Food Web Creation

Gracias, hermano mio. This will work quite perfectly for our biomes, and it's basically a refined version of the vague idea for food webs that we talked about. Good on you for introducing sap - I hadn't thought about it at all.

This will also make our scavengers very happy virtual creatures, due to the fact that resources inedible to one carnivore will be edible to others.

Tenebrarum wrote:

So far, this looks like exactly what we need. I don't have much to contribute, but looking at this, and back to Spore's pre-release demos, I got an idea.

Couldn't we conceivably make a prototype for this system to test it out without the need of our game engine? If someone here is familiar with something like flash, or java, or any simple programing platform, we could make the basis of this in there. Organisms would get text descriptions, and we'd limit evolution to non-body based forms (Can you catch it wouldn't be the question, as that depends on values inherently connected to the rendering software.). Once done, we could release it to our fans and let them run the simulations, and report back to us with results. It would let us tweak and moniter the viability of our system while roadkill and the roadkillettes continue their tour of microbe stage.

Thoughts?

You mean a basic, no-frills viability calculator? We have most of the maths squirreled away somewhere, just we'd have to have someone sit down and work on the definitions of all our tags.
I would personally love one. And it would be something we could get done relatively quickly, as we already have the OE set up.
Then if someone could make a plug-in for biomes, they would be my hero. Of course, I might have to finish biomes first... Belgium.

Also, @ "Roadkill and the Roadkillettes."

Quote :

Couldn't we conceivably make a prototype for this system to test it out without the need of our game engine? If someone here is familiar with something like flash, or java, or any simple programing platform, we could make the basis of this in there. Organisms would get text descriptions, and we'd limit evolution to non-body based forms (Can you catch it wouldn't be the question, as that depends on values inherently connected to the rendering software.). Once done, we could release it to our fans and let them run the simulations, and report back to us with results. It would let us tweak and moniter the viability of our system while roadkill and the roadkillettes continue their tour of microbe stage.

Thoughts?

Herp Derp! I've done that. But everybody here hates the command line, and GUIs are a pain in the Belgium.

I haven't heard from Guitar999111 since Mid-August. I really only want to program if other people are programming too. You cant design a game without programmers, period.

roadkillguy wrote:

Quote :

Couldn't we conceivably make a prototype for this system to test it out without the need of our game engine? If someone here is familiar with something like flash, or java, or any simple programing platform, we could make the basis of this in there. Organisms would get text descriptions, and we'd limit evolution to non-body based forms (Can you catch it wouldn't be the question, as that depends on values inherently connected to the rendering software.). Once done, we could release it to our fans and let them run the simulations, and report back to us with results. It would let us tweak and moniter the viability of our system while roadkill and the roadkillettes continue their tour of microbe stage.

Thoughts?

Herp Derp! I've done that. But everybody here hates the command line, and GUIs are a pain in the Belgium.

I haven't heard from Guitar999111 since Mid-August. I really only want to program if other people are programming too. You cant design a game without programmers, period.

I'll put up an update soon and call for programmers to come forward.

Hold on, Roadkill! I might join your C goodnes soon(tm)*.

*Valve time. Might vary from one day to one lifetime.

My current learning project looks like this (link!) at the moment, and considering I have started it four days ago (along with C++ at all), it may take some time before I become actually usable in the coding team. (just to clarify, it's based on SDL and has sounds, simple movement and collisions in place right now).

Commander Keen wrote:

Hold on, Roadkill! I might join your C goodnes soon(tm)*.

*Valve time. Might vary from one day to one lifetime.

My current learning project looks like this (link!) at the moment, and considering I have started it four days ago (along with C++ at all), it may take some time before I become actually usable in the coding team. (just to clarify, it's based on SDL and has sounds, simple movement and collisions in place right now).

Thank ADMIN for another coder we know for absolute certain is dedicated. I tried to learn myself, but let's just say I have at least one insideous little mental block and leave it at that.

Back to my original post there, I wrote it thinking on our number of members familiar with Java or Flash coding, but not C++. It was just supposed to help test our ideas and appease fans/attract members while you keep plugging away like you have roadkill. If the calculations are already done though, how far along are we? I assumed they needed at least a baseline engine to go anywhere. We still didn't even have the combat concept fully down last time I checked. (Still looking for feedback on that everyone.) Have you been messiah and worked several miracles while my back was turned? AGAIN?

Tenebrarum wrote:

Back to my original post there, I wrote it thinking on our number of members familiar with Java or Flash coding, but not C++. It was just supposed to help test our ideas and appease fans/attract members while you keep plugging away like you have roadkill. If the calculations are already done though, how far along are we?

Zip. I asked for concrete equations way back when, but it was overlooked.

https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t575p60-npc-auto-evo-thread?highlight=NPC+auto+evo

roadkillguy wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Back to my original post there, I wrote it thinking on our number of members familiar with Java or Flash coding, but not C++. It was just supposed to help test our ideas and appease fans/attract members while you keep plugging away like you have roadkill. If the calculations are already done though, how far along are we?

Zip. I asked for concrete equations way back when, but it was overlooked.

https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t575p60-npc-auto-evo-thread?highlight=NPC+auto+evo

I'll work on some maths, but I've been pretty busy. At least with the last tweak the system doesn't have arms races that exclude species from evolving, so the algorithm is simpler since it doesn't have tpo have anything for arms race prevention.

Algorithm? Where's your pseudo-code?

Basically, you have organisms. Change them ever so slightly, and then put them into their appropriate niches. How.

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Back to my original post there, I wrote it thinking on our number of members familiar with Java or Flash coding, but not C++. It was just supposed to help test our ideas and appease fans/attract members while you keep plugging away like you have roadkill. If the calculations are already done though, how far along are we?

Zip. I asked for concrete equations way back when, but it was overlooked.

https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t575p60-npc-auto-evo-thread?highlight=NPC+auto+evo

I'll work on some maths, but I've been pretty busy. At least with the last tweak the system doesn't have arms races that exclude species from evolving, so the algorithm is simpler since it doesn't have tpo have anything for arms race prevention.

^ Thank goodness for that. That was my biggest issue with the system as it stood.

You will get some maths for determining biomes when I have shoehorned all our biomes into a system, Roadkill. (So, either for christmas or over spring break... pending disasters over here, like term papers or me screwing up my ankle again.)

I'm going to get to this soon. I've been sick and busy all week.

Hello gentlemen, let's shake off all the cobwebs here and start discussing cool new things, shall we?

The concept of organisms being able to consume a specific resource out of another organism for position into a niche of the food web seems really effective and simple to me. I suspect this discussion revolved around the "creature" food web idea, not cellular, adn since we are currently focusing on this stage, I'm going to start the discussion about cell food webs.

As I stated in other threads I think the cell part fo the engine must be simplified since they are clearly simpler in every aspect, so I propose that we grab the Resource Conversion idea, we simplify it a bit to fit the cells requirements and then we could start to specify wich resources are we going to deal at this scale, and how will build the food web with this variables moving around.

I don't know if it's any tangible food web prototype around, personally I have seen none, so we can use this game stage to build a simple food we, and on top of it the more complex food webs we'll encounter further in other stages.

I'm going to do some research about what resources a cell can use and i'll post some ideas later

Ok, we need to start with roadkill's resource idea, and outline what things in the microbial editor are made up of what resources, and what resources are needed to make them. Each microbe (org) has input and output tags. Input is what it needs to eat, output is what it can provide if something eats it.

~sciocont wrote:

Ok, we need to start with roadkill's resource idea, and outline what things in the microbial editor are made up of what resources, and what resources are needed to make them. Each microbe (org) has input and output tags. Input is what it needs to eat, output is what it can provide if something eats it.

And here I thought this idea was shot down like a plane over north korea.

Honestly it's the only way it will be clean in the code.

roadkillguy wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Ok, we need to start with roadkill's resource idea, and outline what things in the microbial editor are made up of what resources, and what resources are needed to make them. Each microbe (org) has input and output tags. Input is what it needs to eat, output is what it can provide if something eats it.

And here I thought this idea was shot down like a plane over north korea.

Honestly it's the only way it will be clean in the code.

Nope, you've done very well here. And points for the good joke.

And here I thought this idea was shot down like a plane over north korea[/quote]

Or like a rocket over north korea!

Tenebrarum wrote:

Couldn't we conceivably make a prototype for this system to test it out without the need of our game engine?
Thoughts?

For the last two weeks, this is exactly what I've been working on, in discussion with Sciocont. The compound system we've been working on is largely based on the discussion in this thread, with quite a few additions.

EDIT - the rest of this post has been moved here.

For right now, preprogrammed food webs are a no-go. Everything will eat whatever it can, and the food web will be generated by logical possibilities of diet.

Sorry if this is breaking any rules, but what if something like Cretaceous Mongolia happened in thrive, where there was more diversity in Carnivores than herbivores.

Like

Carnivores:
Velociraptor(small swift pack hunter)
Tarbosaurus(large forceful hunter)
Alioramus(mid sized swift loner)
Oviaraptor(varied diet, yet hunted in groups)
Shunvia(tiny hunter of small creatures, etc.)

Herbivores
Sichania(large grazer)
Protoceratops(small herbivore "that supplemented its diet with meat"?)
Saurpod(large browser)
Gallimimus(quick grazer)

Theres more carnivores than herbivores in diversity, and that's the 9 most well-known

It's possible, but rather unlikely. As you mention, each predator has a seperate niche, allowing them to potentially coexist without excessive competition. The main limitation is likely to be that the herbivore populations would have to be huge in comparison the the carnivore populations in order to sustain them.

While theres no reason this couldn't happen in the game engine, it is again very unlikely, and we'd probably have to do a lot of tweaking just to get it to happen, which probably isn't worthwhile.