Do you know what is venom?

[Mozgic]

Do you know what is venom and what is it for.

[Light]

Are you talking about in DB or in real life?

[PurpleYouko]

Yup I know how venom works  :D

I coded it after all

[Mozgic]

Of course I talking about the venom in DB

[Carlo]

He's from Croatia. I think he's trying to ask what is venom for.

By the way, the second "no" answer to the poll is mine  :lol:

[Sprotiel]

And the third is mine. I've looked at the code but I don't really understand the logic. Why are robots of the same species immune to venom? IMHO, species is only a convenient label but shouldn't have any in-game effect.

[Carlo]

IMHO, species is only a convenient label but shouldn't have any in-game effect.

I totally agree

[PurpleYouko]

Venom initially effected all robots but it very quickly became apparent that it was utterly useless as a weapon when it effected friends and enemies alike.

Besdies, species being immune to their own venom is hardly a new idea.

Th Komodo Dragon has such a weapon. It is actually more a concoction of deadly bacteria than true venom but the concept remains the same. A dragon is immune to venom from another dragon.

Likewise the different animals (of the same species) that make up many jelly fishes such as the portugese man-o-war, are imune to the stings of other nematocysts in the same, and other, comunal structures.

Sea slugs are not only immune to poison and venom from others of their own species (and often other species too), but they use the venom that they ingest to defend themselves.

The same is true all over the animal kindom so why should DB be any different?

Anyway, was the question, how to actually use venom in DB or was it just simply a comment about un/realisticness of it. (I think that may be a completely new word  :D )

[Sprotiel]

I'm sorry but I find your explanation contradictory with the premise of DB. If animal species tend to be immune to their own venom (I think it's not the case for scorpions, by the way), it's because they have evolved so. Actually, I suppose they have either co-evolved their efficiency at producing venom and their immunity or become immune and then started producing venom. Anyway, DB is not about sea slugs fighting each other, it's about evolution, sea slugs being only one of the (hopefully) possible results.

[Carlo]

Again, I agree. If some or many species are immune to their own poison it's because they evolved this feature. Some others don't.
So, if the point with poison is that it is useless unless it is innocuous to conspecifics, then - if you want to keep it - you have to redesign it in such way that organisms can evolve poisons, and evolve immunity to that poisons. Just deciding that organisms which share the same filename on your hard disk are immune to each other's poison, is a too quick and too dirty solution.

[PurpleYouko]

OK those are fair points but they do serve to highlight ways in which the code is deficient for real evolution.

There just isn't any way that a robot could evolve the ability to harmlessly absorb poison or venom since the program doesn't include that ability. If it did then all combat bots would use it as a matter of course and then venom and poison would be useless as weapons.

Remember that we have almost equal numbers of combat programmers and bot evolvers. While the long term aim of the program is to satisfy both camps equally, it is still a difficult process to acheive.

I am beginning to think that many parts of DB could be due for a complete overhaul to try and make evolution a lot more open ended. This needs some serious thought.

[Old Henk]

How about Venom/poison "Frequenties", similar to the way ties are different by the number stored in .tie?
Subsequently, shell and slime can be given frequenties, so that bots that know the frequenty are immune (unless they evolve into a new species of course)

[PurpleYouko]

Go Henk!!  B) :clap:

That is a really cool idea and it would be quite easy to implement.

It solves the issues for both camps. Combat bots can stay immune by having the frequency coded into their DNA while evolution will be able to evolve such an ability (eventually)

I like it.

[Anonomous Guest Person]

Rather then having frequenties, you could allow a way to counter venom/poison by finding what it affects, and setting a memory location to that. I.e. if the venom sets .tieval to 1000, then you'd have to store .tieval (not *.tieval) into, say... .delvenom.
This could allow for some pretty advanced immune systems, I guess.
Of course, then you might have to make the original features of venom/poison work when .vloc/.ploc is -1, rather then 0.
(Or have .delvenom be reset to -1 every cycle.)

[PurpleYouko]

The trouble with this idea is that venom and poison are specifically designed to overpower internal commands from DNA. just as direct memory shots do.

If venom/poison were unable to do this then it would really be a complete waste of time.

A common poison uses a .ploc location of .shoot. This disables the victim from shooting as long as it is poisoned.
In your scenario the victim would be able to ignore the poison completely simply by saving values of -1 into .shoot. The poison would be utterly useless in stopping the attack.

I much prefere the idea of having a frequency/phase/chemical signature that disables the poison/venom shot by matching the frequency/phase/chemical signature of the poison/venom shot and thereby enabling absorbtion of the shot rather than succumbing to its effect