Messages

46

Darwinbots3 / Combat System and other things

« on: July 27, 2007, 04:22:18 PM »

I would like to see multi-bots with, say, a tail with a heavily shelled end cell (or cells), with it being capable of coordinating swinging the tail to strike an enemy with the shelled end, to damage or destroy them with the force of the impact.

That would mean single cell bots would also have the ability to damage other single cell bots through collision as well though wouldn't it?

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting idea; perhaps limit it to shell on shell impacts or give bots a deformity limit rather than the overlap they have now, physics states that energy is motion X mass? so the faster moving of two equal bodies causes more damage.

Nums;

The thought of comparing limpets to crabs was that limpets have an open space to expand into, crabs are enclosed so they have to shed their shell to expand.

/.\ becomes /.\
................. /oo\

I realise that it would mean bot shapes become deformable though and that shell would become plates placed in regions over the bots body.

47

Darwinbots3 / Combat System and other things

« on: July 26, 2007, 04:15:32 PM »

(Small wildcats)

It takes the least amount of stimulation to induce a cat to stalk and the most to get it to eat. From an evolutionary perspective this makes sense. Because hunts typically end in failure approximately two thirds of the time, an animal which waits until hungry to hunt would lose on two counts. First, it might not catch anything immediately. Second, the cat's energy-depleted state would decrease its hunting efficiency and make it even easier for prey to escape.

(The Fundamentals of Feline Behavior, Part 1)
http://www.mmilani.com/feline-behavior-fundamentals.html

Cheetahs, I was wrong to mention them, are described as –

one of the most accomplished of hunters within the wild cat species - it catches up to 60%-70% of prey that it hunts. The lion on the other hand has a relatively low success rate (less than 30%) and combats this by hunting collectively

(Wild cat behaviour)
http://www.abf90.dial.pipex.com/bco/behav01.htm

I still think that learning plays a great part in hunting even with cats, one cat I knew, raised by people who let it draw blood without complaint, would go for your wrist (even someone’s throat once) when you tempted it with a piece of string. Its favourite game was to attack the postman’s legs in the morning...
Kittens are born with the innate sense to hunt I guess, that’s what the whole ‘play’ attitude of younger (higher IQ) animals is for, to train the instinct to a talent surely.

Are you thinking of the Arctic Fox and Lemmings when you mention the ability to detect prey through snow? I didn’t find any information on how effective they were.

When you mention prey/predator relationships V evolution I have to admit that would play an important part in all relationships.

One of the things your post has made me think about is the relationship between our bots and the ability of prey to avoid its predator, the innocent side step when you play tag for instance, something our bots don’t really have the ability to do anymore.
We are perhaps in a very difficult position because both species have, potentially, the same abilities. Plus bots have shots, extending their killing range beyond their position. It leaves less space for manoeuvrability; for prey to escape.

On a parting note, I think that birds in general don’t have the same ability to control their faecal ejection as some other species. I could be wrong, I certainly couldn’t find confirmation of the fact, it’s just something I seem to remember from an essay I did on different digestive tracts once.

48

Darwinbots3 / Combat System and other things

« on: July 26, 2007, 09:01:02 AM »

If you are going to do apparent size instead of distance, it would be fitting to do apparent relative velocity as well.

Hmm, yes.  How would you set up something like a simple following gene though?  It wouldn't tell you if an object was moving away or towards you, so following it would be difficult.  Maybe give the relative speed comming towards or away from you, and the change in angular position to you.  But then you'd end up with the orbitting problem early bots had before relative velocity sysvars were introduced, since a bot would probably just turn to match the target's angle instead of using .dx or .sx.

What a cool idea! The bots are way to accurate atm (IMO). Even top end predators (I.e. cheetahs) have bad hunting results (something like 1 in 10 attempts are succesful or was that lions?) Nothing nature has produced does internal trig (AFAIK) when trying to catch something that is moving. It all comes from practice. Bring back the old days when the bots were a bit more hit and miss!

I am playing with the idea of shell locking the volume of a bot.  A bot that tried to increase its size (say, by eating another bot) beyond the limit imposed by the shell wouldn't be able to do it.  But part of me feels that it would make shell have too much of a downside and bots would be better off without it, defeating its purpose except for a very limited niche role.

You know that bit earlier when you were talking about the ability to place shell on specific parts of the bots body? Well this seem to tie in nicely, I'm thinking limpets and crabs here; one produces a shell that grows larger as it does, while the other sheds its shell and then has to wait for a new one to form.
Thinking about that though the crab might be hard to do without allowing growing space inside the shell, not sure how it really works.

49

Bot Tavern / My first SG bot

« on: July 24, 2007, 12:31:09 PM »

Disclaimer: There are people a lot better qualified than me who will be able to give you a better and more accurate answer but...

At a glance you don't seem to have anything to only make your intialisation bit only work when the bot age is 1

I'm not sure, (may have changed now though) that the bot can see anything when it is first born.

50

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 24, 2007, 12:19:00 PM »

I think it's good to read the "Reference Manuals" before starting with the "Robot Tutorial", but which, the first three (Robot DNA, Concepts, Simulation Options) or all

I suggest you start with Purple Youko's tutorial, read down to and use the simplebot link. If you read through simplebot and perhaps try out some of the versions then you should get a pretty good idea of what's going on. (You can just read through it all though, it is a very good step by step introduction to some of the basic ideas behind writing a bot.)

I have looked again but haven't read through all of the simplebot stuff or tested it; I'm afraid some of the information is out of date now but it looked a pretty good introduction to genes and the stack though.

Following that read the basic bot tutorial, you'll have a good idea of how genes work by then and the tutorial provides a link to learn about the 'stack' if you need more information.

The reference manuals are just a bunch of facts and figures, I don't think it will help you understand how bots work as well as those two tutorials.

If you find problems with PY's tutorial just pop back here and I'll sort it out, values being different and some of the old bots he's suggests trying it against are some you might find. (It is an old tutorial after all!)

51

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 22, 2007, 05:49:28 PM »

Good luck with writing your first bot btw, I look forward to seeing your it, even if it doesn't beat those latest monstrosities leading the leagues at the moment!

If you need any help, even for things you feel are stupid mistakes, then don't feel embarassed to ask on the forum about your code, there are lots of people here (.I.e. me) who have made mistakes before, we'd all be happy to help.

(Also some very skillful bot writers who are happy to share their knowledge!)

52

F2 bots / Nanite Detonators (1G)(F2)(Trafalgar)-21.07.07

« on: July 21, 2007, 12:33:14 PM »

Er, I'm guessing I should have labeled Guardian as a 1G bot as well?

I would really like to enter Nanite in the F2 league, it's been a long tradition to accept exploit exploiting bots and they get to retain their postion even when the exploit is fixed; you've kindly provided an easy way to fool it anyway!

It sounds a really cool bot and I look forward to trying it out.  

53

Short bots / Guardian v0.9 (F1)(Trafalgar)-15.07.07

« on: July 18, 2007, 05:15:12 PM »

All is right in the world when F2 bots don't hold the F1 league.

54

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 18, 2007, 04:07:36 PM »

Autotrofic isn't an English word but it sounds similar to the Autotrof word that Carlo used originally. (Italian IIRC) I guess it is similar to Autotrophic ("self feeding" in Greek.)

As long as you tick the 'vegetable - Autotrof' box then any bot can be a veg though, even one as deadly as Guardian, our latest 'top bot'!

55

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 18, 2007, 03:08:18 PM »

Sweet! Which magazine?

I've been around DB for a few years, since a bit before PY first took up the reigns and started tinkering with the code, the first person to take over after Carlo but I don't remember veggies ever being disabled, any bot that has 'vegetable' ticked is a veg by default. We've always needed veg to provide an input of energy to the sim.

Being a 'veg' just means that the bot gets energy added to it each cycle. It's the same as any other bot otherwise.

Unless someone wishes to correct me - Journalists! Who can trust them?  

56

Formula 1 / Latest league update

« on: July 18, 2007, 02:50:50 PM »

The new ‘super bot’, knocking Etch out of first position is Guardian v0.9! Slowing the sim down drastically due to its unprecedented DNA length of 15841 this superbly crafted bot still mowed through the opposition with comparative ease and knocked Ratita australopetecus out of the F1 league.
If you need help comparing your latest bot against Guardian because your pc isn’t powerful enough please feel free to ask for someone else to test it on the forum, or just start the match before you go out for the day as I had to for the league matches!

Reaper, the latest version of Rabidus reached third place in a surprisingly quick amount of time, another well written bot it lost to Etch and knocked Spiral off the table.

New F1 league update available.

57

F1 bots / Reaper (F1)(Googlyeyesultra)-17.07.07

« on: July 18, 2007, 02:31:55 PM »

Reached 3rd place, flew through the league really quickly, nice change after testing Guardian!

58

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 18, 2007, 02:26:56 PM »

It's spelt Bestiary.

All the comments are started with a ' this means that DB ignores the line that follows so yes, Ymir's DNA that you copied will be fine. It's comments that don't start with a ' that cause problems.

I suggest after finishing the 'first simulation tutorial' you have a go at writing your own bot! Or, if you are more interested in the evolution side of the game you could have a go at evolving your own bot.

The Robot tutorial; http://www.darwinbots.com/WikiManual/index...=Robot_Tutorial is a good place to start for writing your own bot.

If it's the evolution side of the game you are interested in then try; http://www.darwinbots.com/WikiManual/index...=Evolution_Sims and I can find you some links to posts on the forum as well.

My first bot btw was just an attempt to get the bot to survive on its own among the veg, you don't have to start by trying to win the leagues!

EDIT; *note to self (or volunteer) rewrite 'your first sim' tutorial to deal with problems Nikica found.

59

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 18, 2007, 01:44:45 PM »

Yeah, you also have to keep reopening the 'new sim' bit each time. Each of the changes you make for the bot while the 'new sim' bit is open will be remembered for you when you open it again though. Just make sure the bot that you want to change things for is highlighted each time.

Or you could shrink the DB window and the internet window so you can read the instructions at the same time as making the changes... (I only just thought of that but probably the easiest way!)

(You can move the 'simulation settings' window around the screen so it's easy enough).

60

Newbie / Help !!!

« on: July 18, 2007, 12:27:33 PM »

Most people probably have the veg as green and normally the veg is alga_minimalis. Make sure it is the first one on your 'loaded species list''
Now click on it so the name 'alga_minimalis' is highlighted in blue, set 'individuals' to 10 'starting energy' to 3000 and tick the 'vegetable' box
Also there is a pull down box where you can select the colour, so set that to green.

All of these can be found on the screen that appears when you choose 'new simulation', you don't need to use any of the other tabs at the top for now.

If you are flicking backwards and forwards between the 'new simulation' screen and the internet then you do need to make sure that 'alga_minimalis' is highlighted in blue each time you make one of these changes.

When you have done all of that add 'T_Preservans' to your 'loaded species list', set 'individuals' to 5 'starting energy' to 3000 and make sure the 'vegetable' box is not ticked.
Also use the pull down box again but this time set the colour to yellow.

If you don't choose the colour for each bot yourself the program will give it a colour which is the problem you were having.

Hey presto! Start your new sim, you should now have yellow T_Preservans running around trying to eat the green veg.

T_Preservans is an old bot so it might not work that well, if you want help learning how to download a newer bot to try out then just say and I'll provide instructions on how to do that as well!