Author Topic: Simplest Evo Starter Bot  (Read 40466 times)

Offline Elite

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« on: April 08, 2006, 09:40:53 AM »
Challenge

What's the simplest bot you can start an evo sim with?
The bot must survive in the majority of sims that are run.

If you're willing to run long evo sims then post what your minimalbot eventually evolves into (optional)

Offline Griz

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 608
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2006, 09:55:15 AM »
 an idea that just popped into my head:
what if we had a number of TestSims ...
various levels/gauntlets to run, so to speak?  
a variation on leagues ... but with a User Bot having to
work it's way thru various levels of pre-set sims ...
becoming ever more complicated/challenging.
if/when your bot can pass these 'tests' ...
it may be entered into the stable ....
or hall of fame, etc.
an entrance exam if you will.
不知
~griz~
[/color]
   "The selection of Random Numbers is too important to be left to Chance"
The Mooj  a friend to all humanity
[/color]

Offline Elite

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2006, 10:06:28 AM »
Hey, good idea

How about disabling reproduction (or having bots that just don't reproduce) and having 'bot teams' compete against other 'bot teams'. Kinda like a league except without reproduction (so no out-reproducing your opponents). It emphasizes individual strength (ie. Ymir) over strength in numbers.

Rules:
Standard F1 except no reproducing
Viruses, ties etc. allowed
Start with 10 bots each
Half the map given to each contender at start

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2006, 12:06:14 PM »
Sounds fun.  If walls ever worked, they would seem to me to be absolutely required to make interesting enough simulations, since it changes the pattern by which bots spread.

Offline EricL

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2266
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2006, 01:37:02 PM »
All sound like fun.

Regarding Num's original challenge, I've started an evo sim on my other machine where other than some Alga, the starting bot has no DNA.  Just:

Stop
End

I wouldn't even have that except there seems to be a bug where DB hangs if a bot doesn't have at least this.  It runs fast, already over 125k cycles, lets see if anythign evovles.

Of course, there are no costs...  
Many beers....

Offline Elite

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2006, 01:55:28 PM »
My name isn't Num  

Stop
End

 

If it doesn't reproduce (or accumulate waste for reproduction via altzimers) then it can't evolve ... can't it?

Been thinking about my team bot idea:

Placement is set so that half the map is given to one bot and half to another
No vegs
No costs (the only way you die is if another bot shoots you)
4000 energy per bot
No reproduction commands in DNA allowed

Offline EricL

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2266
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2006, 02:10:32 PM »
Quote
My name isn't Num


Ahhhh!!  Endless apologies.  My sincerest hopes that you will forgive such an unforgivable transgression...  Of course, anyone without my torbid stupidity can see in an instant that you are both better looking and more intelligent.  What on earth could I possibly have been thinking?...

Quote
If it doesn't reproduce (or accumulate waste for reproduction via altzimers) then it can't evolve ... can't it?

I think the code will actually mutate bots without reproduction - cosmic ray events and such - though I have yet to see an insertion mutation.  Yea, I'm not so sure of whether I like mutating without reproduction or not either, but it does allow in theory the evolution of something from nothing.  My average mutations has risen to 1.2 after 100k cycles.  Maybe the short DNA length is making mutations rare...
Many beers....

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2006, 02:29:47 PM »
Bots won't mutate to gain additional BPs unless it reproduces.  The "Point Mutations", which are new in 2.4, do mutate current BPs, but only by changing them.  They can't either add or remove BPs.

I tried to model it as closely as possible to the mutations Avida uses.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2006, 08:26:56 PM by Numsgil »

Offline Elite

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2006, 05:00:14 PM »
Quote
Ahhhh!! Endless apologies. My sincerest hopes that you will forgive such an unforgivable transgression... Of course, anyone without my torbid stupidity can see in an instant that you are both better looking and more intelligent. What on earth could I possibly have been thinking?...

Hehehe  

Quote
I think the code will actually mutate bots without reproduction - cosmic ray events and such - though I have yet to see an insertion mutation. Yea, I'm not so sure of whether I like mutating without reproduction or not either, but it does allow in theory the evolution of something from nothing. My average mutations has risen to 1.2 after 100k cycles. Maybe the short DNA length is making mutations rare...

Oooh, a new feature in 2.4

Very good

Offline EricL

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2266
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2006, 08:35:01 PM »
Okay, since you have to mutate to evolve and you have to reproduce to mutate and you need nrg to reproduce and you have to feed to restore nrg, and a sim without costs won't select for much, the minimal functioning non autotroph I could come up with that has any chance in an environemnt with at least some costs has 1 gene and 14bp.  There may be even simpiler bots that would suffice, but I can't think of them.  Even so, the only cost I'm using is a minimal nrg/cycle cost (new in 2.42.2) and I had to create a "nursery" of stable autotroph veggies to enclose my starting organism.  I'm 100k cycles down the road, reproduction and mutations are happening and the environment seems  capable in theory at least of evolving more complex bots over time.  I'll let if run a few days and see what happens.

-E
Many beers....

Offline Griz

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 608
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2006, 10:10:39 PM »
sounds good.

you never are going to get that novel written you know.
不知
~griz~
[/color]
   "The selection of Random Numbers is too important to be left to Chance"
The Mooj  a friend to all humanity
[/color]

Offline Elite

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2006, 05:42:52 AM »
Quote from: EricL
Okay, since you have to mutate to evolve and you have to reproduce to mutate and you need nrg to reproduce and you have to feed to restore nrg, and a sim without costs won't select for much, the minimal functioning non autotroph I could come up with that has any chance in an environemnt with at least some costs has 1 gene and 14bp.  There may be even simpiler bots that would suffice, but I can't think of them.  Even so, the only cost I'm using is a minimal nrg/cycle cost (new in 2.42.2) and I had to create a "nursery" of stable autotroph veggies to enclose my starting organism.  I'm 100k cycles down the road, reproduction and mutations are happening and the environment seems  capable in theory at least of evolving more complex bots over time.  I'll let if run a few days and see what happens.

-E

The 'no costs teambot sim' was something entirely different I was thinking of - kinda like an extra league
The new nrg per cycle cost might come in handy though

***

Hey, Num or EricL

I remember Num saying something about if he transfered the code to GL or something it would run 1000 times faster. How about a 'hyper evolve' mode that runs extremely fast to rapidly evolve bots?

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2006, 08:49:09 AM »
And if you ever do get the novel written, I can host it for you at The Story Sanctum

I have to get back to working on that site one of these days. I'm thinking about relocating it too.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2006, 11:13:51 AM »
I'm working on making the code faster, but alot of it needs to be done with pointers which is something that VB doesn't offer.  The C++ version is already quite fast, especially on smaller sims.  I've had 1000 cycles a second on small test sims.

If only all the bugs were worked out :/

Offline Testlund

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 1574
    • View Profile
Simplest Evo Starter Bot
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2006, 12:39:22 PM »
Quote from: EricL
All sound like fun.

Regarding Num's original challenge, I've started an evo sim on my other machine where other than some Alga, the starting bot has no DNA.  Just:

Stop
End

I wouldn't even have that except there seems to be a bug where DB hangs if a bot doesn't have at least this.  It runs fast, already over 125k cycles, lets see if anythign evovles.

Of course, there are no costs...  

This is very cool! I like the idea to start with as simple a bot as possible and then see it evolve. I can't see how it can do anything with only those two commands though, but I don't know much about how the DNA works. I expect it will just stay frozen on screen, but maybe I'm wrong. I will try this out. I'm also wondering how I can make several species. How does the bots recognize their own species? Is it something in the DNA code?
The internet is corrupt and controlled by criminally minded people.