Distance-based mortality model in netlogo - netlogo

Question

I am calculating cumulative turtle mortality in netlogo as a function of distance moved by turtles (100 of them) from the origin (start-patch) in the netlogo interface world. In the code below the 'Pass-Away' procedure is linked to a global interface switch called "space-death" which when switched on yields said distance-based mortality undertaken by the procedure called "Pass-Away-Space", otherwise maintains regular per-time-step (tick) mortality undertaken by the procedure called "Pass-Away-Time":
to Pass-Away-Time
ask turtles [
let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * ticks )
if chances >= 1 [die
set dead-count dead-count + 1
]
]
end
to Pass-Away-Space
ask turtles [
let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * [distance start-patch] of turtles)
if chances >= 1 [die
set dead-count dead-count + 1
]
]
end
to Pass-Away
ask turtles [
ifelse space-death [
Pass-Away-Space][
Pass-Away-Time
]
]
end
I get two errors doing this, both likely due to issues with the coding of the "Pass-Away-Space" procedure. The first is Only the observer can ASK the set of all turtles. Then when I move the let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * [distance start-patch] of turtles) outside of the ask turtles[] brackets this error is resolved only yield another that says ** expected input to be a number but got the list* followed by a sequence of numbers. Perhaps due to the fact that the section of the mortality equation that reads * [distance start-patch] of turtles is invoked for multiple turtles (which is exactly what I want to achieve - have each random-walking turtle use its distance from the origin to calculate its cumulative per-step mortality and die above a threshold - an event that occurs at different times for different turtles at different distances). Any thoughts on how to resolve this?

Answer 1

The first error is because you are asking all turtles to ask all turtles. Starting with your Pass-Away procedure and assuming space-death is set to TRUE. What happens? You ask all turtles to run the Pass-Away-Space procedure. That is, each turtle will run that procedure in turn. The first step of that procedure is to ask turtles [ ]. So a turtle is asking all turtles to do something. Hence the error.
To fix it, you need to rewrite the Pass-Away-Space procedure so it runs whatever code needs to be run for a SINGLE turtle (and similarly for Pass-Away-Time). You probably want something like:
to Pass-Away-Space
if exp( -1 * mortality * [distance start-patch]) < 0
[ die
set dead-count dead-count + 1
]
end

Answer 2

So the first issue here is the nested use of the ask turtles [ ... ] command, which we can disambiguate by removing it from the to Pass-Away procedure or alternatively, from both of the other two (preceding) functions nested within it, as seen below (demonstrating the later of the aforementioned means.
let start-patch patch 0 0
to Pass-Away-Time
ask turtles [
let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * ticks )
if chances >= 1 [die
set dead-count dead-count + 1
]
]
end
to Pass-Away-Space
ask turtles [
; let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * [distance start-patch] of turtles)
let chances 1 - exp( -1 * mortality * (distance start-patch))
if chances >= 1 [die
set dead-count dead-count + 1
]
]
end
to Pass-Away
ifelse space-death [
Pass-Away-Space][
Pass-Away-Time
]
end
The second error can be resolved by switching the line of code commented (;) out in the to Pass-Away-Space procedure withe the immediate succeeding line so that when each turtle attempts to execute chances, cumulative per-distance (from origin) mortality is not calculated as an array of turtle chances with the use of the [distance start-patch] of turtles command, but rather per individual turtle with (distance start-patch) whenever the procedure is called by the nesting to Pass-Away procedure.