Framsticks

"Maciej Komosinski"
wrote in message news:dl0gb2$q19$1@cancer.cs.put.poznan.pl...
> Hi,
>
> > Earlier in this forum there was talk of using multiple computers over
the
> > net to simulate a very large virtual world in which genotypes would
> > "migrate," perhaps allowing for specialization and niche-ing. I was
> > wondering if this was being done or could be done?
>
> Yes and no ;-)
>
> Yes: there is a Framsticks server freely available, so you can develop
> a client that connects to servers and exchanges genotypes, thus
> making a distributed large-scale simulation/evolution possible.
> The client logic can do various things to use power of many servers.
>
> No: there is no centralized seti@home-style architecture. It is
> planned already, but not implemented yet because "there are always
> so many other things waiting" ;-)
>
> > Also, there seems to be a lot of great scripters out there who are
writing
> > some very interesting experiments. The experimentation center and other
> > on-line resources that I have found are rather bare. Are people sharing
> > their parameters and customizations? Is there a forum for such sharing?
>
> You are right. The FEC database is OK for genotypes, because they are
> static, i.e. they do not change. But experiment definitions and other
> scripts are often updated, so the submit-once idea is not working here.
>
> Of course scripts and script samples can be quoted here (as they are).
> Walter created a page
>
> http://www.aisland.org/vll/projects/downloads.htm
>
> and a forum
>
> http://www.droids.nl/cgi-bin/ubb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&category=2
>
> where students could share ideas. I think it could be useful to make
> something similar on the official Framsticks site, but it would have
> to be something better than newsgroups via http. Something more
> suitable to the needs of Framsticks users. Any ideas and pointers
> are welcome!
>
>
> MacKo

Glad to see another person interested in Framsticks (Isn't that name related
to Framlings in Ender's Saga?).

This newsgroup server is a smart idea but no one seems to post very often.
Like the author and many others in here, I've been busy too - hehe I'm in
college and working on the Wargus AI/campaigns. The 4th Coming, Framsticks,
my server, and various other things all want my time. I can imagine what
it'll be like when I get out of college. No binaries all allowed in here
but it would make sense that the scripts aren't binaries and are very small
anyway. I would imagine a kind of FAQ/AI table that the owner can expire
old editions of would work well. In theory everything could be handled in a
news format.

Imagine a format that would be just a few lines per entry with spacing. If
done correctly, this would be very handy and compact.
My program to generate a terrain-height-map (height map to UnReal level
editors) is a simple example of what code samples could look like. There
are plenty of tools to do this but mine is just for example. To expand upon
it would be reinventing the wheel in a way but there are several ways to
improve it. The first would be to use multiple height maps and allow some
areas to be smoothed more then others. Another would be to add the use of
keys so that aspects of a map could be identically generated again.