Simulating Predation, Stealth, and Perception 

No, the opposite, if the animal has an 87 (towards meat) and there isn't any on its tile dice are rolled, if it rolls from one to 87 it will move to look elsewhere for meat rather than trying plants, if it rolls 88 or above it will try for the plants

​@@spheroid-collectiveThat's... what I said?

@stillcantthinkofaname4800 no, the closer to the poles the more it will go specifically for what it wants, if it's a one (towards meat) then it will only have a one in ninety nine chance to go for the meat

Fuck never-ending, sorry about that

Never mind*

This is a really great comment. I’ve been thinking about how to implement a proper grapple mechanic because, as you say, herbivores aren’t optimised for fighting predators. Think of buffalo and lions. A buffalo is massive and has these huge weapons, but those weapons are only optimised for fighting other bulls, because the reality is that most buffalo don’t get killed by lions. - they fight other bulls and the one that wins get to reproduce, making little offspring that are good at fighting other bulls. - the lions aren’t going to attack the toughest one. They go for the weakest, which would never reproduce anyway because it got beat up by the strong bulls. So all the offspring end up being good at fighting other bulls, but not dealing with lions. In terms of “how can the predators win???” I suppose my goal isn’t about winning or losing. It is more about how can we create a balanced and stable ecosystem? In that sense, predators (especially obligate carnivores) should be very rare. I need to do some optimisation as well so I can run a much larger map as I’m thinking int the current size really limit’s diversity on the map.

​@@EightLittleBearsmaybe for the grapple mechanics you can tue it to the diet stat? Like a predatory animal will have a chance to grapple type thing? If that makes sense

​​@@EightLittleBears It might not be entirely helpful, but these types of simulations were something taught in a dynamics coding course I took at one point. And the basis of a lot of the code was in differential equations. It took a lot of these "if-then" statements and made it a single formula. Like, for a virus transmission simulation, each "persons" chance of contracting the virus was a formula akin to p(infected)=a1*x1 +a2*x2 etc, where the A's are the weighting and x's are some input condition. So, a1 could be that person's immunity, or chance of contracting should they be next to someone with the virus, and then x1 could just be a binary "am I next to someone with the virus? Then x1=1." But the x values don't have to just be binary, so for yours it could be that it's the shortest distance to a meat tile so now the omnivore can say "okay, plants today, or maybe rabbit in 2 days if it doesn't run too far." Not exactly a realistic example, but just to get the point across. I really wish I could remember this better, because it was very helpful. But, I know I was able to use these formulas and their interactions to simulate bird flocking (though, poorly) by saying (in code) "bird entity has a certain chance to be the leader, as leader nearby birds have a certain level of acceleration toward it" and then also "birds attracted toward food, if not hungry then attracted toward trees" so it was this giant messy web of acceleration formulas that were incentivising following a leader, finding food, finding trees, and moving away from the cold, each with their own respective weights. And, if food or trees weren't found before starvation or loss of energy, the bird would die. While I didn't have any evolution, I think it wouldn't have been crazy difficult to implement that on top of what I had. Also, I'm not sure if you have already and the visual is just for RU-vid, but if you currently have your visual generating at the same time as the data, I recommend disconnecting that. Rendering the images per iteration is going to be super intensive, so it could be quicker (but more storage space intensive) to store the entity locations, statistics, and actions, within a csv file, and then generate the fancy graphic afterward from that csv once you have a graphed trend that looks interesting. Which would let you test out a bunch of different biome configurations.

Another great comment (which is on the roadmap😃) - the blocker for this one is just taking the time to draw enough creatures to make implement this. Suppose I could do a generic monster that grows in weird ways, but I kinda like the idea of using real animals to the extent possible.

@@EightLittleBears Nothing should stop bears from evolving green fur :P

@@LordNezghul hahaha good point…

@@LordNezghulgreen bears would be terrifying

@@EightLittleBearsPerhaps what you could do is give each color an animal has a number, then every color for each terrain has a number. As part of the Stealth Check, each creature compares their color number to the color number of the tile’s terrain. Whichever creature’s color number is closer to the terrain’s color number gets a bonus to their Stealth equal to the difference between the predator and prey’s color numbers. You can use a standard rainbow gradient 🌈 and assign numbers 1 to 100 for the color numbers, and just assign the numbers as desired. Heck, perhaps you could also use this as a day/night cycle? You could have a second set of decimal numbers from 0 to 1, 100 of them (like 0.01 to 0.99) and make it between white at 0.01 and black at 0.99. You make it so noon is 0.01, and midnight is 0.99. Then, you multiply the stealth bonus by whatever the time number happens to be. One turn can advance the “time clock” by one step, starting at noon at 0.01 , cycling down to 0.99 with increments of 0.01, and cycling back up to 0.01, completing a “full” 24 hour cycle. Perhaps to simplify that idea, this “time cycle” can be the following: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc. Tenth place instead of hundredth. What this might do is simulate the effect of darkness on a creature’s ability to stealth. If it is dark, then whomever better matches the terrain will have an easier time blending into the shadows and being unnoticed. In the daylight however, there is no such advantage, especially against those who have good perception. You can also add a variable to the creatures that includes a “rest” cycle, essentially a set period of time based on size and lack of hunger that they need to sleep else they start getting penalties to their stats. Could be something like “After X time ticks, give a -1 penalty to Perception and Stealth, and increase this penalty by -1 for every tick until the creature rests”. So Creatures that are efficient will eat before they rest, so they are not fatigued when they need to hunt. Larger creatures tend to need more rest, while smaller creatures usually have more hunger and don’t rest as often (think a hummingbird’s absurdly fast beating heart vs. a lion resting for 20-ish hours of the day as an extreme comparison). If the time step is 0.5 or higher, daytime creatures accelerate their fatigue, so they are incentivized to rest at night. If the time step is 0.4 or lower, nighttime creatures accelerate their fatigue, so they are incentivized to rest during the day. This is a cool project you are working on, I look forward to future updates!

Terrain types and different plant types are on the roadmap, but I’m not 100% sure how I want to approach that yet. Thorns is a really interesting idea. I had thought about trees being a generic “shelter”, but having multiple layers of shelter depending on the tile sounds pretty cool - thanks for the input!

@@EightLittleBears could be with a relation with the stats bonding the size and rocky terrain making soo the more big the less they can move on it and the small the closes to normal terrain or things like that

@@gasparg643 interesting idea, could do similar things with perception and speed, maybe add a “balance” stat or similar. Thanks for the input!

All great suggestions! I think the nice thing about adding more granularity to perception is that it can also be built into other parts of the simulation. For example, good eyes aren’t only good for spotting prey, they are good for keeping locked onto prey while chasing down prey. Smell helps you more easily find a mate. Etc.

Natural disasters are on the to do list (probably not for the next video though)!😃

My pleasure! Thanks for your support!

Omg how has RU-vid never showed me that channel before!! And thanks!

Splitting the senses is on the agenda, but not for a while I think as I want the core system to be complete before I start breaking things down into super granular levels. Day/night is something I want to implement relatively soon (along with seasons).

Interesting thought! I’d need to increase the map size quite a bit I think so that creatures couldn’t just dip in and out of biomes. One thing I am working on at the moment is adding more variables to biome tiles themselves (so for example they will have an insect population, decomposes, various plant types, etc.). I am curious to see whether this might induce the type of migration you have talked about here, as creatures should naturally seek out the highest value food, and over-consumption of specific types will destroy certain biomes. The next phase of that will be thinking about animal intelligence, memory, and learning, but that is a bit of a project in itself, so I’ve not spent time on that yet 😅

Thanks! I’ll do my best!

Thanks!

We just keep adding complexity and features until eventually we create an actual mini universe lolol

Yeah! Hopefully over time we’ll see some more natural behaviours!

Welcome!

Thank you!

This is a great observation and definitely on the to do list!

Thank you, I will!

Amazing! Thanks for the info. It’s helpful to know why views are coming in at certain times!

@@EightLittleBears So what inspired the idea behind creating your own evolution simulation?

@@neonbunny1407 not sure tbh. I saw primer’s video 4 or 5 years ago and always though you could make a pretty interesting game with something similar. That game never came so I thought, I’ll have a go!

@@EightLittleBears Certainly seems like you have yourself a good start of one. Keep it up but try not to burn yourself out. Witness many an artist , including my two exs, burn out fast with similar things. Do take time for yourself. Don't let frustration win over when it arises

In rare cases, yes it is possible for a tiger to hunt a brown bear (e.g. attacking a hibernating bear or ambushing a smaller one). On average, brown bears are just more well adapted to fighting other predators because that is a major part of their evolutionary strategy 🤷🏼‍♂️

Thanks so much! I guess I’m still pretty new on RU-vid and I don’t post that often, so the numbers aren’t too bad. With more time and experience, I’m hopeful things will grow more and more 😀

I’ll do my best!

Haha I realised I made the “poison” mistake about an hour after posting… rookie error… but surprisingly you are the first person to point it out! Thanks for the detailed comment!

@@EightLittleBears haha it's always _right_ after you finalize something that you realize/remember things, isn't it?

Thank you!!

Thanks so much! And yeah lakes/oceans/aquatic creatures are good ideas I want to implement at some point for sure!

Glad you enjoy it!

That would be good! That sweet sweet silver play button!

Thanks so much! And yeah I need to tweak some of the settings for grasslands I think…

Yeah aquatics are in the todo list!

Thanks so much!

Thank you! Will do!

Yeah I agree! Aquatic mutations are on the todo list so hopefully that should cover both scenarios. Thanks for the comment!

Thank you!

Thanks for the detailed comment. I like all of your suggestions and most of them are currently on the roadmap (some even in the next release)! One thing to note is that that I wouldn’t think of predators as “struggling” as such. - Obligate carnivores are pretty rare in the real world compared to their herbivorous counterparts, so i kind of see their rarity as a sign of success. - similarly, most predators are unsuccessful most of the time (tigers, for example, only kill something like 5-10% of animals they try to kill). The main advantage of being a predator is that, when you catch something, it is worth a lot (how many calories are in a bull compared to some grass?) so you don’t need to eat very often. I had a similar worry to you (I.e. that it was just impossible to be a predator), but my code reports cause of death and lots were dying due to predation. It just turned out that this environment was less suitable for being solely reliant on meat. That said, I agree speed needs a nerf, but I think the main part of this is how the speed stat itself ties to movement speed on the map.. just need to tweak that equation a bit. Thanks again for taking the time to give some awesome feedback!

Glad you liked it!

Thanks for the comment! This is something I originally had in the system, but when I started digging into the literature on reproduction it turns out that there is just way more to reproductive strategies which I didn’t want to lose by tying it directly to size (though that does have an impact). For example, a crocodile is massive, but produces lots of offspring. Many birds are tiny, but produce very few offspring. Even in mammals, bats are small but have few offspring, etc. Where an animal sits on the food chain appears to have a big impact (because there is no point in investing a lot of energy into individuals when 99% of them are going to get eaten anyway. Sea turtles are many times larger than mouse but produce even more offspring for the same reason (high mortality rates). It’s a fascinating subject which I definitely want to implement in a more detailed way at some point, but it is very complicated 😄.

This does seem fun!! I have some rudimentary aging effects in there (basically limited to when creatures can reproduce and when they are at full strength), but it would be a cool add more!

Thanks, will do!

Agreed! This is something I have toyed with, but not quite worked out how I want it to work. I could just have it as a stat, but I felt like "adaptability" should be something more organic than that... will figure it out! Thanks for the comment!

​@@EightLittleBears hmm, maybe having it as an axis type system or point based system. Simplifying certain aspects as a starting place would be inevitable so looking at environments in a simplified capacity could allow a clearer vision on how to expand and detail the system further. For example: Moisture being on a scale of arid to wetland, temperature ranging from sub-zero to torrid, verticality from flatlands to peaks, surface integrity from solid to shifting, terrain ranging from rugged to smooth. With these being the factors I think a good system to use this with would be a gradual adaption system: each creature would have a corresponding stat to the different terrain variables and the more time spent in these biomes the more their stats will slowly change to align with the current biome. If their stats are aligned with the current biome they face no penalty but the greater the integer difference between the animals stats and the biomes stats the greater the penalty they face such as reduced speed, lower prey hunting success, increased need for food, etc. However there is one other aspect to consider: Creatures adapted to more hostile environments coming into less hostile ones not too radically different. To counteract this I think if a creature is adapted to a biome more extreme so their stats support that they receive a buff while their stats are attuned to more inhospitable biomes as long as the values are within the same positive or negative integer, such as an animal highly developed to a sub-zero environment would be able to thrive in a warmer climate to a point, however once it goes from being a neutral or negative integer to being a positive one it switches back into inflicting debuffs rather than buffs, like how a bison could thrive in both neutral and cold environments but a slightly too hot one would overheat it too drastically

Thanks!

I am going definitely aiming to add stuff like this at some point!

Haha - there wasn’t much to follow tbf. I just thought it had been a while and I should release something! Didn’t have time to provide context 😂.

You think you’d love that… but my code is a real mess 😂… But thanks for the idea. I might try and figure out how to present a video like that… need to go watch some Code Adventures for inspiration…

@@EightLittleBears ahh my code is no where near good enough to critique yours, it would just be good for a comp sci student like myself to learn from is all. Either way you’ve got my sub !

Yeah i definitely want to implement team tactics! Just need to think about the best way to do it - for example, effective teamwork requires at least some level of intelligence (outside of things like Eusocial insects), so I need to figure out how to represent intelligence first. Yeah meat scales with size.

Sorry perhaps I wasn’t clear - say a creature went from -99 to -45 (or 0 or even 50), this would not require them to give up plant food their primary food source, it would just make them a bit less efficient with it (and a bit more efficient with digesting meat). Even a creature that has a rating of 50 (I.e. primarily carnivorous) would still be able to survive on plant food if meat is scarce. It just wouldn’t be able to survive as easily as something which has specialised in plant food. If you watch my first video, there are occasions where predation completely takes over, even from a pure -99 herbivore. But again I am reworking this system currently (e.g. so that plant eaters can’t just eat all plants with perfect efficiency), and there will be lots be lots of sliders (but a limited number of what will effectively be “diet points) so I guess you are ahead of the game 😁.

Thanks!

@@EightLittleBears no problem

Also worth keeping in mind, nature is messy; sometimes young offspring will just die, having a very slight infant mortality rate within some of the populations would help further the idea of multiple offspring like is done in the real world.

Wow - thanks so much for the thoughtful comment! Meat is produced when creatures die from any cause (including old age) and predators will prefer this to hunting if it is available. There is a placeholder function for meat to produce a smell, but I haven't got round to finishing that yet! Parents take a pretty big hit to energy when they reproduce (though this depends on the overall energy investment they are making with their offspring). I am going to make this more complex in the future but there are so many potential avenues for this and (some of which you have mentioned) so it is on the backburner a bit. Different plant types for different creatures is something I am working on at the moment and will be in the next update! I'll check out Evolution - sounds fun!

Oh also infant mortality is basically taken care of organically (if a parent invests very little energy in their offspring, they will be born very weak and are likely to die).

Essentially yes (although it counts up as “hunger” rather than down as energy, but I’m probably going to change that - it made more sense when I was prototyping something very simple ha). One caveat is that larger animals are actually more energy efficient (though they of course need more energy in absolute terms).

@@EightLittleBears thanks for the reply! That makes a lot of sense...and trust me, I understand the pain of refactoring code lol. I'm developing a strategy-simulation game in Unity and it's an ongoing part of the process Anyway, keep it up! Super interesting stuff

Interesting concept.. and better than just doubling attack power! Thanks!

Teamwork is definitely on the todo list! But I need to implement some form of intelligence first I think!

All great ideas which I hope to implement over time! 😊

Agreed!

Interesting idea.. flight is pretty weird because you have some birds that can basically sleep while a flying because they are so efficient, and then some like hummingbirds who are pretty much starving to death all the time because they need so much energy. Will take some thought but deffo something to add! Thanks for the comment!

Population is already reportable so that’s easy. Total available food (or other non-creature stats) is a good idea! Thanks!

Yeah this is something I have on my todo like along with general “intimidation” and “intimidation resistance”. Will be useful for bears and stuff!

This is a good question. It can seem counter-intuitive but the code works like this: Roll a 100 sided die with a diet rating of 87. - If the result is between 1 and 87, search another tile for your preferred food source. - If the result is between 88 and 100, try another food source on this tile. - so animals are more likely to choose to search for their preferred source than try something new. Also remember this decision only takes place if the creature has already searched the current tile for their preferred food source, and not found it. I.e. the “decision” is: “I can’t find meat.. do I risk spending energy to search elsewhere for meat, or do I risk just trying to live off plants for now?”

That genuinely helped a lot. Thank you.

Both on the todo list!

Thanks! I use the Unity game engine which has a decent rendering system. So I can draw/model everything in Procreate (an art app) and blender (3d modelling software) and then load these assets into Unity and manipulate them with code. All pretty great tools.

Thanks! The goal is to make it into a playable game so will release it at some point. Not sure about making it open source. Maybe 🤷🏼‍♂️

To some extent this happens already. “Reproduction Rate” is a stat that can mutate like any other. A high value will result in longer intervals between reproduction events, but it will also result in stronger offspring. Lifespan doesn’t mutate directly, but it is largely determined by size and reproductive rate, so it will change from generation to generation, with longer lifespans (generally) taking longer to mature. This is something I want to spend more time on in the future, as there are lots of reproductive strategies out there and a lot of nuance to them (e.g. protection from parents).

@@EightLittleBears think the thing that this (great btw) simulation is missing is the individual adaptations which could be pretty cool to see (like the poison you mentioned earlier, etc.) even if they just augment the already existing stats

@@someoctopus8749 yeah this is definitely something that is on my list of ToDos at some point. The fun thing is that the project has potentially limitless levels of granularity I can go into at some point!

@@EightLittleBears Truth, I can’t wait for episode 67 in which every creature has 139 bars and there are exactly 1,018,927,799 creatures born every 1-4 years

Ha - this is something I had considered when spawning mountains. I want to do it, but it is a bit of a project in itself because I want it (to some extent) to reflect actual plate tectonics as opposed to just a hard-coded solution. Great suggestion though!

It does! 😃

@@EightLittleBears whoops guess i just didn’t pay enough attention, nice work

I appreciate it!

It’s a deer. Probably need to re-work them. They looked pretty cool when drawing but they are so small in the sim that they just look kind of like sticks haha.

Yeah I started building a steam page but there’s quite a few hoops to jump through… I’ll probably put it in itch.io at some point but at the moment it’s not really playable as a standalone build.

@@EightLittleBears ok thank u for the response

Unity / C# for the mechanics of the simulation and the charts, and Procreate for the art.

Interesting - I like Jabrils, but not seen that video. Can you send a link? Rock-paper-scissors is generally a good concept for this type of thing!

@@EightLittleBears the one currently titled "I fixed Nintendo's bad Al so it's actually playable"

In what sense? Like a decision tree when hunting?

@@EightLittleBears no, I mean things like eyes, ears, mouths, might be even the means of transportations, like legs, arms? Also, might be everyone can eat everyone? That’s how it’s going in real life.

@@mattaku9430 ahhhhh I see. Yeah I have some ideas for that (I’ve always wanted to know how effective lions would be if wildebeest had electric eel vibes… but for the moment I quite like the idea of using (basically) real animals and building up a repo which results in them having basically realistic stats. This will allow me to do things like SIMULATE THE BEST BEAR!!! Which is my real goal… everyone keeps saying it is the American black bear.. but I am team brown bear! That said, I am changing the way diets work to have all different types of plant matter, insects, meat types, eats. Which will (sort of) have operate in the way you are describing.

Funnily I was just thinking about how to implement that earlier this week (along with a system for seasons and an updated system for decay and arthropods). It is quite a long way away but I definitely want to add it!

It’s something I built from scratch in Unity. It a spaghetti code solution so I can’t really explain it here, but basically it’s a mixture of plotting vectors or ver time and then using line renderers to connect them. If there’s enough interest I could maybe try and figure a proper solution and do a tutorial! Thanks for the comment btw!

​@@EightLittleBearsYou would save lives. You have NO idea how much we need these kind of solutions as undergraduates. It would gain you thousands of new viewers if not tens.

Ok thanks 🙏. If u know any tutorial for creating graph it would be nice if u could send them I found one but it isn't that great.

I am working in making it a game but need to get all the core systems in place first. Being individual animals is an interesting idea…

It’s probably quite far down the road. I still have a full time job and responsibilities and stuff so everything takes a bit longer sadly🥲

@@EightLittleBears good luck on making this game I hope it blows up when a demo or beta gets released I'll definitely be playing this game when you make a beta for it😁😁😁

As in just an unedited (other than sped up) simulation over a long period?

@@EightLittleBears yeah like that.

Interesting! I hadn’t really considered that because they take several hours and sometimes they end up as duds (e.g. everything just dies after 10k turns). Though maybe that would be a good way to put out more content between the main videos!

Weather is something I hope to add eventually. The organisms can definitely die out. In this run of the simulation there are two smaller islands in the south which started with independent populations- one survived until around turn 5,500 then died out. The other died out around turn 17,500. If what you mean is that the same creatures keep popping up, this is because my simulation only has a limited number of avatars (will be adding many many more over time). So two creatures that appear as brown bears could actually be two independent species which just have stats that are most similar to a brown bear.

@@EightLittleBears i more meant die of old age instead of starvation however i greatly appreciate you responding even with my poor english, dying of old age, if not already in it, would be very cool to see

@@jupiteramongthestars ah no worries - my apologies! Yes they can die of old age, with lifespan being primarily determined by size and reproductive rate (until I can come up with something better), as these are (sort of) indicators in nature.

Not sure what beanlooking means but I appreciate the sentiment! (Unless it’s mean, in which case I’m sad 😢).

It’s a nice idea - I try to read peer reviewed papers when I get a chance. Maybe if I can turn RU-vid into a full-time gig then I could think about some sort of degree. For now the thought of studying and working a full-time job simultaneously (something I’ve done before) is just a bit much haha.

@@EightLittleBears yes, I been in the same situation. What I can tell you is this. Try to identify if CS is a passion that you have. If it is and you not working with it full-time, it may be of your interest to start a major, and then quickly, in six months, and using the power of your videos to help, to switch to a CS job. I have no idea about your current full-time job, but I am almost sure that you can get the same or more salary in an internship from IT field. Is it an expensive move? It will be if you find out that CS is not your thing. Otherwise than that, it is a new world to explore. I am talking this without any knowledge about your age, where you based, marital status, your current career path, so I miss many stuff here and there. But don't bother to reveal them. Just check if it sounds feasible, try to check if You can start a very cheap, however honestly good CS bachelors, check the first semester, check if it is your thing, and along the way of the first 6 months, start internship hunting in Glassdoor, LinkedIn and any other platform for your location. Easier said than done. Nevertheless, better to try and fail than never try, never know.

It’s something I am developing myself

Ha - I dunno maybe 🤷🏼‍♂️😁

Awesome! Thank you!

Hi! It’s the unity game engine and I use c# (though it also supports JS if you prefer that)

Thank you very much for your answer, good luck for futur simulations !