Why Auto-Evo is Dead

It doesn't need an active plan within the community that would be like saying that a program that plays chess with an opening book needs active human assistance to play. It's just Lamarckian evolution except it uses templates to decide which features to evolve instead of trying to calculate them itself. I even have a program that does it, though just with three integers rather than a whole creature. I'd rather not hijack this thread with only two posts, anyway.

EScSi wrote:

It doesn't need an active plan within the community that would be like saying that a program that plays chess with an opening book needs active human assistance to play. It's just Lamarckian evolution except it uses templates to decide which features to evolve instead of trying to calculate them itself. I even have a program that does it, though just with three integers rather than a whole creature. I'd rather not hijack this thread with only two posts, anyway.

We still need to calculate what situation equals what trait.

Sure, I haven't posted for a while, but this seems to be one of the most productive threads I've seen on this forum.

I'll jump right in:

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It's quite possible, but then everything would look like modified versions of a bunch of base creatures

Is that not what earth is like?

Most organisms have:
4 limbs (6 limbers split off early on)
2 eyes (Clustered eyes are much more rare (Often with 6 limbed (arachnopods? Not sure.)))
A head (Think about it. Our sensory input is fairly centralized!)
A nose (Who doesn't?)


My thinking is that everything should start off as a simple multicellular animal. (A single celled stage will be implemented later for sure) It might have two basic light sensors (Not quite eyes), and a fin or two. Stock creatures will be SIMPLE modifications of these ...fish. All animals should progress from that point, evolving whatever they feel is necessary.

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whatever they feel is necessary

That's the big question here, and I think it should involve two major things -- random numbers, and tallied actions.

Sure, random Darwinian simulators tend to create optimized, ugly and mentally retarded creatures, but they nonetheless still fill their niche. In my theory, the optimum environment variables will change along with it, causing the ugly creature to change.

For example, say we have a float representing an organism's score. The number 5 is the best score. Organisms will change their child's score through random mutations. During a generation's execution, if the score is two far away from five the organism has a higher chance of dying. Naturally, after x generations, all the organisms' scores will converge on 5.

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WhotWhoaoat?!?! That's impossible! All the organisms will be the same! BAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! Curse you and your blaspheme!!! Darwinian is impossible!!

Hold your horses. We can create multiple niches. What if 5 AND 8 were completely plausible highest scores? What if we had more than one scales representing different aspects?

5 or 8 could represent the optimum mouth height. It could also represent the fastest leg spacing, or the fastest fin number. You could score on multiple of these scales to create exponential combinations of creatures. What I'm saying is, not only should there be multiple optimums and scales, but they should be randomly modified. The environment is what changes the creature. In my opinion, this, aided by tallies, brings auto-evo back into the picture.

If you're still reading, I congratulate you! I'm a terrible writer.

Anyway, tallies would have two major sections. Death tallies and birth tallies

When a member of a species dies, +1 death tally.
When a member of a species is born, +1 birth tally.

Other tallies like food and such could be kept track of, but this just outlines the basics.

This means that you can now find the birth rate! Wooo! This way, we can compensate for not actively simulating the entire world.

My idea is then such:

When you're done with a given generation, you choose how much time to skip. Based on the death rate, we can approximate how many species will be available in the next generation by a relatively simple equation.

Δorganisms = years * births per year;

Don't forget that births and deaths in a matter of fifteen minutes will need to be scaled to births/year. This is where tweaking comes in.

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Hold it there tiger! This means species will go extinct if they're currently dying and you skip too many generations!

This is true. But the random deviations will also go haywire at this level, leaving your planet at the mercy of randomness. You'll have to keep your skips small, or risk mass extinction.

I apologize for how long that was, but I'm only trying to be specific. If it doesn't make sense, let me know. If you strongly believe it wont work, try to convince me otherwise.

If I am understanding that correctly, that sounds like a good idea.

Nice to see you back, Roadkill, and that looks like one good way to do evolution.

I like the idea, well done!

Most of this is flying over my head. So I can't really applaud it. The only real reason I'm here is to keep people solving the right problems. In any case though, we should run this by Bashi.

Oh, Bashi. I almost forgot about him, he's never really on.

Commander Keen wrote:

Oh, Bashi. I almost forgot about him, he's never really on.

We have a grand total of one coder and you forgot about him? xD Lolfail.

Commander Keen wrote:

Oh, Bashi. I almost forgot about him, he's never really on.

He's on leave right now. And he deserves it. Remember that the guy has a life, and is at one of the busiest points in it right now.

Basically, you use random deviations and calculate the "optimum" animal(s) to compare from. This design is simple, and has a low overhead. It would be best to test it first.

Tallying could also be used to calculate what on the creature changes the most. Each part would have a 'uses' variable indicating how many times it has been used. We could have the top three or so uses advance, and the bottom 3 un.. advance. Changes to the structure would involve more complex matters I have yet to think of.

How do you calculate what design is optimal for any given environment? You need some way to track the actions that creatures do, and then find out what they need based on that. It's easy to optimise for speed, height, etc. but an entire environment is harder. My suggestion was to use templates for that niche, but if there's more rigorous way...

Tenebrarum wrote:

We have a grand total of one coder and you forgot about him? xD Lolfail.

You are no better than me. What about PaperGrape?

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He's on leave right now. And he deserves it. Remember that the guy has a life, and is at one of the busiest points in it right now.

Yeah, he deserves it the most of all people here. He did some awesome work, and he didn't even started at all.

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Tallying could also be used to calculate what on the creature changes the most. Each part would have a 'uses' variable indicating how many times it has been used. We could have the top three or so uses advance, and the bottom 3 un.. advance. Changes to the structure would involve more complex matters I have yet to think of.

Well, this exact system would not work. The most used parts are obviously internal organs and then legs/other movement parts, and something vital for the creature (defensive spikes against predators) might not be used often enough to advance at all, or it may even degrade.

Commander Keen wrote:

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Tallying could also be used to calculate what on the creature changes the most. Each part would have a 'uses' variable indicating how many times it has been used. We could have the top three or so uses advance, and the bottom 3 un.. advance. Changes to the structure would involve more complex matters I have yet to think of.

Well, this exact system would not work. The most used parts are obviously internal organs and then legs/other movement parts, and something vital for the creature (defensive spikes against predators) might not be used often enough to advance at all, or it may even degrade.

There would be many exceptions.. we would add an evolution coefficient or something to represent just how easy it is to cause that tallied part to evolve.

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How do you calculate what design is optimal for any given environment? You need some way to track the actions that creatures do, and then find out what they need based on that. It's easy to optimise for speed, height, etc. but an entire environment is harder. My suggestion was to use templates for that niche, but if there's more rigorous way...

What are some variables you want to calculate the optimum design(s) for? Templates could work. An equation would be cool.

I suggested something way simpler about 5 pages ago, and it went over pretty well. This thread is getting way too long.

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What if we could cut down on thenumber of mutations and the variables in the environment? Say each time a creature reproduces that you don't see, it produces three types of offspring that directly tweak one variable- one stays the same, one lowers the variable, one heightens the variable, and the computer randomly chooses between the three which one will survive? We could even cycle what type of variable is tweaked in between generations. This way, each species will have one variable change every generation, unless the computer decides to "split" a generation so that more species could evolve. That would only rely on code for determining
A:which sections of share code can be modified (which doesn't even have to work very well, really)
B:dice roll (which one will survive)
C: cycles of modification and splitting

I know it's still pretty complex due to the sheer number of creatures, but we could also cycle what's getting evolved. We could retire a species from evolution for a while, then make it go through a rapid series of generations with mutations, simulating punctuated equilibrium.

~sciocont wrote:

I suggested something way simpler about 5 pages ago, and it went over pretty well. This thread is getting way too long.

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What if we could cut down on thenumber of mutations and the variables in the environment? Say each time a creature reproduces that you don't see, it produces three types of offspring that directly tweak one variable- one stays the same, one lowers the variable, one heightens the variable, and the computer randomly chooses between the three which one will survive? We could even cycle what type of variable is tweaked in between generations. This way, each species will have one variable change every generation, unless the computer decides to "split" a generation so that more species could evolve. That would only rely on code for determining
A:which sections of share code can be modified (which doesn't even have to work very well, really)
B:dice roll (which one will survive)
C: cycles of modification and splitting

I know it's still pretty complex due to the sheer number of creatures, but we could also cycle what's getting evolved. We could retire a species from evolution for a while, then make it go through a rapid series of generations with mutations, simulating punctuated equilibrium.

I suppose that's about the same. It runs evolution in the background.

However, the problem still lingers on to make the player's creature evolve based on the player's actions. If I'm not mistaken, that's auto-evo, and the lack of solutions for auto-evo is why "Auto-evo is dead".

AFAIK, tallied uses and evolution speed coefficients seem to be the only solution to this problem so far in this thread. Randomizing creatures is simple.

roadkillguy wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

I suggested something way simpler about 5 pages ago, and it went over pretty well. This thread is getting way too long.

Quote :

What if we could cut down on thenumber of mutations and the variables in the environment? Say each time a creature reproduces that you don't see, it produces three types of offspring that directly tweak one variable- one stays the same, one lowers the variable, one heightens the variable, and the computer randomly chooses between the three which one will survive? We could even cycle what type of variable is tweaked in between generations. This way, each species will have one variable change every generation, unless the computer decides to "split" a generation so that more species could evolve. That would only rely on code for determining
A:which sections of share code can be modified (which doesn't even have to work very well, really)
B:dice roll (which one will survive)
C: cycles of modification and splitting

I know it's still pretty complex due to the sheer number of creatures, but we could also cycle what's getting evolved. We could retire a species from evolution for a while, then make it go through a rapid series of generations with mutations, simulating punctuated equilibrium.

I suppose that's about the same. It runs evolution in the background.

However, the problem still lingers on to make the player's creature evolve based on the player's actions. If I'm not mistaken, that's auto-evo, and the lack of solutions for auto-evo is why "Auto-evo is dead".

AFAIK, tallied uses and evolution speed coefficients seem to be the only solution to this problem so far in this thread. Randomizing creatures is simple.

I' all for the player doing their own eolving. It's the best way to assure that they get to where they want to go. It just makes sense.

Hmmmm... I thought they agreed on auto-evo.

I guess as long as other creatures change, and there's a water->land stage, I'm ok.
However, I do think auto-evo will make our game stick out from the rest.

In fact, after reading something I read long ago, I remember now how I thought it should be.

Warning: This is really long.

Spoiler:

I believe this, coupled with Bashi's idea for a moddable mutation system, would work quite effectively.

Each mutation mod would include a minimum amount of uses to utilize it, and a UI option to apply it. It would be up to us then, to make organisms evolve effectively and beautifully through a modding system -- one mod for each action and consequence.

Digging -> makes claws, teeth, or horns
Fighting -> claws and teeth
Eating -> Specialized digestion (It would probably be the first one implemented, and possibly one of the largest)

roadkillguy wrote:

long post is not short

That seems like a good system, the only problem being the fact that the computer would constantly have to be monitoring what you are doing. And it would have to make decisions based on what you are doing to see if what you are doing is for a specific thing. Like the whole developing gills and stuff where it has to look as a whole at what you are doing and break it down into individual things. Then again, that is going to be a problem no matter what form of evolution happens in this game, so I guess you could say this was a worthless post...

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the computer would constantly have to be monitoring what you are doing

..It already is. Constantly. When a function is executed, it's easy to tally the number of times the function has been called.

@sciocont

If the user can select what they want to be evolved at the end of the generation, they're effectively choosing how it evolves no?

roadkillguy wrote:

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the computer would constantly have to be monitoring what you are doing

..It already is. Constantly. When a function is executed, it's easy to tally the number of times the function has been called.

@sciocont

If the user can select what they want to be evolved at the end of the generation, they're effectively choosing how it evolves no?

Yes, that allows them to guide their path. Haven't read that longpost yet.

Pezzalis' idea above (quoted by roadkillguy) is kind of brilliant. I don't think it solves the problem at hand (I've been watching this thread since its inception), but it is a very interesting step in what could possibly be the right direction.

Permit me to recap, just to see if I understand correctly. Areas enumerated in RED, I foresee a problem with.

I: In the course of its survival, a creature takes certain actions; these are its "behaviors", and have associated meters. The game logs the creature's "behaviors" in the current generation by adding points into their respective meter.

II: Body parts will all be associated with one or more behaviors as they are used to carry them out. When the meter associated with a certain body part fills, it will unlock the option of "levelling up" one of the body parts associated to that meter. Players may choose; NPCs will select one randomly.

III: Upon making a selection, the meter is reset, and begins to fill again as the creature takes actions. Further, over a given period of time, the selected change will begin to appear in the creature.

IV: In addition to making the selected change, the game will also spawn copies of the player creature that selected a different body part. It will go on to act in the environment, taking actions, and evolving as an NPC. This will eventually give rise to "branching" in the evolutionary tree.
===

First problem: How will body parts, created in an editor by players and lacking concrete stats, be associated with actions? How will the game gauge what an "improvement" is? Will it always go with bigger/faster/stronger? Seems clumsy, and unlikely to yield anything but "dinosaur" creatures. While they're cool, that's not really the goal.

Second problem: How does the selected change appear in the creature? Does it just fade into the current generation? That's an ugly idea. Needs some thought.

Third problem, the largest: This still doesn't answer Bashi's question of "fitness=?" What will drive extinction. Extinction, after all, is the motor of evolution.

Without an evolution engine, there's no game. This needs to get hammered out first and foremost, or we're just sticking decals on a car with no motor.

I've been playing around with programs that evolve points and polygons, and I've come to the conclusion that while my template method would work there's better ways of doing it, though there may be use for template methods in a creature generator utility. I think for the actual game the method that roadkillguy posted, with a few tweaks, is the best and simplest method. In fact I'm wondering why Spore didn't use it.

I don't think "dinosaur" creatures are a problem as long as you make sure to optimise for stats other than the obvious strength and speed. You might have a branch of species that evolves towards low reproductive cost or something. The other two problems, if I understand them correctly, don't look that bad. Fitness is just a matter of choosing a variable set to optimise, and having traits appear can be done in different ways that aren't really that consequential.

The only thing I don't see it working for is evolving the more complex AI behaviours (mating rituals, territory, etc.) but that doesn't look like too much of a difficulty either. You can fake such things.

EScSi wrote:

Fitness is just a matter of choosing a variable set to optimise, and having traits appear can be done in different ways that aren't really that consequential.

Okay. I'm sure, based on how you're phrasing that, that it makes perfect sense to you, but please bear with my inexperience.

How is the variable set defined? Is it arbitrary, or do factors (somehow) gleaned from the environment determine it? Based on roadkillguy's earlier example:

Spoiler:

...it sounds as though something in the environment would be determining what the optimal values are, but I'm somewhat hazy as to what, exactly.

Also, I'm unsure exactly how the variable set will reflect itself in "optimal" mutations. Could we talk a bit more about those? I apologize if I'm the only one who's not following completely - I readily admit that I don't speak computer - but it sounds like there's a good idea that still needs to be teased out of this a bit more clearly.

One way is to use the data gathered from the creature to determine a "niche" and then decide on what is optimal for that "niche". It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work, so you can be somewhat arbitrary with your sorting. If the data says (sorting it into broad sets) the creature is a burrowing carnivore, you might score it based on it's attack stats and it's burrowing skill, though I don't know what the plan is for how stats are rated in this game.

To expand on that, you might take a sample of the activity that the organism is engaging in, and then assign weights to each score based on the relative proportion of the events that occur. This is just my immediate reaction, though.