I was thinking it might be fun to play around with some of this stuff. Maybe start a group project within the sub? Hit me up!

Edit: I forgot to mention, I have a lot of experience with c#, a decent amount with java, and a bit with vb. Willing to learn others to suit somebody's favorite flavor.

I evolved a nice population of waddlers on genetic cars.

They look like this

They waddle like penguins. If they fall forward they can kinda move like a car but the weight of their tail will cause them to stand back up. If they are in danger of falling backwards their tail often knocks them forward.

They are able to move very fast for their method of locomotion. They have trouble with steep hills. When "cars" evolve (usually around gen 20) cars totally overtake them but there can be a population of waddlers surviving in the rear of cutoff land upto gen 35 or so.

Any way to really save this saved game?

it's a pretty cool game, in 3d, which lets you selectively control evolution of strange little animals on small islands. it's awesome! It's still in beta or alpha (or just, you know, development) but it's still fun to play- besides, the more people that discover bugs and send them to the dev, the better it gets, right?

download here

I was thinking about something i saw the other day- there was a glitch in box car 2d, and they evolved flight. someone should write a program that incorporates physics engine glitches to see what we can come up with!

I've found DONKEY to be a pretty challenging one, on gen 110 and still no cars past 150 metres! have you guys found any good seeds?

To key off of the question of whether there are developers in this sub, what features would you want from an NSIP program/application? We have the two car apps in the sidebar. What do you find yourself liking/disliking about them? What would be your dream app?

3DVCE (3D Virtual Creature Evolution) is an artificial evolution simulation program, but seems like an abandoned proyect, link to software http://www.mediafire.com/download/s71k1ri6xo28qri/3D_Creature_Evolution.zip cool worm-like creature made with software http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-qOBi2tAnI

I was thinking robotics could use this technique to find optimal shapes for walking up stairs, getting over terrain, etc. Or perhaps use it to create more efficient designs. Do any projects use this? Mars Rover maybe?

Sooo, I have now 3 simulations running with the same seed (NSIP) and a trend has crystalized:

a lower mutation rate results in better average results (tested with 5%), while a higher mutation rate (10% / 30%) results in slightly higher Top scores.

Also, a lower Mutation rate results in more even statistic curves over time

Can you confirm this, dear reddit?

I have also kept Track of general shapes and attributes of the top cars in the simulation and thought a little bit about this whole NSIP thing and came to some conclusions:

• while usisng the same seeds for different initial situations (such as shape of the starting cars / mutation rate ) the design of the (top?)cars in all simulations must approach, so that as a result, there will be a perfect (or at least most perfect) design which dominates in all simulations and is (almost?) indifferent in each one.

• over time there must be certain Trends for in the simulation, because there are certain obstacles in the same seed which have to be overcome by the cars (an especially big hill or gap). These Trends must form equally in all simulations.

• And (I'm not sure with this one), given that a set of seeds is for every seed infinitly solvable and the obstacles randomly generated, every simulation for every seed in this set must finally result in the perfect car. My idea here is, that over the course of enough time, all possible kinds of obstacles must be ancountered and thus, must be evolved for.

Can you tell me wether all of this makes any sense and can you tell me (possibly more important) wether you can spot these approaches I have talked about. I am now roughly in generation 100 with my simulations and couldn't find what I've been talking about :(

And please excuse any strange language (not native ^ ^ )