Sharers Evolution

[Endy]

Ahhhh! I was running a 50% share feeder in a Brownian Evosim and they still developed ways to feed off each other.

First there were the 50%'s and all was good with a 500 bot MB eventually developing. Then along came this parasitic reproducer that relied on the other bots to both tie and feed it. It would reproduce bunches of low nrg offspring and spread through out the sim, keeping the 50%'s from tieing to veggies and sucking up most of the available nrg.

Finally the 50%'s got wise and evolved into 99%'s, and started killing off these annoying cheaters.

What happens next? Only a restore will tell, the cheaters crashed the program on me <_<  :)

[Endy]

Alright, had some time to take a look at these guys again. Had to re-run the sim with the parents and their offspring all together. It seems the parasites will only begin to tie when they're already tied to other bots. I think it's controled by nrg amounts, so when the bots receive nrg from other sharefeeding bots, they will begin to fire ties themselves. At first the Parents lead, but over time their decendents take over, eventually wiping out the parent species that got them started.

I think it's being done to keep the bots from wasting nrg by tieing to low nrg siblings. Not a problem I would have thought of, that's for sure.

[Numsgil]

It's always interesting to see what evolution finds to screw with carefully designed group behavior.  Hardly ever do the bots evolve what you want them to.

[Endy]

Agreed :) Maybe there's some sense for bots cheating other bots when they can, I just don't want them destroying the whole ecosystem doing so. <_<

On the last run their population seriously declined for some reason. I've decided to stop working on them for a while.

[Numsgil]

Perhaps a better method of sharefeeding is needed, where cheating is less possible.  I imagine that real multicellular organisms transport energy by giving it to other cells, instead of taking it from other cells.

That way, if a cell feels cheated, it just stops sharing.

[Greven]

That way, if a cell feels cheated, it just stops sharing.

LOL, now the bots have fellings?   :laugh:  :laugh: