11/05/2015 - Meet Nuggets

It’s about time that we started talking a little bit about how your citizens, which we call Nuggets, work in The Universim, and how they interact with the environment.
Please remember that all of this is subject to change at any time. What you eventually get to play in the early builds may not resemble all that is written here. We will continue to evolve and rework these systems as development continues.

Nuggets are living creatures that rely on you to guide them through the challenging, evolutionary journey that begins on Mother Planet. The game will start with just two of them initially, Adahy and Elu. They will raise their new family alongside extremely dangerous and unpredictable conditions. From the beginning, Nuggets will have the ability to create new life and expand the population over time. Every Nugget will have a set of characteristics/instincts that will need to be taken care of every now and then.

Nuggets are sensitive to weather changes on the planet. Cold or hot weather can slow Nuggets down, cause them to become sick, or even lead to death without the proper technologies in place. One of the earliest research items will be the invention of fire, which will keep Nuggets warm during cold winters. Improved clothing will also make them even more durable to extreme temperatures.

At some point, you will need to research the power of speech, which will allow nuggets to communicate more effectively with one another. It will also trigger Nugget Messages on your screen for citizens that need your urgent attention. Nuggets will continue to communicate with each other and even make families eventually.

Nuggets, similar to an ant colony, are hard workers. They will supply your Epicenter with useful resources that will help your civilization to evolve. Each Nugget will have their own stamina bar that will decrease at different speeds based on the task they’re executing. They will need to rest periodically in order to restore their energy. You can, however, influence this by setting priorities to high. This will keep Nuggets busy for longer, but it will hurt them. Some may even die due to the lack of food and rest.

Just as any living creature, Nuggets have a life span. Every Nugget will go through different stages in their life. Their journey begins in the womb of their mother, who will continue to work during pregnancy, albeit at a slower pace. Women are badasses like that, they don’t merely allow any old thing, like, you know, the creation of life inside them, get them down. After birth, the baby Nugget will grow quite rapidly into a teenage Nugget. It will take some time for them to become an adult and form their own families, though. Storytelling huts and schools will help to speed up this process, causing teenagers to grow faster and become stronger workers.

When a Nugget dies, they will need to be buried in cemetery. Cemeteries can only hold a limited number of Nuggets. If a cemetery becomes full, the bodies of deceased Nuggets will begin generating disease. The radius around the body in which disease can spread will grow over time and begin to infect living Nuggets. The infected individuals can then spread the disease throughout the Epicenter. The deceased Nugget’s relatives will be sad for some time, and they will visit the cemetery at random intervals to pay their respects.

There will be a few different types of Nuggets, which are sorted into tiers. Tier 1/Basic Tier Nuggets are good for day to day jobs such as resource gathering, construction, resource delivery, and so on.Tier 2 workers will have the ability to work on buildings with higher requirements, such as watchtowers, farms, expeditions, and so on. Tier 3 Nuggets will become doctors, who are used to cure other Nuggets of diseases. Tier 4 Nuggets will become advanced scientists, who will be able to work in high-level jobs such as Nuclear Plants, Observatories, Space Centers, and so on.

Nuggets will not only have different personalities and skills, but their appearance will also change based on the current era and available technologies. You can find a few examples below.

We are designing a system that will randomize the appearance of Nuggets. We are even planning to release a Nugget Editor eventually that will allow you to change their clothing, hairstyles, and so on. The system will pick hair colors randomly, based on the era in the game. For example, Stone Age individuals will mostly be blonde, Medieval Age Nuggets will mostly be blonde and brunette, the Modern Age will see blondes, brunettes, and some other basic random colors, and the Space Age will completely randomize the hairstyles and colors.

As a god, you will be able to punish Nuggets or reward them based on whether or not they obey your commands. You’ll be able to pick them up and throw them miles away, for example, which will result in the Nugget smashing against the ground and dying. At least they had a chance to travel, I guess. Alternatively, you can go for something classic and strike them with a lightning bolt. Be careful with that, however, as it will set the Nugget on fire, causing them to run around frantically and possibly set something/someone else on fire. These types of actions will be a great example to others, as you would expect, and will cause their influence level to increase as a result.