Author Topic: Any other Zerobot Sims?  (Read 19537 times)

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2009, 10:00:38 PM »
I'm thinking some of the DNA compacting is being done to cut down on the odds of deadly mutations occurring, "2 .sx store" is harder to effect than something like "1 ++ .sx or store".

The One trounced it  

It gets eaten alive by tie feeding and sharefeeding. After several fights it can pull off a win against C_Ancestralis.  

I'm going to try and either evolve it to sharefeed or evolve a strict sharefeeder zerobot and combine their DNA. They're still having trouble finding food, the few times C_Ancestralis won were when the zerobot didn't find food. Not really sure how to get them to evolve to some of these things.

« Last Edit: March 06, 2009, 10:10:11 PM by Endy »

Offline Prsn828

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #16 on: March 07, 2009, 09:30:18 AM »
Quote from: Endy
I'm thinking some of the DNA compacting is being done to cut down on the odds of deadly mutations occurring, "2 .sx store" is harder to effect than something like "1 ++ .sx or store".

The One trounced it  

It gets eaten alive by tie feeding and sharefeeding. After several fights it can pull off a win against C_Ancestralis.  

I'm going to try and either evolve it to sharefeed or evolve a strict sharefeeder zerobot and combine their DNA. They're still having trouble finding food, the few times C_Ancestralis won were when the zerobot didn't find food. Not really sure how to get them to evolve to some of these things.

I have noticed that in my zerobot evolution sim there is a common theme going on where the bots that begin to tie to the veggies (even if they don't feed) are the ones that are most successful.  My sim has monster veggies though...  Anyway, what I am getting at is that the problem with tie-feeding slaughters can probably be fixed by evolving your bots with large veggies that can do nothing but be moved by other bots.  On the other hand, this could also weaken your bots in a lot of other areas, as it isn't the most challenging of environments unless the bots start fighting amongst themselves.
So, what will it be? Will you submit to my will, or must I bend reality to suit my needs?
Better answer before I do BOTH!

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #17 on: March 07, 2009, 11:25:23 AM »
Yeah, learning to tie does seem to be a common trait. I'm guessing your veggies feed the other bots and so they're attempting to remain close in order to maximize the chance of being fed.

My current thinking is that their ability to shoot is undermining their ability to learn any other feeding methods.

I'm planning on either using a shotgun approach using hypermutation or wiping out their shooting ability while raising the costs on shot formation to encourage them to evolve tie or share feeding. Once I get the desired DNA I can then induce viruses to splice them together so they have both abilities.

Offline Prsn828

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #18 on: March 07, 2009, 11:48:12 AM »
Quote from: Endy
Yeah, learning to tie does seem to be a common trait. I'm guessing your veggies feed the other bots and so they're attempting to remain close in order to maximize the chance of being fed.

My current thinking is that their ability to shoot is undermining their ability to learn any other feeding methods.

I'm planning on either using a shotgun approach using hypermutation or wiping out their shooting ability while raising the costs on shot formation to encourage them to evolve tie or share feeding. Once I get the desired DNA I can then induce viruses to splice them together so they have both abilities.

Actually, my veggies kinda just sit there.  I am making the zerobots do all the work
Right now they have decided to spin and shoot constantly, and when they get enough energy they reproduce, creating a temporary tie to the veggy and flinging it across the simulation to be fed on by the other bots.  Now that I think about it, this is actually a good example of unconscious teamwork.
So, what will it be? Will you submit to my will, or must I bend reality to suit my needs?
Better answer before I do BOTH!

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2009, 01:09:18 PM »
It is neat how they evolve to work together to overcome problems. Kind of like a primitive colony

Could you upload the sim? Curious now what it looks like.

I think I'm going to start using Insertion mutations instead of Point to introduce more novelty. Point mutations tend to be in the same number range as before, so in a zerobot it tends to have mostly lower range memlocs. Insertion seems to rove over the whole spectrum so should be more useful. It kills the sim when it's set at one, so I'm going to try a scaled back run in hopes they make use of the more advanced dna.

Offline Prsn828

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #20 on: March 07, 2009, 01:29:23 PM »
Quote from: Endy
It is neat how they evolve to work together to overcome problems. Kind of like a primitive colony

Could you upload the sim? Curious now what it looks like.

I think I'm going to start using Insertion mutations instead of Point to introduce more novelty. Point mutations tend to be in the same number range as before, so in a zerobot it tends to have mostly lower range memlocs. Insertion seems to rove over the whole spectrum so should be more useful. It kills the sim when it's set at one, so I'm going to try a scaled back run in hopes they make use of the more advanced dna.

Sure, here is one of the recent saves.
To be honest, I didn't even change any of the specific mutation settings, just the overall mutations depending on how things seemed to be going (When they begin to make progress I scale down mutations to avoid Muller's Ratchet, but if the diversity crashes I crank it up really high.)

Every once in a while I find I need to change things around.  Sometimes I change the number of Veggies, other times I just tweak the costs or mutations. I also had to hand-feed the bots a few times, because at first they were just sitting still fire at nothing. Now they move so it isn't a real issue anymore.
So, what will it be? Will you submit to my will, or must I bend reality to suit my needs?
Better answer before I do BOTH!

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #21 on: March 07, 2009, 03:16:50 PM »
Quote
Every once in a while I find I need to change things around. Sometimes I change the number of Veggies, other times I just tweak the costs or mutations. I also had to hand-feed the bots a few times, because at first they were just sitting still fire at nothing. Now they move so it isn't a real issue anymore.

I've always seen it as slowly increasing the challenges they face. I imagine RL evolution had much the same thing occurring, life having progressive challenges it evolved to overcome.

It's odd how they're making poison.  Could just be random or they are trying to defend themselves.

Offline Prsn828

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 139
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2009, 11:03:29 PM »
Quote from: Endy
Quote
Every once in a while I find I need to change things around. Sometimes I change the number of Veggies, other times I just tweak the costs or mutations. I also had to hand-feed the bots a few times, because at first they were just sitting still fire at nothing. Now they move so it isn't a real issue anymore.

I've always seen it as slowly increasing the challenges they face. I imagine RL evolution had much the same thing occurring, life having progressive challenges it evolved to overcome.

It's odd how they're making poison.  Could just be random or they are trying to defend themselves.

Now that you mention it, you are right. I never really thought about that, but they do make poison, and I have had that and shell be created in several separate zerobot sims. It actually seems to happen a lot. I don't know about how well increasing challenges applies to real life though. It seems more like evolution has a tendency to fight itself, always trying to improve the predator, then the prey, and then the predator again. If you think in that way, we are the predator, setting the costs for our prey, the bots. Only difference is that we don't evolve and they do... now that is kind of creepy
So, what will it be? Will you submit to my will, or must I bend reality to suit my needs?
Better answer before I do BOTH!

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #23 on: March 08, 2009, 05:11:48 PM »
Well, we're still evolving, just much slower than the bots

I think the main stresses for us are STD's and the various population migrations going on. From a species view evolution is attempting to realize every possible combination that can survive. The more that we learn to cure/fix the more genetically diverse our population should become(assuming we don't change the genome itself).

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #24 on: March 08, 2009, 09:30:30 PM »
I definitely think in the next 60 years (probably much sooner), we'll start tinkering with our DNA in earnest.  It's actually one of the non-AI ways to reach the technological singularity, with successively smarter generations of humans understanding how to modify their genome even more.

Offline Moonfisher

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 592
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2009, 05:14:50 PM »
The bots in my sim are now at regular F1 costs, but currently with 80 alge in the sim. (Going to cut down slowly to end up like regular F1 settings)
Hadn't even noticed there was a checkbox for disabling viruses in a bot species, but the waste managing part helped keep big berthas to a manageable amount and allowed the bots to evolve to a larger size.
I only run the sim in the evening when I'm home, so it'll probably be a while yet before I start working on getting it to actualy beat F1 bots

The bots mostly move in the same direction since this reduces the amount of conflicts, and makes big berthas less likely to kill off it's own kind.
At a certain point in their life they start locking themselves in place and sometimes tie to the alge. This helps keep the alge in place for everyone to feed on them, and the behavior has been around since the earliest stages of the sim. Whenever the population dropped too far leaving few older bots to hold the alge in place, the younger bots would start to die out, so it seems like the bots aren't able to track the alge properly and depend on the older bots for feeding.
The older bots don't seem to gain much from being locked since they're facing the wrong way their shots don't hit the alge they're blocking unless they tie to an alge and draw it in, but this seems to be random they're just as likely to push it away.
There was a subspecies wich lasted for about 400K cycles, wich would lock itself very early and spind and shoot, this way by grouping together they could herd the alge as the other species moved them into the locked clusters of bots. This seemed to work well enough for both species, but only for a while, the clusters moved around slowly over generations and had problems when hitting the corners of the toroidial map.
But they did coexist for a long time, saved the sim, fogured maybe I could tweek it and increase sim size and stuff like that to make them brach out even more.

And concerning the more recent topic, I think the current "evolution" of humans points towards groups that are more likely to become sperm donors and groups that have a lot of children for religious, cultural or biological reasons, but probably mostly the 2 first mentioned. So my guess would be that our "sim" has reached a point where almost anything will survive and the biodiversity within our specie is increasing dramaticaly. And I don't think a higher intelect would be the mutation to trigger the next evolutional step, and the "correct" mutation would also depend on the part of the world you're in.
And even if people could pick the traits of their children I'm not sure intelect would be the most prominent direction, intelectuals tend to have fewer children. I'm sure they'd make some realy smart people if they can, and even if they don't have children their knowledge will help create even smarter shildren, leaving a different kind of heritage in the genome. But I'm not sure this would become the "comon" genome, I think the majority may prefer to stay as they are, knowledge does not equal happyness or a large amount of decendants, so not everyone will persue it and those who do are no more likely to become the majority over generations.
I think it's hard to say where we go from here evolutionwise... medical science is only just starting to get serious so I'm not sure the imune system will play a huge role for much longer, not sure intelect is a driving factor and it's not entirely bound one genome, a large part comes from your culture and parents. Faster reproduction in some way could mean a lot in western countries... maybe... but in an overpopulated place someone why requires less food may be more liekly to get by. I think in the end the one who adapts the fastest would be the safest bet, our world changes faster than ever before and whoever gets with the program the fastest gets by. So more powerfull epigenetic memmory... that would be my guess.

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2009, 10:47:49 PM »
Two zero bots at F1 settings, I see a fight coming on

It is neat how the different sims evolve. You'd think we'd see more similar results, but each one winds up different.

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #27 on: March 15, 2009, 09:57:37 PM »
A higher number of insertion mutations seems to be working for increasing the amount of novel DNA. Might be too high at 1000, but they seem to be evolving better overall.

My current computer keeps threatening to meltdown when running sims. I'm going to try and get a new screen to use with a laptop, so I can start up again.

Offline Ta-183

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 105
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #28 on: March 20, 2009, 11:34:01 AM »
I've started running two ZB sims on my machines. One is running a standard 'let-things-work-themselves-out' sim with 500 bots and a few hundred static veggies. The other one I have to toy with because it runs on an older computer. That one started out with a single 87 gene zerobot that I hyper-mutated with over 1000 mutations, none of which did anything at all.

Right now the big sim is still at 499 bots (one died early on from costs, methinks.) and as I typed this a second bot developed a shooting gene, this one can actually feed! The first shooter used -1 shots that did jack nothing. I'm quite pleased, as this is the first gene that does something besides slowly move around in this sim! It's currently at 17 hours and a hair over 2 million, 57 thousand cycles. ( I like my 3.2GHz CPU. Great Christmas gift.) All it needs is to get a movement gene and develop reproduction, and then this is going to get really interesting.

The (current, mind you. these bots were developed before this sim was run) second sim hasn't done much the past 10 hours. A bot developed one-way movement, so I copied the DNA code and made around 50 of them. Not much has changed since the sim ran, except more bots have become stationary. What their DNA is having them do is move to the right on this relatively small toroidal map. While not much is turning out per hour (it was just over 166 thousand cycles 5 minutes ago) it makes a better erosion sim than an evo sim, because they seem to have eroded the veggies and static bots into a fairly straight and small formation. That gave me a little laugh. Most developments in this sim that have occurred simply changed the orientation of the bot a hair, and that might still only be impacts. I don't expect to see anything new for a while there simply due to processor speed.


This sim is running using standard F1 costs set to a 0X multiplier so they don't die right now. Once reproduction evolves and shooting comes with it, I'll be able to ratchet the costs up and increase the veggies. At the moment they do nothing, except one bot out of the 499 remaining is capable of feeding off of them. It simply cant move or reproduce.





Also, I'm afraid to end the sim and load a save because I don't want to go through the "______'s DNA parsing is incorrect. Ignoring parameters." error 500 times. Any way to fix this?
« Last Edit: March 20, 2009, 11:38:45 AM by Ta-183 »

Offline Endy

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 852
    • View Profile
Any other Zerobot Sims?
« Reply #29 on: March 20, 2009, 01:14:50 PM »
Just copy the dna from the robdna menu into a blank text file.  

Ctrl-C still works, even though it's not really obvious.