League Settings

[Jez]

2.42.9j will be as you say.

Aah crikey, I's and j's look so similar that had me confused
Tyvm Eric

Light; bots have suffered from not using a sideways detection to compensate forwards movement for as long as I can remember, (when I was a lad...)   not a problem as I see it. F2 bots not being able to feed off veg they have knocked is.  

[Light]

As long as we have settings that most of the bots work reasonably well in thats okay, given that collision works from ghost -1 to marbles +1, what sort of value are we looking at 0.3 maybe 0.2?

[Jez]

I'm wondering how much difference using the metal background makes. As an F2 afficionado I guess the bots would cope with a fairly low collision setting. I'll run a few sims later and see what looks most familiar.
If anyone sees PY bend his ear about it, he is the default designer of leagues after all...

[EricL]

Would anyone be opposed to my forcing the first bot in the species list to be the veg and disabling it's DNA when running leagues?  I keep forgetting to make the first bot an autotrof as I'm testing leagues.

By disabling the bot's DNA, it wouldn't matter what bot people used as a veggy to run leages - any bot would do and the result would always be the same for everyone since the thing would essentially be a non-reproducing, non-executing autoroptic empty husk.  Veggy repopulation would be the sole means for veggies coming into the sim.

[Numsgil]

There are a small handful of bots that use the fact that refeyes for veggies are 0, and things like that.  If those properties stayed in tact, it's probably find to forego DNA execution.

[Jez]

Would that not stop veg multiplying? Growing patches of veg are sometimes an important part of the league sim, such as when bots have just had a big battle and the last few survivors are desperately running around trying to find food.

On the other hand it might reduce the randomness of the league, which would be a good thing. Plus it would speed the league up, although with the max bot speed of 180 I can barely keep track of what they are doing anyway.

Certainly putting the veg alga minimalis (agree with nums about the veg recognition for some bots) in the league settings as a default or something would be great. I'll try disabling the veg dna and see how it affects competitors.

EDIT

Light, I think a collsion value of 0 would be about right. A lot of bots are going to have a hard time with the new top speeds and might find it easier with a lower value than this but it looks about the same as it used to be then.

Eric, switching off the veg dna made me laugh. Looking into my crystal ball I forsee that forcing totally new behaviour patterns to arise. Predominantly symbots or food protectors winning hands down and ambush predator bots losing. Also a greater advantage to bots that stop by their food rather than bump it.  It certainly would make the leagues interesting but would probably preceed a mass extinction event. Perhaps the sort of punctuated equilibrium that DB would benefit from. I will go with mass opinion on this idea.

[EricL]

It's the kind of thing that can easily be changed later as we gather more data.  Anyone who wants to run a league with the DNA disabled for the veggy can do so.

So, to be clear, I will be forcing the veg option upon the first entry in the species dialog but I will NOT be disabling it's DNA.  Additionally, I am leaving  the max speed up high at 180, but will be reducing the collision elasticity to 0.

[EricL]

Just want to check that people want absolutly no brownian motion when running leagues, correct?  I ask because when you enter a a couple of very stupid bots that don't move when they can't see anything, it can take them a long time to die with F1 costs.  Adding a little brownian motion would allow them to slowly drift around until they see something.  Not critical probably.  Just checking.

[Jez]

Should be fine without brownian motion. Bots have to wait for veg to reproduce and get close enough if they are that stupid and not already been wiped out by a competitor.

[Jez]

Can the league settings have waste back pls, max value or something, it's just otherwise every time I run into a big Bertha type bot running the leagues it's going to take hours or maybe days to run one match. Reaching max waste seems to take ages as well but it was certainly quicker.

I missed the altzheimer effect...

[EricL]

Do you want it forced to some value or free to be set by the user running the league?

[Jez]

Forced so all league matches are the same. If anyone's got a better suggestion for how to do it or what value to set then they can speak up before you change it.

3.2.1...

[EricL]

How about I set it to 10000.  That is high enough that reletivly fast reproducing bots without a waste handling gene, which I think covers a lot of older bots, won't be adversely effected but it should help considerably with big bertha stalemates.

[Jez]

Sounds reasonable to me, (biased I admit as I'm running the matches), and seeing as nobodies questioned the idea that motion is passed.

[Jez]

er new problem, I have Devious E acting as a gentle giant and I. Venia that loses no energy whatsover when it is sitting still. Some of them have as little as 12 nrg, and are already several 1000 years old.   Plus Devious uses viruses that have inactivated all the I. venia's...  

What do you think about adding a very modest cost per turn to the leagues?