Rocket Lander

A rocket spawns near the top of the canvas with random drift and has to land softly on a pad below. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) evolves a thrust and gimbal program that pulls off the landing.

How it works

1. Each chromosome is sixteen real numbers in [0, 1]: eight evenly-spaced control points with a thrust value and a gimbal value at each.
2. Fifteen rockets fall through the same conditions at the same time so you can compare their programs.
3. Crashes score zero. Clean landings score by softness, uprightness, and how centred they touched down.
4. The fittest programs become parents; their children inherit a mix, then a few values drift slightly.

What to watch

• Generation zero is chaos. After a handful of generations a few rockets pause near the pad and fire short bursts to settle.

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