Here is a short description of parameters that you can change in the simulation:
- Bitozoa in generation
- how many bitozoa are at the beginning in every population.
- Bitozoa used for breeding
- how many bitozoa will be allowed to breed.
- Fodder
- how many fodders are present.
- Iddle glucose usage
- how fast glucose is burned by not moving bitozoa.
- Sight distance
- fodder is seen if bitozoon is at the distance less then entered here.
- Mutation probability
- in how many bitozoa weights of neuron inputs will be changed.
- Glucose burning speed
- how much glucose will be used by flagella working at full speed in one step of simulation.
- Time increment
- new positions of bitozoa are calculated using Newton equations of motions (xi+1=xi+vx*dt...)
- Eat distance
- fodder is eaten if bitozoon is at the distance less then entered here.
- Viscosity
- environment slows bitozoa down, this number describes how much they are slowed.
- Flagella angle
- direction of flagella action.
- Eye angular sensitivity
- bitozoon eye can see not only fodder directly in front of it, but also those on the sides. The less the number, the more narrow angle eye can see.
- Bitozoa vision
- try to guess.
- Random number generator seed
- if you know what it means, you now how to use it. If you don't - relax, it is not very important. It has something to do with the reproduction of the simulation results.
Some remarks:
- Switch off animation to speed up the simulation. Look at the animation only when there is less then about 40 bitozoa alive.
- 100/10 is a good starting point for a blind bitozoa, but for bitozoa with eyes try 150/20. Population of 100 animals seems to small to be able to evolve properly in this case.
- Black line in harvest window is a total quantity of eaten fodder, red line - fodder eaten by the bitozoa used for breeding, blue line - lifetime of the generation.
- Implementation of mutation probability is a kludge. It works OK only in case of 5-eyed bitozoa. In other cases weights are changed, but as all neurons are declared in the program (and simply not used) most mutations are insignificant. Funny thing is this bug has a biological meaning :)
Bitozoa are sponsored by dysleksja, ChemBuddy chemical calculators, pH meter, titration site.