Milestone 1
Right, here is where I draw the line for the first milestone of this project. Using randombots, I have successfully "evolved" a bot capable of reproduction. This is being done by a .repro inc command buried in the random integers. This causes a cancerous reproduction pattern, where the bots attempt to reproduce every single cycle.
My next step will be to attempt to breed out this cancerous growth, giving something a little more controlled. To do this, I will set energy to be distributed per kilobody point, which favours sensible veggies. Costs will be set to F1 default, but with age cost set to 0.1, which will also discourage cancerous growth, and veggies repopulation threshold will be set to 100. From previous dabblings with these settings, I have seen that the veggies that survive are the ones that evolve to turn off the area of code which allows them to reproduce. Therefore after a while of cancerous growth, I will end up with 100 non-reproducing veggies, however most, if not all, will still posess the genetic code enabling them to do so. Then, it's a simple matter of waiting for the point mutations to evolve a sensible control for the reproduction.
The F1 default costs will provide an evolutionary drive towards a sensible reproduction pattern for another reason as well. Eventually, the Age cost will outstrip the amount of energy being collected by the bot, and it will begin to lose energy. Therefore, each bot has a lifespan, and if it does not develop a sensible method of evolution in that time (and with age cost at 0.1, that's still 10 gigacycles per 1 energy) then both it and its genetic code dies. Sort of a brute-force method, but I'm pretty sure it should yield results eventually. If a veggie dies, it is replaced by a brand new cancerous veg, which will eventually simmer down into something useful again. And so the cycle continues...
If you have any suggestions, please let me know and I will give them due consideration. Most of my methods are hypothesis and a little trial and error, so if you have any useful experience, I'd love to hear it. Also, as I mentioned above, does anyone know how to work pondmode, because I've had no luck so far. I'd like to use it later.
I get the feeling I need a successful veg before I can start evolving something that can feed on veg...