>> Costs are sort of weird right now, and encourage bots to be built that are simply gross, but still manage to game the system. Like Guardian. I'd like to see just costs from DNA length. Something really modest like 1 nrg per 100 bps per cycle. Get rid of costs for conditions and stores. Stuff like Guardian is really a specialist league (conditionless).
Yes! The whole point of condition costs is to limit the benefit of more complexity. If it isn't limiting complexity, we need a new measure.
>> Also, I'd include a cost per body point, as a way of balancing small and numerous bots (which each get charged for DNA costs) and large behemoth bots. 1 nrg per 1000 body points, or something like that. We should try to aim for a good balance between DNA costs (anti small bot) and body costs (anti big bot).
Whatever you do there, there will be a specific size of bot that optimizes these costs (for a specific dna length). I don't think this puts a very large disadvantage on small bots, as long as the dna cost is slightly more modest than 1 nrg per 100 bps. 1 per 500 or so would be more appropriate.
>> Corpse mode enabled, with no decay. Instantly killing veggies is fine, but the energy shouldn't just disappear. Attrition shouldn't be that easy.
I don't like this idea. There is a difference between trying to eat something and trying to kill something. This adds a recognition element to the match: "I want to eat veggies. I want to kill enemies unless they aren't much danger, in which case I want to eat them." This gives more importance to what decisions a bot makes instead of letting it to the same thing in all cases: kill, then eat.
>> Drop the cost of slime way down, to, say, .01 as the default. Leave shell costs alone. Ideally a 1000 body bot should shoot a shot that costs the shooter the same or greater amount of nrg as it costs the defender to repair the damage to shell.
Right now:
27 shell lost from a 1000 robot's shot (costs 2 nrg to fire)
2.7 energy to replace the shell.
Assuming the shelled bot is shooting back, this still confers significant advantage to the shelled bot.
>> Tie formation cost to 100 nrg.
>> Shot formation cost to 20 nrg.
That's huge. Simple survival becomes a huge ordeal with those settings - I bet you most of the old bots won't be able to do it.
>> All bots that are entered in any league are automatically entered in the F1 league. This rule hasn't been followed in the past, though it should be.
>> Rerun all the leagues by taking all eligible bots in the beastiary, in chronological order, and running them. Rerun leagues every time there's a new version of the program.
>> Always use the newest version of the program to run leagues. This means buddy drops. If the standings change dramatically, that's a good indication of a bug to look for, so it's a good stress test of new versions anyway. Also, this way, new bots using new features get in the league quicker.
Yes. Yes. Yes.