Some stuff that was just not working as intended (woops!)

jasonrohrer · 2018-12-25 22:24:49

So, you all remember that thing about warm mothers having more babies?

Sounds great! Except the actual code on the server wasn't doing this. There was a bug in the math (abs instead of fabs) that ended up giving everyone the same weight, regardless of how warm they were. Sheesh!

And you all remember that thing about Eve spawn locations after she dies of old age? Well, that code was buggy too, based on some old code about computing the center of a camp based on recent placements on the map. Some of you noticed this by looking at the code. I just noticed it myself (when my own Eve respawn location on server1 was different than expected---I spawned in someone else's abandoned town... how the heck is that possible?).

Actually, that old code works fine in the intended solo-play situation (because the only placements are in your camp). But it's absolute garbage in the current situation.

It should just be where Eve dies of old age. That spot. So I fixed it to do that.

(And again, for a variety of reasons, I'm also reworking this mechanic so that it doesn't function when there are other places to be born---it will only work if there are very few fertile mothers on the server).

Finally, I've updated the fertility code to take the Yum multiplier into account. Warm mothers with high Yum multipliers will have the highest chance of having a baby (this is a good proxy for the healthiest mothers).

So now, towns can actually COMPETE for babies.

Which was always the intention. But bugs in the code were preventing it.

CrazyEddie · 2018-12-26 03:09:47

Yay for fixing bugs!

However...

jasonrohrer wrote:

So now, towns can actually COMPETE for babies.

The competition only plays a factor when a server's birth rate is less than the maximum birth rate, which is one birth per 2.5 minutes per fertile woman on average. This will typically only happen in two cases: on servers that are at their population max, and on servers where population is falling.

Case One, capped servers. The population is held stable on these servers by the reflector. One birth per 2.5 minutes per fertile woman implies an average lifespan of about ten minutes. If the average lifespan is shorter than this, then women will be having children at their max rate and Eves will start spawning; there will be no competition for babies. If the average lifespan is longer than ten minutes, then there will be more birth-ready women than births, and so towns will be competing for babies. How much the competition matters depends on how much longer than ten minutes the average lifespan is. If the average lifespan is twice as long (twenty minutes), then for every birth there will be two potential mothers, every woman will (on average) have half as many babies, and every woman will (on average) go twice as long between babies (one every five minutes instead of one every 2.5 minutes).

If the average lifespan is only a little bit longer than ten minutes, then competition for babies won't matter much. If the average lifespan is quite a bit longer than ten minutes, then the competition will completely destroy all but the most successful towns in a fairly rapid rich-get-richer race. Eve camps won't stand a chance and will be lucky to last three generations.

Case Two, falling-population servers. These come in three subcases: Server X that has just started spreading to Server X+1, Servers X and X+1 that are evenly split but facing a naturally falling population, and Server X+1 that has just been rendered sterile because Server X dropped below the threshold and stopped spreading. Subcase Three doesn't matter because the entire server will be soon be extinct; there is no competition for babies because there are no babies. Subcase Two doesn't matter because the population drop is relatively slight and will stay that way until Server X stops spreading, at which point Server X+1 is doomed and Server X will enter a population boom.

Subcase One matters, and has a similar dynamic to Case One (the rich get richer) but even more extreme because the baby starvation will be severe. The competition lasts for roughly an hour until the two servers are at roughly the same population, at which point only the very few best towns will be left alive on Server X.

pein · 2018-12-26 04:25:43

oh come on, really? we did that thing and ate placebo for all along xD

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-12-25 22:24:49

Some stuff that was just not working as intended (woops!)

#2 2018-12-26 03:09:47

Re: Some stuff that was just not working as intended (woops!)

#3 2018-12-26 04:25:43

Re: Some stuff that was just not working as intended (woops!)

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