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

Excellent suggestion Oliveriver!

We have exactly just that, well almost. Its just what RodGame pointed out. Scio is currently in charge of renovating it, however, I'm sure he would appreciate any suggestions or help you could offer.

There should be a ~sciocont symbol we could flash into the sky when we need him, like Batman.

Oliveriver wrote:

I've been reading around on some of the topics from new members, and one common thing that keeps recurring is the fact that it's quite hard to get started on the forum. I also looked at an old thread about implementing a website rather than a forum, and I've created a simple prototype:

Spoiler:

As Thrive gets nearer (well, nearer than it has been) to its first stage being completed, we'll obviously need somewhere for discoverers of the game to go that's not the forum, maybe if they just want to find out about the game without trawling through the confusing mass of topics that the forum currently is. I know there's the ModDB site, and while that's better than the forum, it's not ideal.

You'll obviously have better ideas for what the buttons and text should be than me, and it'll need hosting (as far as I can tell from the previous thread on a website, no one's got it yet). I did create this as an actual HTML document before exporting it as a PNG, so the links work (at least the links to sites already up - the forum, ModDB page and Thrive Facebook page), and change colour when the mouse hovers over them. The text is as close as I could get to the actual font used for the logo, and the button shapes are based on ~sciocont's shattered theme.

This may be another idea that's not needed now, or even ever, but I think we could attract a lot more people both to help us and get excited about the game. What do you all think?

Olive, If you're experienced in web design and could make something like this happen, I'd love to have you work on our website. The problem is that I don't know how much we can customize it under our current host. I'd be able to provide you with plenty of assets, though.

So,
Several questions here. I'm trying to figure out the design direction here for the Aware stage....

These question I feel will help me come up with better ideas... For the game. I sense of direction if you will.

What is thus game going to be in the Aware stage
RTS. RTT. Or City Builder
RTS= equal quick decisive game play. Opponents are actively countering you as you move.
RTT= Essentially there is a moment you have a turn and an opponent has a turn.
City Builder= it's basically sim city to an extent with limited war strategy. It's more you against the environment. More sandbox like.

---------------------------------------------------

Map system????
Has the map system going to work. Again very important as this influences what the player can and can't see. I have not seen a thread on this...
this will influence how everything looks!!
Biomes, trade...

Aware stage does not involve the strategy mode. It is all in organism mode. It cannot be city builder since it is pre-civilization gameplay. Think late creature game in Spore.

Oh, ok
What about civilization stage then?

How will the civilization stage be? rts/RTT/ city builder?
That what I was meant in the first place, I guess. I took aware stage to be the final stages of the game like that involved industry and trade...


Have you guys talked about how the map will look like? For creature/aware stage and civilization stages?

Civilization is split into three stages; Society Stage, Industrial Stage, and Space Stage. I don't know which label to apply to it, and I am reluctant to give one, because it is quite dynamic. There are elements from all those genres that you mentioned in it. It is hard to sum up these three stages with a three letter acronym, so I would recommend you read up on the wiki, and/or older threads on the forum.

Edit: Regarding maps, the player will have a minimap on the GUI. For all the "Creature" stages, areas discovered on the map will slowly deteriorate over time if not visited. Once the player's species has attained civilization, there is an Invention called Cartography, which allows permanent map exploration, as in the map not fading away over time.

~sciocont wrote:

Oliveriver wrote:

I've been reading around on some of the topics from new members, and one common thing that keeps recurring is the fact that it's quite hard to get started on the forum. I also looked at an old thread about implementing a website rather than a forum, and I've created a simple prototype:

Spoiler:

As Thrive gets nearer (well, nearer than it has been) to its first stage being completed, we'll obviously need somewhere for discoverers of the game to go that's not the forum, maybe if they just want to find out about the game without trawling through the confusing mass of topics that the forum currently is. I know there's the ModDB site, and while that's better than the forum, it's not ideal.

You'll obviously have better ideas for what the buttons and text should be than me, and it'll need hosting (as far as I can tell from the previous thread on a website, no one's got it yet). I did create this as an actual HTML document before exporting it as a PNG, so the links work (at least the links to sites already up - the forum, ModDB page and Thrive Facebook page), and change colour when the mouse hovers over them. The text is as close as I could get to the actual font used for the logo, and the button shapes are based on ~sciocont's shattered theme.

This may be another idea that's not needed now, or even ever, but I think we could attract a lot more people both to help us and get excited about the game. What do you all think?

Olive, If you're experienced in web design and could make something like this happen, I'd love to have you work on our website. The problem is that I don't know how much we can customize it under our current host. I'd be able to provide you with plenty of assets, though.

I'd be happy to work on the design of it, if it's possible to get a host. My web design skills are not terribly good, although the program I use helps quite a lot. I'm sort of in the middle of a lot at the moment, though, so I won't be able to start really tackling it until at least next week.

Also ~sciocont, it's Oliver, not Olive. Sorry for the confusion, it seems to happen a lot.

NickTheNick wrote:

There should be a ~sciocont symbol we could flash into the sky when we need him, like Batman.

Definitely. In fact, that should be an easter egg or something.

Hey, i got questions. When a limb is thorn off, can i put a mechanical limb (when i have advanced technology). Can i make my own food and clothes, depending of the material they are made and the way they are made, the colors, they can increase health (armors and healthy food), happiness (candies and cool clothes) , science (food that estimulate your brain), gathering (backpacks). Can i make toys for children in the game? they can increase health ( toys that simulate surgery), gathering ( a little farm), science ( toys that teach about alchemy , biology and mechanics) and happiness ( fun toys). When a robot revolt happens, can i play as them if nobody survives? (sorry for bad english)

@Oliver-just PM me when you get some time. I'm open for working on this all next week, as far as I know.

@energypro- Don't worry too much about your English, we're pretty global here and can manage linguistic differences very well.

-Prosthetics could conceivably be attached to your current organism, but that's not of high concern to us right now.
You can make clothing using the Technology editor, we don't really consider food to be important enough to warrant much attention though
-You could make toys in the Technology Editor
-Feel free to play as whatever, so long as your technology enables it.

I haven't seen it anywhere, will there be a concept of food ? It would really make sense considering the level of detail we're trying to attain at microbe stage. Creature should have to eat in different way to produce their energy right ?

@energypro Those are nice ideas. Many of them have been discussed around the forum, dig in and you'll find a lot. Your english isn't that bad, you should work on the structure a bit and that would help!!

RodGame wrote:

I haven't seen it anywhere, will there be a concept of food ? It would really make sense considering the level of detail we're trying to attain at microbe stage. Creature should have to eat in different way to produce their energy right ?

Food is based off of the organism editor's tissues and what those tissues are made up of (compounds)

I have quenstion:
Whem we get to space stage, how we would buy things from other empires?I suggest:

-At early space stage, you cant buy from other empires beacuse of diferent currencys, but you can give them some resources what they need , and they give you resources what you need.

-When you deveplov some some universal currency for some galactic republic, federation,... you can use it to buy resources and tech from other empires.

Is this good? Does it need its own thread?

Not really, this isn't much of an issue. Even if you have different currencies, you can exchange between them, or else most nations in the world could not trade. As an alternative, you could give them resources instead of currency, something with direct value to them

I was looking through the wiki about this and have a few questions:

1.) It mentioned that "organisms can be forced out of a niche due to competition or predation." There is another way called "niche partitioning." Animals will actually focus (specialize) on a different food item (or any resource I suppose) if there is another animal competing for similar resources, for the purpose of avoiding competition. For example. If animal A and animal B were to populate an area to the point where they were now in competition with each other for food 1 and food 2 (which up to that point they each had been enjoying both 1 and 2 before they crossed paths), it would actually cost them less energy to specialize in one food item while the other animal specializes on the other. For Ex- animal A will now focus on food 1, while animal B will now focus on food 2. Game theory suggests that competition is very costly, and animals actually do this niche partitioning. Although, despite this, competition still exists because the benefit of winning is so great (and sometimes is the only option). Do you guys have something like that in your work on behavior or niches? This specialization can drive evolution. I can find more info if my explanation didn't make any sense.

2.) When a species evolves, possibly making different/newer niches available to it: Is there an incentive/reward to speed up evolution for the very trait/organism that allowed them to explore the new niche? For example, in the evolution of flight for vertebrates: when powered flight became available, completely untapped niches became available, which became an incredible driver of evolution for all kinds of flying animals. The benefit of tapping into an unused niche was too great for that trait (flight or wings) not to explode with adaptations.

3.) Also, are there any rules governing the behavior of prey such that even though there are abundant food supplies, prey still won't take full advantage of them due to predation being a stronger pressure than food? There are many instances where animals will not attempt to go to prime foraging areas simply because the presence of predators will not allow them. Or is it expected to handle itself? I feel like I'm not doing a good job explaining this question....

Mike

Excellent questions.

1.) We can treat evolution as a non-zero-sum game like this. Auto-Evo and biome management will have to be very carefully written to make ecosystems realistic.

2.) I've moved away from having predefined niches. If a population can thrive in a biome, it has a niche there. I don't know if we can have realistic simulation of explosions of adaptive radiation like you suggested.

3.) This falls down to the AI of prey species, and gets very specific and localized. I think the answer is probably no, but we can probably discuss implementation of this as a universal rule at some later point.

Those concept seems really hard to implement in a real gameplay design.

1) I'm by no mean an evolution expert, but wouldn't this case happen by itself ? I mean both animal won't agree on specializing. I would see it happening because one of them was more efficient at something, and it helped it reproduce its gene easier. If I'm getting it right, a good auto-evo system with AI prioritizing its food with its capacity would handle it by itself. The system would need to work really well to do it thought.

2) It'd be hard to implement by itself. Tuning AI to explore and spend more time where it is working good(i.e : being alone in its new niche) would be the best way to handle this IMO.

3) This one seems pretty simple if I understand you. Does it simply mean that Prey1 won't hunt Animal1 because he is aware that Prey2 might be close and eat him ? If so, Prey1 AI should calculate the benefits of hunting Animal1 with the risk of being eaten by Prey2(basic equation, just some variable to tweak) and it would be handled by itself.

3) My current concept on AI handles this. If many animals of specie A get killed on area A, that specie will learn that getting into area A is bad, of course unless the benefits on food outweight that danger.

In my current prototype I get 3 niches (check out the microbe prototype topic (as i couldn't make my own topic) I had to use his topic)
The Ai in my prototype is simple however due to adaptions creatures tend to stay in there own respective niches and environments without any code modification/hardcoding.
Just my 'two cents' as people would say.

What ai are you using? I eoul like to takr a look.

Also, can someone move his posts about to a new thread? to have both prototypes sepatated. Im on a phone so i cant myself.

Daniferrito wrote:

What ai are you using? I eoul like to takr a look.

Also, can someone move his posts about to a new thread? to have both prototypes sepatated. Im on a phone so i cant myself.

It is now seperated

The AI i am using is as simple as i could make it ( i will improve it but i'm currently testing the prototype), the cell will be always trying to engulf new parts and biomass, certain parts help the cell in different ways at the cost of energy, the cells that cant survive die, the cells that do survive tend to take up behaviors that I analyze and put down. The cells can split for about a quarter of there atp, There are many more rules i have detailed in the post, go ahead and check it out. It results is a shining example of natural selection, and evolution.

Sorry for interrupting a conversation, but I've composed a new theme for the landing of an individual on a planet's satellite:



(Doggit, you should receive a message containing it. If not, tell me.)

Also, I've found some time to work on the website design:

Index:

Spoiler:

Gallery page:

Spoiler:

If anyone else wants their images featured on the gallery page, send me a private message.

I have to wait to do anything, my Antivirus would let me get the new build because it has no reputation

This is the official version. I also added the effects;)

Doggit wrote:

This is the official version. I also added the effects;)

So i have idea:
Spae stage would start when this music would play, beacuse that would mean to you have made your first space travel with your species getting out of spaceship and landing somewhere.Also, it would be cool like having little bar in left corner, which shows in what stage are you now. And little cutscene at starting of space stage: Your species astronaut (not human, of course) in space suit (if moon isnt habitable) what you have desinged in TE, walking first steps on moon.

WilliamstheJohn wrote:

Doggit wrote:

This is the official version. I also added the effects;)

So i have idea:
Spae stage would start when this music would play, beacuse that would mean to you have made your first space travel with your species getting out of spaceship and landing somewhere.Also, it would be cool like having little bar in left corner, which shows in what stage are you now. And little cutscene at starting of space stage: Your species astronaut (not human, of course) in space suit (if moon isnt habitable) what you have desinged in TE, walking first steps on moon.

The first landing on the moon will almost certainly stage civilization.