Darwinbots Forum
Code center => Suggestions => Topic started by: spork22 on June 01, 2014, 11:23:55 AM
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It would be cool if there was an option to "take control" of a bot; that is, control it in a number of different ways. There could also be an option for when you control the bot, that makes it so you only receive the info the bot receives. Some ways one could control it is the standard arrow keys with keybinding for special abilities, or changing sensor values. This could allow an observer to nudge the environment in a more natural way.
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This idea has been introduced at least 3 times over 10 years. When we tryied to apply it practically:
1.) A human simply is not able to keep up with all the functions that a Darwinbot produces over a short period of time. Not to mention that each function is a an integer range between (+-) 0 and 32K.
2.) Darwinbots frame rate varies extremely between different simulations while a humans 'perception' of frame rate is about 60 frames per second. Doing some math we figure that a frame rate of 15/sec is optimal, but what if the simulations current frame rate is 0.2 as it often is?
3.) What happens when you get infected with a virus or get forced to reproduce? What happens when you want to reproduce?
Due to these facts the idea becomes quickly impractical. :)
If you are looking for a video game where you can fight evolving entities try NeonXSZ.
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I wasn't aiming for complete control over a bot, because, yes, that would be really confusing. When the bot you're controlling dies, the camera reverts to normal, just as if you were following a bot and it died. There could be a bunch of settings to make controlling a bot a little easier. Perhaps an easier way would be one could bind keys to changing sensor values. You could change this around. Another thing could be that the bot does all the complicated stuff on it's own as if you weren't controlling it.
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Like a macro:
"When you press key X set memory location Y to Z"
I like it, adding to todo list.
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You know how when you shine a laser pointer on an ant, it starts to follow the laser pointer?
Well maybe we could add an option in Darwinbots to give your mouse physics.
This way, bots could see your mouse and attempt to follow it, so you can guide a flock of bots somewhere or nudge one around.
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We are going to turn DB2 into a proper strategy game among all other things it has already become. That is going to be sick. Count me in. Give me a few more weeks to sort other stuff out first, sorry for the wait guys.
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I can wait, as long as it gets done, and it's good.
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I am getting a feeling that not many people will like this feature, but it is next on my list as my internet is broken.
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Ok. Perhaps a "solid pointer" could be an optional thing?
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It is not that. It is the fact that this was originally meant to be a bio experiment. The solid pointer is cool, basically whenever the user clicks on the screen in pb mode (unless user clicks a robot), it will turn cross hair and force the robots to do a setaim (good thing I cleaned up Numsgils setaim cost mess a while ago, this may come in handy) on the pointers direction. Then you can program "10 .up-store" to say the up arrow key and all the robots will start moving toward the mouse (pointer) location.
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Perhaps the bots could also react to the pointer the way they would react to another bot; what this is depends upon the species, but they will most likely go towards it and attempt to kill it by shooting it.
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Then just put a bot in and drag him around lol. There is an option to insert fresh meat you know.
I think I'll get this out for you by Sunday at the latest. So far I got the whole setaim and multiselect mod setup. It is looking beast with RGB memory monitor.
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Wait.. there's mods?
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It is programming slang.
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Oh ok.
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It is alive!
Attached here is my favorite preset file:
W,A,S,D to move Q to reproduce, E to shoot, C to allow drift
It is really cool to observe a zerobot learn to keep up with the human element, we got destributed inverse Robocop going on.
edit: Shift to multiselect robots, if a selected robot reproduces you get control of that robot as well.
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Uh... how do I use it?
Edit: Nevermind, it's in the new version.
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I love cool and kind of useless features like that. Are there custom macros that a user can set? They would be so useful for some things, especially debugging.
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I agree, Panda. It's kind of cool to interact with the environment as a bot instead of just dragging them around and hoping one bot will see the other and stuff like that. I wonder if it could be possible to make a bot that learns through mimicry; that is, you take control of it, do some stuff, and it attempts to repeat this.