Microbe -> Multicellular transition

In terms of determining cell viability for its job, I suggest that every feature the player can place has associated behaviors in the behavior editor.

These features would be things like Apatite excreters, myosin fibers, or acid storage vacuoles (to say a few). These would be either unlocked by interaction with the environment or available from the start and balanced with appropriate mutation costs.

The player would then edit the behavior of each cell type as it's created to make things that don't have to be bones or muscles, but can serve those as well as other functions if they can perform all desired behaviors and reactions.

Pros: Modular, easily changeable, allows for weird-as-Belgium biologies, allows for very different gameplay experiences across playthroughs, ensures that adaptations are maximally reactive to environmental situations.

Cons: High up-front implementation resource requirement, can lead to potentially LAWK-breaking scenarios, very complicated and time consuming for players.

Example: Base Cell+Myelin Coat+Axon Extension+Dendrite Extensions

If exposed to stimulus at Dendrite, Then produce current across Axon

Taking it further: Each feature could also upgrade levels, in this example a Level 1 Axon could produce a low response in affected cells, but each level higher increases its ability to carry out communication.


Edit: So I suppose this falls mostly under the latter category of Organelles determining function, but it'd be cool to hybridize it with a shape system as well.

Yeah, I got excited and jumped in without explaining well. Sorry.

So I'll do an order of events and hopefully it will illuminate my position:

1) Player develops ability to go multicellular and enters the multicellular stage.
2) The multicellular stage organism editor is opened.
3) Now the player can open a second tab in the editor to create a new cell type, which begins as the base player cell.
4) Available in this tab are function parts, such as the specialized vacuoles, specialized protein bundles, shaped parts, and special excreters
5) As each part is placed in the new cell type, various behaviors become available in a special behavior editor
6) Once the desired parts are in the new cell type, the behavior editor can be opened, and the cell's responses to various stimuli can be decided independently of other cell's responses
7) Once satisfied, the player returns to the main editor to add these new cells to the organism where desired.

Edit: And sorry for editing the above post so much. That probably didn't help.

Edit 2: And in the transition to the Aware Stage organism editor, the mass agglomerations of these cells can simply use the same response to stimulus as the individual cells, only calculated over the whole contiguous structure.

I'm following. It's an interesting question that I have a lot of trouble answering for every situation.

The following thoughts are all about muscle cells, but could potentially be adapted for other types.

Let's say that there is a "strength" score for the number of myosin bundles in a cell. This strength score can be increased by adding more myosin bundles. In order to ensure that shaping is a factor, then there could be a bonus for placing myosin in series rather than parallel.

But, we also don't want players to just make 80 meter long uber-muscles.

So instead of increasing strength of the cell linearly with myosin bundles, it could be on a log scale, with linear energy consumption, so at a certain point the energy costs will far outweigh the added strength gained by further bundles, and it makes more sense to scale the cell's size/contents with its job.

In order to test its ability, there could be an arbitrary difficulty assigned to moving parts of an organism based on size or content (i.e. five hexes of cytoplasm take more strength to move than one does, or an adipose cell requires less effort to move than an osteoclast of similar size). Assuming that each function part has a behavior and a score attached to it regarding its effectiveness, then increasing the score in this way would also increase the effectiveness of a behavior.

This becomes a lot more complicated for something like a salivary cell or a neuron, but I'm certain with some thought they could be assigned suitable score variables.

So then it becomes a comparison of the cell's ability to carry out its assigned behaviors and the conditions under which it carries them out.


Example: Say we have a muscle cell with several myosin bundles in series, with a total "Strength" Rating of 12 and an energy consumption rate that is assumed negligible for this thought experiment.

In one case, this cell has to move a sensory organ that has an arbitrary weight score of 7. Because it has almost twice the strength score of the sensory organ's weight score, it can easily contract along the myosin bundles and move the target.

In another, it has to move a bone of arbitrary weight 15. Because its strength rating is less than the bone's weight it, cannot move the bone.



With a numerical comparison system of this nature, a cell's effectiveness at its job is highly subjective relative to conditions. Each organelle has several numbers that determine its contribution to certain actions (aided in some cases by symmetry or relation to other organelles), as well as the requirements for an action to be undertaken upon it.

The logistics of course are somewhat nightmarish, but in any realistic system of viability testing I assume it'd be similar.

The coding I cannot attest to, as I have never written a Lua Script, but in C++ it would be a tall ask I know.

I hope that make sense, I know that sometimes I have trouble translating thoughts to words. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

In reference to starting with a base sub-optimal cell, I think that's a really good idea. It could really help new players and players like me who can make only one type of rocket in KSP.

I'm working off of the assumption that the "Myosin" Organelle would already be several Actin chains and their associated motor proteins. Thusly, having them in series next to another cell that has them in series, and so on would mimic muscle tissues that I've been taught about, but quite honestly most of my education is in math so I think that the ultimate decision on the most beneficial symmetry of the organelles would require knowledge beyond any that I possess on the subject.

And thank you.

It would be really cool if the new organelles and structures were obtained after certain improvements of existing organelles in the original cell, which could be even unlocked in microbe stage, but not really functional. For example, maybe myosin fibers could be an improvement unlocked in the Endoplasmatic Reticulum ( as it is the organelle that we have more closely related to protein production?). Maybe the neurotransmitters producers are an evolution of the agent producer (maybe neurotransmitters are an agent?). That would imitate real evolution, and more or less how it really happened in real life.

tjwhale I've given it some more thought, and when it comes to tissue types, I think I can provide a suggested list (and some parameters).

If you look at the cells in the human body, most of them fall into five categories (four given to me during a biology lecture and the fifth I decided upon afterward for reasons that will be clear):

1) Muscle Cells: Cells that can be further divided into Smooth, Skeletal, and Cardiac groups, and is fairly self-explanatory.
2) Neurons: Also fairly self-explanatory.
3) Connective Cells: Cells such as Fibroblasts that work to form the connections between other tissue types (apparently osteoclasts also qualify).
4) Epithelial Cells: Cells that form the skin, as well as the lumen of most hollow organs.
5) Non-Conformist Cells: I couldn't figure where endocrine, exocrine, or germ cells fit, so I think they deserve their own category.

So I would argue that that's a fairly simple yet inclusive tissue list that would allow for simple algorithmic checks while also ensuring fidelity to biology.

BUT! Plants.

So I would also suggest:
6) Thermoplast Cells: Cells containing thermoplasts.
7) Chemoautotrophic Cells: Cells supporting chemosynthesis.
8) Photosynthetic Cells: Cells containing chloroplasts.
9) Non-animal, Non-conformist Cells: Things like tracheids, vessel members, and other things that make up Xylem and Phloem.
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Parameters:
1) Contractile Strength, Chance of Rupture, Rate of Fire (cardiac), and probably a lot I'm missing
2) Rate of Fire, Energy Efficiency, Sensitivity, and maybe there should be qualities for the subsets of sensory neruons
3) Tensile Strength, Elasticity, Shear Strength, and DEFINITLY a lot I'm missing
4) Selective Permeability, Elasticity, Shear Strength, etc.
5) Potency, I don't really know what else to put here
6) Heat Capacity, Storage Capacity, and maybe some others
7) ?
8) Storage Capacity, Electron Transfer Efficiency, Photosystem Efficiency, Citric Cycle Type (don't know how much we care about CAM plants)
9) ?

So anyway, not entirely comprehensive, but I believe this represents an okay start to the first two questions above.

I devised some sub-divisions for the tissue types I suggested, perhaps as a secondary check following the primary classification.

1) a) Skeletal Muscle
    b) Smooth Muscle
    c) Cardiac Muscle
2) a) Motor Neurons
    b) Cognitive Neurons
    c) Sensory Neurons*
3) a) Bone Cells
    b) ECM Cells
    c) Facilitator Cells
    d) Adipose Cells
4) a) Dermal Cells
    b) Epidermal Cells
    c) Absorptive Cells (Digestion)
    d) Gas Exchange Cells
    e) Absorptive Cells (Hydration)
5) a) Agent Secreting Cells
    b) Hormone Secreting Cells (Adrenal)
    c) Excreting Cells**
    d) Hormone Secreting Cells (Circadian)
    e) Digestive Aid Cells
    f) Hormone Secreting Cells (Reproductive)
    g) Germ Cells

*There are a LOT of different sensory neurons types, with some remarkably different physiologies, so this bears further classification

**I definitely think this needs expansion, but I'm not sure what to consider

Depends if you have checked "allow organisms to advance past you" and you're slow on the multicell draw.

I respectfully disagree. It is a bit of a jarring change in tone, but the same can be said of going from organism RPG to Society strategy mode. And I'm certain that many will find it tedious or somewhat esoteric in nature. These are very real problems that have to be considered in the design process.

When it comes to Multicellular though, I think its inclusion is important for several reasons. Firstly, it feels like an natural progression of story, even if the gameplay isn't, truly representing the small leaps that have profound impacts in evolution's history (and reminding us that organisms have been here in their macroscopic glory for only a short time).

Secondly, I would argue that multicellular does have gameplay advantages for players. In most of the aware plans that I've seen proposed, tissues will be based on the cells created in Multicelular to at least some degree. Through this mechanism, Multicelular represents an important instance of massive customization for the player.

And finally, I support the inclusion of Multicelular for the science. Thrive has its foundations not only in making a truly playable and enjoyable evolution game, but a scientifically salient one as well. Thrive is about communicating the lengthy and sometimes unglamorous journey of life in the universe, and multicellular is where small scale processes first began to affect large scale change in populations' morphology.

These are of course not ironclad arguments for the inclusion of the stage, and there are real arguments for slipping straight to Aware, but this is my two cents on the matter.