How much can the bots evolve?

[Ronald Taylor]

Could the simpler bots like T preservans eventually turn into multicellular things or tie feeders on their own? Or do you have to make bots like that separately?

[Ulciscor]

It is possible for simpler bots to mutate into much more complex bots which use more advanced methods of feeding, moving etc. Unfortunately it takes many attempts and long running sims in order to do.
I'm not sure if anyone has actually managed to get a fully-functioning tie feeder or multibot from scratch just by mutations though.

[PurpleYouko]

Up to now, nobody has ever evolved a working tie feeder or a complex MB.

It is theoretically possible but just hasn't been done yet. We are also working on improving the way that DNA evolves for future releases.

[Numsgil]

As far as I know, the most long running sims tend to be from Shvarz, and his sims are in the neighborhood of maybe 20 million cycles.  It's just not feasible in that time frame to see much beyond adaptation.  I don't imagine any really new behaviors can be found.

I've seen bots adapt themselves to high friction environments, among others, but I've never seen a bot learn to do something it couldn't do at the start of the sim.  I don't think the experiment to teach Bots' firstbot to turn even worked.

[Botsareus]

To tell you the truth I tryed it countless times but on a slow computer its anoying as $#%%$53$ so I usually quit before anything interesting happens, you should see a post about evolving FirstBot , thats basicaly what you are looking for I think.



Num, I'll try again in a sec , give me a few days. Evantualy that Junk dna should turn into somthing... Unless there has been updates I dont know about.

[Numsgil]

I would recommend running the sims on an old computer you aren't using so you're less tempted to play with it.  I've had success doing it that way.