{retorte petridish: microorganism simulator faq}

Introduction, Graph, Current situation, Strain top ten, Create your own strain!, Frequently asked questions

Here some answers to frequent questions.

What exactly is the purpose of this 'microorganism simulator'?

Fun for me and high level entertainment for my valued visitors.

Will there be a winner?

In this simulation it is not about winning and losing in a classical sense. Since there is no timeframe after which the simulation stops (it thus runs potentially forever!) there can't be such thing as a 'winner of the game'.
However, you can consider yourself as current big shot if your strain has been constantly heading the stats for some time.

Why does it update only once in 15 minutes?

Otherwise the server would probably explode.

I've just entered a new strain, why is it not visible in the strain list and the plots?

New bacteria are only inserted once every three hours (i don't know the exact moment). The strain list is updated every 10 minutes. Just wait these 10 minutes to see your strain in the list.

Hey, the amoeba is no bacterium! Neither is the paramecium!

Yes, yes, some people told me already. There are some good reasons for this:
- The whole things name is 'microorganism simulator'
- They look way better than dull bacteria, hence i used them as icons
- Hey, i'm computer scientist, not biologist! What do you expect?

I entered a strain with identical values as the current top strain, but they don't perform very well. Why that?

The performance of your bacteria depends not only on your values, but to a big part as well on the current situation in the petridish. It may be that you're lucky and there is plenty of food around for your bacteria. It could as well be that your strain enters the simulation in a very bad moment where there is just no appropriate food around. Furthermore, to prevent you from simply copying the values of another strain, the characteristics are randomized to a certain amount.