I’d like to bring up just two additional points:
- The current run and tumble, as far as I remember, has been okayed by the theory team to be basically be how microbes behave in real life. So if we deviate from that it needs very strong argumentation as to why we are making the game less realistic. Of course a valid concern is that if the run and tumble behaviour is too “dumb” for microbes to really survive in the game environment, then it is something we need to address
- While much less talked about recently, players really seem to be enthusiastic about getting to design how their species behaves. The behaviour tab had been waited for many years and I think quite many players find it enjoyable to pick behaviours for their species. With this in mind with a NN it wouldn’t be possible for players to do this anymore. So basically if we go with a NN we are cutting out a pretty major gameplay feature out of the game that currently exists, and there are plans to make it even more advanced (Behavior Editor Implementation - #13 by Buckly).