Just finished (hopefully, may have bugs) something new today.
Organisms can be forked now as you see below (this is a constructed organism).
I am very excited how organisms will evolve now. Have to test it.
Other news:
There are plants that dodge (new ability of passive plants) attacks and thereby flee from predators.
There is a new photosynthetic color JADE, which reduces the absorbing damage of consuming segments and protects from poison and infections by reducing its photosynthtic abilities temporarily. (cell wall)
And there is a new INDIGO color, that reduces the energy a new born virus receives from its host (virus suppression). It is also a fake target for infections, so that viruses lose energy by trying to infect it.
Tried to make small plants more effective by increasing the photosynthetic abilities of organisms with fewer segments.
Made other balance changes.
I haven´t uploaded a new version for a long time.
If someone wants to beta test it, I will upload it.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
And I am very happy now.
This is how it looks with a randomly created 1-symmetric organism.
A gene can only branch at a position before its normal place.
-1 is no branch. If Branch = 0, the segment starts at the center.
If you set Branch >= Gene, you cannot place the organism into the world.
JADE will help itself and (new) other plant segments to isolate infections and (maybe) other effects.
GRASS will reduce the effectivity of other segments to consume energy from it.
C4PLANT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation will still be effective at low CO2 concentrations, but grows slowly (Yes, that is easier to do than I thought).
Until now I had JADE and GRASS together, and this was really hard to balance and not too interesting.
Made simple plants too effective...and as I nerfed it, it was useless for complex organisms.
Have to create two of them now.
As I said, if someone wants to try it, or help testing it, let me know.
If so, I will upload it as soon as the new colors are created.
But it seems that everyone is busy or doing something else.
P.S: Branching is a nice addition and doesn´t make any problems.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
As I said, I will upload the "Beta" tomorrow (or even today, depends where you live).
It doesn´t have any problems, I am just not too sure about the balance.
Should be good. :)
Last edit: MarcoA 2016-04-20
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Nothing wrong with it. Just not enough balance testing.
Some non english language translations are missing and 1024 * 768 (or smaller) screen resolutions will still create visibility problems in the Genetic Laboratory for the russian language.
I will answer all questions.
Have fun. :)
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
MAROON herbivores will lose the extra child if infected.
The color AUBURN will give an extra child to infected organisms now.
Low maintenance for MAROON as compensation.
It was too easy now to combine different feeeding mechanisms because of branching.
Had to do something...
Branching works for everyone? No bugs found?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Okay, I've run a few simulations to time 200 or so, after defaulting my settings, and so far it does seem like maybe jade and grass are too powerful still. Almost every plant - one the sim gets going - contains one or both of them. My guess is that the reactive property of jade makes it a "smart choice" for survival. It probably needs a lower photosynthesis rate. as far as lime goes, I'm not sure. I may have to disable jade to see the rate at which lime and grass are utilized.
Balancing jade and grass seems tricky. You could reduce their base photosynthesis rates, though the more they are reduced, the less the photosynthesis penalty will balance the "shielding" factor. Increasing the duration of the penalty will cause longer periods of "starvation" after blocking an attack, so that makes the genes more of a "gamble" for the organism.
So I guess here are the basic variables of Jade and Grass as I understand it:
1. Base photosynth rate
2. Degree to which it protects against infections/attacks. (Question: Does jade block all infections, remove them given time, or block them a percent of the time?)
3. The magnitude of the photosynth penalty from blocking... Question: Does this apply to the whole organism, or just the jade segment?)
4. The duration in time of the the photosynth penalty.
On another note, branching is a really awesome feature, although for some reason surviving organisms have only had genes branching from 0 (origin) in my last two or three sims - at the times I checked on them anyway. They seem to mostly do that as a cheap way to keep useful but vulnerable segments protected withing the outher shell of the organism - I mostly see it with plants with high symmetry numbers. It seems sort of cheap for them to do this, but I'm not sure how to counter it... Maybe A penalty could be given to genes around the origin that decreases each gene out from the center (or based on length of segments), but I'm not sure if that's desirable or effective as a solution.
To be fair, I did change the starting complexity to 1, and I have noticed that doing so seems to slow down the development of more sophisticated shapes.
Here is an imgur collection with a speies from my last sim and some commentary:
Finally, one thought; now that we have branching, there is less need for enforced symmetry - what happens if you force symmetry=1 and let them use only branching to evolve their shape? ;)
Last edit: cliftut 2017-01-07
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That version is also slightly outdated even though I haven´t really added new features.
It might not have the auburn color (see above), if I remember correctly.
Will upload something newer tomorrow or in a few days, and you can talk about this newer version then (makes more sense then). Already made it easier to balance plant segments yourself. Jade is also changed somewhat.
I don´t get too many organisms that only branch from 0. It is of course right that they try to protect "soft" parts, but I don´t want to penalize it.
Will not force 1-symmetric organisms. Would not look cool and I would have to change everything probably (balance, mutation costs...). Also, symmetries are coded very deeply in real DNA (Hox-genes). The same genes create paired appendages... Evolution doesn´t need to balance legs on both sides.
Last edit: MarcoA 2017-01-07
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
But I had a very good idea, that solved early game virus accumulation. There are small organisms CORAL now that rewrite non-plant/non-consumer organism DNA to make them one of their own species. ;)
If I find no obvious bugs, I will upload it after one longer simulation.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hi, I am back and working on a new update.
Just finished (hopefully, may have bugs) something new today.
Organisms can be forked now as you see below (this is a constructed organism).
I am very excited how organisms will evolve now. Have to test it.
Other news:
There are plants that dodge (new ability of passive plants) attacks and thereby flee from predators.
There is a new photosynthetic color JADE, which reduces the absorbing damage of consuming segments and protects from poison and infections by reducing its photosynthtic abilities temporarily. (cell wall)
And there is a new INDIGO color, that reduces the energy a new born virus receives from its host (virus suppression). It is also a fake target for infections, so that viruses lose energy by trying to infect it.
Tried to make small plants more effective by increasing the photosynthetic abilities of organisms with fewer segments.
Made other balance changes.
I haven´t uploaded a new version for a long time.
If someone wants to beta test it, I will upload it.
Here is my created branchy organism
Made some changes to the branch function.
And I am very happy now.
This is how it looks with a randomly created 1-symmetric organism.
A gene can only branch at a position before its normal place.
-1 is no branch. If Branch = 0, the segment starts at the center.
If you set Branch >= Gene, you cannot place the organism into the world.
Here are some evolved organisms, that use branching.
Another one:
And a plant:
The branching function works perfectly by the way.
Balancing photosynthesis for smaller plants and JADE is more difficult.
Ok, the update will include 3 new plant colors:
JADE will help itself and (new) other plant segments to isolate infections and (maybe) other effects.
GRASS will reduce the effectivity of other segments to consume energy from it.
C4PLANT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation will still be effective at low CO2 concentrations, but grows slowly (Yes, that is easier to do than I thought).
Until now I had JADE and GRASS together, and this was really hard to balance and not too interesting.
Made simple plants too effective...and as I nerfed it, it was useless for complex organisms.
Have to create two of them now.
As I said, if someone wants to try it, or help testing it, let me know.
If so, I will upload it as soon as the new colors are created.
But it seems that everyone is busy or doing something else.
P.S: Branching is a nice addition and doesn´t make any problems.
When should this be available? Can't wait though! Thanks for the awesome work. :)
Hi, someone here^^
As I said, I will upload the "Beta" tomorrow (or even today, depends where you live).
It doesn´t have any problems, I am just not too sure about the balance.
Should be good. :)
Last edit: MarcoA 2016-04-20
Ok, you can try version 1.5 beta in Files.
Showing that I still do something here ;)
Nothing wrong with it. Just not enough balance testing.
Some non english language translations are missing and 1024 * 768 (or smaller) screen resolutions will still create visibility problems in the Genetic Laboratory for the russian language.
I will answer all questions.
Have fun. :)
Mobile 2-symetric alga :):
Thanks to dodging, and JADE, this is viable now.
Time is 200.
MAROON herbivores will lose the extra child if infected.
The color AUBURN will give an extra child to infected organisms now.
Low maintenance for MAROON as compensation.
It was too easy now to combine different feeeding mechanisms because of branching.
Had to do something...
Branching works for everyone? No bugs found?
I just checked back here to see if there were any new developments. This is more than I could have hoped for. :) I'll try it out.
Okay, I've run a few simulations to time 200 or so, after defaulting my settings, and so far it does seem like maybe jade and grass are too powerful still. Almost every plant - one the sim gets going - contains one or both of them. My guess is that the reactive property of jade makes it a "smart choice" for survival. It probably needs a lower photosynthesis rate. as far as lime goes, I'm not sure. I may have to disable jade to see the rate at which lime and grass are utilized.
Balancing jade and grass seems tricky. You could reduce their base photosynthesis rates, though the more they are reduced, the less the photosynthesis penalty will balance the "shielding" factor. Increasing the duration of the penalty will cause longer periods of "starvation" after blocking an attack, so that makes the genes more of a "gamble" for the organism.
So I guess here are the basic variables of Jade and Grass as I understand it:
1. Base photosynth rate
2. Degree to which it protects against infections/attacks. (Question: Does jade block all infections, remove them given time, or block them a percent of the time?)
3. The magnitude of the photosynth penalty from blocking... Question: Does this apply to the whole organism, or just the jade segment?)
4. The duration in time of the the photosynth penalty.
On another note, branching is a really awesome feature, although for some reason surviving organisms have only had genes branching from 0 (origin) in my last two or three sims - at the times I checked on them anyway. They seem to mostly do that as a cheap way to keep useful but vulnerable segments protected withing the outher shell of the organism - I mostly see it with plants with high symmetry numbers. It seems sort of cheap for them to do this, but I'm not sure how to counter it... Maybe A penalty could be given to genes around the origin that decreases each gene out from the center (or based on length of segments), but I'm not sure if that's desirable or effective as a solution.
To be fair, I did change the starting complexity to 1, and I have noticed that doing so seems to slow down the development of more sophisticated shapes.
Here is an imgur collection with a speies from my last sim and some commentary:
http://imgur.com/a/SrURB
Finally, one thought; now that we have branching, there is less need for enforced symmetry - what happens if you force symmetry=1 and let them use only branching to evolve their shape? ;)
Last edit: cliftut 2017-01-07
Someone here^^, hi :)
That version is also slightly outdated even though I haven´t really added new features.
It might not have the auburn color (see above), if I remember correctly.
Will upload something newer tomorrow or in a few days, and you can talk about this newer version then (makes more sense then). Already made it easier to balance plant segments yourself. Jade is also changed somewhat.
I don´t get too many organisms that only branch from 0. It is of course right that they try to protect "soft" parts, but I don´t want to penalize it.
Will not force 1-symmetric organisms. Would not look cool and I would have to change everything probably (balance, mutation costs...). Also, symmetries are coded very deeply in real DNA (Hox-genes). The same genes create paired appendages... Evolution doesn´t need to balance legs on both sides.
Last edit: MarcoA 2017-01-07
Sorry to let you wait...
But I had a very good idea, that solved early game virus accumulation. There are small organisms CORAL now that rewrite non-plant/non-consumer organism DNA to make them one of their own species. ;)
If I find no obvious bugs, I will upload it after one longer simulation.