Why Auto-Evo is Dead

Terrifyingly difficult to figure this out. Fitness = ?

Hmmm...

This is where the big question comes into play. Either mutations are random and results are based on performance afterwards, in the game world, or they are pre-defined and arbitrary. Now, the former option is obviously the ideal, but that requires a degree of watchfulness on the computer's part that's nigh impossible. If we choose the latter than we struggle against homogenizing the environments and organisms in them.

Now, obviously the darwinian former is impossible, so our goal is to take the latter and make it so that it functions properly and without stupid results.

I think that in the end, fitness will kill us. Survival depends on so many different situations that we are unable to foresee. Since we can't pre-bake or track our critters universaly, we need to figure out how to translate enough scenarios into basic questions of probability that the system will be just that.

The easiest way to do this, I'm sad to say, is probably pre-defined biomes. These would allow us to base survival chances on local food sources, temperature ranges, compitition, and the like.

These also allow us to figure out niches better, as niches are generally biome-specific.

Also, Dinosaurs is solved by giving a large enough boon to AI.

Quote :

...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.

That method I proposed isn't related to auto-evo so much. It would only apply to npcs to randomize their changes based on the environment.

I'm sure that with enough different biomes we could have some pretty unique planets. Maybe... 50 or 60?

Extinction is definitely an issue. How would we know the player's creature is extinct? We could probably use the same method I presented for NPCs. Given the other members of your species that "play" in the tween generations are technically NPCS, we can test how well your creature fits in the environment, and find it's new population. Essentially, we would have to extrapolate data from simulations from one to the next.

Once your population reaches zero (In a simulation or not), it's game over, and you have the option to switch to another branch on your family tree.


We could gather data like this:

Species A eats a lot of grass, and grass isn't at 0. +400 Species A
Species B eats a lot of Species A, and Species A isn't at 0. +400 Species B, - 300 Species A

IMO, Fuzzy logic could work here too.

(That's just a thought off the top of my head, I haven't thought of any problems yet)

It would require a lot of tweaking.

Ha that concept I wrote down was back in the day when (I at least thought) things were still smooth non-generational play.

As for extinction in generation based game play I think we had a reasonably good system for this...

Your population size determines the diversity of your species, and earns your species "Diversity Points", which are more or less hidden.
(So not like a currency, nothing Like DNA points).

Diversity Points will determine how much your species will change each generation (Diversity=Greater Chance of Mutations=Faster Evolution)

Every time you die during a generation you will lose a certain amount of Diversity points.
When you die you will begin at the start of that generation.

If you lose, say for example, more than half of your diversity points, you will begin at the start of the last generation (Your new generation is effectively extinct).

How about we have a smooth evolution system between time skips, when we are able to track individual organisms, and then every time skip we generate new creatures using the old ones as templates? Then we re-calculate their niches and sort them into the appropiate biomes, simulating migration and speciation. I mean each time skip is millions of years, plenty of time for organisms to change niches and migrate to new habitats.

EScSi wrote:

How about we have a smooth evolution system between time skips, when we are able to track individual organisms, and then every time skip we generate new creatures using the old ones as templates? Then we re-calculate their niches and sort them into the appropiate biomes, simulating migration and speciation. I mean each time skip is millions of years, plenty of time for organisms to change niches and migrate to new habitats.

You're still talking about tracking hundreds of creatures at least, more likely thousands.

If we abstract away details and work mostly at species-level, it can be done especially with modern computers. Take an average member of each species, kill off niches based on geological events, evolve a new set of random creatures based on the old ones, then sort each organism into new niches. Instead of trying to fit the creature to the niche, we fit the niche to the creature.

EScSi wrote:

If we abstract away details and work mostly at species-level, it can be done especially with modern computers. Take an average member of each species, kill off niches based on geological events, evolve a new set of random creatures based on the old ones, then sort each organism into new niches. Instead of trying to fit the creature to the niche, we fit the niche to the creature.

Reminds me of sommit I posted here not to long ago.

I wrote:

Now, onto another topic: anyone who has studied evolution for a significant amount of time should know of the Competitive Exclusion Principle. To those unfamilier, it says, in a nutshell, that no two species can share a niche. Generally, a niche is defined by it's food source. While that isn't everything, we needn't complicate it yet. Let's get down a simplified version first. Back to niches. Niches are either said to be broad, (i.e. Having many different sources of food) or they are narrow. (e.i. Having only a few sources of food.) We'll return to these in a minute. The Competitive Exclusion Principle states that when a niche is shared, one or the other species must do one of the following: Migrate, Change, or Die.

What does this have to do with Auto-Evo? Well, while this does nothing to help the big issue, that of the actual process of change, it should help solve a few issues on the question of when evolution occurs. This can, for the time being, be said to be based on the aforementioned principle. If a species is found to share a niche, or more generally speaking, has a niche that overlaps with that of another species, than one must either Change (Evolve out of it's current niche, being best suited to those with broad niches), Migrate (If there is in fact a source of food near enough), or simply goes extinct.

Obviously this needs refining, but I thought it might be able to help.

Also, you do make a good point about tracking while in-game, between jumps. We could simply gather information during those times for all critters within render distance, and use it to suppliment all other data, but we can't rely on it.

Ok, I just read the last page or two quickly, and there's a lot of good stuff. Pezz's original huge post is a pretty cool idea, and I don't see problems with it that haven't been pointed out already. I'm going to assume we've got NPC evo mostly worked out, since nobody has said that my old idea is Belgium yet. So we'll be talking about player evo. Here's a few things I'd like to say:

#1- Fitness

Hear me out here, I've thought about this for a while, so I know what I'm talking about. Fitness=? is still a huge problem. I don't see any way to give a creature one set fitness value, and I don't see how that value will help us at all. I know the idea is "higher fitness lives, lower fitness dies," but we've pretty much agreed every creature other than you is not going to be actively evolving in the game, it's going to be evolved using NPC evo. So going through all sorts of math to determine something you don't see for every creature near you doesn't actually do anything.

#2- Niche

Niches are a good idea, but we're working with alien environments here, so having predetemined specific "niches" is basically just giving a middle finger to biodiversity. Now, having "fuzzy niches" might work. Basically, a fuzzy niche would contain a trophic level, habitat, and a few other things like size. Fuzzy niches are created inside your biome through all the different combinations of the variables listed above. NOT ALL NICHES NEED TO BE FILLED. Your biome can fill up with one species for each niche, but the number of niches determines the maximum number of species. Each biome has a set number of possible "habitat" and "trophic level" slots, so we can control biodiversity. for instance, a forest will have more habitat and level slots than a desert, meaning more species can live in it.

#3- Extinction

Based on the niche system above, extinction can occur when:
-a niche disappears
-a trophic level below you collapses
-another species takes over your niche
-other random events (disease, disaster, etc)

I think I must be looking at the wrong post, because I fail to see how your idea determines fitness for NPC Evo.

Tenebrarum wrote:

I think I must be looking at the wrong post, because I fail to see how your idea determines fitness for NPC Evo.

For reference, this is what I think Rex is referring to.

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.

My idea doesn't determine fitness for NPC evo. My idea just determines how things will mutate. I don't like the concept of a set "fitness" variable for anything. I don't think we need an accurate cause/effect chain for NPC evo, it can be done pretty much all randomly. A player can't figure out what muatations are going to help/hinder what niche, so we can give orgs random mutations and assume they still play the same role the did before.

Alright, that was the post I was looking at.

and Scio, I get what your saying, but here's the thing: Let's say a mutation comes along that makes me top-heavy enough that I can no longer walk. We need to get a system up that determines that would decrease my chances of survival.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Alright, that was the post I was looking at.

and Scio, I get what your saying, but here's the thing: Let's say a mutation comes along that makes me top-heavy enough that I can no longer walk. We need to get a system up that determines that would decrease my chances of survival.

Ok, I see your point. I think that however the system works, we should make it a Pass/Fail system. either the mutation helps, or it doesn't. A middle ground doesn't help us determine anything. My idea would be that each mutation gets evaluated before it's implemented, just to determine if the oRG can still carry out its basic functions. Of it can't the mutation will get an F and a new mutation would be selected.

On second thought, we could just say "tough Belgium, that's how the evo-cookie crumbles".

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Alright, that was the post I was looking at.

and Scio, I get what your saying, but here's the thing: Let's say a mutation comes along that makes me top-heavy enough that I can no longer walk. We need to get a system up that determines that would decrease my chances of survival.

Ok, I see your point. I think that however the system works, we should make it a Pass/Fail system. either the mutation helps, or it doesn't. A middle ground doesn't help us determine anything. My idea would be that each mutation gets evaluated before it's implemented, just to determine if the oRG can still carry out its basic functions. Of it can't the mutation will get an F and a new mutation would be selected.

On second thought, we could just say "tough Belgium, that's how the evo-cookie crumbles".

Yes, but we still need to figure out the system of evaluation. And anyways, it is a pass-fail system IRL. That's called survival vs. extinction.

Sciocont wrote:

Ok, I just read the last page or two quickly, and there's a lot of good stuff. Pezz's original huge post is a pretty cool idea, and I don't see problems with it that haven't been pointed out already. I'm going to assume we've got NPC evo mostly worked out, since nobody has said that my old idea is Belgium yet. So we'll be talking about player evo. Here's a few things I'd like to say:

#1- Fitness

Hear me out here, I've thought about this for a while, so I know what I'm talking about. Fitness=? is still a huge problem. I don't see any way to give a creature one set fitness value, and I don't see how that value will help us at all. I know the idea is "higher fitness lives, lower fitness dies," but we've pretty much agreed every creature other than you is not going to be actively evolving in the game, it's going to be evolved using NPC evo. So going through all sorts of math to determine something you don't see for every creature near you doesn't actually do anything.

#2- Niche

Niches are a good idea, but we're working with alien environments here, so having predetemined specific "niches" is basically just giving a middle finger to biodiversity. Now, having "fuzzy niches" might work. Basically, a fuzzy niche would contain a trophic level, habitat, and a few other things like size. Fuzzy niches are created inside your biome through all the different combinations of the variables listed above. NOT ALL NICHES NEED TO BE FILLED. Your biome can fill up with one species for each niche, but the number of niches determines the maximum number of species. Each biome has a set number of possible "habitat" and "trophic level" slots, so we can control biodiversity. for instance, a forest will have more habitat and level slots than a desert, meaning more species can live in it.

#3- Extinction

Based on the niche system above, extinction can occur when:
-a niche disappears
-a trophic level below you collapses
-another species takes over your niche
-other random events (disease, disaster, etc)

These three things = yes.

2 and 3 are fine, however 1 is correctly labeled difficult.

We may be able to determine fitness based on trophic level and niche. For example, the trophic level you're on may require you to be fast. If you're not fast enough, you're not very fit for that niche. Each niche class would have some organism requirements.

To be a predator, your species must be able to kill other animals.
To be a herbivore, your species must be able to eat and digest grass.


This could go along with that part mod idea. We would create a bunch of nichescripts and then put them all together in game when we create an environment. Each nichescript would have a certain requirements to be implemented.

You must have grass to have a grass eating niche.
You must have other animals to have a predator niche.

We would go through the list and implement the niches based on what organisms our environment currently has. This would be done every generation, so that new niches could potentially be opened up as time goes on. We may be able to dynamically generate niches, but that's going to be down the road for sure.

The niches are a good step toward defining fitness.

So how does the game decide that an NPC creature is extinct? Would it occur when its niche disappears? When something else occupies it? Would some sort of check be performed when two creatures are fitted for the same niche?

The key here is that SOMETHING has to cause extinction - there has to be some sort of test that gets rid of old forms that no longer work, and give new ones an opportunity to flourish.

I'm pretty interested in this discussion all of a sudden.

Redstar wrote:

The niches are a good step toward defining fitness.

So how does the game decide that an NPC creature is extinct? Would it occur when its niche disappears? When something else occupies it? Would some sort of check be performed when two creatures are fitted for the same niche?

The key here is that SOMETHING has to cause extinction - there has to be some sort of test that gets rid of old forms that no longer work, and give new ones an opportunity to flourish.

I'm pretty interested in this discussion all of a sudden.

Quote :

#3- Extinction

Based on the niche system above, extinction can occur when:
-a niche disappears
-a trophic level below you collapses
-another species takes over your niche
-other random events (disease, disaster, etc)

An NPC will go extinct if any of these things occur. However:
if your species has a higher rate or reproduction, it is less likely to go extinct, because it will have a greater total number and/or more chances for mutation.

If two species try to inhabit the same niche, we could easily handle it arbitrarily, but again, that would really just push one out of the niche. If a species can adapt for another niche, it will survive.

Would it be possible to push another species out during the current simulation?
Could the player's organism directly influence the destruction of a niche in game?
In other words, where should the player's influence end on these kind of things? There's only so many variables we can extrapolate from the simulation.

As of now, these are the minor details we need to work out right now. Otherwise, this is sounding fairly solid, I may start a new thread. Auto evo may not be dead.

roadkillguy wrote:

Otherwise, this is sounding fairly solid, I may start a new thread. Auto evo may not be dead.

QFT. I think we are remarkably close to a solution, provided we can work out a means by which niches could be identified.

Redstar wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Otherwise, this is sounding fairly solid, I may start a new thread. Auto evo may not be dead.

QFT. I think we are remarkably close to a solution, provided we can work out a means by which niches could be identified.

Agreed. The hardest part of Auto-evo is the player's actions. Otherwise, we're pretty good.

Reading the last two pages...
Yes. All those things mentioned above could cause extinction, but I'd imagine the most common actual causes of extinction would be:

1) No longer having adequate resources. This is part of the niche, but factors in other living things as part of the amount of food/shelter/basic necessities needed.
2) Population collapse. Your birth rate and the amount of reproductively capable individuals in your population cannot keep up with your death rate. Disease and disaster could definitely push your population that low, but a disease or disaster will not necessarily preclude your chances of survival. Birth rate will also determine how fast mutations, and therefore physical adaptations, can happen.

Also, I do disagree with the "pushing species out" idea. It will probably happen sometimes, but please remember that there are a lot of different components necessary to a species' niche, some more crucial than others. Sometimes species have to share a resource, which constrains their population growth but won't necessarily kill one or the other off.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Reading the last two pages...
Yes. All those things mentioned above could cause extinction, but I'd imagine the most common actual causes of extinction would be:

1) No longer having adequate resources. This is part of the niche, but factors in other living things as part of the amount of food/shelter/basic necessities needed.
2) Population collapse. Your birth rate and the amount of reproductively capable individuals in your population cannot keep up with your death rate. Disease and disaster could definitely push your population that low, but a disease or disaster will not necessarily preclude your chances of survival. Birth rate will also determine how fast mutations, and therefore physical adaptations, can happen.

Also, I do disagree with the "pushing species out" idea. It will probably happen sometimes, but please remember that there are a lot of different components necessary to a species' niche, some more crucial than others. Sometimes species have to share a resource, which constrains their population growth but won't necessarily kill one or the other off.

Not according to all the books on ecology I've read, and my ecology professor. Compitition leads to at least on species either evolving, moving, or dying off.

Each species has both a necessary amount of resources and the amount of resources they'd like to use. So long as a species' absolutely necessary resources aren't being enfringed upon, they can coexist. Also, keep in note that species are a) competing with multiple other species for multiple resources and b) constantly trying to outdo the competition, so what can be percieved as no net change is a constant slow evolution.
Basically, I was trying to show that there is a distinction between just competing for a resource and competing for the majority of your resources or your whole niche.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

Each species has both a necessary amount of resources and the amount of resources they'd like to use. So long as a species' absolutely necessary resources aren't being enfringed upon, they can coexist. Also, keep in note that species are a) competing with multiple other species for multiple resources and b) constantly trying to outdo the competition, so what can be percieved as no net change is a constant slow evolution.
Basically, I was trying to show that there is a distinction between just competing for a resource and competing for the majority of your resources or your whole niche.

It's probably easiest for us to structure competition off of only the niche in use, though.

How would you suggest to implement this in the current outline?

I'm not exactly following what you mean.

roadkillguy wrote:

How would you suggest to implement this in the current outline?

I'm not exactly following what you mean.

Basically, I'm saying that a species can only compete for one niche other than its own at a time.