Update 0.5.8.1 is now out, and introduces a good amount of performance improvements, among other things. We hope that this significantly improves the enjoyability of Thrive, and look forward to hearing any feedback on the changes.

This week we focused on performance, and the causes behind it. We eventually discovered that the spawn system was spawning entities far faster than they could be despawned which resulted in a massive hit to performance as time went on, such is why later generations were often very laggy for many players. We have also seen some progress on patch-map generation for the microbe stage, which will expand the variability of each game. And of course, some changes to how autoevo functions in an effort to improve how species are selected for.

Programming

• The patch 0.5.8.1 has been released with the following changes:
  • Fixed major problem with the spawn system not being able to despawn things as fast as it spawned. This should give a major improvement to later game performance
  • Improved game object processing speed and added some multithreaded processing to them
  • Fixed crashing in text formatting when using our localized text class to guard against bad translations
  • Fixed incorrect translation bbcode being able to crash the game
  • Updated to Godot 3.4.4
  • Switched to a different Steam client library to make the Steam build work on Windows 7
  • New mod loader improvements to have inbuilt Harmony support
  • Fixed enemy spawn cheat not making the spawned cells despawn
  • Fixed auto-evo using energy balance instead of consumption when calculating populations
  • Reduced flagellum energy cost to 4
  • Fixed unintended cannibalism when player becomes multicellular
  • Fixed an issue with the player species not spawning in multicellular
  • Fixed dead cells being able to be added to a colony causing issues
  • Fixed bacteria group spawns spawning things that immediately despawn
  • Added a new more detailed metrics panel (default key is shift+F3) to be able to see game performance in more detail
  • Microbe editor now shows the total storage of a cell
  • Added a new microbe stage ambiance track
  • The options menu now shows the resolution the game renders at
  • Main menu music now fades out when starting a new game instead of cutting out immediately
  • Fixed patch map nodes reacting to the scroll wheel
  • Partially fixed NaN compound storage amounts by resetting them to 0
  • Fixed incorrect “{0}” shown in save upgrade fail message
  • Fixed our custom colour picker leaking Godot objects
  • Simplified logic slightly in name permutation generation
  • Romanian language is now available in the game
  • Updated translations
• Progress has been made on patch-map generation. This feature will ensure that each playthrough will have a completely different world!

Graphics

• Nothing Substantial

Gameplay

• Began discussion of exploration in the game world.
• Started a discussion on benefits of cell size and the nucleus.

Sound

• Twitchywhalez has created a new placement sound for the editor.

Theory

• Nothing Substantial

Outreach

• Nothing Substantial

Other

• Please welcome our newest developer; Ventus!