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Bugs and fixes / Single Bot Simulation
« on: August 06, 2005, 12:23:42 PM »
Hey y'all.
It's been a while since I said anything, since I've had nothing much to say, but now that's changed.
Oh, I've been lurking in the corners periodically, loading updates, laughing at bunnies and such, looking for strange things like [begin hint] a working .sexrepro [end hint] and [begin hint] some utility to get access to Bot memory locations that I can import to Excel [end hint] and like that, but I just haven't had a lot to say.
Well, now, that's changed.
While patiently awaiting these additional capabilities I really haven't been able to devote much time to this little hobby. Not that I don't have the time to devote, but running my evo sims time and time again without being able to extract the data is pretty useless in my view and, frankly, is boring. So I decided, after feeling that hankering to do some exploring of other aspects of DBII, that I would create another simulation bot. Thus the trouble begins.
I suppose most Bot makers write a few lines of code, cut and paste genes from existing Bots, making a precursor of what they want and throwing the new bot into a small limited sim to see what happens. Well I'm not too different from everybody else so I do that too.
Just a simple little thing Bot. Just walk around, find a veggie and have some lunch. That's all. The grand design can wait till the basics are working, right? Cept the basic wasn't working.
Now, I was somewhat embarrassed by having you helpful people point out missing 'stop', 'end', 'store' and like that in some of my previous code (help for which I am still grateful btw) and was not about to trip over some obvious piece of junk code again if I could help it. So I did some extensive desk checking (I mean, my god, how screwed up could 15 short genes be) but no problem there. Honest.
After some exhaustive, and, if I may say, brilliant, troubleshooting, this is what I've done and what I see.
A single simple little pre-bot goes into a simple small field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Not good.
I have my other simulation setups and I know my PA Alpha bot really works, feeds, survives, prospers. Thinking that maybe I have somehow screwed up this new small field by fiddling with veggie energy, veggie numbers and the like I put a single proven Alpha into the new field and let her loose. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato.
Obviously, I've f#<&%@up the sim field. So I abandon the new field for the larger ones where my Alphas and Deltas live in veggie engorged splendor and I know all is well with the universe. A single simple little pre-bot goes into my well established and working-fine sim field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Shit.
Can't be. Run the main evo sim with my Alphas, everything works. Veggies get shot, give up energy, everything works.
Wait! A single pre-bot vs multiple Alphas. Naw, couldn't be.
A single known working Alpha goes into my well established and working-fine sim field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Ah!
Put in 5 Alphas. Some of them are being fed by the veggies, periodically. Seems that if only one Bot is feeding the veggies will not give up their goods, no little white dots appear. If a second Bot starts to feed on the opposite side of the field those little white energy dots stream out of both veggies just fine for both bots. Eventually, however, all succumb to the famine and perish.
Put in 10 of the new little simple pre-bots and everybody feeds just fine and goes about their little daily lives. Nothing is amiss with the little simple pre-bot. Nothing is amiss with the sim field layout or parameters.
But only one new little pre-bot or only one lonely Alpha or only one bot of any type in a simulation will not be looked upon kindly by the veggies and will starve to death.
Something is not right in Bot-land.
Two questions:
1. Why?
B. Anyone else seeing this?
3. Have I lost it? Am I in a Twilight Zone episode? Do I need to re-do my meds, again?
d. Did you know that the Fermi paradox can be easily resolved if we consider the possibility that we may be one of the first intelligent species to arise in this gallaxy? Someone has to be first, yes? There may be plenty of 'others' out there just no one has yet made it to the point where they send messages into the sky and listen for answers like we do. Maybe the ones that are doing so are on the otherside of the gallaxy and are too far away for either of us to yet discern the other. There are hundreds of resolutions to the Fermi Paradox that do not preclude the existance of intellegent (even young inter-stellar) species in this gallaxy.
-P
It's been a while since I said anything, since I've had nothing much to say, but now that's changed.
Oh, I've been lurking in the corners periodically, loading updates, laughing at bunnies and such, looking for strange things like [begin hint] a working .sexrepro [end hint] and [begin hint] some utility to get access to Bot memory locations that I can import to Excel [end hint] and like that, but I just haven't had a lot to say.
Well, now, that's changed.
While patiently awaiting these additional capabilities I really haven't been able to devote much time to this little hobby. Not that I don't have the time to devote, but running my evo sims time and time again without being able to extract the data is pretty useless in my view and, frankly, is boring. So I decided, after feeling that hankering to do some exploring of other aspects of DBII, that I would create another simulation bot. Thus the trouble begins.
I suppose most Bot makers write a few lines of code, cut and paste genes from existing Bots, making a precursor of what they want and throwing the new bot into a small limited sim to see what happens. Well I'm not too different from everybody else so I do that too.
Just a simple little thing Bot. Just walk around, find a veggie and have some lunch. That's all. The grand design can wait till the basics are working, right? Cept the basic wasn't working.
Now, I was somewhat embarrassed by having you helpful people point out missing 'stop', 'end', 'store' and like that in some of my previous code (help for which I am still grateful btw) and was not about to trip over some obvious piece of junk code again if I could help it. So I did some extensive desk checking (I mean, my god, how screwed up could 15 short genes be) but no problem there. Honest.
After some exhaustive, and, if I may say, brilliant, troubleshooting, this is what I've done and what I see.
A single simple little pre-bot goes into a simple small field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Not good.
I have my other simulation setups and I know my PA Alpha bot really works, feeds, survives, prospers. Thinking that maybe I have somehow screwed up this new small field by fiddling with veggie energy, veggie numbers and the like I put a single proven Alpha into the new field and let her loose. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato.
Obviously, I've f#<&%@up the sim field. So I abandon the new field for the larger ones where my Alphas and Deltas live in veggie engorged splendor and I know all is well with the universe. A single simple little pre-bot goes into my well established and working-fine sim field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Shit.
Can't be. Run the main evo sim with my Alphas, everything works. Veggies get shot, give up energy, everything works.
Wait! A single pre-bot vs multiple Alphas. Naw, couldn't be.
A single known working Alpha goes into my well established and working-fine sim field with plenty of veggies upon which to feed. She snuggles up to a veggie, zaps it with plenty of -1 shots, gets no energy in return, exhausts her energy and pops like an overripe tomato. Ah!
Put in 5 Alphas. Some of them are being fed by the veggies, periodically. Seems that if only one Bot is feeding the veggies will not give up their goods, no little white dots appear. If a second Bot starts to feed on the opposite side of the field those little white energy dots stream out of both veggies just fine for both bots. Eventually, however, all succumb to the famine and perish.
Put in 10 of the new little simple pre-bots and everybody feeds just fine and goes about their little daily lives. Nothing is amiss with the little simple pre-bot. Nothing is amiss with the sim field layout or parameters.
But only one new little pre-bot or only one lonely Alpha or only one bot of any type in a simulation will not be looked upon kindly by the veggies and will starve to death.
Something is not right in Bot-land.
Two questions:
1. Why?
B. Anyone else seeing this?
3. Have I lost it? Am I in a Twilight Zone episode? Do I need to re-do my meds, again?
d. Did you know that the Fermi paradox can be easily resolved if we consider the possibility that we may be one of the first intelligent species to arise in this gallaxy? Someone has to be first, yes? There may be plenty of 'others' out there just no one has yet made it to the point where they send messages into the sky and listen for answers like we do. Maybe the ones that are doing so are on the otherside of the gallaxy and are too far away for either of us to yet discern the other. There are hundreds of resolutions to the Fermi Paradox that do not preclude the existance of intellegent (even young inter-stellar) species in this gallaxy.
-P