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New bot shape

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Numsgil:
I've been working over how the next Darwinbots will work.  Specifically I want to make it 3D and allow bots to create "membranes" so they can form things like squids that move based on jet propulsion.

I realized pretty quickly that spherical bots attached with rods doesn't work well in this sort of situation.  Bots that wanted to change the angle between ties need to specify both ties to work with.  This creates a level of complexity that I have a hard time imagining evolution being able to successfully adapt to.  So I reversed my thinking, instead of bots acting as the joints between ties, I have bots be the rigid rod and have them form joints with each other.

There are a variety of shapes that bots could have.  The one that comes to mind quickest would be a large box.  But I don't think it would look very organic-- too many corners.  The next thought in my mind was for them to be capsules.  Looking something like this:



Multibots would form as a pivot point between two bots.  It would either look like or

I haven't decided which one looks and works better, so I might implement both and see which one works better in practice.  I'm wondering what people think about something like this.  It would really change how the program looks.

Jez:
3D would be very cool! 8)

I think the second example of pivots looks pretty good, cells join on the outside of their surfaces. The first example, if in a 3D enviroment, makes me think the bot is linked on the outside of the cell still but our POV hides the link.

Your new shape for the bots looks like an extended circle, might be an idea to allow bots to modify their proportion along the centre axis as well and gain another means of propulsion. (change from circle to extendable cylinder at will while maintaining overall volume).  Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to do a pictoral example of that so I'll leave that idea to your imagination. Was thinking of muscle cells maybe...

razzo:
One word:
Awesome.


Just hide the pivots and allow the player to guess.

Numsgil:

--- Quote from: Jez ---3D would be very cool! 8)

I think the second example of pivots looks pretty good, cells join on the outside of their surfaces. The first example, if in a 3D enviroment, makes me think the bot is linked on the outside of the cell still but our POV hides the link.

Your new shape for the bots looks like an extended circle, might be an idea to allow bots to modify their proportion along the centre axis as well and gain another means of propulsion. (change from circle to extendable cylinder at will while maintaining overall volume).  Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to do a pictoral example of that so I'll leave that idea to your imagination. Was thinking of muscle cells maybe...
--- End quote ---

Hmm, that's an interesting idea.  I was thinking more along the lines of fixed proportions and have bots grow or shrink as they gain mass, but I can see some fun possibilites from having them be able to change their length.  I'll have to work it out on paper and see how it would work.


--- Quote ---Just hide the pivots and allow the player to guess.
--- End quote ---

Yeah, the pivots in the pictures are for the diagram.  I probably wouldn't have the pivots get drawn by default.

abyaly:
You could get some very interesting methods of propulsion that way. This idea reminds me a bit of sodaplay.com

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