Add mucilage (slime)

[Oliveriver]

Brief Description of What This PR Does

Adds mucilage to the game, a new agent that a cell can secrete to jet away from predators and slow them down.

TODO

• Replace icons (mucilage compound and slime jet organelle)
• Fix model self-intersect and not jiggling

Related Issues

N/A

Progress Checklist

Note: before starting this checklist the PR should be marked as non-draft.

• PR author has checked that this PR works as intended and doesn't
  break existing features:
  https://wiki.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/wiki/Testing_Checklist
  (this is important as to not waste the time of Thrive team
  members reviewing this PR)
• Initial code review passed (this and further items should not be checked by the PR author)
• Functionality is confirmed working by another person (see above checklist link)
• Final code review is passed and code conforms to the
  styleguide.

Before merging all CI jobs should finish on this PR without errors, if
there are automatically detected style issues they should be fixed by
the PR author. Merging must follow our
styleguide.

[Oliveriver]

I've converted this into ready to review since the existing parts are about there. There are still a few holes though, listed above, so help with those from knowledgeable people would be appreciated.

[yowshi]

how hard would it be to have the stuff disappear entirely over time representing its breakdown? because otherwise the map is just going to be full of this stuff.

[nickthenick]

Just playested with it for 10 minutes. My thoughts:

• Functionally speaking, great work! It functions exactly as I would've imagined.
• I felt like mucilage ran out too quickly. My first instinct was that it should expel at half the current rate, so that you can spread out its usage. For example, as a Eukaryote, I think I could only "jet" for 0.5-1 seconds before it would run out, even when fully filled up.
• Not an issue with this feature, but because of the game's current performance issues, the fast bursts of speed look very jittery (they highlight the low framerate).
• I really like that the trails of mucilage can be used to track cells. Adds an extra element of strategy to which way to swim.
• If there is anybody on the graphics team able to implement the "clear gel emitter" that Nunz described, I think that would be much preferrable over green clouds. I feel like there are already enough clouds and colours on the screen already and we shouldn't be adding another.

[yowshi]

Just playested with it for 10 minutes. My thoughts:

• Functionally speaking, great work! It functions exactly as I would've imagined.
• I felt like mucilage ran out too quickly. My first instinct was that it should expel at half the current rate, so that you can spread out its usage. For example, as a Eukaryote, I think I could only "jet" for 0.5-1 seconds before it would run out, even when fully filled up.
• Not an issue with this feature, but because of the game's current performance issues, the fast bursts of speed look very jittery (they highlight the low framerate).
• I really like that the trails of mucilage can be used to track cells. Adds an extra element of strategy to which way to swim.
• If there is anybody on the graphics team able to implement the "clear gel emitter" that Nunz described, I think that would be much preferrable over green clouds. I feel like there are already enough clouds and colours on the screen already and we shouldn't be adding another.

honestly i only noticed a speed boost when i was a small prokaryote. i didn't notice one when i hit eukaryote.

i personally loved the colour, the thing i noticed is that yes it does build up on screen over an area until you die or switch patches.

[Deus-Codes]

I played only a short bit currently but it's very, very fun, and it livens up the whole experience. Gameplay wise, we benefit a lot from essentially having the Thrive equivalent of those cellular jet things in Spore. It's a nice change of pace.

One thing I noticed is a bit of bugginess where my cell occasionally maintains its when ejecting mucilage constantly even if I am not holding down the button. In fact, this would last until I next tapped the R button, allowing me at one point to zip across the map for about 10 seconds straight without expending slime. This might indicate more bugginess overall so I won't make any substantial comments on balancing for speed, but propulsion felt decent upon first impression. I'd like to see if anyone else noticed these issues and then move on to balancing for gameplay.

[Oliveriver]

how hard would it be to have the stuff disappear entirely over time representing its breakdown? because otherwise the map is just going to be full of this stuff.

I was hoping to leave the question of what to do with environmental mucilage until a later PR, but it seems it’s too big a problem to ignore. I have a few ideas:

• Cells which produce mucilage collect it back from the environment when swimming through it.
• Mucilage clouds disappear over time.
• Mucilage clouds decay into glucose over time (though obviously a smaller amount than it took to make).

Other suggestions are welcome. I’d advise against cells collecting mucilage and converting it to glucose internally, since that’s going to introduce many headaches with the process system.

[Oliveriver]

One thing I noticed is a bit of bugginess where my cell occasionally maintains its when ejecting mucilage constantly even if I am not holding down the button. In fact, this would last until I next tapped the R button, allowing me at one point to zip across the map for about 10 seconds straight without expending slime.

I haven’t experienced this bug myself. How reliably can you reproduce it?

[yowshi]

how hard would it be to have the stuff disappear entirely over time representing its breakdown? because otherwise the map is just going to be full of this stuff.

I was hoping to leave the question of what to do with environmental mucilage until a later PR, but it seems it’s too big a problem to ignore. I have a few ideas:

• Cells which produce mucilage collect it back from the environment when swimming through it.
• Mucilage clouds disappear over time.
• Mucilage clouds decay into glucose over time (though obviously a smaller amount than it took to make).

Other suggestions are welcome. I’d advise against cells collecting mucilage and converting it to glucose internally, since that’s going to introduce many headaches with the process system.

that third one is kind of cool, has interesting possibilities for play with the new day/night cycle too.

[Oliveriver]

I've now added a decay rate for mucilage clouds. Seems about balanced to me. I'm therefore in favour of keeping it like this and leaving other options until later.

[Athriq]

I don't know if this is just me but I think the latest change made the jetting action feel less "explosive", instead it's like more gradual increase in acceleration? Unless this is intended, I feel this might make the jet less effective considering you could only do it in small quick bursts most of the time.

[Oliveriver]

I don't know if this is just me but I think the latest change made the jetting action feel less "explosive", instead it's like more gradual increase in acceleration? Unless this is intended, I feel this might make the jet less effective considering you could only do it in small quick bursts most of the time.

If you're referring to the bug fix I made most recently, that's definitely needed. The explosiveness you're referring to might well be that bug in action. It's possible to work around this by adjusting the constant though.

[hhyyrylainen]

Posted my review as individual comments as I once again didn't intend to do a full review but ended up doing one anyway...
I spotted a few serious issues, but other than that most of the changes looked fine to me.

[hhyyrylainen]

I fixed the style issues this still had and I found quite a few bugs I had to fix, some of which undoubtedly I caused with the merge from master as that was very tricky in terms of conflicts. One thing to highlight is though that I fixed up the mucilage action bar button not actually working when pressed and being focusable.

Hopefully everything was addressed