Progress Update 8/15/2026

Hello and welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! We have another major feature added this week with the new Actomyosin organelle.

Actomyosin represents an arrangement of Actin and Myosin proteins as exists in simple muscle cells that work together to contract. Thrive's Multicellular Stage of course lacks real soft body physics, but the Actomyosin organelle still boosts your movement and rotation speed by a significant amount, making it perfect for those large motile species. You can only place one in a cell, so you will want to use specialisation and adjacency bonuses to make them more powerful. The cell part also has a rather snazzy animation, contracting while in use.

There were also some refinements to reproduction modes. First, the Mass Budding option was previously discarding any saved resources that did not fit in the first cell in the growth order, thus wasting a lot of resources. This was fixed to take into account the storage of all cells in the multicellular bud. Secondly, going to the editor via Sexual Reproduction now gives you a 20% MP discount on everything as compensation for the increased difficulty of reproduction. Finally, the command to have other individuals of your species release gametes now has a longer range.

Our in-game Thriveopedia had it's searchbar updated to look at body text and tags, instead of only the page titles. This should make it quite a bit easier to find what you are looking for.

Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums there was a lot of activity this week. There were discussions on motility/sessility and organ systems in the Macroscopic Stage, Sexual Reproduction benefits and new organelles in the Macroscopic Stage, and the possibility of using AI to catch mistakes and possible improvements in code contributed to Thrive.

Look below for some additional details and we'll see you next week for another Progress Update!

Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Added actomyosin organelle as a key buff to multicellular movement and rotation speed
  • Added stored compound conservation when using mass budding to make it more viable to spawn with big colonies
  • Made the search bar in the Thriveopedia also search page content and tags
  • Using sexual reproduction now gives a 20% MP discount when it was used to enter the editor
  • Fixed MP multiplier from difficulty not applying to reproduction modes
  • Slightly buffed gamete shoot command distance
  • Added a safety check against invalid data in colonies when building intercellular matrix graphics
  • Updated System.IO.Hashing from 10.0.10 to 10.0.11
  • Updated Sugiyama graph library to 0.12.2
  • Updated our code style instructions
  • Updated translations
• Exploration of LLM code reviews

Graphics

• Added Actomyosin model and animation into the game.

Gameplay

• The mass budding reproduction mode can now conserve more resources than fit in just the first cell in the growth order.
• Reproducing via Sexual Reproduction now provides a 20% MP discount on everything.
• The command to let your species-members launch gametes now reaches further.
• Added the new Multicellular organelle Actomyosin, allowing you to essentially make primitive muscle cells.
  • Increases colony movement speed by 25% and turning speed by 15% (turning speed currently bugged to instead do the opposite).
  • Movement costs 12 ATP.
  • Limited to one per cell.
  • Only allowed for Normal and Double membranes.
• Game design discussions:
  • Another comment on organ systems in the Macroscopic Stage.
  • A proposal on more Multicellular organelles.
  • Continued discussion on motility and sessility in the Macroscopic Stage.
  • Discussion on the implementation of gameplay benefits for Sexual Reproduction.

UI

• The search bar in the Thriveopedia now also searches page content and tags (instead of only the page titles).

Sound

• Nothing substantial.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• Nothing substantial.

Other

• Nothing substantial.