Progress Update 11/15/2025

Quite a lot of noticeable progress this week! Several new patch events were added to mix up compound levels across many patches at a time. Auto-evo now recognises upgrades to toxin organelles, making Thrive significantly more toxic. Thermosynthesis now produces glucose to make it significantly less frustrating to use (This slipped into the patch notes a bit too early before).

In the audiovisual department, we got a new sound effect for when you're trying to form or expand a colony (it no longer uses the same sound effect as engulfment). And finally, we now have a simple animation to represent a new cell splitting away from you on division.

Over on the Development Forums there were discussions on the Macroscopic Editor Concept, Land biomes for later stages and the identifications of a few future situations in Thrive that still need soundtracks. New music to fill those is already in progress!

We are also accepting applications to the outreach team. If interested, please send an application: Link

Enjoy the full progress list below, and we'll see you next week!

Programming

• New build of the day (BOTD) (available to Patreon supporters):
  • Added a few new patch event types that affect compound amounts
  • Auto-evo can now evolve toxin upgrades and they have an impact on the calculation now
  • Implemented a simple cell division animation based on physics pushing the new cell out
  • Added a sound effect for binding mode so that it finally has a unique sound rather than sharing the engulf mode sound
  • Switched Thermosynthesis to produce glucose rather than ATP directly
  • Fixed a case where sunlight was not properly restored after an event ended
  • Fixed changing worlds in the auto-evo exploring tool not working correctly for the displayed map
  • Reduced logging for Steam achievements sync
  • Updated AngleSharp to 1.3.1
  • Updated many other C# dependencies and checking tools
  • Fixed our setup instructions referring to the wrong Godot version
  • Updated translations
  • The pause menu and the Thriveopedia is now a singleton to reduce allocations on scene change, to help with the random scene load bug

Graphics

• Nothing substantial.

Gameplay

• Thermosynthesis now produces glucose instead of ATP directly, meaning you can rely on it exclusively without running out of ATP in cold spots.
• Auto-evo can now handle Toxin upgrades. So you'll sometimes see AI species use different toxins against you, and you will be rewarded for picking the right toxin for your situation.
• We have several new patch events:
  • Runoff - happens in continental patches, increases density of some compounds and corresponding chunks
  • Upwelling - happens in ocean patches (at once in one region), increases density of some compounds and corresponding chunks. The chunks densities varies between patches, smaller chunks are more common in top patches and less common in the bottom patches
  • Current dilution - works in opposition to the previous 2 patches, reducing compounds and chunks densities. Works in 2 modes → in continental (like runoff) and oceanic (like upwelling)
• Ongoing discussion on the classification of land biomes in later stages.
• A comment and advice on the Comprehensive Macroscopic Editor Concept from a while back.

Sound

• Identification of still needed soundtracks, and work on soundtracks to fill those slots.
• A sound effect for the Binding Agent was added.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• If you wish and feel that you are capable, please feel free to apply to the Outreach team!

Other

• Nothing substantial.