Bots and Simulations > DNA - General

Too Big / Too Small

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EmperorNero:

--- Quote from: Billy on July 16, 2010, 04:50:21 PM ---A bot with 1 energy simply won't survive in F1 costs. Try setting friction to solid metal.

--- End quote ---

Ok, I try setting friction to solid metal.
I use custom costs, but they are F1 defaults plus age costs, so it shouldn't make a difference.

Numsgil:

--- Quote from: EmperorNero on July 16, 2010, 03:34:00 PM ---
--- Quote from: Numsgil on July 13, 2010, 02:00:10 PM ---Large bots have stronger shots, and have more energy reserves to use during a fight.  Smaller bots are lighter so can maneuver more efficiently, and they're harder to hit with shots, but they don't have very strong shots and they don't have large reserves of energy.
--- End quote ---

Small bots seem to do fine. They don't run out of energy or anything.  The bigger ones have trouble shooting the small ones, so there's no pressure to be big. Its only a detriment, and they will get small sooner or later. Then there's only bots with 1 energy. Anything I put in the DNA to prevent that will mutate away sooner or later. What to do?

--- End quote ---

Well some things are natural consequences of the rules, and others are specifically added rules.  Ideally you'd have a very small rule set and everything you'd want would naturally emerge from it (think Game of Life).  The primary advantage is that such systems tend to be self balancing (in terms of game balance.  ie: no uber strategy) and self consistent.

Viruses I think are a good example of this.  The rules governing viruses in Darwinbots are relatively simple, but there's a lot of implied strategy and counter strategy that come about naturally.  Ties too, with various counters and counter-counters that aren't explicitly coded in but are consequences of how the system works.  Both systems could probably do with some tweaking, but they add a lot of implicit depth without explicit rules being written up to support them.

Whereas the current waste system is a bad example, since it's an entirely new element and doesn't really interact with any other elements.  Since it doesn't interact with other rules to form new strategies, and it isn't an emergent property of the ruleset, it's arbitrary.

For aging, aging costs or killing bots at a certain age or having some base percentage chance per cycle to kill a bot would be arbitrary, whereas some rule set that said that various aspects of a bot degrade with use would not be arbitrary since beyond the intended effect of aging, you'd also introduce effects like a base metabolism where bots have to repair themselves or produce new bits at some cost, which maybe has impacts on the reproductive cycle and battle damage and faster metabolism for more active bots and things like that.

Panda:
Viruses are being discussed recently on the IRC, with ways of creating antiviruses, and then ideas of how to create anti-antiviruses, and the counter-acting those, in the end you have complected viruses which antiviruses cannot stop. The virus always seems to have an upper hand. It is similar to life, where a virus is likely to be more powerful than an antivirus. Sammeh's virus was dominating for a while, until antiviruses have been created that stop it. Antiviruses seem to be very difficult for bots to acquire of their own accord as viruses are usually too potent. However I do agree that it is a great example of how it can be self balancing, as long as Sammeh or Billy do not release a massively potent virus onto the IM.

However on an evosim of mine I enjoyed watching an antivirus and virus evolve well together, with the virus spreading with some bots and a population becoming immune. Unhappily, I lost this sim and was not able to recreate it. :'(

About small bots and big berthas... there is nothing you can do in sims to prevent them completely as bots that are very small seem to survive very well, and well, the same can be said about big berthas. One thing I have noticed about big berthas is that they don't seem to lose the ability to reproduce but they are fixed and their offspring stops them from reproducing. I have become used to the small bots as I have not been able to get rid of them completely! :/

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