Talk:King Bot

would someone please explain how it does so?
exactly where in this code is the number of offspring entered?
what does s(t,1,2,0) mean? how might one use other factors, weighted or whatever, to contribute
to the score?

what is InvestedEnergy(t)?

how about a breakdown of the code or some hints using the discussion tab above?
a clue, a hint ... anything! tnx Griz^talk 16:37, 25 Feb 2006 (MST)

When I found this code several months ago (probably closer to 10 or 11) I wanted to modify it so that the king bot was the bot with the most "invested energy", by which I meant the total energy reserves, body reserves, shell, slime, etc. of it and all its descendants. That is where the InvestedEnergy(t) function came in.

However, for a reason I could never figure out the code didn't work. No bot was ever found to be the king for some reason (no bot was ever highlighted), so I changed InvestedEnergy(t) to return always 1 (and thus go back to the previous behavior of most offspring being King (each offspring is given a score of 1)).

To be honest the function is a mess, one of the few areas of the code (this and ties pretty much) that I have hardly touched to clean up. You can see the chaotic way in which Carlo (I assume it was him) coded much of the code.

The score function itself is recursive (it calls itself), which isn't a bad way to search through a tree (in this case, a phylogenic tree) mind you. However he threw 4 different ideas into a single recursive function. It searches for offspring, highlights offspring, draws family lines, and searches for the oldest ancestor. Granted they're somewhat closely related functions, but recursive functions are a headache enough in and of themselves without 4 different ideas thrown in there. --Numsgil 17:58, 25 Feb 2006 (MST)

I hear ya!

in the interest of keeping it simple ...

shouldn't one be able to add additional 'scores' right here in the FittestFunction?

iow ... right after, or instead of, s=score(t,1,2,0) ...

couldn't one add s=s+ rob(t).age or rob(t).kills or .mutations, whatever?

i'm thinking something like s=# of offspring/age might be more telling about

fittness than a straight # of offspring.

one should be able to 'weight' these in any way one wishes ...

s=s+ rob(t).age * some K or constants + rob(t).kills * a constant, etc.

should work, eh?

are these valid variables to explore?:

rob(t).age, rob(t).kills, rob(t).SonNumber [for offspring?], rob(t).Mutations ...

where would one find the slime and other things you were wanting to examine in your InvestedEnergy?

thanks Griz

ah! how does this Fittest data determine what bot is hightlighted as King Bot?

where does that happen?

' returns the fittest robot (selected through the score function)
' altered from the bot with the most generations
' to the bot with the most invested energy in itself and children
Function fittest() As Integer
  Dim t As Integer
  Dim s As Double
  Dim Mx As Double
  Mx = 0
  For t = 1 To MaxRobs
    If rob(t).Exist And Not rob(t).Veg Then
      s = score(t, 1, 2, 0)
      If s >= Mx Then
        Mx = s
        fittest = t
      End If
    End If
  Next t
End Function

' does various things: with
' tipo=0 returns the number of descendants for maxrec generations
' tipo=1 highlights the descendants
' tipo=2 searches up the tree for eldest ancestor, then down again
' tipo=3 draws the lines showing kinship relations
Function score(ByVal r As Integer, ByVal reclev As Integer, maxrec As Integer, 

tipo As Integer) As Double
  Dim al As Integer
  Dim dx As Single
  Dim dy As Single
  Dim cr As Long
  Dim ct As Long
  Dim t As Integer
  If tipo = 2 Then plines (r)
  score = 0
  For t = 1 To MaxRobs
    If rob(t).Exist Then
      If rob(t).parent = rob(r).AbsNum Then
        If reclev < maxrec Then score = score + score(t, reclev + 1, maxrec, tipo)
        score = score + InvestedEnergy(t)
        If tipo = 1 Then rob(t).highlight = True
        If tipo = 3 Then
          dx = (rob(r).pos.x - rob(t).pos.x) / 2
          dy = (rob(r).pos.y - rob(t).pos.y) / 2
          cr = RGB(128, 128, 128)
          ct = vbWhite
          If rob(r).AbsNum > rob(t).AbsNum Then
            cr = vbWhite
            ct = RGB(128, 128, 128)
          End If
          Line (rob(t).pos.x, rob(t).pos.y)-Step(dx, dy), ct
          Line -(rob(r).pos.x, rob(r).pos.y), cr
        End If
      End If
    End If
  Next t
  If tipo = 1 Then
    Form1.Cls
    DrawAllRobs
  End If
End Function