This is pretty weird. I changed the second number in ‘steps per creature’ to the maximum of 2,000 starting with generation 25 of my in-progress species of facecrawling quadrupeds. My ‘fittest’ score, which had been slowly growing, jumped some 200 points in that generation and has been fairly stable since (previous high of 484 in gen. 22, hovering around 700 now, I’m running generation 33 at the moment). Meanwhile, my average fitness fell from 347 in generation 25 (not a surprising number given how it’d been trending) to 254 in generation 26, recovered to 302 in generation 28, then fell again and has been in the 200-225 range since then.
… Generation 33 just came in. Max 393, average 166. Buh?
Edit: I think what happened is that the species transitioned to a new gait; some of my creatures are using their forelimbs differently now, and the numbers for generation 34 were 653 and 317. This still doesn’t make very much sense, though, unless I’m misunderstanding what that variable does.
Yeah, I think changing that setting buggers the selection mechanism somehow. Half the time, a generation with no good creatures in it is followed by a generation where the average is almost as good as its parents’ best!
This is pretty weird. I changed the second number in ‘steps per creature’ to the maximum of 2,000 starting with generation 25 of my in-progress species of facecrawling quadrupeds. My ‘fittest’ score, which had been slowly growing, jumped some 200 points in that generation and has been fairly stable since (previous high of 484 in gen. 22, hovering around 700 now, I’m running generation 33 at the moment). Meanwhile, my average fitness fell from 347 in generation 25 (not a surprising number given how it’d been trending) to 254 in generation 26, recovered to 302 in generation 28, then fell again and has been in the 200-225 range since then.
… Generation 33 just came in. Max 393, average 166. Buh?
Edit: I think what happened is that the species transitioned to a new gait; some of my creatures are using their forelimbs differently now, and the numbers for generation 34 were 653 and 317. This still doesn’t make very much sense, though, unless I’m misunderstanding what that variable does.
Yeah, I think changing that setting buggers the selection mechanism somehow. Half the time, a generation with no good creatures in it is followed by a generation where the average is almost as good as its parents’ best!