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Eat Elevator Syndrome - A Haunting?   
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis
United States  


  3/27/2014  6

I was researching Eat Elevator Syndrome the other day, and what exactly it was doing to the norn's brains, in an attempt to try and figure out if I could make some way to prevent it, or at least automatically break them out of it if they got into it, and it came to me that it really is exactly like a light hypnotic trance.

Just like a real trance state, enough stimulation, like loud noise, a lot of visible movement, showering them with food, slapping them, or moving them, snaps them out of it... in fact, if there are a lot of distractions around, they seem to be less likely to get in these trances in the first place, which is also like real trance states, if there are a lot of distractions, it's hard to achieve a trance state, you think about too many different things.

To get into a trance, a person often focuses on one object or idea, often using epoken or mental suggestions or cues... In the creatures' case, the idea is always something that is impossible for them, apparently suggested by the DS game engine, but the result is the same, the creatures' minds focus inwards, while they think only about this nonsense suggestion being made to them.

So, I figured out the terrible truth of what is really going on... There is actually an Evil Entity living in the DS Capillata, which is constantly watching and sending out telepathic hypnotic suggestions to all creatures... I'm thinking that the entity must be a Banshee spirit, who is haunting the Capillata and enjoys trapping creatures in its spell, holding any that it can catch helpless captives while they suffer and waste away...

Creatures with a lot of distractions around are hard for this entity to hypnotize and catch in its spell for very long because the latent suggestions get drowned out by outside distractions and their other thoughts; but when creatures don't have much going on around them, and aren't really thinking about too much, they become vulnerable to being hypnotized by that constant little voice whispering in their head, and can get caught in its trance until either something snaps them out of it, or they starve to death.

I for one, will start calling this condition by its proper name, Evil Entity Syndrome...


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  3/27/2014

When a ton of stimuli at once "cure" that syndrome again, wouldn't it be possible to make some kind of sentinel which looks for stupid thoughts such as eat elevator and then simply makes a "hard reboot"?
When a stupid thought is present for more than a given amount of time, BAM, overwhelms the brain with ridiculous of information.

COULD be dangerous. Not sure.


Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  3/27/2014

Yeah, I was thinking about that, they are pretty prone to stupid thoughts by themselves too... I was contemplating exactly what you are suggesting to snap them out of the trance; the only problem is figuring out exactly all the possible stupid thoughts that the syndrome could cause so we can recognize it... It seems there are a lot of things they can fixate on, though doors and elevators do seem to be the most common, and I could always add more.

However, monitoring them and saying to stim them after x amount of time if they keep thinking a stupid thought, seems that it would require the script to keep a lot of monitor information on each creature, in order to remember what they were thinking about last time it checked, and keep track of how long they have been thinking it. All the monitoring scripts I've seen just check something every now and then without having to remember anything about the creatures between runs. Agents really get a very limited amount of memory to play with. I am having a hard time thinking of a way to do that practically, though I'm far from the most knowledgeable about scripting, I will try posting in the dev forum and see if some better coder might have some ideas on that front.

What I definitely think IS possible though, is to have an agent that stimulates creatures regularly... the first thing I am thinking of is a sound stim (doesn't need to actually play a sound though)... kind of like a warning siren or speaker announcement that goes off every so often for the creatures... "BANSHEE DETECTED! STAY ALERT!"... (doesn't have to be very often, just enough to stop creatures from starving)... When it runs it could even be filtered so that it only stims creatures who are thinking about actions involving doors or elevators, so most won't hear it, and if the creature isn't hypnotized, the worst it might do is distract them momentarily.

It's a bit of a brute force method, but since it's not painful to them or anything, it shouldn't affect their learning, just possibly be a little annoying to them, maybe occasionally wake up a creature once in a while (all of which I think is worth it if it saves lives from the Evil Entity).


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  3/27/2014

To get more storage, I can see 2 possible ways: A) Use the NAME command to create more local variables or B) store the info in the creature itself, they are just agents afterall.
Perhaps even a conbination of both, since some scripts already do that trick with the normal ov of creatures.


Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  3/27/2014

Hmm that's an interesting idea, then all it really needs to do is increase a counter in the creature if it sees them thinking the same thought as last time it looked at them, reset it if they think about something else, and then just kind of poke them if the counter gets too high... that's really cool.

Each creature basically will just keep in memory what it was just thinking about doing, and how long it's been thinking about it. Then it wouldn't even really matter what the thought is, we could stimulate any creature if they are thinking the same thing for say 5 minutes straight... and even if they happen to not really be hypnotized, all it will do is distract them momentarily... they should still be able to remember whatever they were thinking about again if it was really important to them.

Wow, a trance monitor... Seems doable! I'm definitely on this. I hate that damn Banshee.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Nutter
Senior Wrangler

Nutter



  3/27/2014  1

Whoa - Ritalin for norns?! o_0
 
TigerCivet

TigerCivet



  3/27/2014

Looks like artificial life is taken to a higher level now [ngrin]
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  3/27/2014

Nutter wrote:
Whoa - Ritalin for norns?! o_0



Pretty close, though if they are just fixating on something because they want to think about it, or are being derpy, they probably will just fixate on it again after the distraction.

But if it's an unnatural suggestion which has them in a trance, the stimulation should snap them out of it and let them think about something else, like actually pushing that door they were forced by the Entity to contemplate eating for the last 5 (...eat door eat door eat door eat door eat...) .............huh? What was I talking about again? Never mind, I have to go eat my door now...


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  3/27/2014  1

Btw, instead of messing with them for any thought, you could also make a neat interface, where you can enter "illegal" combinations by hand.

Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  3/27/2014

Definitely could be done, though it's a little beyond my scope of expertise... I welcome any help of course, but I'm not entirely sure that it's necessary, at least for this purpose (though I could see something like that used to pre-emptively punish them for 'bad thoughts', or just make them impossible to think about... which is a little bit scary in a '1984' or 'Clockwork Orange' kind of way... You could, for example, effectively brainwash norns so they can't even think about hitting other norns, and of course, any thoughts of ultra-violence would be right out...)

Really, just checking the counter and setting a time limit for it should be enough, though it's very possible it will still work well if i just limit it to combinations involving doors and elevators. Any creature fixated on something for that long probably should be poked anyway... it can easily get back its train of thought by itself if it really wants to think about that thing, I would think. At least if it's anything it thinks is important.

EDIT: Our brains really do something similar to us anyway, and make new thoughts pop into our heads occasionally as a way to stop us from obsessing about things too much (this function is weakened to varying degrees in people with OCD), but this is the reason why we can lose our train of thought even if we are in the middle of talking about something very interesting to us.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Nornatrix2

Nornatrix2



  4/14/2014

Maybe this is not a haunting at all.... Maybe is somekind of abstract thinking(if it was possible), but the game don't know how to respond to a thing so illogical of, so instead to crash the all game the norn brain «crash», and this crash is the effect on the concerned norn

Remember, when the Creatures Labs developpers make this game, many of the norns reactions they have observed, have not be prevoyed, maybe this one pass throught their net, long time ago.


And if, and i say if, it was really abstract thinking (or something similar), it open the door to boost the norn brain... except if it was a Pandora box, and give more problems than advantages.

Artificial life can be powerful Like in the early 1990 experience with the Project Tierra, where artificial life evolved by themselfs

Remember, «Life always find a way»


Grendel breeder, and forests maker
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  4/14/2014  1

Well, it doesn't seem to really crash anything, it's more like the brain gets stuck in a loop. Testing has shown the game isn't stuck in the middle of running any blocking scripts when it happens (which is one reason the creatures can still respond to outside stimuli and break out of it); also, it will ONLY happen in DS or a C3 world with DS docked, which implies it's a bug in the code of the DS game engine itself. You can take the same creature and put it in the same situation on a standalone c3 world and it will NEVER get that problem.

I think it's probably something going on when they are trying to navigate to something and the DS game engine makes some sort of a mistake in telling the creature what the next step is, and they are kind of stuck because that next step is impossible. See, creatures don't have full control during navigation (like when, for example, it decides to 'get food' and there is no food in sight, or they decide to 'eat fruit' but one is not in reach...). What happens is the game scripts call a CAOS command called APPR, which tells the engine to suggest actions to a creature that will get it to approach whatever it's trying to get to... it does this by following smells and sight, and sending messages to its brain that are like strong suggestions by stimulating certain neurons.

The game engine is supposed to keep these suggestions up until the creature gets to the object of it's desire, gives up, or can't get any further (when it gets to a door or elevator blocking its path, a script tells the creature they feel 'trapped' or 'low' or 'high' and then quits, so the creature can use the door or elevator itself, and then, when they are finished and think about whatever they wanted again, they can continue the navigation and keep approaching).

Here, I think what is happening is that during navigation, the game engine makes a suggestion that is not intended due to some kind of bug, and because of this, the creature never completes the original navigation, so the game engine keeps on suggesting that action until the creature makes the navigation end, by deciding on its own that it wants to approach something else (which is not easy with a voice screaming in its head that the door in front of it looks really tasty).

Regardless of how it works though, the result is the same... the game engine keeps stimulating the same neurons, so the creatures get a nonsense suggestion in their brains like a voice repeating the same thing over and over, and if there are no distractions around, they fixate on that suggestion and get stuck in a kind of brain-loop, or trance. The reason I use the word trance here is that a trance state in real life actually IS a brain-loop just like this; a person fixates on one particular thought or frame of mind to the point where they keep sending the same impulses over and over through the same parts of the brain.

These trances only happen to creatures in DS or c3/DS worlds, so, to the creatures' point of view at least, there is some sort of entity in the Capillata that is sending nonsensical telepathic suggestions, and quite literally hypnotizing them. It may be a buggy part of the DS game engine, but it really does manifest in the game as an evil entity which puts creatures into trances with hypnotic suggestion.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  4/15/2014

You said it is an actual CAOS command called APPR? Perhaps we're lucky and this whole navigation stuff is more or less softcoded.
Try running a grep over the bootstrap folder.


Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  4/15/2014

APPR is in all the creature-object and creature-creature interaction scripts, the mating script, etc (and i've looked over these script pretty finely)... but the thing is that once APPR is called by a script, the engine takes over from the script, determines the direction using CAs or sight, and releases the script until the creature can't get any closer by just walking.

Using doors and elevators is somewhat softcoded though, and is scripted .. APPR will end when they can't get any further by just walking, and then the script usually checks to see if they are by a door or elevator, and if so, tells them that they feel really low or high or trapped, putting their original decision back in their brains. Once they have gotten rid of that drive, hopefully getting up the elevator or through the door, they will then presumably be able to think of the object they originally wanted and once again APPR it.

During APPR, it seems the engine lets all other scripts run, leaves the creature conscious, and just communicates command-strength suggestions with its brain to get it to carry it out... and it seems that the erroneous suggestion is getting introduced into the creatures' brains during this part, not letting the APPR command ever end for them because they never actually reach their goal (it could be some odd kind of timing issue with how the game reads the state of neurons at the end of navigation when its trying to let the creature think for itself again..., like the creature wants to eat something, but then it's by a door, deciding to push door, and somehow the engine occasionally accidentally gets the 'eat' and the 'door' at separate times and puts them together).


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  4/16/2014  3

Found a CAOS command that will break a creature painlessly out of Eat Elevator Syndrome 100% of the time with no ill effects that I can determine...

URGE WRIT NORN -1 2 -1 2

It clears the noun and verb lobes, getting rid of any stuck neurons giving it suggestions or commands in its head, allowing it to think for itself again.

Think of it as a 'brainfart', they forget what they were thinking about for a bare instant... human brains actually do this as a safety mechanism to stop us from getting stuck in loops like this, like if we are obsessing over something... though it's maddening when you are trying to meditate, or just trying really hard to remember something that is just on the tip of your tongue and your brain will not let you, by spamming this... or when you are thinking/talking about something you think is really important or interesting and totally lose your train of thought (notice this always happens when it's something you thought was important, never when its something you didn't really care about... again it's because the brain sees you stimulating one area too much and does this as a protective mechanism). Now just think, your creatures will get to experience this joy as well!

Now to finish the agent that figures out when a norn is stuck.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  4/16/2014  1

Hah, I have seen that command before :D
Glad that you figured out what you needed/wanted


Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  4/16/2014

Also found command to artificially induce it...

URGE WRIT NORN 26 2 0 0

What this does is set the neuron in their noun lobe for 'elevator' to maximum, commanding them to think about the elevator, any decision they make will involve it... they won't move on their own, and if asked what they are thinking will say some action involving the elevator (once they get very hungry, the action will probably be eat, since their brains will be aware of stuff to eat around, and trying to get them to eat it, so they may be thinking subconsciously 'eat fruit' or something... or rather, the brain is stimulating the 'eat' and 'fruit' neurons, but those thoughts will not be able to get their attention off the elevator, because the 'elevator' neuron is being stimulated more strongly than the 'fruit' neuron, and their decisions and conscious thoughts are based on whatever neurons are being stimulated the strongest)

Care though, slapping or stimuli won't get them out of the trance when done this way... (I tried slapping and my norn is mad at me now...) it seems the suggestion they are getting from the Evil Entity is a bit weaker than a total command like this one (or it's not quite the same, like they are just getting a suggestion over and over instead of getting such an absolute command at once)

It seems that the engine or script is trying to put back their original decision with its original strength after it thinks navigation is done, but is getting confused about what their attention was on before it 'took control'... for some reason substituting the door or elevator they were thinking about using. I'm almost certain now that this is caused randomly by some kind of occasional timing glitch between how their brains are processing, and how the DS engine is reading and talking to the brain during navigation.

To break them out of this trance if you induced it, just use the
URGE WRIT NORN -1 2 -1 2
'brainfart' command.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  5/5/2014

I found something very interesting about Eat Elevator Syndrome. I have found the message number of the script which is almost definitely at fault, but I am not seeing anything with that message number in the scriptorium from the CAOS tool.

It seems to be a script which has the number 153... specifically the version of that script in DS... It is listed as "Creature Navigation Callback Link", and it is called when a creature is trying to approach an object it wants, but is not looking at an object (there is no 'IT'), and it is by the best smell it can find for that object, and by a CA link. For example, the creature is in an empty hallway thinking 'eat food' but can't see any... It starts approaching food using smell, until it gets to the biggest source of food smell that it can get to by walking left/right, then it checks to see if it's by a CA link, then if it is, it runs this script. This explains the behavior (creature not looking at anything, and gets stuck randomly just as it hits a CA link by an elevator or door).

If something gets its attention, this script would end because now it is no longer navigating with no IT object, that explains how giving them a slap (discouraging them from approaching so they think about something else and pay attention to something) or having something get their attention breaks them out of it.

I'm not sure where that script is, but I'm guessing its some kind of base script that is hardcoded.


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  5/5/2014

When it gets called, it must be softcoded somewhere. If not, it's usually empty. Tried running a grep on all the cosfiles?

Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...
 
evolnemesis
Code Monkey

evolnemesis



  5/5/2014

hmm I'll see, I am guessing windows search might not be looking in the cos files... I tried just a content search of all the DS and creatures folders, not seeing it, I very much doubt it is normally empty, though. It is consistent with how APPR works.

The thing calling it is the game engine itself while it is running the code for the APPR CAOS command, then somehow it would need to go back into the game engine to be able to get back to the same place in whatever script is calling that APPR (if that makes sense)... also, the fact that those messages (150-154) are all called 'callbacks' seems to imply they are being read back by the command that called it:

150 Creature Navigation Callback Valid It Called by the approach command with _P1_ and _P2_ set to the IT object's X and Y coordinates respectively.
151 Creature Navigation Callback Outside Room System Called by the approach command when you are unable to use the CA because you're outside the room system.
152 Creature Navigation Callback Neighbour Called by the approach command if there is no IT object. _P1_ and _P2_ are set to the X and Y coordinates of the room's centre with the highest (or lowest if retreating) smell of IT nearby.
153 Creature Navigation Callback Link As for 152 but called when the best room is a link.
154 Creature Navigation Callback Current Room Best As for 152 but called when the room you're in is already the best one.

EDIT: tried grep in both c3 and DS folders.. those scripts are not in any .cos files, I do see the numbers showing up in engine.exe for both games but that doesn't prove much considering they are executables... Still, considering the scripts are all called while running the APPR command, I would say the 'callback' in the description means the call is going back to the game engine running that command, and not an external script. I was hoping it would be one that could be easily modified... I got too excited when I saw the navigational messages in the CAOS documentation. I thought at first it must be external CAOS also. But I am sure those messages are used, and that they do what they say, it just seems they are hardcoded (probably why they were not found and fixed by now.. I'm sure I can't be the only one who's seen that in the CAOS documentation).


"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 


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