Topics

1

Darwinbots3 / possible new project

« on: December 13, 2019, 12:41:00 PM »

Good Morning DarwinBots.

It's been a long time but over the last couple of years I've been finding myself missing DarwinBots more and more and almost starting a completely new project along the same lines but not identical.
My thought are to start making a pure C++ evolvable or programable bot system using openGL with a nice tidy wrapper ( SFML is currently my favorite option ) using a multi threaded timer interrupt system and an object oriented environment grid (that constantly tracks local bots) to get around the age old limitations of nasty slow calculations.

I see that it's kind of dead around here but i thought I would just post a quick message here to see if anybody is the least bit interested in starting a complete new generation of DarwinBots.

One of the biggest issues I've come up against with C++ coding is that I will have to move completely away from the forms approach used in the VB6 version.
I took a look at the C++ code that is posted up here but I noticed that it's very old and very incomplete.
TBH I plan to throw away everything and start over with a complete new system with whole new sensory systems. The bots that I envision will literally be more like actual robots in the way they work. They will still have the ability to mutate but my plan to separate the "DNA" into two distinct parts. The first part will designate the form while the second part will be purely behavioral.
My "Bots" will be more like little nanites with different possible configurations that can be used for different things such as power generators, manipulators, weapons.
They may still end up looking like standard darwinbots (at least at first ) but that is where the likeness ends.

If anybody is interested in what I'm planning just let me know and I will keep posting updates here.

Cheers.

PY

2

Off Topic / What EricL really looks like

« on: April 01, 2008, 07:18:52 PM »

I found EricL hanging out in my MMORPG server a few minutes ago.

Here is what he really looks like.

I don't really have hair that color. The bunny hood hat is a prize I got for collecting Easter Eggs

3

Off Topic / Hello People

« on: March 28, 2008, 01:39:56 PM »

I was chatting with EricL this morning and he persuaded me to call in and see how things are going.

I've been kind of busy lately with developing a bunch of stuff related to MMORPGs, primarily working on an emulator for R.O.S.E. online.

I now run my own game which you can play for free if any of you are interested.

Well anyway, I will be dropping in from time to time to keep an eye on you lot.  

4

Off Topic / Busy day at DB central

« on: October 24, 2006, 11:59:48 AM »

Very busy day apparently.  

I just noticed that we had 78 users online simultaneously a couple of weeks ago according to this. That is half of our entire membership. prior to this I think the record was 11.

Most users ever online was 78 on Oct 10 2006, 08:33 PM

5

Off Topic / Happy Birthday Endy

« on: August 16, 2006, 08:41:06 AM »

Happy birthday Endy

       

6

Suggestions / Internet sharing

« on: June 20, 2006, 11:30:07 AM »

It's been a long old time since we really had internet sharing working in darwinbots.

I have come up with a solution which just might work without causing too much of an issue with bandwidth and so on.

My idea is that we utilize something like this forum to allow the client DB programs to log onto a php based program housed on the DB website. the program would be very simple. It would just need to allow registration and log in from the client programs then the organism files can just be uploaded directly to the MySql database, just like posting message in the forum.

We might even be able to simply piggyback this forum directly and allow the clients to read and write files directly into a special thread that we can create.

Each user would be required to manually create an account then put the username and password into the relevent slots in the internet sharing settings, then the program can take care of logging in, posting and reading text files from the thread.

An additional step might be to allow access to a central database of robots so that we don't all have to have our own seperate stables all the time.

Workable idea?
or completely stupid?

What are your thoughts?

7

Suggestions / Rebuild the "lost code"

« on: June 15, 2006, 03:14:06 PM »

Try playing a sim in 2.37.6.

Choose Alga Stratificus as the veggie and Anon Terrifica as the animal.

Enable "pond mode", corpses and bouyancy. set to size 2, disable all torroidal settings and run it.

Make sure to set the corpse decay to a reasonable value like about 5 points with a 5 cycle interval.
Set the light intensity to 30 - 50 and the gradient to 1

The veggies will all float to the top where they will recieve sunlight and grow. The robs will eat some and then you will see little white corpses falling to the ground whle spitting out shots in random directions.
When the sun goes down the veggies will drop to about mid screen and bob up and down a bit. Next morning, up they go again.


How about making 2.4X do this stuff too?

8

RANT / And now, on a lighter note......

« on: June 15, 2006, 10:38:19 AM »

I just had a lovely little gem of campus mail today.

It is a routine form which all staff at the university have to fill out every couple of years to record any changes in things like street address, marital status etc.

On one column it shows the current information and in the other column it leaves a space to write in any changes. At the top of the right column it says something like "Please enter any changes so that we can update our records"

Sounds pretty innocuous and normal right?

Possibly not though once you see what kind of records they have on the page.

Section 3 deals with "Ethnicity"
The left column lists me as "White".
The right column has a nice list of options which can be circled to show any changes and a box for comments (labelled "explanation").  

For a brief moment I was extremely tempted to circle "Asian" and write in the box "I thought I would spend a couple of years as a Chinese person to see if I like it"  

Maybe next year I will become a Hispanic for a while if Chinese doesn't work out for me.  

9

RANT / You're so vain!!!!!

« on: June 13, 2006, 08:55:18 AM »

You know what really pisses me off?

Carly bloody Simon and her stupid song "You're so vain"  

Here are the lyrics to it. Read them if you like but it shouldn't take more than a few lines to see my point. I mean there she is singing directly to this guy, every bloody line has the word you in it pretty much. Then she has the gall to accuse him of being vain because he probably thinks this song is about him.
It's patently obvious to anybody with half a brain that it bloody well IS about him.  
There isn't one single solitary bit of the song that isn't directly about him.

I know the song is 30 years old but come on Carly. get a fucking grip already.

"You're So Vain"

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as
You watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (you're so vain)
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you, don't you, aw

You had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
When you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (you're so vain)
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you, don't you, don't you

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (you're so vain)
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you, don't you

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, your with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (so vain)
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you, don't you, don't you now

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
You probably you think this song is about you
You're so vain

10

Off Topic / Kuro-T's got GAME!

« on: May 11, 2006, 01:06:47 PM »

Yay!!

I just installed some cool games over at Kuro-tejina

The only way to play them is to pay though  

Don't worry. It's not real money. You pay with Kuro-Dollars which you can earn by posting stuff in the forums. Once you have some Kuro-Dollars, you can exchange them for tokens to play the games. I $Kuro gets you 10 tokens and it costs 5 tokens to play a game. While in the game you will also be rewared with tokens and trophys for getting high scores.

This is a really cool mod for phpBB based forums.  

11

Off Topic / Where have the bots gone???

« on: May 05, 2006, 11:07:50 AM »

I could have sworn I saw some bots in here last time I looked.

What has happened to them???

 

Bots that are to be entered into the leagues are supposed to stay queued up in "The Starting Gate" until they are run in the leagues. It is then the league manager's responsibility to move the DNA file into the respective league folder.

Please do not move DNA files that are intended to be league entrys until they have been run in the leagues, otherwise we can't tell which ones are not entered yet.

It is quite OK to move non-combat bots though.

12

Announcements / Formula one league updated today!!!!!

« on: May 05, 2006, 11:01:44 AM »

I have entered a bunch of new robots in the F1 league and put the new results up for all to see.

Go check it out and see how the new bots have faired.

Also let me know if there are any other bots that need to be entered.

13

Bugs and fixes / Time to test 2.43b

« on: May 04, 2006, 02:42:02 PM »

OK then (cracks knuckles) I have just downloaded V2.43b for a good old test run.

Here are a list of the things that I think need fixing or modifying.

• A tie bug that Nums managed to squash back in an early version of 2.37 has rea-appeared. In a simple tie-feeder (HDV4) against veggie sim I notice that ties between very distant objects often spring into existence and then disappear again. I don't remember how we fixed this previously. maybe Num can remember.
• Bots appear to be able to quite easily break free of a tie by accelerating away from the bot they are tied to. Maybe ties need to be stronger to prevent this.
• Mass (in the console window) appears to be reading back a value of zero on all the bots that I have checked so far
• When physics is set to "thick fluid" the bots just sit there and vibrate back and forth (test performed using "Anon Terifica") giving a kind of overlapped double image. I finally managed to get this to reset by going to "thin liquid" settings.
• It is not possible to deselect one of the liquid or solid options once selected. Also the advanced controls don't appear to make one jot of difference once you have selected one of the main options.
• I can no longer see gene activations in the console window when I advance one cycle. This is just about the most necessary piece of the code in my opinion. I can't develop or debug a robot without this.
• Certain robots can be sitting there pounding a veggie with shots and growing in size then suddenly they die. "Destinatus Preliator" does this all the time. I can't tell why because it impossible to see which genes are activating. (see point above)
  I just followed a single specimin around the screen for several minutes while he searched for food. His energy was dropping very slowly as DP is designed to manage his energy very well. He spotted a veggie, rushed in and began to shoot it. his body began to sewll immediately but he died within 20 cycles.
  It seems to cost more to fire a shot than the shot gives back DP was losing more than 60 energy per cycle, some of which is going to body but that doesn't explain it all.
• after a couple of thousand cycles I got an overflow and it saved an error.sim file (included in this post.

That's about it for now.
In a nutshell, I can't really get any of my bots to work properly and I can't diagnose what is wrong with them.
The have no discernable control over the physics functions and something is dragging down the energy of my shot-bots.

I am willing to help debug 2.43b but as for being a stable and usable version, I think it needs a lot of work before we can call it that.

Oh for christ sake!!  

It won't let me upload a .sim file. I have renamed it to "error.txt" so you will have to change it back before loading it up.

14

Bot Tavern / Gardener veggie

« on: May 03, 2006, 05:12:37 PM »

After being reminded of my old attempt at a gardener veggie, in a recent topic, I decided to go back and have a nother shot at it.

This time I took the code for Destinatus preliator and modified it somewhat. The result is a veggie that chugs around the screen trying to find other robots then shooting them with energy. It also forces them to reproduce by firing an mrepro shot at any one that has more than a couple of thousand energy.

You can find it Here in the bestiary

Use it with a very simple bot and see if you can make anything useful evolve. I tried it overnight with a special bot that has nothing but a gene that makes it slowly move in a straight line. I needed something to drain its energy or the screen would just fill up with stupid-bots

This morning I found a little over 4000 bots that had all lost the ability to move.

I am thinking of doing the same thing again but with a script to kill any bot that loses .up from its genome.

Don't forget to make it an autotroph or you won't get far.  

Darn it.  
They are finding ways around it.  

They keep the .up but don't store anything in it.

I might have to reprogram the gardener bot to clear the weeds out.

15

Veggies / Gardener veggie (V)(PY)-03.05.06

« on: May 03, 2006, 04:57:18 PM »

def spin 65
def rotate 66
def timer 67
def rpoint 69
def brpoint 70

cond
*.robage 2 <
start
55 .out1 store
stop

' Find the food
cond
*.eye1 *.eye3 >
*.eye1 *.eye5 >
*.eye1 *.eye7 >
*.eye1 *.eye9 >
start
mult mult
150 *.eye1 sub
150 *.eye1 sub 20 div
.rotate inc
stop

cond
*.eye9 *.eye7 >
*.eye9 *.eye5 >
*.eye9 *.eye3 >
*.eye9 *.eye1 >
start
mult mult
-150 *.eye1 sub
-150 *.eye1 sub 20 div
.rotate inc
stop

cond
*.eye3 *.eye1 >
*.eye3 *.eye5 >
*.eye3 *.eye7 >
*.eye3 *.eye9 >
start
mult mult
100 *.eye1 sub
100 *.eye1 sub 15 div
.rotate inc
stop

cond
*.eye7 *.eye9 >
*.eye7 *.eye5 >
*.eye7 *.eye3 >
*.eye7 *.eye1 >
start
mult mult
-100 *.eye1 sub
-100 *.eye1 sub 15 div
.rotate inc
stop

cond
*.eye6 *.eye4 !=
start
mult mult
*.eye4 *.eye6 sub
*.eye4 *.eye6 sub 8 div
.rotate inc
stop

' set tag if I see a friend
cond
*.in1 55 =
start
.spin inc
stop

' unset tag if I see a charge
cond
*.eye5 0 >
*.in1 55 !=
*.spin 0 !=
start
0 .spin store
stop

' increment tag while non zero. Allows rotation
cond
*.spin 61 <
*.spin 0 >
start
.spin inc
mult mult
150
0
.rotate inc
stop

'decrement shot response timer
cond
*.timer 0 >
start
.timer dec
stop

cond
*.shsx -1 =
*.timer 0 =
*.eye5 30 >
*.spin 0 !=
start
314
0
.rotate inc
5 .timer store
stop

cond
*.shdx -6 =
*.timer 0 =
*.eye5 30 >
*.spin 0 !=
start
-314
0
.rotate inc
5 .timer store
stop

cond
*.shsx -6 =
*.timer 0 =
*.eye5 30 >
*.spin 0 !=
start
314
0
.rotate inc
5 .timer store
stop

cond
*.shdn -6 =
*.timer 0 =
start
628
0
.rotate inc
5 .timer store
stop

' Had enough spinning time to reset that pesky in1 thingy!
cond
*.spin 60 >
start
0 .spin store
5 .in1 store
stop

' TOO much body feed on those reserves a bit
cond
*.body 500 >
start
100 .fdbody store
stop

' Giddy up thar!!
' *****************

' Fed up with spinning. Move now!
cond
'*.eye5 0 =
*.vel 20 <
*.spin 0 =
*.newmom 0 =
start
5 .up store
stop

' Increment my counters
cond
start
.rpoint inc
.brpoint inc
stop

' Shoot charges with -2 shot
cond
*.nrg 500 >
*.eye5 30 >
*.spin 0 =
start
-2 .shoot store
100 .shootval store
stop

' Shoot large charges with information shot
cond
*.in1 55 !=
*.eye5 30 >
*.spin 0 =
*.refnrg 200 >
start
.mrepro .shoot store
50 .shootval store
stop

' Use up all those stored rotations but only if the tag is set
cond
*.rotate 0 >
start
.sx store
.aimsx store
0 .rotate store
stop

'unfix also just in case
cond
*.fixed 0 !=
start
0 .fixpos store
stop

end