EvoLife news & patch notes

EvoLife v0.9.9 is here, I updated the savefile list window to provide more info about the savefiles! The use case: You create a world, set it to fast forward, with autosave enabled. You leave it running for days, weeks, and now you have a lot of savefiles. You use the savefile list to visualize the sequence and start your evolutionary microbiology archeology journey, discovering what evolution cooked up. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42900916/e6cf47c61ac9756b396549329abe6cab592434f4.png

Toggle the savefile physics stats plot, which was the only savefile list plot available in older versions.

Toggle physics stats plot legend

Toggle species population count color plot. Each coulomb is a savefile, and the colored blocks represent cells alive in that color. Easy way to locate species, visualizes the evolutionary process well. Due to performance reasons not all species can be visualized, micro-species are summed together as the gray area on top. Loving how this visualization turned out, really captures evolutionary transitions across time, across savefiles.

The savefile step buttons, already present in older versions.

Physics stats plot now gets the number of cells that are connected to other cells (plotted as "multicellular") and the number of cells that have a flagellum (plotted as "flagellate"). Are you interested in early multicellularity? You know where to jump. Are you interested in the flagellate world and want to study their evolution? The plot pinpoints your favorite location!

Selected species population count now can be plotted, with an addition of being able to plot not just the species itself but their direct ancestors and descendants. Are you interested in a specific species? Plot them and see if they survived the evolutionary arms race to the end. They went extinct? Pinpoint the time and savefile it happened and check what evolutionary advantage were they lacking! The savefile list plots take a lot of CPU processing of savefiles, so I made them multi-threaded. The plot fills up dynamically as more and more data is extracted from the saved files. With multi-threaded programming comes increased performance, but also a possibility for more bugs. I tested the new features as much as I was able to, but if you find an issue, don't hesitate to reach out! Other updates:

• Mark species now highlights ancestors in red and descendants in blue.
• Circle info tool now shows data flow between organelles.
• Circle info tool now shows hormone levels of the cells.

Fixed a bug where loading saves made before version v0.9 would show crazy high memory usage %

Fixing a bug introduced in v0.9.3, overzealous DNA validation zeroing out valid DNA opcodes.

Small fix where some DNA state would not display properly on the GUI

Managed to reproduce the cell info crash. Fixed it.

Another after coffee thought where the cell info crash could come from possibly fixed. As stated before: A lot of you reported crashing while requesting information from a cell. Sadly I am not able to reproduce the issue, so I can not guarantee this is a 100% fix, but better than nothing.

Internal cleanup work started, should result in no visible changes but less crashes. A lot of you reported crashing while requesting information from a cell. Sadly I am not able to reproduce the issue, so I can not guarantee this is a 100% fix, but better than nothing.

New hormone system based on Simulife videos Every cell have 16 hormone levels. Each cell can set its own internal level. If a cell is colliding with another cell (surface protein bits needs to be matching) or a cell is connected to another cell with a connection, the hormone level propagates. If one cell sets its internal hormone level to 10, then colliding and connecting cells will have hormone level 9. The final value is always max(internal level, neighbor level - 1). New DNA opcodes

• Jump (E/hp): Jump in DNA code based on current E and hp levels
• Jump (h): Jump in DNA code based on current hormone levels
• Set hormone: Set hormone level from DNA code

Modified DNA opcodes

• Fission: New connection mode (tri), creates a triangle with original cell and one cell connected to that
• Jump (reg): The original jump DNA opcode, now can jump on register validity and data value

New behavioral logic (DNA opcode sequence)

• Get hormone: gets the current hormone level
• Set hormone: sets the current hormone level from behavioral register value
• Attribute ratio: Outputs the E/E_max or hp/hp_max ratios scaled to 0..255

Bugfixes

• Siphon bug infinite energy glitch
• Circle spawner can not be set above 200 E

Added cell upkeep cost. Default 0, cost the cell upkeep_energy_cost * cell_mass every game tick to stay alive. Settable as a world constant.

Bugfixes: - Size organelle delta mass and radius now correctly clamps to min-max values that can be handled by physics engine - Biomaterial breakdown organelle now generates with (cooldown * E_using) > (biomaterial_E / 2) true - Fission now resets internal timers in heal, produce biomaterial, break down and siphon organelles Thank you Eva and Thk for finding these issues!

Bugfixes: - Setting constants directly on the new world interface working again - Biomaterials making too many connections with gas bubbles fixed - Better Ctrl key tracking for the GUI, hopefully more difficult to trip up - Hopefully fixed the DNA tree appearing in wrong colors, were not able to reproduce, fix based on googled nvidia driver bug workaround - Setting biomaterial properties after world creation works again - DNA opcode "wait" now correctly waits for one or two events Feature add: - DNA opcode "RC input" now has cheat-like properties, optionally giving cells infinite youth, hitpoints and energy. This organelle does not occur naturally, only if the user adds it to one of its creations. It helped me to debug and left it in.

Fixing a crash when filtering organelles

Fixing a bug in World Constants: Smell: Color reporting an ImGui error

Fixing bug mentioned in https://steamcommunity.com/app/2102770/discussions/0/591771273907980592/

Accidentally disabled Steam Workshop in v0.8.8, re-enabing

Recently I created a YouTube video about one of the Steam Workshop items, Abyssal Genesis https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3464540698&searchtext= I posted on r/Simulated and got 500 upvotes! https://www.reddit.com/r/Simulated/comments/1khphnf/realtime_evolution_sim_reaches_250_fps_with_500k/ I've never thought this niche simulation project of mine would capture the imagination of so many people! I am humbled and honored, I will work hard to make this simulation the best version of itself! Thank you everyone!

- Better stat bars on cells (now displaying cell age, hp, E, def) - Siphon organelles now visualized - Slightly reworked atk-def-siphon system - Steam Workshop upload now checks if the selected folder contains valid save files - Option to do not draw smells - Fixed bug of some settings sometimes not loading properly

Fixed a bug where fluid sinks/sources did not behave correctly

Fixing a bug where Steam Workshop upload dialogs did not appear

Whats new:

• New HD icon
• Settable keybinds
• Remote controlled cells, special DNA piece to receive control information
• Steam Workshop integration

Built-in savefiles are no longer distributed with the game download, but made available trough Steam Workshop! I am so happy I made this integration, Steam is the King for providing support for this amazing feature! Upload and share your worlds with a few clicks! See what others made and play their worlds!

Some changes in the evolution tab:

• Species memory usage now visible, for instant feedback
• Spawn ratio: control the maximum number of species that will be randomly generated
• Spawn count: control how many species are generated in one game tick

Savefile list window now have navigation buttons available in the header when collapsed

I've rewritten the collision logic to be more performant, but for some reason some older video cards/drivers have issues with the new code. I've added a setting to enable the old, slower collision logic.

Features:

• Faster simulation, optimized code, optimized memory usage
• Improved fluid drag
• New, more balanced GPU memory layout, making even bigger worlds possible! (This sadly breaks savefile compatibility, you won't be able to use your old saves with the new version)
• Vulkan is no longer experimental: implemented proper anti-aliasing and cache, bugfixes
• Ability to dye cells to mark them and their descendants (a dividing cell will keep the dye color), making cell population dynamics more visible and followable
• Ability to plot species popcount ans sumcount in savefile list plot
• List of 50 savefiles comes with the new full version (not avaliable in the demo), so you can check out the savefile list function immediately after download

The development reached the Boring Billion. Algae-like multicellularity constantly evolves. The built-in tools to inspect evolution happening are getting better and better. I am really pleased with the results. In the next release I plan to finally fix the GUI and add Steam Workshop support. Then I will pay for an AWS GPU instance, and run the simulation for months. YouTube video coming soon!