Topics

1

Newbie / Chloroplasts

« on: September 24, 2014, 09:19:17 PM »

OK, i'm not a newbie, but rather an oldie so old that he lost touch... 

Can someone explain to me how chloroplasts work and how they relate to the other options for energy for bots?

And since we are on the topic, do we even need an option to feed veggies in ways that are not chloroplast-dependent?

2

Suggestions / Mutation protection opinion

« on: November 18, 2008, 01:55:16 PM »

Sorry, I've been away awhile and just now noticed this topic. I also apologize for not carefully reading all the proposals and the original DB3 topic. And I also apologize for posting in a separate thread - for some reason I'm not allowed to comment in the original one.

I voted for "another option" because I agree with Cyberduke - it is not clear what this option is trying to achieve. He proposed two different possibilities: 1) for us to make some DNA unmutable; 2) for bots to evolve protection of their DNA. I think these are vastly different goals and require vastly different approaches.

1) For us to make some DNA "protected" from mutation - this is for our convenience sake. Bots should suffer no penalty for that and should not even know that such protection exists. So clean metadata is the best approach here.

2) For bots to evolve protection of specific DNA regions. Seems like people are thinking that bots should be able to protect certain areas of their genome but not others. This is NOT how real DNA replicates. There may be some fancy exceptions, but in general organisms have a generic mechanism for DNA replication and mutation rate is the general feature of the organism. So, I'm completely against this idea!

3) For bots to evolve general rates of mutations. This already exists in the code - mutation rates can mutate and change. I think it would be fair to charge a little extra for lower mutation rates.

3

Off Topic / Wikipedia page in danger

« on: November 14, 2008, 05:44:12 PM »

I was looking for something completely different on wikipedia, when I stumbled on the page dedicated to Darwinbots. Turns out, as of yesterday it is scheduled to be deleted in four days due to

No references to reliable sources; very few Google hits (3,100 after omitting Wikipedia and Blogspot) to support the significance of this software.

Now, if anyone has any experience in dealing with wikipedia people, maybe they should try to stop that. If no one else volunteers, then I'll give it a try over weekend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinbots

4

Off Topic / Can't upload files

« on: July 09, 2008, 02:12:11 PM »

Just like the title says - I can't upload any files to the board. It gets stuck at "uploading" and never finishes. I tried both Firefox and IE - nothing works.

5

Bugs and fixes / Path/file error

« on: May 19, 2008, 08:40:59 PM »

This error is suddenly an issue for me. After switching to 2.43.1L, I've had three crashes within a couple of hours. Re-starting error.sim loads and runs OK.

6

Bugs and fixes / Another free energy bug? RESOLVED (DUPLICATE)

« on: May 19, 2008, 04:45:02 PM »

While waiting for 2.43.1l version to be released I decided to deal with the poison bug by raising the cost of making poison to 4 energy per poison unit. It seemed to help at first, but pretty soon after that the energy in the sim again climbed way up, and the number of bots went up as well.  So I'm suspecting that there is another free energy bug somewhere. The sim is attached.

7

Bugs and fixes / Energy bug again RESOLVED 2.43.1L

« on: May 14, 2008, 06:19:41 PM »

OK Eric, I know that last time you told me that total energy in the sim value is not going to be accurate and may still increase when sun is down because the energy in waste is not counted properly. But what I see is surely more than error in counting energy - the sun gor turned off when energy reached 4.1M. Since then the energy reached 6.1M  - see the saved sim. The sim is still running and now it's at 6.5M.  I suspect there is another bug somewhere - do check it out, pls.
Upd: It's ove 10M now!

8

Bugs and fixes / Energy bug RESOLVED 2.43.1k

« on: May 06, 2008, 12:18:15 PM »

Sim was OK until I saved it. Re-started this morning - the sun is down, but the energy keeps coming in, way above the limits I have in energy management options.

9

Suggestions / Find a bot of a given species

« on: April 23, 2008, 12:15:04 PM »

With large field sizes and internet mode it became difficult to locate low-frequency incoming bots. Can we get a button that would find a bot of a certain species?

10

Bugs and fixes / Delta of energy RESOLVED 2.43.1g

« on: March 31, 2008, 03:15:35 PM »

I thought "delta" at the bottom of the sim shows the difference in the total amount of energy in the sim from cycle to cycle.
But I noticed in my sim that the actual changes in the total amount of energy (also reported at the bottom of the sim and the delta values don't match up. The delta is showing as ~2500, while the total energy in the sim goes up by only ~500.  Am I misunderstanding something or is this a bug?

Sim is attached.

11

Suggestions / Drawing bots in 2.43.1d vs 2.43.1e

« on: March 26, 2008, 02:36:50 PM »

In the new version I don't see my Duplo bots when I zoom out all the way (size 10). Admittedly, they are tiny, but they were still visible in 2.43.1d as tiny specks of white (eyes?). Now it looks like they don't exist until I zoom in significantly. Did you change the way the bots are drawn? A bit annoying, now I can't cast a quick glance at the sim to see how things are going. The numbers on graphs don't give this information, because they don't tell me how the bots are distributed - they could all be clumped in a corner or they could be spread widely.

12

Off Topic / Math education

« on: March 20, 2008, 06:03:03 PM »

Found (through LJ) an interesting essay on math education in school: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

25 pages, but worth reading when you have time. I certainly found something there to think about.

13

DNA - General / Sequence of events

« on: March 14, 2008, 04:13:26 PM »

I feed my veggies by giving them 140 energy for each 1000 body. I charge all bots 0.135 per body per cycle. So, a veggie with 1000 body should end up with 5 energy points per cycle.

I have a suspicion that predators in my sim have access to all of the 140 energy points that veggies get in each cycle. Is that possible?  Basically I think that the following might happen:
1. Veggie gets 140 energy
2. Predator's shot is registered and some amount of energy (say 100) is set aside for the return shot (I have proportional return for shots).
3. Costs are applied and veggie looses 135 energy.

As a result the veggie is loosing 100+135 energy.

14

Simulation Emporium / Сosts experiment

« on: February 19, 2008, 12:19:24 PM »

I've recently tried a new approach to population and energy management in the sim. I removed ALL costs from bots (DNA, rotation, movement, etc) except for "maintenance of body" cost, which I set fairly high (at 0.06). I control the total amount of energy in the sim by turning sun off when it goes above 10 million and turning it back on when it falls below 9 million. The veggies are not limited in growth (the limit is set very high, at 1500, which it never reaches). Veggies are re-seeded with interval of 400 cycles (a single veggie per re-seeding) to compensate for the fact that movement is severely restricted in the sim (top speed set at 5).

Interestingly, such system is fairly stable with ~200-400 veggies present all the time. Bots are prone to extinction because sometimes they are not lucky enough to find any of the veggie patches present in the sim. But usually they are OK.  I just started this sim and I don't see any specific adaptations to these conditions yet. But I am curious what they will be. Any ideas?

If you are interested in this system, the sim is attached for your pleasure.

15

Bugs and fixes / A bug

« on: February 11, 2008, 12:54:44 PM »

Something weird is happening to me. Open the attached sim and try to change the size of the sim from 10 to 9. Click "change". Instead of applying new settings, the program goes through some weird motions of trying to start a whole new sim, load some bots and show the splash-screen.