It's fall and that means it's time for another Less Wrong Darwin Game. This year, you'll be designing up to ten species that will compete for food including (sometimes) eating each other.

~~Click here to participate~~ [Entries are now closed.] You have one week from September 23 to design your species. Submit them by September 30th or earlier.

Each player starts with a population of organisms. Each round each of your organisms will be randomly paired with another organism. At this point, one of two things will happen:

If one organism can eat the other organism then it will do so.
If nobody gets eaten then both organisms get an opportunity to forage for plants.

After everyone has eaten, each organism will attempt to reproduce. The more an organism eats you eat the most descendents an organism can leave.

Food

Each round your organisms lose 20% of their energy to metabolism resulting (on average) in a 20% decrease in population. You must eat food to counteract metabolism. There are two sources of food: plants and other animals.

Predation

There are two phases to combat. In the first phase organisms size each other up to figure out which is the predator and which is prey. There are two ways for an organism to become the predator.

Venom. If one organism has venom but the other does not have antivenom then the organism with venom is the predator. (Antivenom is a prerequisite to venom.)
Weapons. Weapons represent claws, teeth and tusks. If either organism's weapons value exceeds the prey's weapons + armor then the organism with the higher weapons value will become the predator.

Venom takes priority over weapons. Once a predator-prey relationship is established (if a predator-prey relationship is established) the prey will get a chance to escape. If the prey's speed equals or exceeds the predator's then nobody gets eaten.

Venom, weapons and antivenom all make your organism bigger, which slows down reproduction.

Adaptation	Size	Notes
Venom	6	Requires Antivenom
Antivenom	1
Weapons $\times n$	$n$	$n \geq 0$
Armor $\times n$	$\frac{3 n}{4}$	$n \geq 0$
Speed $\times n$	$n$	$n \geq 0$

Omnivores priorize meat over plants, when they can get it even if foraging for plants would be more metabolically efficient^[1].

Predation has an efficiency of 0.95^[2]. That means 95% of the prey's energy can be used by the predator.

Only organisms of different species eat each other. Cannibalism is disabled.

Foraging for Plants

There are var...

2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game

2021 Less Wrong Darwin Game