PY did you figure out what is killing your bots

[Botsareus]

PY, you started a topic on running evo sims , and that all your bots were dieing after a while. Did you figure out whats killing them? I dont think it was mutation whats killing them , it has to be some kind of bug...

A Quote on PusherBots:
  -Mutation cant kill parants unless they were once children
Good One! Bau 2005  :)

[PurpleYouko]

It wasn't any kind of bug. They were physically losing the ability to move via mutation.

Shvarz has been running them as well and he saw the same thing on most of the sims. I think he may have a bunch of them now that have managed to crack the problem and finally have a beneficial mutation that allows them to survive.

More later from Shvarz when he is ready to post them.

[Botsareus]

Nice! Job! shvartz! (in advance)

(potential off topic starts here) (and shvartz, dont beleave all this bull crap you read about StarWars on the enternet, you have to see it for yourself to like it, like my stepfather always hated starwars until I actualy maid him see it) (potential off topic ends here)

Hope to see what was causing the problem and how did the bots fix it soon.

[Numsgil]

Again, it's Muller's Ratchet, and it's not a problem with the simulation per se, it's a problem with real life (which DB is a subset of (or tries to be anyway)).  You can decrease the effects of Muller's Ratchet by lowering the mutation rates, but you'll never be able to totally eliminate it (at least I don't think, I won't pretend to be an expert in this area, I only had basic college bio and what I've researched myself, so there are quite a few holes.).

In real life, the population size for asexual organisms on the planet is simply so large that Muller's ratchet isn't strong enough to eliminate life.  Also, the muation rate is apparently low enough as well.

Once you introduce sexual reproduction, Muller's Ratchet is defanged, so to speak, which seems to me to be the real reason macro-organisms go to all the trouble to do it in the first place.  There simply aren't enough whooping-cough monkies in the world to compensate for Muller's Ratchet through asexual reproduction.

[PurpleYouko]

Or to put it another way.....

There is something in the original design of my start-bot that seems to favor short term beneficial mutations (like loss of movement to feed more efficiently off the crowd of other babies around it) over mutations that might increase the survival factor of the species.

The trouble is that the Start-bots are onlt borderline survivors in the first place.
I hoped that they would mutate better speed to chase down the rabbits more efficiently but instead they just chase the things until they have massive amounts of energy.
They get slow and fat then lose the rabbit.
Next they reproduce explosively into a cloud of about 20 babies.
Out of these young, most are exact copies of the parent but now and then one will become a cannibot and may also lose the ability to move. This bot now has a massive advantage over his spinning brethren. he just sits there and eats them all. They neither run away or fight back.
Now we have one fat bastard who can't move.
He will just sit there till he withers away and dies.

The cause of this as I see it, is that the initial Start-Bots cannot reproduce while there is something in front of them. If they could then the babies would be spread around instead of clumped together.
Also losing the "avoid conspecs" gene might help so that they don't spin on the spot while in a massive group.

I have just designed them such that they have a predisposion to evolve into fat, lazy cannibots!

Artificially induced Mueller's ratchet in a nutshell.

[Numsgil]

A simple enough fix to this particular problem is to have bots retaliate to anything that attacks them.

Something like:

If I'm being attacked then turn in that direction and fire back until the bot in my eyes dissappears.

Cannibots still get the drop on other cells, but at least they won't rip through a whole cloud of their bretheren.

[PurpleYouko]

Also disable the spinning thingy with conspec recognition.

"Keep them doggies moving"

If they are constantly moving then a lazy fat-bastard cannibot isn't going to get any food!

[Endy]

I tried that thing with retaliation...haven't been able to get it working quite yet :(

The problem is that shot's go wide and you wind up with a crowd of canni's, not a pretty picture. :blink: I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to make ID'ing friendly fire possible(God knows it's hard enough in real life :) ).

Endy B)