The ref values!

[Zelos]

if we shall begin using ATCG it will be to hard. But to mimic life as good as possible would require to program all over again. and since thats out of question we cant. So instant we go bit by bit closer to mimic life.

[PurpleYouko]

Right, and I have no problem with that as long as we don't throw away the functionality that makes DB such a great program already.

Add, modify but don't take away.

[Zelos]

dont you think that making a few commands and then replace the old ones with it is modefieng? isnt it then waste to have those if they are replaced with better ones?

[PurpleYouko]

To be quite honest, I would prefer to keep the old ones too, unless we determine them to be completely useless or too unrealistic to leave in the program.

"sun" would be an example of this. Nobody ever uses it. We have better options available. But then what happens if a robot mutates a really neat trick using this supposedly obsolete function?
IMO the more different pathways to any given end that are available, the more potential diversity there is. Just makes it more fun and takes nothing away from the program.

[Zelos]

are you a conservative person? a out with the new in with the old?. im a out with the old in with the new.

[Numsgil]

I think PY and I probably are both "keep all the old, just add a heck of new crap" philosophy.  I don't know that you can descriube something like updates to a computer program in terms of conservative or liberal.

[Ulciscor]

I have no problem with them at all as they stand. I also think there are other aspects which need work more than updating variables to more accuratlely emulate biology.

[Endy]

I think that the ref's are kind of artificial, it'd be like recognizing someone based on their individual dna. While it's possible for us, using tons of technology, I'm not sure it should be quite so easy for the bots.

I'd be more in favor of expanding on memloc/memval (multiple?) and using them to sense what another bot's value's are. This would be more akin to bacteria sensing each other's chemistry, rather than dna.

The only problem is backward's compatability, I honestly can't think of any way to pull it off :unsure:

There is a bit of a problem starting to arise with using ref's for recognition, I thought I should mention. Using delgene/mkvirus it is possible to remove/add false genetic info(eyes) changing it to whatever numbers are required. It'd be time consuming and ineffective against all bots, but it could be done.

Another possible future problem is being able to define a readback value using a * and some value. This could allow anyone to change to amount of (* eyeX) simply by changing the value of eyeX. (Although a bennefit would be better recognition for new bots with use of a more variable recognition gene)

Alright enough for now, I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say :)

[Numsgil]

I'd be willing to rewrite all the interbot sysvars if people are willing to accept that all the old bots will need to be rewritten.

For instance, instead of refbody we could do a refsize, since eventually body will be split into muscle and fat, and other things may change the size of a bot in the future.  Refnrg would disappear.  On and on.

Trefs likewise could be rewritten to use the idea of bandwidth.  Depending on how large the tie you jsut shot is, you can transfer X information through the tie per cycle.