Messages

91

Tips and Tricks / Do you know what is venom?

« on: May 23, 2005, 04:06:00 AM »

Again, I agree. If some or many species are immune to their own poison it's because they evolved this feature. Some others don't.
So, if the point with poison is that it is useless unless it is innocuous to conspecifics, then - if you want to keep it - you have to redesign it in such way that organisms can evolve poisons, and evolve immunity to that poisons. Just deciding that organisms which share the same filename on your hard disk are immune to each other's poison, is a too quick and too dirty solution.

92

Tips and Tricks / Do you know what is venom?

« on: May 22, 2005, 07:00:45 PM »

IMHO, species is only a convenient label but shouldn't have any in-game effect.

I totally agree

93

Tips and Tricks / Do you know what is venom?

« on: May 22, 2005, 04:58:28 PM »

He's from Croatia. I think he's trying to ask what is venom for.

By the way, the second "no" answer to the poll is mine  :lol:

94

Newbie / Hello everyone

« on: May 19, 2005, 04:02:10 AM »

So, is this idea so f**** scary? Come on coders, what do you think about it?

95

Newbie / Hi!

« on: May 18, 2005, 06:59:04 PM »

There is no artificial cap on velocity any more.

Are you still able to calculate collisions without errors? The artificial cap was exactly the half of the robot's size, so that two robots, moving in opposite directions at max vel, always collided instead of passing through each other.

96

Newbie / Hello everyone

« on: May 18, 2005, 12:32:24 PM »

Ok, I realized that XML is exactly what we need here. And probably there are already libs for handling it, so you don't even have to create your own functions. And it's sooooo professional  :lol:

bye,
Carlo

97

Newbie / Hello everyone

« on: May 18, 2005, 12:23:44 PM »

Saving the whole sim is unfortunately well and truly broken right now.
The reason for this is that we keep changing robot structures in the code and each time we do so it upsets the numerical order of the save file. [...]
It would be kind of pointless to fix the save feature right now because the first change we make to the robot definitions will just kill it again.

That's an old problem, and I think it needs to be solved rapidly: saving sims it's really important, and you can't go on without this feature.
I suggest to change once for all the simulation file structure this way (and the same should be made for organism files). The idea is to create a tag system: that is, divide simulation files in parts (should be called chunks) with a fixed structure and a tag identifying them. For example:
[[gravity]] value [[brownian]] value ... etc. etc.

There could be a tag hyerarchy: for instance:
[[robot]]
    [[mutval1]] value [[mutval2]] value ...
    [[dna]] plain dna file here... [[/dna]]
    .....
[[/robot]]
[[robot]]
    .....
[[/robot]]

etc. Much like HTML. (That's just an idea, you dont' actually have to use precisely this kind of tags... ). Or maybe (I just have a vague idea about it, but maybe it's exactly what we need here) XML.
When files are loaded, the program simply searches for the tags he's interested in, and ignores the others. So you can keep modifying everything, adding new variables, for instance, to the physical environment, or even adding a whole new chunk specifying the definition of an envgrid, and the program will still be able to load old simulation files without problems. And even older versions will be able to load newer simulation files, just without providing the new features, in case they are used. For example, say that tomorrow you decide to save the shape of a robot also (circle, square, triangle, etc.). You can just add a tag [[shape]] inside the robot definition, and older versions will simply ignore it.

Ok, maybe it looks complicated, but it's not. Once you've written down a few routines to manage tags (search tag, search tag end, get tag value... and so on) the rest is straightforward, and the problem of loading/saving (both simulations, organisms, and whatever) is solved once for all.

98

Off Topic / Artificial Life software!

« on: May 13, 2005, 06:05:41 AM »

Well, agents in an alife software must also have the ability to mutate. That is, for me alife means evolution: which is made of ability to reproduce and mutate. But evolution also means other things, like complex interaction between great number of agents. For instance, I don't like software such as Framsticks, which is, as far as I know, all about optimization of shape for a single particular purpose, like moving.

99

Evolution and Internet Sharing Sims / Evolving Dom ternia E

« on: May 10, 2005, 03:58:52 PM »

Why not something related to the way it moves. For example, it could suddenly move laterally at random or change direction, trying to escape from the predator. Or it could turn back and shoot a few shots.

100

Off Topic / Off-topic???

« on: May 06, 2005, 01:23:47 PM »

Well, begin by posting it, then the moderators will find the appropriate place.
Post, post, I can't wait.

 :boing:

101

The Gene depository / Possible to Clone?

« on: May 06, 2005, 04:37:05 AM »

If it was enabled to work for ties and faster, it would be easier. Possibly allow it to only work for the birth tie to prevent abuse.

Well', I'd rather do the opposite: that is, unify birth ties and normal ties. Say that birth ties last forever, and robots have to actively delete them if they want to detach from the parent/son. Yes, this could lead - in case of mutations- to huge agglomerates of cells; but if ties are well managed (read: if the program don't crash) those agglomerates should be rapidly defeated by unmutated bots, more efficient.

Hmm. abuse... abuse... but, isn't it worse, to allow robots to shoot genes, instead of pumping them through ties? I mean, shooting viruses around is much more dangerous, viruses can spread much more easily. So maybe I'd rather kill the ability to shoot genes, and leave it all to ties.

Probably viruses are not yet mutated, but they should. It would be very interesting, and become necessary if they become a reproduction method.

Carlo

102

The Gene depository / Possible to Clone?

« on: May 05, 2005, 11:38:48 AM »

It's a good idea, but I'd like to generalize it more. Just add an instruction allowing robots to create an empty cellular body, and then (maybe adding some other instruction, if necessary) they could use shots or ties to pump in it a copy of their dna, gene by gene. Mutation routines could then be applied to shooted genes (they should already apply, do they?). This way you'd have a more interesting and complex reproduction system. If you want to keep also the old one, you can always run separate sims, say the simple repro sims and the complex repro sims.

Necessary instructions/ operations would be:

0) create empty body (options: with little or no energy, so that the parent has to actively transfer its energy)
1) copy-and-shoot arbitrary gene OR copy-and-pump arbitrary gene (for ties)
2) test for the genome length (to know when to stop copying)

hmmm.... that's all?

Bye
Carlo

103

Suggestions / Threshold species!

« on: April 26, 2005, 02:23:34 PM »

A working version of VB6 is also on the FTP.  Try it.

Oh god.

LANCE: I don't know you, who is this, don't come here, I'm hangin' up.

104

Suggestions / Digging into the egrid

« on: April 16, 2005, 02:47:54 PM »

It's on the back burner.

hmmmm. I think I hate democracy.

105

Suggestions / Digging into the egrid

« on: April 16, 2005, 04:38:18 AM »

The new e-grid is a multi (infinite actually) level array measuring 12 X 90

Guess you mean 120x90...

Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, temperature, waste products like ammonia, Nitrates and Nitrites. Calcium and Silicon for use in building shells.

It seems it's not the matter of building an envgrid, but of finding adequate use of all this new things. So, which interactions are you planning to assign to all these new variables?

The idea of the "enzyme" system it's interesting, but seems to me a little bit vague. I think you should introduce it in the envgrid only ([you]only[/you]) when the first level of the envgrid, that you described above, will work [you]perfectly[/you].

Finally, what about the features of the original envgrid? Envgrid was conceived to localize in each of its squares the environment settings. That is, to give the ability to assign to each square different physics parameters (ex. friction, moving factor, brownian, gravity, buoyancy, all sorts of costs, light irradiation / energy feed, maybe mutation rates, and so on). This was the first, most coherent and straightforward idea to create different environments in a single sim, in order to achieve prolonged coexistence of different species in the same sim and speciation by colonization of new environments.

What happened to this project?