League Problems

[Jez]

"Do you want me to allow people to be able to disable reproduction or disable DNA execution for the veggy in a league using F1 conditions"

The bots already have problems, the league sims seem to be much larger than they used to be, I guess caused by the variable size of the bots. Many of the matches I have run have ended in starvation stalemates where neither entry is able to find food and the match ends when one species starves to death. That was part of the reason Anon T and Animal M got through such a large amount of matches without a clear winner emerging.
Partly because of this and partly because the veg can now overlap to some degree so the proportion of the screen covered by veg has been reduced I would not disable reproduction for the veg unless the number of veg on screen was changed.

Also, unless these bots are no longer present in the leagues, some bots have been designed in the past to communicate with the veg or change its DNA using virus's or shots. I also don't know if disabling the bots DNA would change the way veg is recognised in any way.

or do you think this is too large a variable to let people muck with and therefor I should force it one way or the other in F1 mode?"

It is certainly to large a variable for many of the current bots in the league to deal with. It would be nice, certainly speeds up the sims which makes things easier for me.  

I might suggest we force it the other way.

So might I, I'll run some tests using different amounts of disabled veg. If nobody points out bots that would suffer by not being able to communicate with veg or veg ID problems and I conveniently miss them then by changing the number of veg on screen we may overcome most problems disabling veg DNA and reproduction would cause.

EDIT

Well apart from the fact that the prog likes to auto tick 'use F1 conditions' if I try to run leagues under my own conditions, perhaps a 'use own conditons box' is needed; how about doubling the amount of veg on screen while halving the amount of nrg they get per cycle and disabling veg DNA and repro? You're going to be better at number crunching it than me but something to imitate the amount of nrg that is flowing in to an F1 league via veg atm but with more more veg on screen to help stop the starvation wars.

[Griz]

Alga minimalis is the standard veg for use in leagues, so I would just load its DNA into the program and have the program automatically use it, regardless of what the user tries to do in a league match.

oh please don't do that!
I, as user, would like to have options ...
to not be left out of the loop.
keep it as 'open' as possible, please.

[EricL]

Sorry, you don't get choices when it comes to the built in leagues.  That's the whole point.  You want to use some other veggy, run a custom league.

If people are cool with Num's suggestion, I can do that for the standard leagues.  It still doesn't address the veggy repopulation thing - the actual veggy max population will still vary up to 49 even though it is set at 25 - but if people are used to that, no worries.  What might be even better would be to force the veggy DNA to be blank but enabled.  This would ensure that veggy repopulation (as opposed to veggy reproduction) is the only means of new veggy creation thereby ensuring that the max veggy population never exceeds the set limit but allowing combat bots to use viruses on veggies or whatever.

[Griz]

I didn't know that, I guess I should have noticed though.    
I have no idea why it was done like that.

The idea of setting the F1 settings as defaults was to make sure everybody
always ran the official competitive leagues the same way without needing to
know anything about the settings.
If you can think of a way to do this then why not.
Perhaps a 'change F1 settings' button or something. I thought we could
change league settings by unticking the use F1 conditions but perhaps
this isn't always clear enough.

yes. unticking F1 does allow that, as far as I can tell.

here's the original F1 Rules
http://www.darwinbots.com/Forum/index.php?showtopic=279

    * Field size 9237 X 6928.  
    * Veggie feeding rate = 40 (default set by F1 mode)
    * Maximum veggies = 25 (default set by F1 mode)
    * Respawn veggies = 10 (default set by F1 mode)
    * Kill distant Vaggies = OFF
    * Corpses = OFF
    * Pond mode = OFF
    * Day Night cycles = OFF
    * Bouyancy = OFF
    * Friction = 3
    * Gravity = zero
    * Brownian Motion = zero
    * Mutations = ALL Disabled
    * Internet sharing = OFF

this was all for 2.36 ...
so not sure if friction and other parameters
still result in similar motion.
I also question if there are also new parameters
that have been introduced in 2.4.X that may not
be addressed by ticking F1.
for example ... selecting under Veggie Energy:
veggie per cycle or kilobody point ...
or percentage of VegBody/NRG distribution ...
ect.


as Jez suggests ...
we should all be on the same page when running
an 'Official' F1 league, or F2, MB or whatever.

yet ... it would be good, imo ...
to still allow the User as much flexibility as possible
so one can still experiment setting up one's own
league challenges.

Jez ...
do you have the most current F1 league bot list ...
the F1league.txt and league table somewhere?
are all those bot's DNA files available somewhere
as well?
how about a saved F1 league.set?
in which the parameters are indeed all F1?

tanks

[Jez]

Jez ...
do you have the most current F1 league bot list ...
the F1league.txt and league table somewhere?
are all those bot's DNA files available somewhere
as well?
how about a saved F1 league.set?
in which the parameters are indeed all F1?

tanks

Griz,
All the bots shown in the league tables as they are at the minute are available in the bestiary now unless it say's otherwise on the league tables, plus they are all now linked.
I haven't sorted download files for the bots in the bestiary yet but you can copy any you are missing for the moment and I will start on that soon.
The league lists can be copied straight into league.txt now, but only if the bots you have on file are using the same names, I've just changed all the names so that's a bit unlikely atm.   Plus you'd need to delete all the missing bots from the league.txt file, don't think it matters if you don't re-number them, should be done automatically.

If there is someway for me to put a league bots file for people to download to get all the league bots with 'new' names it shouldn't take me long to upload, I've just got to make sure all the dates are correct first.

If I can upload a bots file then I'll also do that for the bestiary when I've finished updating the names and adding the other hundred or so missing bots that I know about and haven't added yet.

The league's are only as current as their last update, I can't run the whole lot all at once due to stack overflow problem but will get it done and updated fairly soon... (am redoing from scratch but if it keeps causing a problem I might just add latest entries to get them updated for now)

[Jez]

would rreally like to specify the max number of cycles
that a round should be allowed to go before ending ...

Perhaps a max round thing whereby if there isn't a statistical winner by point x the challenger is given second place to the defender, would let me avoid, hopefully, stack overflow problem but don't know if that is easy fix.

[Jez]

And perhaps amalgamating all the league folders into one folder rather than seperate folders for each league, not sure if people would see this as a problem but it would save me doing seperate downloadable bot files for each league.

Eric, believe me fella, not trying to keep you from floating your boat and fishing for more of those fishy things I saw a picture of you capturing nor keeping you from your book, this is an idea for the future if not an easy fix!

[Griz]

Sorry, you don't get choices when it comes to the built in leagues.  That's the whole point.  You want to use some other veggy, run a custom league.

relax man!
just trying to air concerns and toss out suggestions
to at least be taken into consideration before changes
that might inadvertantly cramp someone else's ideas/style
are carved into stone, eh?
there might be things you haven't thought of yet or
taken into consideration that might be impacted.
you're the programmer ...
I'm just a user ...
and as such I'd like to retain as many options as
possible because I can't go in and tweak them.
not yet anyway.
 
otay then ...
as long as we're talking only built-in leagues ...
and we could still use most of the F1 settings in our custom
leagues without it forcing one particular veggie on us.
as it stands now, one can click on the F1 settings to reset
the parameters and then unclick and modify the one's we
wish to alter.
[actually, not sure one has to even unclick it to do that]
so as long as I'm still able alter things ... no problem.

perhaps that's what you mean ...
and we are actually taking about the same thing.
hard to tell sometimes.

[Griz]

The league's are only as current as their last update, I can't run the whole lot all at once due to stack overflow problem but will get it done and updated fairly soon... (am redoing from scratch but if it keeps causing a problem I might just add latest entries to get them updated for now)

that's cool, man ...
no rush ...
I've got lots of other stuff to do before I have
time to sit down and get serious about leagues.

Perhaps a max round thing whereby if there isn't a statistical winner by point x the challenger is given second place to the defender, would let me avoid, hopefully, stack overflow problem but don't know if that is easy fix.

yeah ... that's what I was thinking as well ...
the champ retains his title unless clearly defeated.
but it should be a user option and user set ...
so we don't step on the toes of the purists who want to calculate
their stats to the nth degree.
even more useful ...
a user defined max #of cycles per round for the same reason ...
some of these contests go on forever ...
ending only when one bot starves to death more slowly than the other.
so ... at the set $ of cycles ... the bot with the highest pop gets the round.
also ...
in a custom league not using wrap-around ...
or pond mode ...
I've had a bot end up 'outside' the borders ...
where it seems to not be affected by anything ...
and therefore never dies.
that was the biggest problem I came up against before in
non-league sims ... where I couldn't get a restart as
the 'last bot' was 'outside the jurisdiction'.
it's been a long time since I've run DB ...
so perhaps bots can no longer move beyond the borders ...
seems like eric did some changes that included that.

anyway ...
I'm for giving the end user as many options as possible ...
if you haven't fingered that out by now.

I'm not sure how many people actually use DB ...
seems almost more of a programmer's thing ...
appealing to those who have the skill to go in and
make it do what they want.
I can understand that draw ...
just don't have the expertise to do much yet.
that is one reason I keep coming back around
to see how things are progressing ...
inspires me to keep plugging away.

[Jez]

F1 league now has a downloadable folder with all current F1 bots and F1leaguetable.txt.  

[Jez]

F2 league now has a downloadable folder with all current F2 bots and F2leaguetable.txt.  

One dot two dashes and a space were missing from the F1 download. Until I have run a full test on the F1 and F2 downloads please don't expect them to be perfect.

[Light]

Just tried running an f1 match with the latest version between excalibur and una, after the first round in which excalibur wins, it doesn't restart for round 2 and keeps adding round wins to the victor as there are no opponent bots left.

[Jez]

UNA 3.0? Are you sure it's not just exploding so quick you don't get to see it? I don't know how fast your computer runs but UNA 3.0 isn't a bot that is capable of surviving on its own for more than a few seconds on my pc!

If that's not the problem then I'll find a copy of excalibur and try it myself.

[Jez]

Did just manage to reproduce this, noticed the game freeze when two species died out at same time again.
Made a bot:

cond
start
*.maxvel .up store
stop

and gave it two different names for f1 condition match which proved that the game could still freeze when both died at same time, added Alga-minimalis to f1 condition match, same thing happened, removed one of the test bots and the instant the test bot died the wins for Alga-minimalis quickly went to 5 without it seeming to run anymore sims.

The test bot should have lasted long enough for me to see any new sims so you do seem to have spotted a problem, not noticed this before in matches, think it has something to do with one of the bots not being able to survive on its own.

EDIT

The F1 and F2 downloads should now not cause problems when you run the leagues

[Griz]

F1 league now has a downloadable folder with all current F1 bots and F1leaguetable.txt.  

excellent!
hmmmmm ...  
and just where might they be?
I've looked everywhere I can think of ...
and a Search didn't turn up anything either.