cloud simulation

[Petter]

Would there be interest for a button to upload a substrate to some computer, run it for like 5 hours at a speed that is approximately 5 times that of a smartphone (so this would correspond to 25 hours of simulation) for about 1 euro and then one can download the result?

The benefit versus running on the phone would be that it runs quite a bit faster, but also that it doesn't drain battery and you can use the phone for other stuff in the meantime. One could also run many simulations at once, if you want to e.g. compare different radiation levels on a substrate then they could all be uploaded and run in parallel.

1 euro might seem steep but it is the minimum in app payment. Cloud computing seems to be about 5 cent/cpu/hour. 5 hours is then 25 cent. For a 1 euro payment i guess there is like 25% vat, google takes 30% (they take this on the amount before vat in some countries ) so then there is 45 cent to pay the bill, leaving me 25 cent , which could be useful to pay the forum and wiki server bills and probably any overhead related to running stuff in the cloud.

[randomjax]

I think this would be cool, and would be another great way to donate to you!

[Nayus]

Could be interesting if the download included several saves along the way, because 25 real time h of simulation is quite the time and if you didn't do a very safe substrate, there's a noticeable possibility of downloading an empty substrate at the end, which would be definetly not fun for something you paid, even if it is 1 euro.

So if the download included several saves at a certain amount of time, I'd see it being useful.

[Megathosto14]

Could be interesting if the download included several saves along the way, because 25 real time h of simulation is quite the time and if you didn't do a very safe substrate, there's a noticeable possibility of downloading an empty substrate at the end, which would be definetly not fun for something you paid, even if it is 1 euro.

So if the download included several saves at a certain amount of time, I'd see it being useful.

Agreed, it's good for evolutionist to save time but if your organism can't survive, that won't be good.
Between, we can't change the substrate settings in the middle of the simulation so we need to prepare things enough for the outcome we expect. Just pop up a warning before selecting like,
Warning:make sure you wont regret.

And I think, there should be some choices like 3 times or 2 times.

[Dan]

Maybe if it has a feature of auto spawn? Where you could set a time when your organism should spawn again automatically.
(Just a suggestion )

[Sci-fo]

Yea, like "if cell count = 0 spawn cell 1" so that if it couldn't survive, it can have multiple chances to survive.