Cost for turning

[Botsareus]

MB = easy in the sense that the robot does not have to look at its envirment and mess and everything before comming up with the magical number of the turn it has to make.

How is it not easy, thats the qustion:

Charging this much to rotate a bot is going to make building a Multi-bot prohibitively expensive since each segment of a 6 part bot will have to make several turns that will total at least 720 degrees.

And how did it work before?

[Numsgil]

Presently bots are not charged any nrg for turning.

[PurpleYouko]

Here is roughly what a cross tied 4 part MB has to do in order to form.

• Bot 1 gives birth: Bot 2 is born
• Bot 1 spins to face outward. a turn of 135 degrees: Bot 2 rotates 90
• Bot 2 gives birth: Bot 3 is born.
• Bot 2 rotates 135 degrees: Bot 3 turns 90 degrees
• Bot 3 gives birth: Bot 4 is born
• Bot 3 rotates 135 degrees: Bot 4 turns 90 degrees
• Bot 4 fires a tie at bot 1
• Bot 4 rotates 135 degrees
• All 4 bots rotate 180 to face the middle then fire ties.
• All 4 bots rotate 180 to face outward again.
• Voila ---- Cross tied 4 part MB

It might be possible to make only 2 of the bots turn inward to form the cross ties but if it is then I haven't managed it yet.

Total rotations for all bots?
2250 degrees of rotation!

Remember all this energy has to come from one parent bot and each successive parent in the series will be rotating with a significant portion of this mass so the expense will be astronomical.

Also this scenario is calculated for only 4 bots. Try 6 or 8 and it will become almost exponentially more expensive to make big MBs

The way this is suggested it will cost several hundred energy for an average sized bot to make one complete rotation.
IMO the cost of rotations should be extremely low, something on the order of 1-5 energy for a full rotation depending on mass and size.

It isn't practical to make a series of smaller rotations or to start a slow rotation then stop it later in order to conserve energy. If we do that then the ties harden way before we can build the structure. It is already very difficult to get everything done in the time scale allowed.

[Numsgil]

Ah, you see, that's the challenge :P

Maybe what you need to do is start the bots spinning at a constant rate.  That's free.  Make it the GCD of all the angles a particular bot needs to do.  Maybe something like 45 degrees/cycle.

That would cost something like 18 or 19 energy to start, and then 18 or 19 energy to stop.  (Or you could never stop).

It's a challenge.  I'm not disputing that.  But remember that as your MB starts dividing, it's mass and radius will both go down.

After a single division, I think the cost to turn goes to like 40% of what it was.

[PurpleYouko]

Of course the best way to deal with it is just to put your formula into the program then allow the user to adjust the actual costs from the control panel. That way anyone who really doesn't like being charged to rotate can tun it to zero.  B)

[shvarz]

What about reducing costs of rotation for tie-connected bots?  We can reason that since they have a leverage, then it is easier to start and stop rotation for them than for free-floaters.  In fact, what about splitting the torque and turning a tie-connected bot into the opposite direction?

[Numsgil]

Yeah, I'll probably add a costs bit into the program:

Cost for translational impulse
Cost for rotational impulse

I'd like to rework the cost panel entirely sometime in the future.  Set it up so you can charge any amount for any thing the bot can do.

[Numsgil]

What about reducing costs of rotation for tie-connected bots?  We can reason that since they have a leverage, then it is easier to start and stop rotation for them than for free-floaters.  In fact, what about splitting the torque and turning a tie-connected bot into the opposite direction?

I'd have to figure out the physics.  If you're applying force on the tie to start yourself spinning, you're also going to cause the tie to start rotating as well... as you stated...

Lots of fun physics with ties :D

Every thing you can do with a tie is really complicated physics.

[Ulciscor]

You seem to enjoy it though!

[Numsgil]

I love solving the problems.  That is, having the solution in hand.  The actual process makes me vomit in frustration.

[Numsgil]

Okay:

cost for turning will be .002 * mass * radius * delta angle * cost per turn impulse.

Cost per turn impulse is a new option in the Costs page.  For F1 standard, I propose we set it equal to that for translational movement, which is .05 I believe.

That would make all the costs I quoted above 20 times larger than what you'd get.

[Botsareus]

I see nothing wrong with making expansive MBs.


A.)

Look at humans. When a baby is born its small,[you] then it eats and eats [/you]and grows like clockwork.


B.)
All I think we have to do is balance the costs to make them more natural. In real nature its not so hard to go MB. Is it?

[Numsgil]

Well, it took billions of years for nature to figure out how to form multicellular organisms, so I'd say it's hard.

Of course, as with all life, you only have to figure something out once.  After that it self propogates.

[Botsareus]

Well the theory is turning is the cheapest kind of movment you can make anyway.

And Num how about my pm about keeping it backwords compatble for 1/3 a year more? Don't make me start a poll you know ( :evil:  scary face  :evil: )

NUM =  :sly:

....

:(

[Numsgil]

I'm unlikely to make the program become backward incompatible.  Backwards compatibility is somewhat elegant IMO.

That said, I think I'm going to redesign viruses, which might make older bots that don't *.thisgene .mkvirus break.