General > Biology

Viruses

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Numsgil:
It's a joking term for the bot with 1 body I described above.

shvarz:
I thought we were moving away from the whole "gene" concept :)

Anyway, let's take your example:

start
*.thisgene .mkvirus store
500 .vshoot store
stop

I'll re-write this like this:

1 2 >
start
*.thisgene .mkvirus store
500 .vshoot store
stop
1 2 >
start *.thisgene

Now when program encounters .mkvirus it looks for the previous 5 commands and for the same 5 commands after .mvkvirus  Then everything (including these 5 commands is copied into a particle).

Capisce?

Numsgil:
Yes, I agree that moving away from gene limitations would be wise.  But in your example, it'll end up copying bits from the next gene (the start), and that could get messy real fast when you examine it as a weapon.

How do real viruses decide what to copy into the viral sheaths?

shvarz:
Maybe I'm not explaining this right.  If anything, my system makes viruses more powerful than they are now (although only against a specific bot).  They allow insertion of pre-defined code in a specific place in enemy's DNA.

I don't want to write a bunch of code, so let's just assume that each letter represents 5 different commands.  Say your enemy's DNA is: ABCDEFGH

You want to include the string xyz right after C.

Then in your bot you place the following sequence:  CxyzC (one limitation is that x has to begin with .mkvirus command).  This sequence gets packaged into virions.  When they hit the enemy bot, they search for C, they find it and they insert it.  Enemy's DNA becomes ABCxyzCDEFGH.

Enemy bot begins making viruses, they will be exactly the same as viruses coming out of your bot: they will carry the sequence CxyzC.

And you can target any place in genome in this way and you can insert as much as you want.

For evolution purposes, when viral DNA is inserted, it goes through target bot's mutation routines.  Say during infection the second C mutates into M, then your bot becomes ABCxyzMDEFGH - virus became inactive, because there is no second C in the genome.  Say after some time F mutates and become C: ABCxyzMDECGH, suddenly the virus came back to life and it carries an extra-piece: CxyzMDEC !!!

This is awesome!   :boing:

Numsgil:
But then viruses only become really useful for infecting members of your same species, or a closely related species...

I'm not saying it's not merit-ful (um, that's not a word, but let's pretend it is).  I just think it needs to be exapnded/modified such that, from the point of view of F1, it becomes a useful tactic.

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