote:

Guys, I know it's a bit late in development to bring this up but has anyone discussed radiotropism? Do you think it's too late to suggest creatures that feed off of ionizing radiation?

... Probably not too late. If you look at recent releases, thermoplasts haven't been implemented yet, so the only difference between thermosynthesis and whatever else someone might suggest (electrosynthesis, radiotropism, etc.) is that thermosynthesis is decided on; anything else could always be added in, even after the Space Stage is implemented.

EDIT: Anything other than photosynthesis would probably only survive as extremophiles, though. Hydrothermal vents are the only place where thermotrophs would be able to survive because everywhere else where water could be is too cold, and where a radiotroph would live is anyone's guess. Electrotrophs might be common on a really stormy planet in the form of metallic algae and lightningrod trees.

Wow that's some good stuff

EDIT: I would assume a radiotrophic organism would exist in an area that is highly irradiated like a nuclear fallout zone, a planet with a thin atmosphere, or a nuclear power plant

Atrox wrote:

Guys, I know it's a bit late in development to bring this up but has anyone discussed radiotropism? Do you think it's too late to suggest creatures that feed off of ionizing radiation?

That was the problem with the old GUI, it was really hard to add new organelles. But with the new one it should be really easy to just say what a part does and plop it onto the parts wheel, you don't even need much programming knowledge.

The Creator wrote:

Atrox wrote:

Guys, I know it's a bit late in development to bring this up but has anyone discussed radiotropism? Do you think it's too late to suggest creatures that feed off of ionizing radiation?

That was the problem with the old GUI, it was really hard to add new organelles. But with the new one it should be really easy to just say what a part does and plop it onto the parts wheel, you don't even need much programming knowledge.

Yup! Really helps for mods. And that people can go back and add something at any time. Like doing bugfixing for the Microbe Stage while Ascension is coming together.

Wait so we should be able to make our own organelles??

Atrox wrote:

Wait so we should be able to make our own organelles??

Not in-game (https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t192-custom-organelles), as the linked topic says shortly before veering off the rails. Mods are always possible, though, and suggestions in the future could always work.

Hey guys! I'm currently reading an interesting book called "Exquise Planète", which means "Exquisite Planet"in French, written by 3 scientists and a sci-fi writer (and unfortunately it doesn't exist in English) and it is about a planet which could have been ours if random had so decided it.
I've seen some vocabulary that reminded me of Thrive ( like the organelles, mitochondria, etc...) and it has some interesting lifeforms concept (for example, beings that adapted to a volcanic environment, or even "organic islands", a flying ecosystem, and bunch of other stuff.) And this gave me some ideas:

- Could the microbes use electricity to defend themselves? In the book, certain big "bactoïds" like they are called, have thin mud particles on their membranes which allow them to stick to each other and thus forms clusters. These contacts and frictions provokes electrons exchange and polarize their membrane, which attract other bactoïds floating around. Regarding defense, in the game, there could be a special organelle/compound/whatever that produces electricity.

-Could "mega-organisms" be possible in Thrive? Like those "living islands" who are actually clusters of multicellular organisms who moves according to the wind, current and tides. (By the way, will there be tides?)

-Could there be organisms that feeds on gases? Like the "vulcaïds" who adapted to volcanic environments and feeds on sulfur and methan.

-Could there be flying organisms that uses gases to move? In the book, there are organisms called the "aerozoa", who first adopted a hot air ballon-like shape to float in the atmosphere and to withstand the pressure, and through the years some of them mutated and developped a propulsion system via gases expulsions which allow them to steer. Some of them came back to the grounds, finding near the volcanos suitable microclimates whose sulfur vapor allows them to experiment new propulsion gases. Through the years, they adopted various shapes, such as missiles and kites.

Something I like about this book is that it mention several time that evolution is basically "try and error".

MitochondriaBox wrote:

Mods are always possible

And in fact, a new organelle is probably one of the easier things to mod in right now: if your organelle is similar enough to one of the current organelle implementations, all you need to do is define the MP cost of the organelle, and create an OrganelleFactory factory function for your new organelle, which will define all the (other) properties of the organelle. Read the bottom of organelle.lua, and blahblah_organelle.lua for those. Then, if you want the organelle available in the editor, you look through microbe_editor.lua and microbe_editor_hud.lua -- there are a bunch of very similar chunks of code, one for each organelle, and you just copypaste the similarest bits and modify a little. If you want the AI cells to have the organelle, you needn't bother with the editor stuff, but can just create/modify templates in microbes.xml.

Looking through the relevant editor code, it strikes me that there's a lot of boilerplate, and I'm trying to decide right now if it's worth refactoring. If it is, then the above stuff might get even simpler.

It sounds like an interesting read! If only I was good enough at French...

However, I think that mega-organisms couldn't exist as they probably wouldn't be able to be supported by their environment due to the huge amounts of food they would need to consume. Also, creatures sizes are very much limited by the effects of gravity which is why the biggest creature ever exists in the sea; the blue whale! That's if what you're talking about is one organism because you also mention clusters of multicellular organisms. In that case it could exist I guess. I mean look at coral polyps which forms vast amounts of coral.

Also, I don't think any advanced organisms could survive off of gases alone as not all things required to build an animal can reasonably be found in gaseous form. Although, there are some bacteria that create materials out of methane . Also, look at giant tube worms that use bacteria to fix carbon dioxide and produce sugars and amino acids. However, I don't know if this could be replicated on a larger scale to support larger organisms.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure about the floating organisms but interesting random fact: did you know some small spiders go ballooning? Yes, our eight-legged arachnid buddies can use create a parachute to be lifted off an dispersed. Amazing!

ElementalRed wrote:

stuff

• Electricity: Pretty much all cells have polarized membranes -- they use the associated electrochemical gradients as a store of energy. However, that energy isn't really harnessable to zap anything -- we're talking tiny charge differentials here, not nearly enough voltage to move enough electrons far enough to cause a current arc. So, pretty much a no on this one, since it isn't what you're thinking.
  
• Mega-organisms: We've got giant organisms already -- generally networks of sessile clones, like a massive fungal web or the trembling aspen. We also have large masses of floating organisms -- the Sargasso Sea being my favorite; where large networks of seaweed cover a huge expanse, sheltering turtles, eel larvae, and other things. Put those two together, maybe with a much more nutrient-rich ocean, and I could totally see large masses of floating seaweed, thick enough to walk on in places, drifting on the current.
  
• Tides: Probably quite important for realism when simulating the evolutionary transition to land, as for feasibility, we'll figure that out when we get there
  
• Gas-feeding: We feed on gas already -- we get all of our energy by feeding on oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms feed on CO2, and some on N2, in these case for biosynthesis. Purple sulfur bacteria feed on hydrogen sulfide, the list goes on. So, organisms already feed on gases. However, due to the water-based nature of the biochemistry of life, the gases have to be dissolved/intermixed in water, which limits how much food is available to a methanotroph, for example, which is one reason they're all prokaryotic. So, in the end, it all depends. I don't think we're planning on dealing with life based around a hydrocarbon/sulfur reducing atmosphere, for example, but whether we'll support smaller environments like that is a good question.
  
• Farting balloons: Sure! A more dense atmosphere, hopefully warmer and more humid, so you can go higher without dessication or freezing, make them biosynthetically inflate with methane or hydrogen to store energy, and up and away they go!
  
• "Try and error": Good for them
  

EDIT: Oh yeah and to everybody: The game does indeed say 0.2.2 at the bottom right corner -- that was an oversight, and with the next release it'll say 0.2.4.

Since we're talking about cells and electricity, I just thought I'd leave this link about cells that eat electricity. Watch the video first.

I remember one of my first posts on this topic was asking about cell editor stuff, so I just remembered I was going to post it. Please don't laugh at my terrible art.


Proposed new cell editor and modelling
• Appearance is smooth; collision can remain hexagonal
• To make this work you need one model created per drawn green shape in the exact shape they are(I know some are hard to make out, sorry)
• Put all these into a “part library” of some sort to be used when needed in-game
• Every part is on the top half of the picture.
Process of how it should work
1. In cell editor, you place a new piece the same way you do now (place a part on a hexagonal grid, connecting to your other parts)
2. When you place a new part (green on the chart), it sends a signal to all neighboring grid spaces and to itself
3. When signal is received, the new part or neighbor of it checks the spaces neighboring it
4. Based on the where parts are and aren’t in the spaces adjacent to the signal-receiver, the part knows which example in the chart it is similar to
5. Based on which example it is similar to, it changes its appearance to match the one corresponding in the example
Basically, whenever a piece is added, it and the adjacent pieces go into recalculate mode, where they look at their neighbors as if they were the green piece on the chart of examples, and change their appearance accordingly.
To see this process visually, it’s on the bottom half of the picture.

Quote :

Proposed new cell editor and modelling

We are working on a more dynamic membrane for the microbes in the editor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W20rDBK70_0 also the organelles won't need to be packed together so closely, simply alligned in the hex.

I already watched that, and my only problem with that was the corners on what should be a circular organism. That was pretty much my goal when I scraped this together. Other than that the cell editor in the video is fine for me.

A bit out of the blue, but would anyone mind if I wrote down some thoughts in how I think eggs and some related topics should be like in the game?

StealthStyle L wrote:

A bit out of the blue, but would anyone mind if I wrote down some thoughts in how I think eggs and some related topics should be like in the game?

I'd love to read that. Those types of things interest me a lot, feel free to!
As a side note, I would like to know a bit more about how flight would work, and maybe put down my thoughts on flight mechanics and such.

Reddit would probably allow for more flexibility on discussing that topic, as there you could create a new thread on it and get anyone else on the subreddit involved.

Gotcha!
I'll do it there.

It seems a lot of newer people who find the project seem to think the game will be released one time "when it's finished". Some more clarification on this and saying it will be released in segments would probably be for the best.

Scottnov wrote:

It seems a lot of newer people who find the project seem to think the game will be released one time "when it's finished". Some more clarification on this and saying it will be released in segments would probably be for the best.

It's technically always "released" and will never be "finished," but I assume the game being "finished" would refer to the game having the capability to go from Microbe to Ascension.

Could take years, really, but it's all determined by how many developers we have available.

... For example, I'd say the Multicellular Stage'll be started on by 2020, at the rate we're going, unless Auto-Evo, population dynamics, AI, all the agents, and various editor features are easier to implement than I realize. So, about 6 years, but it could be reduced by some the more developers we attract; could shrink all the way down to 2018, just 4 years, with enough attracted developers!

We'll certainly have some more crew by the Aware Stage, though, so thing's speed up exponentially. Not "Space Stage in a matter of days"-level speed, but much faster (maybe just 5 years a stage).

MitochondriaBox wrote:

Multicellular Stage'll be started on by 2020

On the contrary - if everything goes to plan, it should be started at some point next year or, in the worst case scenario, the year after. After 0.2.4 (the timescale for which basically depends on how quickly I can get this Belgium GUI working, but shouldn't be more than a week or two more), we're planning to start promoting Thrive, seeing as it should finally be at a stage where potential team members won't be turned away by its crude appearance. Hopefully that should get a whole lot more developers on board (and quite possibly attract some older members back), shortening the completion time for each successive update.

The features you mention have all been partially implemented and have involved significant discussion already, so they shouldn't take too long to implement fully, providing we have enough dedicated programmers by then. In the long term, it gets a bit ambiguous, but I'd be surprised if we don't reach a point where we can make one stage per year, even if it only gets that fast towards the end of development.