Devblog #42: Endosymbiosis Time

Thrive

An evolution simulation game. Take control of your species in the environment and edit your species as a whole. Compete with other evolving species for resources on an alien planet.

With the slew of backend changes from previous updates now finally done and out of the way, development was centered entirely on the development of new features for the past few months. And now, with the release of Thrive 0.6.7, we bring you the long awaited endosymbiosis feature, toxin customization, ferroplast organelle, and much more! [img]https://i0.wp.com/revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/Multitoxin.jpg?w=1203&ssl=1[/img] [h1]Thrive 0.6.7[/h1] [previewyoutube=AxKTO3iglGs;full][/previewyoutube] See the full patch notes at the end or read on for some of the highlights. [h1]Day & Night Fully Implemented[/h1] [img]https://i0.wp.com/revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/img2.jpg?resize=1500%2C844&ssl=1[/img] The day/night cycle was originally implemented way back in 0.6.0 as an experimental feature. Today we are proud to announce that it has finally made it’s way into the game proper as a mainline feature and will always be active by default! Photosynthesizers beware the long night, as the sun is no longer a constant source of energy. Photosynthesizing players will have access to dedicated editor widgets that will help them calculate how much energy they produce, and how much they need to survive the night. AI has been updated to account for the time cycle, and cells dependent on solar energy will become less active when the sun sets. Cells that spawn during the night will have their storage adjusted so they can survive despite. Afraid of the dark? The day/night cycle can still be toggled off in the game settings on new-game start. [h1]Endosymbiosis[/h1] [img]https://i0.wp.com/revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/Endo.jpg?w=1197&ssl=1[/img] The long awaited symbionts are finally here! Predatory players now have a unique method of kickstarting the evolution of compartmentalized processes by recruiting engulfed prey to serve their needs! When the player engulfs a bacterial species they may be able to find that same species in the new endosymbiosis menu in their next editor session, where they will have the option to use the species to unlock an associated eukaryotic organelle. [h1]Ferroplast Organelle[/h1] [img]https://i0.wp.com/revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/Ferroplast.jpg?w=871&ssl=1[/img] Iron appreciators rejoice, for there is finally a eukaryotic organelle for the chemolithoautotrophy process! This brand new hypothetical part, called the ferroplast, permits a more efficient way to harness those Fe- ions out there. [h1]Expanded Toxin Varieties[/h1] [img]https://i0.wp.com/revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/Toxins.jpg?w=1197&ssl=1[/img] With this update comes some brand new toxin varieties for players to weaponize themselves with. Each of the four toxin types have unique effects that can hinder your target in a variety of ways. Each toxin will also have it’s own unique colour when fired, so let those vivid colours fly loose! [h1]Other Notable Changes[/h1] [list] [*]Buffed cell corpse chunks [*]Added alternative unlock condition for oxytoxisome that unlocks it after dying multiple times, this models how prey species can become toxic instead of only predator species having access to toxin [*]Added custom inventory item drag icons and updated land tree placeholder model [*]Added a display in the editor showing how long each compound takes to fill up, this will hopefully help in planning for how to survive the night with enough resource generation during the day [*]Made auto-evo consider surviving the night more to penalize species with not enough storage or resource stocking up during the day [*]Created a new custom model for ice chunks to be separate from the particle effects also present in the patch [*]Added custom model and icon for injectisome upgrade [/list] [h1]Looking Ahead[/h1] With this update, a bulk of the tasks planned for the 0.6.x release cycle have been completed. Players may be able to look forward to the implementation of a stamina and sprinting system, new cell parts and customization, and expanded features for toxins. As always, remember to join us for our developer Thrivestream later today, where we’ll cover the changes in this release and answer any questions you might have about the future of development. [previewyoutube=LWHaFapWQYE;full][/previewyoutube] You can also visit [url=https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/0-6-7-general-feedback-thread/7512]our feedback thread[/url] to give your thoughts on this update. [h1]Full Patch Notes[/h1] [list] [*]Implemented endosymbiosis. It is now possible to engulf other species to turn them into free organelles and also to unlock those organelles in an alternative way compared to the normal unlock conditions. [*]Added customization for toxin organelles to select various toxin types that have different effects than oxytoxy [*]Added different colours for different toxin types [*]Day/night cycle is now enabled by default but can still be turned off [*]Added ferroplast organelle, which is the eukaryotic variant of rusticyanin [*]Cells spawning close to night time (or during night) get extra resources to help them survive the night [*]Buffed cell corpse chunks [*]Added alternative unlock condition for oxytoxisome that unlocks it after dying multiple times, this models how prey species can become toxic instead of only predator species having access to toxin [*]Added custom inventory item drag icons and updated land tree placeholder model [*]Fixed auto-evo mutations code using exceptions for normal flow control, this fixes at least one identified case where the game would freeze completely [*]Fixed compound bars when max storage amount is less than 1 [*]Fixed fluid currents system force not applying, this bug was likely present ever since the ECS refactor [*]Fixed iron chunk collision model scaling and fixed their rotation differences compared to the visual models [*]Fixed HUD messages font shadow not working [*]Fixed a brief flash of the game when exiting the freebuild editor for the first time [*]Fixed multiline text edit style not working correctly [*]Fixed cheats being able to enable the editor button when already going to the editor which allowed causing a crash in the game by clicking the button again [*]Fixed some problems related to multicellular species trying to enter binding mode [*]Made AI cells that depend on resources that aren't present during the night be more sessile during it [*]Added new GUI and warnings to the editor to show if storage space and compound production during the day is enough to survive the night for photosynthesisers [*]Added a display in the editor showing how long each compound takes to fill up, this will hopefully help in planning for how to survive the night with enough resource generation during the day [*]Made auto-evo consider surviving the night more to penalize species with not enough storage or resource stocking up during the day [*]Created a new custom model for ice chunks to be separate from the particle effects also present in the patch [*]Added support for organelle upgrades overriding the base model of the organelle, which will be used more in the future [*]Added custom model and icon for injectisome upgrade [*]Added custom physics time to metrics panel, this feature was done last December but somehow forgotten to be added until now [*]Added support for loading more shape types to our physics engine integration in preparation for use with organelle shapes [*]Created custom collision shapes for all organelles to finally properly fix them [*]Tweaked glucose reduction effect code a tiny bit to be clearer [*]Made orphaned node count in metrics panel ignore intentionally cached nodes [*]Improved organelle model data handling to keep model path variables and scenes in a single data container to avoid future mistakes with mixing up data for different scenes [*]Fixed some code warnings and fixed a bug in metaball moving that this uncovered where the parent metaball reference was not updated correctly [*]Removed unused thermoplast mesh file [*]Updated Jolt Physics engine [*]Updated YamlDotNet from 15.1.2 to 15.1.6 [*]Updated xunit from 2.8.0 to 2.8.1 [*]Updated code checking tools [*]Updated translations [/list]