Critter World Viewer 2
From Telkoth.net
My Critter World Viewer has undergone numerous changes, in order to increase the complexity of the world, and give the critters more ways to interact with it.
Contents |
[edit] Changing the World's Color
The most visible change is that the critters now have the ability to alter the color of the terrain. It costs energy to do, and they can only change either red, green, or blue in a given tile in a single action, however they can change that value by as much as they are willing to spend energy doing so.
For example, a critter could bring a tile from 0 red to 255 red in a single action, but it could not increase both the red and the blue in a tile in a single action, even by 1 point each.
I do not start critters with neurons that instruct their bodies to change the color of the terrain, but it does eventually sneak in with mutations, causing quite a mess :P
Is there any advantage to coloring the terrain? I'm not sure. The critter's ability to see is restricted to seeing the color of a tile, blended with the color of the critter in that tile if any. If critters are making decisions on how to act based on the color of a tile (ex: by assuming that a certain color indicates that another critter is there), then coloring a tile could serve to either deceive or guide other critters. I do not think, however, that there is currently any reason for a critter to evolve to do either.
[edit] The Behavior of Energy
Previously, energy (indicated by red lines) behaved like geysers of water: on a given tile it had a rate of flow at which it would flow onto that tile. Also, like water, it had an evaporation rate (as a percent of the total energy on the tile).
This, however, made the universe too easy for the critters, who evolved to just sit on a geyser and eat. Critters who wasted energy moving around and reproducing died first, and programmed mortality eventually finished off the critters sitting around doing nothing but eating, leaving the world desolate.
This has all changed!
Energy now behaves more like plants: if there is any energy on a tile, it grows. Empty tiles get seeded with energy randomly depending on how much energy is in nearby tiles: more energy in adjacent tiles gives a greater chance of seeding the empty tile.
Finally, to ensure that no tile grows energy indefinitely, each tile has an "energy entropy" value which increases over time, slowing the growth of energy on the tile, and eventually reversing it. When a tile becomes devoid of energy, the "energy entropy" value rapidly (but not instantly) returns to 0. Also, when a critter takes energy from a tile, the entropy of the tile is increased.
These changes have resulted in much more dynamic critters, who run around seeking out food.
[edit] The "Biology" of Critters
[edit] "Size"
Critters have a sort of size which can now mutate along with their color. Size has several implications for a critter:
- A larger critter has more Hit Points (which increases their life span)
- A larger critter can eat more energy in a single action
- A larger critter requires more energy to live every turn
- A larger critter requires more energy to move
Size is not visible to other critters, except possibly through indirect observations which would require a much better memory than I think any of my critters have ever evolved.
[edit] Properties of Reproduction
Reproduction is still asexual, but there are now several values that a critter may have (and which can mutate over time) that determine how they reproduce:
- A "cooldown", which determines the minimum amount of time that must pass between one birthing and another.
- How much energy is a parent gives to its offspring at its birth (the newborn's starting energy, taken from its parent)
- The minimum age a critter must be before it can give birth
[edit] Neurons
Various neurons have been tweaked to offer more fine-grained control over how they control the body. The way a critter acts is by tallying up "votes" from its brain instructing it what to do... for example, previously, if 3 of a critter's neurons instructed the body to reproduce, but 4 instructed it to eat, it would eat.
Giving each neuron only one vote meant that critters often needed many neurons.
To make their brains more efficient (and the simulation speedier!) a single neuron can cast any number of votes, depending on its input, and the exact properties of the neuron.
Neurons also require more energy now, in order to give real consequences to the addition of neurons to a creature. The scale of energy in the universe had to be increased to allow this more fine-grained energy use: previously, every 1000 neurons needed 1 energy per turn, but now every single neuron requires 1 energy per turn! The amount of energy required by the body has been increased, but so has the amount of energy a critter can consume, as well as the amount of energy built up on a tile.
And this has definitely reduced the number of neurons required by a critter to be successful. Whether or not it has other effects, good or bad, is hard to tell.
[edit] Conclusion?
I always worry about the effects of the changes I make to the universe, since very little is predictable by me. For example, when I make a change, and it has short-term benefits that seem good, have I also destroyed some amazing, longer-term evolution? Especially when a change is for efficiency reason, or relates directly to their brains... if I make a change that lets them do the same work with less neurons, have I also robbed them of the possibility of doing something more subtle and interesting? Maybe what 1 of these new neurons do is something 10 old neurons could have done, but those 10 old neurons would have done it in a way that lead to other, more interesting behaviors...
It's hard to tell, and the brains of the creatures quickly exceed my ability to easily understand, making it harder.
Well! I'll continue posting as things develop :)
