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Bot DNA
rsucoop:
Will there be chromosomes and Alleles for Dominance and Recesive genes? This might make sex-repro more ineresting.
Numsgil:
I haven't implemented it yet, but my plan is to have several concurrent "threads" that all operate on the bot's memory at the same time. At the end of execution, all their effects are averaged (or something similar) together. A recessive gene in a situation like that might simply be a gene that doesn't store as high a value.
rsucoop:
I was thinking more along the lines of allowing a designer to control dominance and recessiveness. What if we used division of the two instead? In such an instance co-dominance could occur. That sounds complicated to implement as a defaulting thing. I say let the designer choose for their own species. Otherwise there could be problems with crossbreading. I also think it might be best to simply use a common-limiter. A value that limits potential crosses between species to require similar refvars. This could be used to prevent adaptations from occuring through sexrepro taht are not wanted, such as shooting or sight.
Numsgil:
Part of the problem here is that your idea is a force-fed version of dominance and recession taught as part of intro biology. Real genetics is a bit more... involved. Genes aren't magically "dominant" and "recessive". It's more like the gene for skin pigment comes in two varieties: one produces a lot, the other produces a little. The one that produces a little is overwhelmed by the one that produces a lot, making it recessive in expression.
Think of it like two faucets filling a bathtub. If both faucets are off or mostly off, you won't have a lot of water in the bathtub. That's a recessive phenotype. If one faucet is on at full blast and the other is off, you'll still fill the bathtub. That's a dominant phenotype. If both faucets are on at full blast, well, that might not make any difference (maybe someone's monitoring the bathtub and can turn it off) or it could mean a very wet house. Or if one faucet produces red paint and the other produces blue paint. The end effect might be very different from what either faucet intends. That's where the idea of co-dominance comes from, and other wacky things like that.
On top of that, most phenotypes aren't controlled by a single gene, and many genes have more than one effect, so the whole thing gets really muddy.
rsucoop:
Ah, I was thinkning genophenically, not expression. I meant a Gene that caused the recessive to be turned off. A sort of built in switch when it comes ot crossing.
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