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> Home > The Corewar Newsletters > Core Warrior > Issue #1

Issue 53                                                     16 December, 1996
______________________________________________________________________________
Core Warrior is a weekly newsletter promoting the game of corewar.  Emphasis
is placed on the most active hills--currently the '94 draft hill and the
beginner hill.  Coverage will follow where ever the action is.  If you have
no clue what I'm talking about then check out these five-star internet locals
for more information:

FAQs are available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as
pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z
FTP site is: ftp.csua.berkeley.edu /pub/corewar
Web pages are at: (Please note new Stormking's address)
http://www.koth.org/                            ;Stormking
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth        ;Pizza
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/      ;Planar

Newbies should check the stormking page for the FAQ, language specification,
guides, and tutorials.  Post questions to rec.games.corewar.  All new players
are infinitely welcome!

If ftp.csua.berkeley.edu is unreachable, you can download pMARS at:
Terry's web page--http://www.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/
Planar ftp site--ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars
Fechter ftp site--ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar

A collection of Bezzi's hints in the first issues is available at:
ftp://ftp.volftp.vol.it/pub/pc/msdos/games/solutions/bbhints.zip

Beppe Bezzi web page - http://www.aspide.it/freeweb/Bezzi
______________________________________________________________________________
Greetings.

Sorry for the delay and for incomplete data but I had an HD crash and I
lost, together with lots of other thing, part of the mail from Pizza.

I wish you all a merry Christmas and an happy new year, we'll see agin next
january.

--Beppe Bezzi

______________________________________________________________________________
Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server ICWS '94 Draft Hill:

Hill Specs:
   coresize: 8000
   max. processes: 8000
   duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
   max. entry length: 100
   minimum distance: 100
   rounds fought: 200
   instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft

 #   %W /  %L /  %T                       Name               Author Score  Age
 1  51.3/ 42.6/  6.1            He Scans Alone              P.Kline 160.0    4
 2  37.9/ 22.0/ 40.1           unrequited love                kafka 153.8  287
 3  39.2/ 25.6/ 35.2                    Gigolo   Core Warrior staff 152.8  243
 4  43.2/ 35.0/ 21.8              Solomon v0.8          Ian Oversby 151.4   35
 5  33.2/ 15.9/ 50.9      Return Of The Jedimp             John K W 150.5  189
 6  38.2/ 28.2/ 33.6            Nine Seven Six           M R Bremer 148.1   53
 7  42.7/ 37.4/ 19.9               The Machine        Anton Marsden 148.0   95
 8  33.7/ 21.1/ 45.2                 Trident^2             John K W 146.2  119
 9  42.2/ 39.9/ 17.9                  Oblivion           Ian Sutton 144.6   54
10  44.6/ 45.9/  9.5                  Memories               Beppe  143.2  103
11  40.4/ 38.3/ 21.3          Silver Talon 1.2                Edgar 142.5   76
12  40.6/ 41.4/ 18.1                    Blur 2        Anton Marsden 139.7  366
13  39.8/ 39.9/ 20.2              Instant Wolf                Edgar 139.7   10
14  35.8/ 32.2/ 32.0         Fast Fast Fast v2                Franz 139.4    3
15  39.1/ 39.1/ 21.9       Damage Incorporated        Anton Marsden 139.1  230
16  30.0/ 20.9/ 49.2               Impish v0.2          Ian Oversby 139.1  228
17  34.8/ 30.9/ 34.3               Falcon v0.3          Ian Oversby 138.6  272
18  39.8/ 42.6/ 17.6                     Probe        Anton Marsden 137.1  367
19  35.1/ 33.7/ 31.2                    scTest              P.Kline 136.4   18
20  37.9/ 40.2/ 22.0              Tsunami v0.5          Ian Oversby 135.6   11
21  29.9/ 24.5/ 45.6              Terkonit 0.3    Christian Schmidt 135.4    1
22  36.4/ 37.7/ 25.9              Tiberius 3.1                Franz 135.0  106
23  35.3/ 35.9/ 28.8                       YAP                Franz 134.7   16
24  36.6/ 39.0/ 24.4                CC Paper 2                Franz 134.2   78
25  40.1/ 47.7/ 12.2            Scankiller 0.1    Christian Schmidt 132.5   27

Weekly age: 43 this week ( 22 last issue, 11 the issue before )
New warriors: 9  Turnover/age rate 21%
Average age: 119 ( 91 last issue, 145 the issue before )
Average score: 142 ( 137 last issue, 137 the issue before )
The top 25 warriors are represented by 12 independent authors: Franz, Marsden
and Oversby with 4; JKW, Edgar, Schimdt and Kline with 2; everyone else with
one.

Paul Kline, after some time of vacation, strikes back with his new scanner,
putting it on top of the hill. King position was held also by Solomon,
another new entry, Gigolo and unrequited love.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's New ( or this week:  the uplook )

 #   %W /  %L /  %T                       Name               Author Score  Age
 2  41.6/ 35.9/ 22.5              Solomon v0.8          Ian Oversby 147.2    1
20  40.1/ 48.0/ 11.9                  Tim Tack              P.Kline 132.1    1
21  39.8/ 47.9/ 12.3            Scankiller 0.1    Christian Schmidt 131.7    1
23  32.9/ 35.5/ 31.6                    scTest              P.Kline 130.2    1
17  33.7/ 36.0/ 30.3                       YAP                Franz 131.5    1
13  38.1/ 40.7/ 21.2              Tsunami v0.5          Ian Oversby 135.6    1
19  36.8/ 42.2/ 21.0              Instant Wolf                Edgar 131.4    1
 1  47.9/ 46.2/  5.8            He Scans Alone              P.Kline 149.6    1
12  34.2/ 33.3/ 32.5         Fast Fast Fast v2                Franz 135.0    1
19  28.1/ 25.6/ 46.3              Terkonit 0.3    Christian Schmidt 130.5    1

Two big new entries: He scans alone and Solomon and some movement in the
mid/low part of the hill.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's No More ( or this week:  the outlook )

 #   %W /  %L /  %T                       Name               Author Score  Age
26  37.0/ 48.7/ 14.4               Pentagram 2            J.A.Denny 125.3    5
26  36.7/ 46.7/ 16.6                     AK-47                Franz 126.7   48
26  36.0/ 44.1/ 19.9                 vamp 0.2b       bjoern guenzel 127.9   34
26   1.9/  2.0/  0.1                  Tim Tack              P.Kline   5.7   17
26  35.4/ 43.6/ 21.0             Frontwards v2       Steven Morrell 127.2   23
26  37.9/ 50.2/ 12.0                  Tim Tack              P.Kline 125.6    8
26  34.5/ 41.4/ 24.2              Instant Wolf                Edgar 127.6   22
26  26.7/ 27.2/ 46.2              Terkonit 0.2    Christian Schmidt 126.2   23
26   1.6/  1.7/  0.7            Scanitator 3.0    Christian Schmidt   5.4   42

No aged warrior pushed off this week
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's Old ( or this week:  the grey look )

 #   %W /  %L /  %T                       Name               Author Score  Age
18  39.8/ 42.6/ 17.6                     Probe        Anton Marsden 137.1  367
12  40.6/ 41.4/ 18.1                    Blur 2        Anton Marsden 139.7  366
 2  37.9/ 22.0/ 40.1           unrequited love                kafka 153.8  287
17  34.8/ 30.9/ 34.3               Falcon v0.3          Ian Oversby 138.6  272
 3  39.2/ 25.6/ 35.2                    Gigolo   Core Warrior staff 152.8  243
16  30.0/ 20.9/ 49.2               Impish v0.2          Ian Oversby 139.1  228

Impish enters the over 200 club.
______________________________________________________________________________
HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still active.

Pos    Name                  Author          Age     Strategy
 1  Thermite II            Robert Macrae     2262    Qscan -> bomber
 2  Impfinity v4g1         Planar            1993    Stone/ imp
 3  Jack in the box        Beppe Bezzi       1620    P-warrior
 4  Tornado 3.0            Beppe Bezzi       1567    Bomber
 5  Torch t18              P.Kline           1539    Bomber
 6  Chameleon              Myer R Bremer     1437    P-warrior
 7  Frontwards v2          Steven Morrell    1420    One shot scanner
 8  Evol Cap 6.6           John Wilkinson    1299    Imp / stone
 9  quiz                   Schitzo           1262    Scanner/ bomber
10  T.N.T.                 Maurizio Vittuari 1204    Bomber
11  Grilled Octopus v0.5   David Boeren      1154    P-warrior
12  Hazy Shade II          John Wilkinson    1102    P-warrior
13  Stepping Stone         Kurt Franke       1049    Qscan -> Vampire
14  Rosebud                Beppe Bezzi        993    Stone/ imp
15  Iron Gate 1.5          Wayne Sheppard     926    CMP scanner
16  T.N.T. pro             Maurizio Vittuari  925    Bomber
17  Agony II               Stefan Strack      912    CMP scanner
18  Barrage                Anton Marsden      876    Qscan -> replicator
19  Blue Funk              Steven Morrell     869    Stone/ imp
20  Flurry                 Anton Marsden      835    Qscan -> pwarrior
21  Thermite 1.0           Robert Macrae      802    Qscan -> bomber
22  Blue Funk 3            Steven Morrell     766    Stone/ imp
23  Night Train            Karl Lewin         755    Replicator
24  Mirage 1.5             Anton Marsden      736    Scanner/ bomber
25  Blizzard               Anton Marsden      713    Qscan -> replicator

No changes this week, and I think we won't see any for long
______________________________________________________________________________
Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Beginner's Hill:

Hill Specs:
         coresize: 8000
   max. processes: 8000
         duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
max. entry length: 100
 minimum distance: 100
      maximum age: At age 100, warriors are retired.
    rounds fought: 200
  instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft

  #   %W /  %L /  %T                       Name               Author Score  Age
 1  48.2/ 36.1/ 15.7          Silver Talon 1.1                Edgar 160.3   84
 2  49.5/ 40.0/ 10.5             Pentagram 2.a            J.A.Denny 159.0    5
 3  47.9/ 38.7/ 13.4          Goothmonger v1.2           Ian Sutton 157.1   28
 4  45.9/ 34.9/ 19.1                  Hexagram            J.A.Denny 156.9    3
 5  48.3/ 42.9/  8.8            Scankiller 0.1    Christian Schmidt 153.7   15
 6  34.8/ 16.1/ 49.1              Terkonit 0.3    Christian Schmidt 153.6    2
 7  43.2/ 35.9/ 20.9               Flimsy v0.6          Ian Oversby 150.4    4
 8  45.7/ 45.2/  9.1   The Stainless Steel Rat    Christian Schmidt 146.3   26
 9  39.6/ 33.0/ 27.4            Scanitator 3.0    Christian Schmidt 146.2   10
10  43.8/ 41.6/ 14.6            Flamberge 13.4        Matt Lewinski 146.1   53
11  40.7/ 35.5/ 23.9           Versatility 1.7   Ross Morgan-Linial 145.9   31
12  38.0/ 31.4/ 30.6            Hammermill 4.0        Matt Lewinski 144.7   90
13  33.0/ 21.5/ 45.5                DemonSpawn            J.A.Denny 144.4   13
14  42.2/ 42.8/ 15.0      Mostly Harmless v1.1           Justin Kao 141.5   34
15  40.5/ 39.7/ 19.8                       MI6       Philip Kendall 141.3   77
16  37.4/ 33.8/ 28.8                Apocalypse        Matt Lewinski 141.1   61
17  40.5/ 40.4/ 19.0      Microsoft Office '96           Justin Kao 140.6   80
18  40.3/ 41.1/ 18.6       Vivid Radiation 2.0        Matt Lewinski 139.5   52
19  35.4/ 33.0/ 31.6                Dust 0.7.5           Justin Kao 137.7   30
20  38.9/ 42.1/ 19.0                  HAL 9000           Justin Kao 135.7   96
21  39.2/ 44.3/ 16.5         Bash the Rat V1.4           Ian Sutton 134.2   45
22  40.4/ 47.3/ 12.3                  Hologram       Philip Kendall 133.5   24
23  32.2/ 31.1/ 36.7              Escargot 0.5           Justin Kao 133.3   50
24  30.3/ 27.8/ 42.0                   Quantum    Christian Schmidt 132.8    7
25  31.4/ 31.4/ 37.2                 Heartworm                Edgar 131.3    1

Top 25 Averages:
    40.3/ 36.3/ 23.4                                                144.3   36
______________________________________________________________________________
The Hint
Gigolo

Gigolo is a warrior that combines the effectivenes of Probe's Q^2 scan
against slow starting pspacers, and the core trashing power of Rosebud
stone, enhanced with improved imps taken from Impfinity.
 
At the beginning I were looking for a way to improve Rosebud, with a faster
launch for his imps; this because the q^2 were giving lots of problems. 

Impfinity uses a smaller continual launcher that's faster to boot and to
begin generating imp rings, just coupling it with my stone improved its
score some points. Not wanting too many imps I placed the launchers in a
position to be stopped by the stone once generated the right quantity of imps.
 
The tuning was rather long, and the whole thing works at his best only if
every part is in the right position. I know that one could take advantage
from knowing the realtive positions of the imps and the stone at his
advantage, but I decided to hide only the distance of them from the q^2 to
allow you see how Gigolo works. (BTW making it work with different values is
something I don't want to do now :-)

Second step was taking the q^2 from probe, just shortend for space reasons
and a bit improved in the pattern by Anton; this added a few more points
boosting Gigolo on top of the hill; he remained here some time and never
slipped below sixt-seventh position.


;redcode-94 verbose
;name Gigolo
;author Core Warrior staff
;strategy q^2 -> stone/imp
;strategy Rosebud stone, Probe qscan, Impfinity imps
;strategy v 0.2 new qscan
;assert CORESIZE == 8000 
;kill Gigolo

istep   equ     2667
bstep01 equ     2214
bstep02 equ     3285

trash equ       (boot01+7-359)
impoff equ      (boot01+5+365)
pmpof01 equ     (impoff+1*istep-571)
pmpof02 equ     (impoff+2*istep-493)

step    equ     -845
djnoff  equ     split+step
away    equ     impoff+2906

QB EQU (start+1800)
QS EQU (QD*2)
QD EQU 100

GAP EQU 12
REP EQU 8
REP2 EQU 2

datz EQU (table-3)

	 dat    10*QS, 2*QS ; can get 21 values from this table
table:   dat     4*QS, 1*QS ; and can also use the initial value
	 dat    23*QS, 3*QS ; of fnd

qinc:    spl    #GAP,-GAP
tab:     add.a  table,table
slow:    add.a  @tab,fnd
fast:    add.ba *tab,@slow
which:   sne.i  datz,*fnd
	 add.a  #QD,fnd
	 mov.i  datone,*fnd
	 add.ab fnd,fnd

fnd:    mov.i  QB,GAP/2
        add.f  qinc,fnd
	mov.i  datone,*fnd
	djn.b  fnd,#REP
	jmp    boot,}QS*13

start:
	    ; WHICH
	seq.i  QB+QS*0,QB+QS*0+QD
	jmp    which,}QB+QS*0+QD/2
	    
	     ; FAST
	 seq.i  QB+QS*1,QB+QS*1+QD
	 jmp    fast,}QB+QS*1+QD/2
	    
	 seq.i  QB+QS*13,QB+QS*13+QD
	 jmp    fast,{fast
	 seq.i  QB+QS*2,QB+QS*2+QD
	 jmp    fast,{tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*3,QB+QS*3+QD
	 jmp    fast,}tab
	    
	    ; SLOW
	 seq.i  QB+QS*4,QB+QS*4+QD
	 jmp    >fast,}QB+QS*4+QD/2
	 seq.i  QB+QS*5,QB+QS*5+QD
	 jmp    slow,}QB+QS*5+QD/2
	    
	 seq.i  QB+QS*6,QB+QS*6+QD
	 jmp    slow,{tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*7,QB+QS*7+QD
	 jmp    slow,}tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*10,QB+QS*10+QD
	 jmp    >fast,<tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*11,QB+QS*11+QD
	 jmp    slow,<tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*12,QB+QS*12+QD
	 djn.f  slow,tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*23,QB+QS*23+QD
	 jmp    >fast,>tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*24,QB+QS*24+QD
	 jmp    slow,>tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*17,QB+QS*17+QD
	 jmp    slow,{fast
	    
	    ; TAB
	    
	 seq.i  QB+QS*8,QB+QS*8+QD
	 jmp    <fast,}QB+QS*8+QD/2
	 seq.i  QB+QS*9,QB+QS*9+QD
	 jmp    tab,}QB+QS*9+QD/2

         seq.i  QB+QS*15,QB+QS*15+QD
	 jmp    tab,<tab
	    
	 seq.i  QB+QS*16,QB+QS*16+QD
	 jmp    tab,{tab
	 seq.i  QB+QS*20,QB+QS*20+QD
	 djn.f  <fast,tab

boot    
	spl     impboot,}QB+QS*21
	mov     cc,     @stptr1
for 5
	mov     {stptr, {stptr1
rof
	spl     *stptr1,<4000
stptr1  div.f   #split+away,#split+away+2
datone  dat     }1,>1

impboot
	spl     boot02,}QB+QS*22
i FOR 2

boot&i
j FOR 4
	mov.i   {pdst&i, <pdst&i
ROF
	mov.i   instr&i, impoff+(i-1)*istep
for i==1

;-break
	
	spl     *stptr1,}QB+QS*23
rof
	jmp     @pdst&i, >trash-15-i*2
psrc&i  dat     0,      0
pdst&i  dat     pend&i, pmpof&i+pend&i-pump&i
point&i equ     (pump&i-pmpof&i+impoff+(i-1)*istep)
pump&i  spl     #1, >prime&i
ptr&i   spl     pump&i-pmpof&i+impoff-istep-1, {1335+i  ;335+i
	add.f   #istep+1, ptr&i
prime&i mov.i   point&i, point&i-2
pend&i
instr&i mov.i   #istep, *0
ROF

clr     spl     #0,     0
split   spl     #-step, <step
stone   mov     >-step, step+1
	add     split,  stone
cnt     djn.f   stone,  <djnoff
stptr   
cc      dat     0,      #-9
	
	end start

______________________________________________________________________________
Questions?  Concerns?  Comments?  Complaints?  Mail them to people who care.
authors: Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@nemo.it> or Myer Bremer <bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu>
or Anton Marsden <amarsden@etherspace.gen.nz>
© 2002-2005 corewar.info. Logo © C. Schmidt