I've recently tried a new approach to population and energy management in the sim. I removed ALL costs from bots (DNA, rotation, movement, etc) except for "maintenance of body" cost, which I set fairly high (at 0.06). I control the total amount of energy in the sim by turning sun off when it goes above 10 million and turning it back on when it falls below 9 million. The veggies are not limited in growth (the limit is set very high, at 1500, which it never reaches). Veggies are re-seeded with interval of 400 cycles (a single veggie per re-seeding) to compensate for the fact that movement is severely restricted in the sim (top speed set at 5).
Interestingly, such system is fairly stable with ~200-400 veggies present all the time. Bots are prone to extinction because sometimes they are not lucky enough to find any of the veggie patches present in the sim. But usually they are OK. I just started this sim and I don't see any specific adaptations to these conditions yet. But I am curious what they will be. Any ideas?
If you are interested in this system, the sim is attached for your pleasure.