Emergence of "interesting" behavior

[anon]

Hello,

It seems that in the early versions of the simulation, posted in Youtube, interesting behavior emerged: frequently: agents seemed sentient, reacting to other agents, following others in interesting patterns, developed camouflage techniques and hunting packs, etc - while in the current Windows version it seems no interesting behavior develops even after a few days of running, and carnivores very rarely rise, Does it have anything to do with the brain structure or other parameters? Thanks!

[moncom...@gmail.com]

To me it looks like it's working. Sometimes you might need to try something else, to close/open/reset the environement to change theyr behaviour by adding a bit of "entropy". I haven't tried the early version but I definitely see predators working as a group and avoiding to eat theyr fellow predators. Herbivores changing to the predator's color when attacked... 

[Julian Hershey]

Hello anon,

There is significant challenge to the carnivores in the Windows version. I removed the direct reward and instead made dead agents deposit food on a Meat layer, but the would-be carnivores have no way to know where it's at (a smell sensor I added recently helped, but it is too general to help much).

I've been considering this problem, and to a degree I've been content with the change away from direct rewards, which I feel were unrealistic, but I have not seen ANY carnivorous species last for longer than an epoch. That's why in the next update, I've been focusing on the carnivores. Dead agents will no longer be immediately deleted, letting their carcasses act as "beacons" to alert carnivores via both eyes and the blood sensor. The initial testing seemed promising, but too often the carnivorous species would blow up and die, being simple in behavior.

I think there is an issue with the brain at the moment, either too much features has been put in, or a key feature was lost. I am continuing to investigate.

Thanks for your interest, and for confirming my build works on other's computers!
=J

[Julian Hershey]

Additionally, are you using the version with the config file? Have you tried tweaking the MEAT values at all? I ask because while I know that build has issues with carnivores, and I could easily test changes to the values myself, some time has passed and I wonder if you haven't tried anything yourself.