Difficulty Confirmation

Interesting idea. Ultimately we don't know how difficulty will be modulated. I think a lot of it will be how many mutation points you get in the editor. If you get a lot then you can easily keep changing to conquer your circumstances. If you get a few you will have to think very carefully about which changes are the most important.

There are probably a lot of other ways of modulating difficulty.

Sharks have been the same for millions of years so they should be able to.

Well of course it wouldn't! Underwater civs aren't a thing

A species take 2 million years to get throw Awakening, Society, Industrial and even Space. If you are in aware in the same time you can get from being a lizard to being a slightly more big and colourful lizard. You don't have a chance.

Colourful lizards don't make machines.

I know there is no fair game in evolution, but sapience is very improbable, and as the effect of a sapient species is impossible to predict, and you would be powerless against it ( making the game no fun anymore) I don't think we should let any species reach sapience before yours.

I agree with veyraa. While it would certainly be hard for auto evo to cope with (and maybe even harder for CPA), the idea as relayed from old posts, the wiki, and other resources has long called for the possibility of being passed by. I think that it's important that any potential feature of the sort be controlled by difficulty sliders or some such, but I do not think it should be outright forbade (to say nothing of how awesome it would be if a civilization annihilated itself while the player was being a fish and then the player rose to prominence in the ruins thereof).

This could definitely work. Instead of simulating a species moving past your stage, since this would be an blink of evolutionary time, we could just say that they got extinct by the time you made one more generation, put a bunch of ruins, and give the player a natural disaster, such as 99% of all species dead and the oceans/air/land polluted.

Alright I've finally rested and replenished my energy stores.
Mr. The Uteen and Mr. TheCreator ... tell me what you think of this:

I agree with everything that's been said here and here's how I think it could be done.

So the main issue we're facing is the fact that a society advances technologically much faster than an organism advances biologically. Realistically, many civilizations will rise and fall in the time that an organism will undergo any significant evolutionary change. If you're playing in the Aware stage and a settlement of sorts exists at the same time, chances are that one trip to the Organism Editor (millions, if not billions, of in-game years) will provide enough time for any existing civilization to:

1. Get wiped out.
2. Go from stone age to space age.
3. Belgium up the planet.

Apart from the inconsistent time jumps, this also has the potential to cause some problems for the player. They might enter the Organism Editor to further adapt to their rain forest environment and come back to find that the rain forests have been cut down entirely. Congratulations, you're extinct. 

So how do we avoid this problem? Easy. Make the rate of Civilized AI progression dependent on the player's progression.

The way I see it, every trip to the editor jumps you forward a good million years or more. However if you just don't enter the editor, time will have no reason to skip forwards. You can play as the same organism for a looong time and nothing will change (except after a while, civilizations could advance on a normal time scale. If you wait long enough, maybe they'll wipe themselves out, allowing you to evolve normally with no risk again).

But what if the player wants to evolve anyway but still wants the civilization to stick around? Answer: They can be domesticated and subjected to artificial selection. The way it'd work is every once in a while, the Civ AI will attempt to interact with the player organism in a "friendly" (i.e. not killing them outright. Capturing and feeding are options) manner. The player can choose to resist and remain wild and free of course, but if the player allows the Civ AI to interact with them, they can begin the process of domestication. When undergoing domestication the player is able to enter the organism editor and modify their organism without screwing up the time scale. 

There is a catch though: You will not have as many MP to work with. Why? You are being domesticated. You are subject to the will of your captors. There will be certain parameters for what animals will be needed for their civilization such as livestock, pets, pets, mounts, etc. The Civ AI (or the player) will decide what they will do with the unused MP to fit their parameters. This would allow the player to join their Civ AI overlords on other planets if they ever manage to achieve space travel.

If the player doesn't want to be domesticated and still wants to evolve normally, they can do so as well. This provides the player with plenty of interesting scenarios such as exploring ruins, interacting with possible surviving AI, or attempting to survive the harsh environment they have suddenly found themselves in.

Jeez that took a long time to write out. That's all I've got. I feel like I started off strong and got weaker towards the end there, so if you guys have any questions just ask and I'd be happy to clarify.

Yep I was thinking you'd be partially subjected to Auto-Evo while being domesticated. Either that or they'd be limited to certain mutations for a certain number of MP. If we want to give the player the ability to choose which form of domesticated animal they want to be I suggest the latter.

The way it'd work is you'd enter the OE like normal with the standard number of MP, but a portion of MP is locked into certain mutations fitting the parameters required to be domesticated (a change in overall size, strength of muscles, etc.). The player can use the remaining MP for whatever they'd like.

For example if my creature was basically an alien sheep of some sort, and I wanted to become the local Civ AI's pet I would allow my sheep to get captured. Once I'm in the OE there might be a little notification bar along the top with scrolling text notifying me that due to my species undergoing domestication, half of my MP will be allocated to [enter parameters here]. To be a pet let's say the parameters are to be a smaller size and strength, while also getting way fluffier. I spend half of my MP on one of these (or all of these) parameters and use my remaining MP to change the color of my wool or something. Eventually my species has become this small, colorful ball of fluff. Completely domesticated.

I remember there talk of a caste editor? If that's the case it'd be perfect to create different "breeds" of your species.