Methods for optimizing energy savings and reducing cycle time for mutating an industrial robotic path when a collision is detected. A method includes initializing a plurality of clone paths where a collision was detected, wherein a clone path is a clone of the initial path and the initial path comprises a source location, a plurality of intermediate locations, and a target location; for each clone path, determining a candidate path to store in a population, determining an optimal breed comprising the candidate path with an optimal rating, wherein the optimal rating is determined by the lowest breed rating in the population, and returning the optimal breed.