April 2, 1994 Issue #5
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This newletter covers the current status of the ICWS '94 Draft hills,
and also attempts to keep up with the latest ideas in how the new standard
will affect corewars in general. I hope you enjoy it!
If you are unfamiliar with the '94 draft standard, you can learn more about
it by reading the FAQ for this newsgroup. In addition, the program pMARS
includes a highly recommended tutorial on the new standard. Feel free
to send me e-mail if you have any difficulty finding either of them, if you
need to have a corewar item mailed to you, or if you have any other questions.
The FAQ is available through anonymous FTP to rtfm.mit.edu, as
/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z
______________________________________________________________________________
The ICWS '94 Draft Hill:
Core size: 8000 instrucitons
Max processes: 8000 per program
Duration: After 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
Max entry length: 100 instructions
The current ICWS '94 Draft hill:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 42/ 31/ 27 Killer instinct Anders Ivner 154 10
2 38/ 24/ 38 NC II Wayne Sheppard 153 65
3 38/ 25/ 37 Sphinx v5.1 W. Mintardjo 150 68
4 32/ 22/ 46 ttti94 nandor sieben 143 16
5 43/ 44/ 13 Fire Storm v1.1 W. Mintardjo 142 71
6 34/ 27/ 40 JustTakingALookSee J.Layland 141 64
7 31/ 22/ 47 ttti nandor sieben 140 21
8 40/ 42/ 17 Sylvester v1.0 Brant D. Thomsen 139 47
9 32/ 25/ 43 Twimpede/88 Jay Han 139 1
10 39/ 43/ 18 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 136 3
11 39/ 43/ 17 Ntttgtstitd Simon Hovell 136 11
12 31/ 27/ 42 Snake Wayne Sheppard 134 20
13 38/ 42/ 21 Fast Food v2.1 Brant D. Thomsen 134 23
14 38/ 43/ 19 Beholder's Eye v1.7 W. Mintardjo 132 77
15 40/ 47/ 13 Rave 4 Stefan Strack 132 4
16 40/ 48/ 12 Rave Stefan Strack 132 48
17 38/ 44/ 18 SJ-4 J.Layland 131 14
18 37/ 42/ 21 Christopher Steven Morrell 131 9
19 36/ 42/ 22 tiny J.Layland 130 45
20 39/ 49/ 13 Testing an Idea Brant D. Thomsen 128 2
21 39/ 50/ 12 Impurge 94 Fredrik Ohrstrom 127 7
It looks like the '94 draft hill has really slowed down. I would speculate
that this is a result of the greatly increased amount of attention being
given to the '94 experimental hill. The one new program since the last
issue to make it onto the hill is Jay Han's "Twimpede/88".
Congratulations, Jay, on this unique honor!
______________________________________________________________________________
The ICWS '94 Draft Experimental Hill:
Core size: 55,440 instructions
Max processes: 10,000 per program
Duration: After 500,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
Max entry length: 200 instructions
The current ICWS '94 Experimental hill:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 48/ 28/ 24 Request-55440 Brant D. Thomsen 169 35
2 33/ 11/ 56 Variation A-1.a Jay Han 156 4
3 46/ 40/ 14 Kill Imps!!! Steven Morrell 152 22
4 35/ 24/ 41 CG-X IV Brant D. Thomsen 145 86
5 31/ 17/ 52 Lucky 13 Stefan Strack 144 1
6 28/ 15/ 57 Twimpede Jay Han 141 2
7 44/ 47/ 9 Rave B4 Stefan Strack 140 44
8 21/ 10/ 69 Imperfection v2.3 Michael Constant 132 29
9 36/ 40/ 24 Vanity IIx Stefan Strack 132 26
10 23/ 19/ 58 Bimper Wayne Sheppard 127 10
11 29/ 34/ 36 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 124 45
12 37/ 51/ 12 The Count Jay Han 124 25
13 35/ 50/ 16 Dagger v6.0 X Michael Constant 119 75
14 21/ 22/ 57 BigImps James Layland 119 95
15 18/ 20/ 62 BigImp Alex MacAulay 117 76
16 18/ 22/ 60 Skimp 127 Jay Han 113 57
17 27/ 47/ 26 Sunburst 33 Jay Han 107 65
18 10/ 21/ 68 bimp.c test Wayne Sheppard 99 12
19 11/ 22/ 67 bimp.c test Wayne Sheppard 99 20
20 5/ 26/ 70 Impale v2a James Ojaste 84 3
21 1/ 1/ 3 Lucky 13 Stefan Strack 5 7
Before I even attempt to summarize what has been happening on the '94
experimental hill, I think it would be helpful to reprint the hill as it
was during the last issue. (17 Days previously.)
The current ICWS '94 Experimental hill:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 53/ 12/ 35 BigImp Alex MacAulay 194 25
2 52/ 17/ 30 Imperfection v1.0 X Michael Constant 187 21
3 60/ 34/ 6 Rave 3 (55440) Stefan Strack 185 36
4 42/ 13/ 45 Skimp 127 Jay Han 171 6
5 54/ 42/ 4 No Ties Allowed Wayne Sheppard 166 41
6 51/ 38/ 10 Dagger v6.0 X Michael Constant 164 24
7 41/ 17/ 42 BigImps James Layland 164 44
8 49/ 39/ 12 Sunburst 33 Jay Han 159 14
9 44/ 31/ 25 CG-X IV Brant D. Thomsen 157 35
10 49/ 42/ 10 BS J.Layland 156 43
11 41/ 34/ 25 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 148 40
12 35/ 26/ 39 FatImp Jay Han 144 1
13 40/ 50/ 10 Silly 2 James Ojaste 130 7
14 41/ 54/ 5 Silly James Ojaste 129 9
15 33/ 46/ 21 testing testing Fredrik Ohrstrom 121 31
16 32/ 46/ 22 Crimp Jay Han 118 2
17 34/ 53/ 13 VJX-2a James Ojaste 115 28
18 28/ 42/ 31 Bloom Jay Han 114 12
19 30/ 50/ 20 Surprise7b James Ojaste 109 10
20 32/ 59/ 8 VJX-2 James Ojaste 105 29
Since the last issue of _The_'94_Warrior_, 51 new programs have made it onto
the hill -- this is 3 new programs a day. Of the first 12 programs on
the hill, only one was on the hill during the last issue. More programs have
been submitted in this period than in the entire life of the hill previously.
(Are you getting the point yet?!)
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the current standings on the hill
is the amount of diversity there is between the warriors. Scanners, stones,
and imp-spiral combinations are all well represented. In fact, the warrior
currently at the top of the hill is a vampire. (Certainly not what I would
have predicted.) It looks as if this is the hill where the excitement is!
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HINTS and HELPS:
To assist program development on the '94 experimental hill, I have used
Michael Constant's "Optima" program to calculate the twenty most-efficient
step-sizes for mods 1 to 10. (A mod 1 step-size will eventually cover
every location in the core, a mod 2 step-size will eventually cover one-half
of the locations in the core, etc.)
Notice that there is a bug in the version of "Optima" released last year.
A quick fix is to make the variable "i" in the function "opt" long instead
of short. An easier fix will be to wait until Michael releases the next
version. This bug only makes itself known when using a large coresize and
a large step size. In fact, it was due to this bug that I ended up using
a step-size of 9719 in the 55440 coresize version of Request -- it was the
best mod 1 step the program could find.
[The source code for Request-55440 will probably be included in the next
issue. I figured the following tables would be more useful given the current
number of programs being submitted to the '94 experimental hill. Also, there
are a couple of points about program development I am finishing up for a
future hint, and "Request" will be good example to use for them.]
Results of running "Optima" on a 55440 size core:
Mod 1:
16211 6.183968
23269 6.183968
15481 6.132795
16921 6.132795
22889 6.113332
24151 6.113332
16369 6.065658
21649 6.065658
12689 6.056693
15611 6.056693
20509 6.056693
21151 6.056693
20617 6.052941
22873 6.052941
12503 6.048468
16393 6.048468
16817 6.045978
21247 6.045978
9719 6.028265
23399 6.028265
Mod 2:
16238 11.586204
20498 11.477182
21502 11.477182
22766 11.439446
23266 11.439446
15458 11.393845
16462 11.393845
12718 11.343555
23278 11.343555
11974 11.340597
20474 11.340597
15314 11.325805
22706 11.325805
16894 11.307190
23234 11.307190
20546 11.242397
21074 11.242397
20458 11.233378
24422 11.233378
20558 11.232151
Mod 3:
24357 16.517452
21381 16.368905
22971 16.368905
14907 16.340657
20373 16.340657
21057 16.330429
22503 16.330429
14691 16.305265
15261 16.305265
19461 16.144705
20571 16.144705
24483 16.085124
16473 16.023107
20607 16.023107
16827 16.003463
22773 16.003463
9687 16.002976
23007 16.002976
19911 15.997132
23439 15.997132
Mod 4:
22964 22.001587
20996 21.523631
24356 21.523631
17228 21.204705
24148 21.204705
22756 21.191717
23476 21.191717
15548 21.175265
22892 21.175265
20068 21.112923
23228 21.112923
24196 20.981312
23404 20.955336
20476 20.869038
23924 20.869038
16508 20.834981
23428 20.834981
21508 20.811025
22508 20.811025
12988 20.771196
Mod 5:
21445 26.052133
23435 26.052133
9865 25.878055
21215 25.878055
24175 25.794624
24905 25.794624
12115 25.712546
21485 25.712546
16265 25.675566
22735 25.675566
11785 25.657527
16465 25.657527
20315 25.560566
24875 25.560566
16925 25.451881
24125 25.451881
9965 25.415351
21475 25.415351
9925 25.400469
15445 25.400469
Mod 6:
16134 31.110510
21174 31.110510
15234 30.829960
21486 30.829960
21246 30.807230
20994 30.786449
16374 30.408486
14946 30.113649
19986 30.113649
19938 29.889598
21522 29.889598
17142 29.831800
24198 29.831800
16194 29.815564
24834 29.815564
20298 29.745427
24762 29.745427
20058 29.643468
21642 29.643468
17382 29.622686
Mod 7:
16373 35.304963
21427 35.304963
21007 35.243086
24367 35.243086
20041 35.102538
21049 35.102538
24157 34.939891
24997 34.939891
21623 34.906301
24983 34.906301
23429 34.649956
25459 34.649956
17129 34.616366
21161 34.616366
15043 34.480237
21077 34.480237
20293 34.479353
22547 34.479353
14651 34.413057
24899 34.413057
Mod 8:
12104 39.494299
24184 39.494299
20344 39.289941
21256 39.289941
15272 39.236831
21752 39.236831
16232 39.235676
22952 39.235676
19864 38.698802
20296 38.698802
20456 38.686102
25064 38.686102
13144 38.587964
23384 38.587964
24424 38.525617
25096 38.525617
16024 38.514071
16904 38.514071
23416 38.514071
24296 38.514071
Mod 9:
12087 44.316123
21177 44.316123
14967 43.623478
24903 43.623478
21141 43.594252
21501 43.594252
20961 43.468583
21519 43.468583
16983 43.337068
22887 43.337068
11997 43.281539
21627 43.281539
14841 43.227472
22761 43.227472
19647 43.107647
21663 43.107647
16749 42.900146
24309 42.900146
16461 42.870921
24219 42.870921
Mod 10:
19990 48.630705
21050 48.630705
21470 48.029948
22930 48.029948
16210 47.889230
24830 47.889230
16910 47.670936
24130 47.670936
13150 47.441819
23230 47.441819
9970 47.376872
22910 47.376872
15350 47.310121
22790 47.310121
12490 47.265019
19930 47.265019
21430 47.061158
23930 47.061158
16930 47.021469
19330 46.691322
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Looking to the Future:
The lastest draft of the standard has been on soda.berkeley.edu for a couple
of months now (as /pub/corewar/documents/icws94.0202.Z). Take a look at it
and let the newsgroup know what you think. There are some interesting
additions to the former '94 draft standard, so it's worth your effort
to get a copy and study it.
Also, please submit your programs to the '94 hills. We'd love to have your
best KOTH warrior on the standard '94 hill, even if it is still '88
compliant.
If you have any comments or questions about the '94 hills or the '94
standard that you think might be of general interest, please let me know.
Good luck, and happy computing!
______________________________________________________________________________
Brant D. Thomsen, Editor Snail mail: 1197 East 6290 South
(bdthomse@peruvian.cs.utah.edu) Salt Lake City, UT 84121
University of Utah U.S.A.
--
Brant D. Thomsen Man will occasionally stumble over the truth,
(bdthomse@peruvian.cs.utah.edu) but most times he will pick himself up
University of Utah and carry on. - Winston Churchill
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