Messages

31

Bugs and fixes / 2.36.3 Bugs

« on: April 13, 2005, 11:59:01 PM »

What robots are you using?

I can't get any of them to go faster than maxvel 

Wouldn't be at all surprised if somehow my DNA code morphs into something really strange. I won't hold my breath though.

I followed a Delta on here journey after inserting her into my sim. She killed a number of Alphas then, while chasing one she seemed to drag. Through the console I learned that, though the Alpha she was chasing was showing .vel 81 Delta was suddenly reading .refvel 34. I noticed this because Delta's eye values in eye4,5,6 had dropped from 43 to 32 in one cycle.  Looking at the other Delta in the sim for verification is where I found she was exceeding her (too low) .maxvel.  My experience is that Delta should maintain maxvel of 57. Suddenly having a maxvel of 18 (while .vel showed velocity of 19) with less than 600 body and no shell was a bit of a surprise.

I've attached my settings file and my two Bots in a zip folder. I'm trying to determine where a good threshold for a stable population is in a small #2 sim. This is preliminary to a #5 sim for my testbed. I let the Alpha population get up to about 100+ before inserting a couple of Deltas. After about 4-5,000 cycles you should see the issue.

Unless, of course, I have queertrons in my PC which are causing the problem and thus is not the fault of the application. I do keep my PC pretty clean though and have not experienced any issues with my other apps.

32

Bugs and fixes / 2.36.3 Bugs

« on: April 13, 2005, 12:51:59 PM »

Hey Peoples,

Kill a bug over here, grow a bug over there. Happens with complex code.

DB 2.36.3PY

1.  Bot velocity exceeds maxvel.
2.  Inserted bots often constrained to slow velocity.
3.  Velocity values of 90+, inconsistantly.
4.  Velocity values become more inconsistant the longer the sim runs.

And so as to not leave the impression that the "Cambrian Explosion" was all nice and safe and productive with abundant new life in protected new niches exercising new freedoms to try copious new body plans rapidly evolving while happily embarking in anticipation on vast new adventures across the dry lands...there were four mass extinction events during the period.  

I still think this popularized view (from within the discipline itself) of an "overnight explosion" in the creation of abundant new lifeforms is a wee bit melodramatic considering the facts. An example of Dawkin's "bad scientific poetry" maybe?

See, y'all.

-P

33

Tips and Tricks / NO MORE OVERFLOW

« on: April 13, 2005, 04:28:36 AM »

It is after midnight, must be time for DB Forum. This is what happens when you try to have "other lives."

Numsgil:

One thing Paul, what do you mean by generational turnover? I agree that speeding up mutations means that you need a way to speed up the removal of deleterious mutations from the population.

Light:

Isn't generational turnover the average time it takes for one generation to die and another to take over, so for humans it would be like 70 or basically the lifespan of a bot. A high turnover would be a bot with a short lifespan

Bingo!

Create a bot with a very short lifespan, turn up the mutation rate and PRESTO CHANGEO, instant evolutionary timescales!

Actually, this is more difficult than it appears since you must balance the lifespan with the mutation rates in such a way as to have a few mutations per generation while having enough lifespan to experience selective pressures thus testing the mutations.

Too high a mutation rate and the population mutates further before natural selection gets to do its selection thing in succeeding generations and may indeed mutate a good mutation right off the table before it can spread. Too short a lifespan and everybody dies of "old age" before natural selection gets to do its selection thing since the bot has no time to test the mutation by dodging predators or becoming more energy efficient prior to breeding before it dies.

Now that's a mouthful.

Anyway, depending upon the sim being attempted (mine being pressures of sexual selection criteria over lots and lots of generations, or atleast [you]would[/you] be if [begin hint] I had a working .sexrepro capability [end hint]) shortening lifespans and speeding up mutation rates can achieve much faster results. If I find the right balance I hope to cut a million cycles off my sims while maintaining the mutation rate per generation and the same number of generations. For me that's many hours of compute time.

BTW, the "Cambrian Explosion" of new phyla (including almost all present day body plans) lasted some 50+- million years. Paleontologists have a rather strange sense of time. Though considering the prior 4 billion years, I suppose 50 million can be considered as somewhat of a "short" period, right? Riiight.

34

Tips and Tricks / NO MORE OVERFLOW

« on: April 12, 2005, 04:31:23 AM »

Mueller's ratchet. Ahh, yes. Within most asexually reproducing species the buildup of diliterious genes will, eventually crash the population, even to extinction. Some corollaries in small inbred sexual populations as well...like Arkansas.

May I make one observation? Picky, I know, but do let's keep things straight.

"Evolution" does not happen to individuals. It happens to populations. It is the basis of speciel events and an individual does not constitute a species. Populations do. Individuals suffer mutations which add (maybe) to genetic variation within the population which leads to adaption (maybe) to changing environments. No individual evolves.  

Mutations may or may not be in the "individuals" best interest. Mutations are random events that have whatever effect they have and the individual suffers or prospers accordingly.

Mutations [you]are[/you] in the best interests of the "population." Individuals with dilitarious mutations (usually) do not survive to reproduce, thus, for a population over many generations, survived mutations add considerable genetic variation to the gene pool.

When the inevitable environmental change occurs, the more genetically varied the population the better the chance that some combination of available alleles (ex-mutations now ubiquitous within the population) will produce individuals better able to cope (fitter) in the changing environment. Or maybe not.

As for Bot's desire for a faster rate of mutation rates:

Keep in mind that in a simulator like DB the mutation rate, and the rate of mutation rates, is synonymous with overall evolutionary time. One way to simulate great lengths of time is to have a high rate of mutations and a high rate of change in those rates. The other side of the simulation, to make this time scale accurate, must be a very short individual life span.  

Since beneficial mutations, and allele variability, are slow to work through even a subset of a population, the higher the mutation rate the higher the generation "turnover" must be to weed out the bad (but lucky, since it may have been, by fluke, passed on to one generation) mutation and make the good alleles more frequent in the population.

In the absence of this, Shvarz has got it right. Not enough generations for natural selection to work, you end up with bad genes everywhere, very quickly. Back to brother Mueller and his silver ratchet. Or was that Maxwell and his silver hammer? Can't remember.

35

DNA - General / Velocity, maxvel, mass & like that

« on: April 08, 2005, 03:23:39 PM »

Now how did I miss this jewel of a document?

Wonderful, PY. My hero!

Thank you ever so much.

-P

36

Bugs and fixes / The Power Veggie

« on: April 07, 2005, 04:56:45 PM »

Not that I am complaining, mind you. The lettus munchers love it.

Has anyone else noticed that when you pause a sim to use the console all veggies instanly are empowered with a full 32000 energy?

-P

37

DNA - General / Velocity, maxvel, mass & like that

« on: April 07, 2005, 04:14:04 PM »

Oh Great DB Guru PY,

There are secrets to some DNA coding that I have scratched my head over to no avail. In your recent Hunter Bot for instance:

Code: [Select]

cond
*.eye7 *.eye5 >
*.eye7 *.eye3 >
start
mult mult -80 -7
stop

cond
*.eye4 *.eye6 >
start
mult mult 40 4
stop

cond
*.eye6 *.eye4 >
start
mult mult -40 -4
stop

Please explain. What the (**^ is being multiplied, not once but twice, and what the ever lovin' %#(@ is being stored into what anywhere? This syntax has me baffled.

In the last gene you compare eye6 and eye4. So the value of eye6 (say 20) goes on the stack then the value of eye4 (say 0) goes on the stack. To my understanding the compare is made on the stack, a 'true' is returned and the gene is executed. The first instruction is mult. No preceeding values so I assume this will multiply the two eye values left on the stack in the conditional, yes? No? What?

According to my documentation these two values are deleted and replaced by the product (0). Then there is [you]another multiply?[/you] Multiplying the 0 on the top of the stack to what?  What was left on the stack from the prior gene? Which in this case (to my understanding) would be the eye6 value again from the compare in the prior gene even though that gene did not fire, yes? We get a value of 0, which seems usless at this point. Something is not right in Graceland.

And then this -40 -4 stuff. Are these values placed on the stack? So what good was the 'mult mult' prior? Are they mem locations (no, there is no "store")? Are they intended to survive somehow the compares that take place in the following gene conditionals prior to the "rotate" gene (I assume these are intended to populate sx and aimsx)? And the "rotate" gene:

Code: [Select]

' rotate
' *******
cond
start
.sx store
.aimsx store
stop
No stated values to be stored? Do these come off the top of the math stack? Are they then bumped off the stack when stored? If this is so then, again, how do the -40 and -4 above survive the intervening conditionals? In your Hunter the last thing done prior to this gene is a compare eye5 with 30.

To my understanding this conditional uses the math stack to accomplish the compare. So the last values on the stack, even though the prior gene did not fire, are eye5 value and 30? That's not very helpful. Is there some other stack somewhere?

Obviously, the thing works and my understandings are bogus.

There is a deep dark secret about the workings of the DNA and the math stack not in the documentation and of which I am wholly ignorant.

What's it all about, Alfie?

38

DNA - General / Velocity, maxvel, mass & like that

« on: April 07, 2005, 12:26:40 PM »

Oh, you two wonderful people. DB wizards. I thank you, Delta thanks you. Alpha doesn't care for you at the moment, though.

-P

39

DNA - General / Velocity, maxvel, mass & like that

« on: April 07, 2005, 02:18:08 AM »

Let me begin by thanking y'all for all the answers past , present and future. Y'all are all much appreciated.

OK, so let me summarize:  

The maxvel is calculated using cell size and mass of cell and what?

Cell size is what? # bodyfat points? .nrg? amount of poison, venom, waste stored?  Shell value? Is .robage part of the calculation?

Mass is what (yes I know what mass is, but, I mean what does the program take as "mass" determinants)? # bodyfat points? .nrg? amount of poison, venom, waste stored?  Shell value? Is .robage part of the calculation?

My problem is this: My preditor bot starts out maxvel 55 and slowly deteriorates. Makes sense. No Prob. Poor girl gets old, puts on some fat (waste), slows down. So now comes Missy. She is born with maxvel 52? Huh? So I watch and I fiddle (console view) etc. I don't like what I see.

I find lots of Alphas (prey, piece of meat) with about the same amount of energy, same waste accumulation, same age as the predator Delta. I do not use poisons, shells, venoms, body fat, none of that. Maxvel of the lunch is considerably better than for the diner.

Leads to poor diet habits, starvation, hooliganism, grows hair on the palms. All in all, not good form.

Here is a more extreme example, but a true one I assure you:

Delta:  age    615     waste   29     nrg   3315    maxvel  28
Alpha:  age  3644     waste   95     nrg   3295    maxvel  51

Where is Delta's velocity?  Who took it? (Yeh, I know, the Alpha took it. How?)

As I said, I do not use shell, poison, venom, body, etc. etc. etc.  Just plain old shoot and poop.

What other determinants affect maxvel?  DNA length? Bot color? Phase of the moon? Dark energy?

Thank you, again, for your patience.

Let's see now. Some wonderfully interesting and useless bit of trivia.
Ah, I know.

We cannot see planets around other suns in our telescopes but can infer their existance by the wobble a massive planet imposes on its sun. Thing is, we cannot see the sun's wobble with our telescopes either.

What we can see is the light spectra of the distant sun. We infer the wobble by the small slow periodicity of the red/blue shift in the star's spectra over many months. And the raw data of this shifting must be modified by the relative velocity of Earth, away from and toward that distant sun, as we pass through our own orbit over those many months.

Arrivederci, y'all.

-P

40

Suggestions / 3D!

« on: April 06, 2005, 11:56:17 PM »

I imagine that everyone would like to play around in such a mode if it were available, so I guess the real question is what priority should this have?

How's 'bout after .sexrepro?

 :rolleyes:

-P

41

Bugs and fixes / Bugs in 2.36.1

« on: April 06, 2005, 11:37:03 AM »

Henk, PY,

Thanks for the ideas. I like both.


I haven't seen this on the "Bugs" board before:

"Save Sim" puts a .sim file in the DBII/saves directory just fine. "Load Sim" is appearenly not working. I cannot get to the saved sim. When I "Load Sim" the field stays blank. I tried hitting the "start" arrow. Field remains blank and after 3 seconds I get the notice that all bots are dead. I tried going into the "Options" menu and hitting "Continue." Get a "Run-time Error 55 file already open."

If this is a known/repeat-of-what-you-already-knew then, well, never mind. If not, well, then now you know.

Just to add my 2-cents of limited knowledge on "Snapshot": I tried a snapshot of a 45 bot sim (including veggies) and went to get more coffee (the true elixir of all life). After 6 min I got tired of waiting. Task Manager showed DBII as "Not Responding." I've attached the resultant .txt file from the Saves directory.

Speaking of Zodiac signs (say what?), Otto Preminger had the best ever response to being asked his sign. "I am a Do Not Distuuuurb sign."

Much obliged,

-P

42

Bugs and fixes / Bugs in 2.36.1

« on: April 05, 2005, 04:51:34 PM »

Will the "Add Species" window in the Options menu allow a list of 15 or so "species?"

Yes, it does.

-P

43

Bugs and fixes / Bugs in 2.36.1

« on: April 05, 2005, 04:16:22 PM »

Two other items:

Mutations Option (Sim level not Bot level) resets to 1 on every "Start New." Must start the sim, stop it, set mutation option then "Change" for the new value to take effect.

Racial memory is transferring. But only if the target .memval is 0. If a value already is present the parent's value does not get transferred. For my sims the initial values for generation 0 are randomly determined in DNA. All susequent generations need to have these values populated by mom (she gets and tests dad's value prior to mating).  I see no other way to set these sex trait values (begin hint) in the absence of a working .sexrepro and its gene swap routine (end hint).  If baby is a male that "initial" male gene kicks in and sluffs a value into the memloc. Dad's value (coming from mom) never gets transferred. Is there a way for the Bot to know it is a "subsequent" generation (not generation 0)?

Which brings up another item. I have not tested this but since I'm here and feeling lazy I'll just ask. (begin hint) When .sexrepro is working (end hint) I'll need to have 5 or 6 different males and 5-6 different females with various sex trait genes to start a simulation. Will the "Add Species" window in the Options menu allow a list of 15 or so "species?"

Some trivia:

Carolus Linnaeus (1700s) invented the binomial taxonomic system still in use today (Homo sapien, Canis lupus, Gallus gallus, etc.). Almost a hundred years prior to Darwin's On the Origins of Species, Linnaeus devised a classification system that so well described the bushy branching of life that Evolution grows. At the time, of course, Linnaeus thought he had uncovered the creational logic from the mind of God. So enthralled was he in his discovery that he applied the scheme to everything in nature. Including rocks. Quartzum aqueum was a "species" of transparent rock and Quartzum opacum was his name for flintstone.

Later.

-P

44

Bugs and fixes / Bugs in 2.36.1

« on: April 05, 2005, 04:11:55 AM »

Small one:

On Options - Physics and Costs - Energy Exchanged on Hit:

Increment arrows for both Proportional and Fixed increment the Proportional field only.

Did someone say the eyes were fixed in 2.36.1? I didn't notice anything about eyes in 2.36.0. Nope. Didn't notice. Wasn't suppose ta, ain't gonna. Not me. Nope.

Steven Hawking tells a story about a public lecture he once gave. After the lecture an elderly matron came to him and scolded him for his view of the cosmos. She insisted that the Earth was flat and, indeed, rode on the back of a giant tortoise.  He asked her what was underneath the tortoise and what was under that. She replied that he was a clever young man indeed but that it was turtles all the way down.

Bye, y'all.

-P

45

Bugs and fixes / Bugs in 2.36.1

« on: April 05, 2005, 03:31:21 AM »

Yeah it does doesn't it?

I can't remember what the stuff was that they were advertizing though

Coors Light.