The new miche-based auto-evo was already added last fall, since then only small tweaks to the algorithm has been made.
On a conceptual level the algorithm is very simple: there exists a set of miches (which are kind of like niches in biology) that provide energy to a species and has fitness criteria. Then each species will try to occupy all miches and they succeed for the ones they are the most fit for. And then finally, population is just total energy gained from all miches a species captured and divided by the individual cost (size) of the microbe. As you can see the core algorithm is very simple and trying to throw in a lot of exceptions for the player is going to make things really convoluted and, I think, lead to endless rounds of tweaking to make special handling of the player work properly for all situations.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
42
How many of the player exceptions could we afford to remove in an attempt to reduce the count of convolutions, if any of them arenât necessary enough?
What do you mean? Currently the only player âexceptionâ is that the player population is not purely from auto-evo (but also from gameplay), and also the auto-evo change size for the player is limited in strength (if I recall right this might be a difficulty setting even).
So would a 100% Auto-Evo strength on the Auto-Evo Strength Slider under Custom Difficulty means Auto-Evo would treat the Player exactly the same as it would any other AI species?
No, because the player still wouldnât go extinct if they fail to capture any miches. But the population would tank quickly and hard with 100% strength in that case, instead of slowly going down over time like it currently would.
That means your species cannot survive in auto-evo, so that means that it shouldnât interfere with the survival of AI species.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
48
I was inclined to think there were multiple exceptions from this part:
I suppose this is supposed to represent a theoretical scenario now that I look closer upon it.
Also as you just mentioned autoevo isnât affected by the player when theyâre at low population, which probably is also an explanation as to why the suicidal microbes ramming at sessile spiky players donât go extinct.
I was talking hypothetically about the future. So my comment was that things would be convoluted if we treated the player specially. So I was replying to what I thought that @WeberCooks would suggest next.
This is not related whatsoeverâŚ
Again, the auto-evo population of a species purely depends on the miches it gains. If the species that conquers your niche has 5 or 5000 population doesnât matter, you are getting thrown out of the miche in both cases.
Still donât fully understand the miche system. But after playing the game alot further Iâve found it to be not as big of an issue as before. Populations tend to crash more often if the player cell is predatory. but over time staying on the same patch Iâve definitelly been in some ecosystems where diversity increased greatly overtime. So could still use some tweaking but I wouldnât prioritize it over more pressing matters.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
51
I suppose this way the patch system greatly demonstrates the effects of invasive species on local biotas. The longer such an invader stays in the invaded ecosystem, the more does the ecosystem adapt to them.
I have noticed something similar occurs if you become an absolutely massive (70+ hex) Photosynthetic organism in previous versions with the Miche System. You hog all the energy and prevent other Photosynthetic organisms from being present in the biomes.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
53
Thatâs why size-based miches have been suggested by some. They would allow smaller âplantsâ to still thrive in such ecosystems. The forest floor is still alive afterall.
Macroscopically, size based niches are actually mentioned on the Developer Wiki
It will be interesting when such things finally get implemented, but as has been said before:
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
57
What if there is much aerial plankton and/or flora?
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Deathwake
(i nuked zenzone and will never let him forget it)
58
A: still a fluid biome
B: there really wonât be aerial plankton to any sort of scale
C: even if there are, the density will be low enough youâd need a huge filter to get any food
D: a huge filter while trying to fly is a terrible idea, drag will kill you, the only option is to be a floating blimp critter
E: if we have floating blimp critters, all the sky plankton will stop keeping themselves in the air because thatâs a waste of time, the blimp thing has better economies of scale, theyâll just grow on that, almost all the same benefits.
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aah31415
(The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)
59
By the way, I suppose fruitivores should be their own subcategory within herbivores.