Monday, November 04, 2024

Proposal: Legwork

To the table in “Mutations”, add a Mutation of:-

Remove the Nucleotide at a specific position

With a Cost of 2, and a Requirement of “Must be in the Autoclave”.

Then add a Mutation of:-

The Genome is Refrigerated for the duration of this Synthesis

With a Cost of 0, and a Requirement of “Must be in the Freezer”.

Then in Synthesis, replace “Add a random Nucleotide to the beginning of the Genome” with:-

If the Genome is not Refrigerated, add a random Nucleotide to the beginning of the Genome

Some reasons to move around the facility.

Proposal: Missing Links

In the rule “Codons”, in the Effect for the ACT Codon, after the text “Add a new Organism to a random Containment Cell” add the following text:

and assign that Organism a (not necessarily unique) random Codon

Assign a (not necessarily unique) random Codon to each existing Organism.

Somehow, we missed assigning random Codons to recently created Organisms, assuming we want the idea of assigned Codons to still be a thing.

If this is no longer wanted, we should do the opposite and get rid of all assigned Codons.

Proposal: Survival of the Fittest

In the rule “Organisms”, add a subrule named “Overpopulation” with the following text:

When 5 or more Organisms are in the same Room, that Room is considered Overpopulated.

Survival is an atomic action with the following steps that apply only to the Organisms in a specific Room:
* Select all the Organisms with the lowest Stage in that Room and consider that group of Organisms the Prey.
* Randomly select an Organism from the Prey and remove it from the gamestate.
* Select all the Organisms with the highest Stage in that Room and consider that group of Organisms the Predators.
* Randomly select an Organism from the Predators and increase its Stage by 1 if it is legal to do so.

In the rule “Synthesis”, add the following as the last step in the Synthesize atomic action:

* For each Room that is Overpopulated, perform the Survival atomic action for that Room, repeating the action until that Room is no longer Overpopulated.

This is different from the CGA and AGG Codons in that the Overpopulation leading to Stage increase is a “natural” evolutionary phenomenon, whereas increases in Stages from Codons created by Genetic Engineers is genetically-engineered evolution.

I considered a more complicated approach where an Organism consuming another Organism would gain Resources and after X number of Resources would then increase its Stage, similar to the game Spore. I’m not opposed to this idea if anyone thinks the above Proposal will cause Stage increase too quickly.

Sunday, November 03, 2024

Synthesis #4

Two more Organisms created! There was only one non-conflicting Mutation this time around. Two ACT Codons were processed.

Genome comparison:
TACTTCTGCACT
TACTTCTCCACT

Saturday, November 02, 2024

Proposal: The Blob

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Nov 2024 19:34:50 UTC

Add a new entry to the table in Codons with a Codon of “AGG”, a Discoverer of “Kevan” and an Effect of:-

For each Room which has multiple Organisms in it, remove all but one of those Organisms at random and add the combined Stages of the removed Organisms to the Stage of the Organism left in that Room.

Proposal: Look Busy

Reached reduced quorum 3 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Nov 2024 19:33:57 UTC

Remove “, or the fact that they do not want to perform any Mutations” from the rule “Synthesis”.

Saturday, November 02, 2024

Proposal: Never Cross the Streams

Fewer than a reduced quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed by Kevan 1 vote to 2 with an IMP DEF.

Adminned at 03 Nov 2024 15:54:18 UTC

In the rule “Synthesis” after this text “if two or more Mutations specify the same position, those Mutations are instead not performed” add the following text:

and the Nucleotide at that position must be changed to a randomly-selected Nucleotide (repeat this step for each position that was specified in more than one Mutation)

It’s a bit boring if we’re just constantly blocking each other with no other effect. I’d rather make “collisions” more interesting.

Proposal: Curiosity Seekers

Exceeded quorum, 4-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 03 Nov 2024 06:12:34 UTC

In the rule “Codons”, add the Codon TGG with JonathanDark as the Discoverer and the Effect as follows:

For each Organism with a Stage of at least 2, randomly select a Room connected to their current Room containing at least 1 Genetic Engineer (excluding all Rooms with the word “Airlock” or “Freezer” in their names), and if there is such a Room, move that Organism to that Room.

 

Synthesis #3:

On our third synthesis attempt, we have finally created two viable lifeforms! Please treat them well.

Two ACT Codons were processed. Genome before and after the Mutations:

GCTTGTGCACA
ACTTCTGCACT

Call for Judgment: Lanyard Dash

Reached quorum 3 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Nov 2024 18:29:38 UTC

In the rule “Synthesis”, replace “Genetic Researcher” with “Genetic Engineer”.

Uphold the two Synthesis actions attempted by the Head Researcher at 14:21 on 25 October 2024 and 14:50 on 30 October 2024.

The Synthesis rule has been using the wrong term for players, in a way that would have prevented the Synthesis actions from being performed.

Proposal: Paging Doctor Beat

Exceeded quorum, 4-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 02 Nov 2024 03:44:52 UTC

To the second paragraph of Synthesis, add:-

If there are one fewer Submissions than the number of Healthy Genetic Engineers, then the Head Researcher is encouraged to publicly remind the remaining Engineer (on Discord or the blog) that they need to submit a Mutation.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Proposal: Actually JonathanDark was the Name of the Scientist

Exceeded quorum, 4-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 02 Nov 2024 03:40:31 UTC

In “Codons”, after “along with their corresponding effect when the Synthesize action is performed” add:-

and optionally the name of a Genetic Engineer (or idle Genetic Engineer) who Discovered them

Add a column called “Discoverer” to the table in “Codons”. Mark ACC as discovered by Desertfrog, CGA as discovered by JonathanDark and ATC as discovered by Kevan.

To the end of the bullet list in “Synthesis”, add:-

* For each Genetic Engineer who Discovered a Codon which is currently present in the Genome, give that Genetic Engineer 1 Research.

In the ACT Codon effect, replace “1 Research Point” with “3 Research Points” and “2 Research Points” with “6 Research Points”.

In “Hypotheses”, replace “may pay 1 Research Point” with “may pay 3 Research Points”.

Multiply every Genetic Engineer’s Research score, and the Cost of every Mutation, by 3.

Was expecting this dynasty to have more in-character Codon proposals. Having Codons credited to their discoverer (i.e. probably the proposer), and awarding some research benefit for the ones that get manifested, may encourage that. Tripling the existing Research values so that we can use a smaller denomination reward value for this.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Second Synthesis

Second Synthesize action complete. All four Mutations went through, but there were no Codons with effects in the Genome.

For comparison, this was the genome before and after the Mutations (but before the new Nucleotide was added):

ATAGTCGCCC
CTTGTCGACA

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Proposal: How to Play the Synthesizer

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 31 Oct 2024 16:09:58 UTC

Replace the first three paragraphs of “Synthesis” with:-

Each Genetic Engineer has a Planned Mutation, privately tracked by the Head Researcher: this is either a Mutation from the Mutations subrule along with any specified information that it requires, or is blank.

A Genetic Engineer may, as a Virtual Action, pay the cost of a Mutation to change their Planned Mutation to it, so long as they meet any Requirements that Mutation has. If the Mutation requires anything to be specified, they should specify it when taking the action. A Genetic Engineer may also set their Planned Mutation to blank, as a Virtual Action.

Submissions is the number of Genetic Engineers whose Planned Mutation is not blank, out of the total of Healthy Genetic Engineers, and is publicly tracked by the Head Researcher.

If every Healthy Genetic Engineer has a non-blank Planned Mutation, then the Head Researcher can and should perform the Synthesize action, an atomic action consisting of the following steps:

Add a rule called “The Filing Cabinet”:-

The Head Researcher may, at any time, set a Genetic Engineer’s Planned Mutation to match that Genetic Engineer’s most recent Mutation request under the ruleset prior to the enactment of “How to Play the Synthesizer”.

The Head Researcher may repeal this rule at any time.

Making “privately submit to the Head Researcher a single Mutation” into a virtual action so that it inherits all the boilerplate for that. Right now it has a hardcoded change-your-request option, but no option to just cancel a request, nor the ability for the Emperor to say if and why an action failed.

(I started spitballing a subtype of virtual action for “only process when every player has submitted an order”, but “set a decision as virtual, process when all are set” seems to do the job.)

Proposal: Players Please [Building Blocks]

Timed out 2 votes to 0 at reduced quorum, with 2 unresolved player DEFs. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 31 Oct 2024 16:09:15 UTC

Remove “Low-Player Mode” from the Building Blocks section of the ruleset.

Putting it to a vote, but personally if someone does drop out at this point, I’d rather get more players on board (and/or to wait for Clucky to return) to get the dynasty started properly, than doggedly try to play the game out as a three or even two player Nomic.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Proposal: Preferential Treatment

Fewer than a reduced quorum not voting AGAINST (1 FOR, 2 AGA, 1 DEF, IMP DEF). Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 30 Oct 2024 12:13:34 UTC

In the rule “Codons”, replace “Some Codons may be assigned to one or more Rooms, Organisms, and/or Genetic Engineers. There is a publicly tracked table that lists all such assignments.” with the following text:

Codons have either zero Preferences, or one or more publicly-tracked Preferences, each of which may be a Room, an Organism, or a Genetic Engineer. Any Codon that does not have one or more publicly-tracked Preferences is considered to have zero Preferences. The effect of a Preference when applied to that Codon is either defined in other rules, or if not defined, that Preference has no effect.

Rename “Assigned to” to “Preference” in the gamestate.

This has the same mechanical effect as Lukas’ previous Proposal, but I think it’s a more thematically-appropriate way of stating it. Simply put, a Codon’s Preference allows it to be more impactful when the Preference applies, i.e. a Codon that’s particularly adapted to a certain Room or certain Organism, or even a certain Genetic Engineer.