User-created Challenge: Floaters/Extinction

[Droefkalkoen]

Hi there. Tried my hand at developing a new challenge for Cell Lab. I have been fiddling around with density gradients, as I feel that this feature is somewhat underused in the game.

THE CHALLENGE
Not sure about the naming conventions of challenges, but since the challenge revolves around bouyancy and killing off other species, perhaps it would fit in with either the 'Floaters' or the 'Extinction' lines of challenges.

Here is a picture of the petri dish:


The petri dish is populated by three species: floating red phagocytes, sinking blue phagocytes and a population of motile white devorocytes in the middle. The player has to make one or all of these species go extinct.

Easy goal: Make one species go extinct.
Very difficult goal: Make all species go extinct (preferably using one cell, read below)

All cells allowed, except virocytes (nitrocytes have no use).

My gripe with this challenge is this: defeating all three species is difficult, since it means an organism has to cross the devorocyte line, which is very dangerous without keratinocytes, and has to compete with both phagocytes in different densities, which makes keratinocytes unfavorable (since the phagocytes don't require keratinocytes).
But this challenge is only present when the user is prevented from entering two different species. After all, a user could enter a competing phagocyte with high and low densities separetly and easily win the challenge. If the user is only allowed to enter one cell, this is prevented, but only allowing one cell makes the challenge more prone to random variations and might cause frustration with the player.

THE SUBSTRATE:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5E_i ... FlSHMtT25N

[CandyYAHFT]

Nice idea for a challenge, the image can't be seen, I'm going to test the substrate, to see if I can solve the challenge

[bwisialo]

Interesting Challenge. Thanks for posting.

Killing all three , even with more than one cell, is very difficult I'd say. Requires an optimized species. I solved it with one cell -- sent to you via PM. Takes a while for the Devorocytes to die.

[Droefkalkoen]

I solved it with one cell -- sent to you via PM. Takes a while for the Devorocytes to die.

Wow, what a great solution, thanks for sending it! It seems like a simple, yet elegant solution. Did it take a lot of tweaking for it to be so effective? I didn't expect a swimmer to be able to compete so well with the floaters. How was the difficulty? Perhaps it could be made more difficult by lowering the nutrient concentration and lowering chunk size, but I'm not sure if the substrate would still be stable under those conditions.

[bwisialo]

I solved it with one cell -- sent to you via PM. Takes a while for the Devorocytes to die.

Wow, what a great solution, thanks for sending it! It seems like a simple, yet elegant solution. Did it take a lot of tweaking for it to be so effective? I didn't expect a swimmer to be able to compete so well with the floaters. How was the difficulty? Perhaps it could be made more difficult by lowering the nutrient concentration and lowering chunk size, but I'm not sure if the substrate would still be stable under those conditions.

It's one solution I have for Tip the Balance in CL, but I had already made it to be very effectively evolved. So, I'd say you're correct that it's very difficult.

Killing the floaters isn't too hard. Reducing food probably won't make that part more difficult, because the floaters will have less food as well.

If you can make it harder for swimmers to escape the middle of the dish, while managing to get your floaters to escape the middle, then it would be harder: the swimmers would hit the Devorocytes more frequently, and they wouldn't be able to access the top and bottom of the dish as easily as the floaters would be able to.

[bwisialo]

If you can make it harder for swimmers to escape the middle of the dish, while managing to get your floaters to escape the middle, then it would be harder: the swimmers would hit the Devorocytes more frequently, and they wouldn't be able to access the top and bottom of the dish as easily as the floaters would be able to.

To do this, you would need to increase the Density gradient and/or Gravity. I see your floaters already have Buoyocytes with max and min Density. You might be able to get your floaters to still be able to escape the middle if, e.g., they had 2 Buoyos instead of 1.

[Alast]

Solved it too with 1 cell of my Tip the Balance solution. Also a very efficient creature to begin with. Killing the floaters took a moment but ultimately they went down.

[CandyYAHFT]

This substrate also works for "most diverse environment" in general discussion by raven
I CAN'T SOLVE IT, WHYYYY?

[Droefkalkoen]

Alast also sent me his solution. Also a very effective genome. He and bwisialo had a ready-made genome for Tip the Balance that was effective enough to prevail here as well. Even so, there don't appear to be any easy shortcuts that can be exploited in this challenge and the challenge does appear to require a well-designed genome.

I will tweak it some more to see if I can make the challenge more interesting, but it shows promise in my own opinion.

[bwisialo]

Even so, there don't appear to be any easy shortcuts that can be exploited in this challenge and the challenge does appear to require a well-designed genome.

I will tweak it some more to see if I can make the challenge more interesting, but it shows promise in my own opinion.

It's a very cool ecosystem! It's definitely difficult and it definitely has promise, though it's already a very good challenge.

I developed a second solution to this challenge: Keratinocyte floaters that shoot Devorocytes as they reproduce.

This led to an idea, if you want to make the challenge a bit more difficult: Keratinocyte floaters instead of standard floaters. Sending you my solution to show you what I mean.