Fossilization

Fossilization is an autosave feature that saves iterations of species from the game environment at random. It allows the player to enjoy some of the organisms, techs, planets, and nations that would have otherwise eluded their view. When species evolve, their past iterations are in most cases deleted. Fossilization simply selects species at random and saves their current iteration so that it is not deleted when the species mutates again. These fossilized iterations can then be opened in the OE for viewing and duplicated for editing outside of normal gameplay. This is useful, since species will not be saved permanently, and will be deleted when they evolve or go extinct unless:

• The player gives them a name
• They are Fossilized

To fossilize content, the game simply selects something in the game currently at random, then saves it. In the Thrive Content Library, fossilized content will have a special marker pointing out how it was saved.