Let there be cars

It's too damn addictive

Edit:

An updated version is available here, but I suggest that you check out the original first.

ADDICTIVE DOES NOT MEAN FUN

http://ionline.vectec.net/images/xa-grit.png

Did you even look at the link? It's a demonstration, not a game. Not that your post has any relevance anyway besides bringing up another pet peeve of yours in an unrelated thread to attract attention to yourself.

It's more fun than QWOP. Oh wait that one was neither fun nor addictive...

Is the idea that it gets smarter each time and designs a better version? Mine was doing well, but it must have suffered a stroke or something. Now it's just spewing out spiky blobs with the wheels on the roof.

Hmmm, I do wish there was a time lapse feature. It's probably going to take quite a few generations to get things rolling (heh), and my unfortunate lack of patience is starting to show. :P

I suppose I could let it run overnight, though.

I guess this random mutation but I stopped watching after one generation. And how do we get .01 of a generation? Each car is a generation.

Essentially it mixes "the best" features of each generation. If you're lucky enough to get several rolling prototypes at generation 0, you can have large-wheeled trucks already from the next two generations, but once it took me TWELVE generations to get something moving (rolling/bouncing evolved almost to perfection though ;-)

And sometimes you get good features which however get watered down by suboptimal ones e.g. big wheels + too low floor.

Increasing mutation rates helps if you are "stuck" with unwanted features, but if it's too high it doesn't let good ones settle down.

Technician said:

I guess this random mutation but I stopped watching after one generation. And how do we get .01 of a generation? Each car is a generation.

20 cars are a generation. The ones of "generation 0" are the forefathers (they all have unique colors and designs) and the next ones are mixtures of the "most fit" of the immediately previous generation, and so on recursively.

Had one that looked like a shark and it really took off. Still didn't make it up the big hill. May have reached the efficiency goal?

I so want this as a screen saver!

Left mine running in the background whilst browsing internets. The design seems to have stabilised into a fairly sensible shape now. Most incarnations look similar to this:

Usually, the most optimal designs tend to be big-wheeled, balanced "monster truck" designs, but sometimes you get contraptions like "wheelbarrows", "tadpoles", "dragsters" or even uniwheels, "tanks", balanced piramids, flippers etc. as the dominant species, if for some reason big, symmetric wheels haven't evolved.

Mine tried doing a uniwheel for a little while, but kept faceplanting at the first hill, heh.

This is awesome. I set the mutation to 69% and it is thoroughly retarded. YAY

I'm fascinated by genetic algorithms like this. With nothing but brute force trial and error and a lot of time you can find the optimal solution to a problem, given enough simulation complexity.

NASA did something similar to come up with an optimized antenna design: http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/projects/esg/research/antenna.htm
Another related topic is emergence; many simple behaviors combined to form a very complex and seemingly intelligent result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Mines at gen 59. I'll keep it running for the night.

I have been thinking for roughly a year that it might be possible to build something similar in Garry's Mod assuming you can use Wiremod to build chips that modify each other's code. Things like factories and complex systems of sensors are common enough for that game.

I'm at generation 71 and there is a section of the road (472.8) that seems deliberately made to stop these cars. It's been about twenty generations and no car can get past this section. The tire fits in the clevis perfectly.

How do I get this thing to keep running when my screensaver kicks in? Firefox seems to decide pausing it is a good plan if it's not front and centre.

Have you tried turning off your screen saver? Or does it still pause when the computer goes into rest?

Just started one, so I'll let it sit overnight. See what happens in a day or two.

If Folding@Home were this entertaining, I'd actually run it.

Technician said:

Have you tried turning off your screen saver? Or does it still pause when the computer goes into rest?

I have it set to blank the screen when idle. This monitor has an issue where it won't come back on easily if it ever turns off. Hard to sleep with it on bright.

EDIT: Well, it seems to be happier running in a separate window on my other monitor. Then I can lock my screen and it keeps going.

Yeah at some point there's a cliff that can't be passed -or if you reach it, you get maximum fitness and that's it.

I'm not sure if it's still unpassable for a small wheel/wide chassis/high curvature combo though, as small wheels seem to give more traction on hills, while large ones give speed and "swallow" minor and medium bumbs more easily.

Largely variations of the above now.

How far did it get?

495 thus far. The point keeps hitting the steeper hills and stopping it.

Got an oddball one hit 509, but again, same point. Big wheels tend to slow down on that hill, and small wheels usually can't reach that far to begin with, so it's essentially a hard limit.

I get the feeling if I was able to tweak the design of the vechicle myself, it would go beyond that limit easily.

Take the design from my screen shot, remove the point/relocate elsewhere to prevent it bouncing and it should do the trick.

Edit: Generation 209 now, reached 549

This thing is mesmerising. I'm only at generation 5 and it has decided that longish wheelbases work best. Unfortunately these get beached by the ridge at 151, and it hasn't conquered that yet.

PS the number in brackets isn't the furthest reached, it's the target it sets itself to see if that design is sucessful. It gets longer each generation or so regardless if it's reached.

I've never seen a car get past 238 on any terrain permutation. So far I have only seen one un-scalable hill. The others involved situations that would be easy enough if they didn't come right after something that demanded a different configuration.

I wonder how much better these could do if they could vary engine power and maybe even weight distribution. I suspect the effect would look even more like motocross than this does.