Evolution info

[BordBrain™]

possible spoilers ahead regarding evolution mechanics

So I just evolved my apes for the second time and im confused about two things:

1. my in game clock still says year 80, which makes me wonder:
   
2. what is the evolution screen even counting?

At this point I'm assuming that the evolution screen simply shows you a "score" of some kind.

"Feat years", "Ahead of time bonus" and "fulfillment years" don't articulate their meaning to me very well outside of where the "points" have come from.
Differential is obviously how well the game thinks you're doing, but I'm struggling to get literally any other information from these numbers.

All I know is every feat keeps "adding years" - but that sounds like a bad thing.

And the bar at the bottom, I take it the red one is representing my playthrough, but then whats the white bar for?

Am I daft or is this just a scoring system?

Not to imply anything wrong with it being "just" a scoring system but those numbers are very intimidating and im mostly unsure if im even doing anything "right"

I can't tell if "years added" is a good thing or being "faster than science" means im just rushing the game clock down needlessly.

[Catsim]

When you hit certain year milestones you evolve to a new species who have bigger brains and more capabilities to unlock. Then when you hit the final species you win the game (this takes a LONG time). If you want to go for every achievement and full exploration you may want to be careful how fast you're going, but after the credits you can just reload your last save anyways so I don't think it's that big of a deal.

[SotiCoto]

Originally posted by Bord Brain™:

All I know is every feat keeps "adding years" - but that sounds like a bad thing...

...I can't tell if "years added" is a good thing or being "faster than science" means im just rushing the game clock down needlessly.

Both. Sort of.
You can effectively ignore the "ahead of science" thing except that sometimes it increments time even more sharply.

Anyhow, you start the game at 10,000,000 years ago, and though it isn't crystal clear, you end the game at 2,000,000 years ago. Very misleading. It means once you've accumulated 8 million years worth of time in your game, it is game over. In THAT sense it is a bad thing.

But that timer also upgrades your species.
At 9,100,000 years remaining, you evolve into Sahelanthropus Tchadensis (I'm reminded of MGS5 here, but that is irrelevant).
At 7,200,000 years remaining, you evolve into Orrorin Tugenensis.
At 5,300,000 years remaining, you evolve into Ardipithecus Ramidus.
At 3,800,000 years remaining, you evolve into Australopithecus Afarensis.
At 2,500,000 years remaining, you evolve into Australopithecus Africanus... which is the last playable species.

Each new species unlocks new potential neurons for you and is effectively stronger than the previous. So in that sense progressing this way is a good thing. They also have different character models and, in some cases, different vocalisations.

Now... this is where things get tricky.
You accelerate time faster towards that 2,000,000 years remaining END by accumulating more Evolution Feats. Especially if you do them "Faster than Science" (the only place this factors in at all). You also get a small amount of extra time added for every clan-member born between your last evolution and the next one.
But there is also a considerable influence in the other direction caused by clan-members dying during that time. It is actually quite easy to effectively stop the evolution progressing any time at all or even reverse it if enough of your clan members die between evolutions.

Something I didn't grasp until right at the end of the game is that you NEED at least one Evolution Feat waiting (i.e. gained since your last evolution) in order to launch an Evolution at all. So there is a hard limit to how many times you can evolve. And while it is ridiculously easy at the start, if you get carried away early on without evolving much, you'll be making life difficult for yourself during the end-game when you're struggling to get additional Evolution Feats.

SO....
My advice would go as follows:
#1. Evolve often in the early game. Ignore the meteorites until mid-game. Each one counts for a feat in and of itself.
#2. When you get about halfway through the species, really start pushing hard for mutations. You'll have limited opportunities to accumulate mutations. This would be the time to start using meteorites so you can get 6 mutations for a single generation. Remember that only adults and elders count towards mutations kept by Evolution.
#3. If you reach The Taung Child... your goal is to STOP time progressing any further. I'd recommend keeping at least a few easy Evolution Feats left over. Control the timer by killing any non-mutant elders with each generation skip, and killing off all non-mutants each time you evolve. Note: you can skip generations as many times as you need to, but don't waste any good mutation rolls this way (if you naturally get 4 or more in a generation, it is probably worth keeping that generation).
#4. When you're finally ready to complete the game, ensure you're at least close to 2,000,000 years remaining (i.e. haven't pushed it back too far with suicides), then bullrush whatever remaining Evolution Feats you had remaining, then proceed to just plough through generation after generation just breeding more children and skipping ahead. If you have all the neurons at that point, you should have the one that auto-generates children, so it should be super easy. Just skip generations until you've accumulated a silly number of births with no deaths and Evolve to finish the game.

[BordBrain™]

I guess my only remaining question is why the in game clock is unchaged.
it seems weird that time skips such as births and generations tick the in game clock up by years, but not evolution.

I never thought of using clan members dying to push "time backwards", it seems like a really useful thing to know considering the time constraints on the game.

[Hody]

So you cant skip a species? I just evolved. I had the game crashed and broken my save ysterday. Now I have started a new custom game. Rediscovered some landmark and got two meteorites. After 2 generations full of mutations I evolved.
I just missed LUCY by 219.056 years, but not even all my completed feats were taken in. Shall I do another evolution instantly or what do I do in order to play as Lucy and not skip that and end up directly as the Taung child?