Simulator Runs

July 14, 1998.

I could not resist arming the little critters.

In this world, Green vehicles are dumb and head straight for lamps. Red vehicles are predators. They ignore lamps and home in on green and blue. They are armed with three long-range lasers. Blue vehicles worship lamps, and they run away from predators. When a blue vehicle thinks a predator might be nearby, it does two things: it yells out an alarm, and it fires a rear-facing, short-range defensive laser. When other blue vehicles hear an alarm cry, they fire their lasers. The net effect is that all blue vehicles often fire their lasers simultaneously.

When a vehicle is hit by a laser, random brain damage occurs. The various short circuits, disintegrations and other damage to nodes in the brain can cause many interesting and unpredictable changes in behavior. Each time a vehicle is hit, its color darkens slightly so you can get an idea of how much damage it has sustained.

The world definition shows some of the recent evolution of the syntax (it has become prototype based).

This run has three vehicles, each of a different type, and two lamps. Green is the obsessive one. She singlemindedly and frenetically searches for and attempts to ram the nearest and brightest light source, and has no regard for anything else (behaving like Braitenberg's Vehicle 2b). Blue has more self-control and more intelligence. She likes to find a cozy spot near a lamp and settle down, but she will flee if a predator comes too close. Red is the predator; Light doesn't interest her, only the movement of possible prey.

How dramatic.

The two lamps are standard. For more details, see the actual world definition.

Jan. 27, 1998.

This run has two of the simple light-seeking vehicles that made their debut in the previous simulation. It also includes three lamps. What makes things interesting here is that the lamps have some awareness of their surroundings: when they detect nearby movement, they dim themselves. Lamps can have as much intelligence as vehicles, as is suggested by the world definition (In fact, the only difference between lamps and vehicles is that vehicles can have motors and lamps can't.)

The third run is more of the same things that appeared in the first two. There are two of each of the three kinds of vehicles from the previous simulations, and a mix of smart and dumb lamps.

There is nothing new in the world definition.