Progress Update 9/12/2026

Hello and welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! There's a laundry list of patch notes this week, though most of them are smaller items.

Most of those are still bugfixes of reports for the latest release, which means we were not working on new major features quite yet. Those include fixes for the Multicellular layout algorithm sometimes leaving gaps, as well as for some Sexual reproduction issues (such as the game sometimes not recognising that the two gamete types are in fact different). The Sexual reproduction system also got some non-bug-related upgrades, with gametes searching each other out in a greater radius and the spawning side of the “Call Mate” signalling ability being more reliable (and telling you why if it does not work).

Auto-evo received many small changes. Some of these were functional fixes, like not recognizing when a species is already large enough to engulf another. Others are optimization improvements making auto-evo run a bit faster. This will hopefully create some room for additions and improvements to auto-evo functions. Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums, there was a lot of discussion on this auto-evo work and possible future improvements.

Look below for additional details and screenshots if you're interested, and we'll see you next week for more updates!

Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Limited dropped cell chunks down to 6 (from 20) and total chunk count as well to reduce frame drops caused by cell deaths
  • Fixed a bug with the editor button becoming immediately available if the player died while going to the editor
  • Fixed a bug with multicellular fallback cell placement algorithm being able to create gaps
  • Added a 10-second timeout for the fancy cell placement algorithm to reduce the time a black screen could be shown upon trying to exit the editor
  • Fixed the editor warning about needing at least 2 cells for sexual reproduction not actually displaying
  • Fixed changing organelles in multicellular not refreshing tolerance warnings
  • Start a fresh auto-evo run when becoming multicellular to ensure auto-evo gets a chance to make initial multicellular species
  • Improved the gamete shooting command to force ejection and fixed some compatibility checks
  • Increased gamete sensor radius by 50%
  • Fixed gamete spawn rotation and spawn position in a colony
  • Added cloud renderer prototype code phase 2
  • Applied missing specialization in auto-evo calculations
  • Fixed the auto-evo logic for prey channel inhibitor
  • Cleaned up some auto-evo code
  • Improved the mate spawning option to be more reliable and added HUD notices to tell the player what is going on
  • Fixed a pulling cilia calculation problem in auto-evo
  • Fixed a slight disconnect between auto-evo and gameplay in engulf size math
  • Fixed channel inhibitor calculation being the opposite than it should have been in auto-evo
  • Fixed a theoretical case where the cell placement algorithm could get stuck in an infinite loop
  • Added average run time to auto-evo exploring tool
  • Added catching of background task errors when the main thread waits for them
  • Optimized a hex operation in debug builds
  • Replaced LINQ in nominal capacity counting for a slight efficiency improvement for auto-evo
  • Optimized random mutation selection in auto-evo a little bit
  • Updated style guide in relation to precomputed values
  • Added new automated brace style checks
  • Added some more caveats to our style guide related to British English
  • Added a regression test for species data cache in auto-evo
  • Updated AngleSharp from 1.7.3 to 1.8.1
  • Updated System.IO.Hashing from 10.0.11 to 10.0.12
  • Updated code analysis tools
  • Updated other dependencies including Sugiyama
  • Updated code submodules
  • Updated translations
• A lot of discussion on Auto-evo optimisation.

Graphics

• Nothing substantial.

Gameplay

• Reduced the maximum number of chunks produced by dying cells from 20 to 6 and increased the amount of compounds per chunk accordingly. The total amount of compounds in chunks dropped per death is now also fixed instead of partially randomized. This should improve performance, especially when lots of cells are dying.
• The “Call Mate” Signalling Agent ability (if enabled in Difficulty settings) now spawns a mate even if it should be blocked by there being too much terrain.
• Increased Gamete “detection radius” by 50%.

UI

• Added HUD notices for when a mate is spawned by the Signalling Agent ability (if enabled in Difficulty settings) or if it's not because it's still on cooldown.
• Added gamete type information to the mouse hover panel.
• Added a display for average time per world to the auto-evo exploring tool. This will be a useful tool for monitoring the performance of auto-evo.

Sound

• Nothing substantial.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• The second loading screen art contest is still ongoing. Art submissions of any level of quality or experience are welcome!

Other

• Created a Github project to organize auto-evo optimization efforts.