I think that would make it a 3-D swarmer, because in a two-dimensional world time's the third dimension, not the fourth.
Its actually a translation of a 4-d sphere (which 4d is always time, its a constant, just as two always are x,y or horizontal vertical) onto 2d space; the simulation also uses depth and bouyancy in pond mode, so a third axis sort of exsists as a number anyways. But reardless of what plain of exsistance you are in, the 4th dimension will always be time, and its important that this remain true if you look at the example on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_dimensionnotice how the inside cycles to the outside, this has to do with angles as they appear in 3d on 2d space. Most importantly, as the number of enclosed angles reaches infinity, or 0 in the case of time, the amount of space between the two points remains equal indefinitely, so the space between them appears to grow larger, but the speed at which information passed would remain constant. These theories follow the special relativity and general relativity theories, in that the 4d is said to be constantly accelerating, where as 3d only changes respectively to the center, or viewer. It uses robage moded around the timer, so that younger generations follow similar bounds and angles to the older generations; after kill offs the ties act like muscles to pull and push their way to the outside of the swarm, until another bot dies and the cycle repeats. The benefit being that younger bots have time to build up defenses and agressive advantages before protecting the younger ones. Currently their ability to hunt alone is weak, and often results in wasted energy from missed shots, I'm working to rectifiy this by limiting shot activations based on energy. I will have to use a waypoint system so the bot can retreat to somewhere safe and start another swarm, or rejoin one.