Issue 57 30 March, 1997
______________________________________________________________________________
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.
Aging is slow on the pizza hills these days, but traffic is heavier than the
change in age implies. There have been over 430 mailings to the pizza hills
in the last 30 days, most of the submissions going to the limited process
hill. The beginner's hill had the next highest number of submissions with
the '94 hill relatively quiet. You can find all theses usage statistics
in a relatively new addition to the pizza homepage. Very nice.
Philip Kendall has been kind enough to provide us with this issues hint on
pspace brains.
--M R Bremer
______________________________________________________________________________
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
Last challenge: Fri Mar 21 06:54:21 PST 1997
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 44.7/ 36.6/ 18.7 The Bloodhound Ian Sutton 152.8 10
2 38.1/ 27.2/ 34.6 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 149.0 26
3 40.9/ 35.7/ 23.4 Tides v0.1 Ian Oversby 146.1 22
4 33.8/ 21.8/ 44.3 RetroQ P.Kline 145.9 38
5 36.5/ 27.5/ 36.0 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 145.5 102
6 34.7/ 24.0/ 41.2 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 145.5 292
7 30.8/ 16.2/ 53.0 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 145.5 238
8 41.5/ 37.9/ 20.6 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 145.1 84
9 37.7/ 31.0/ 31.3 Quimp v0.2 Ian Oversby 144.4 6
10 41.1/ 39.0/ 19.9 NCC-1701-A Philip Kendall 143.1 41
11 41.1/ 39.7/ 19.2 The Machine Anton Marsden 142.4 144
12 32.7/ 23.4/ 43.9 unrequited love kafka 142.1 336
13 44.3/ 47.7/ 8.0 He Scans Alone P.Kline 141.0 53
14 29.6/ 18.8/ 51.6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 140.5 277
15 40.4/ 41.1/ 18.6 Blain Nimon 139.7 4
16 38.9/ 38.3/ 22.7 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 139.5 279
17 39.2/ 39.0/ 21.8 Ace of Spades 2 Christian Schmidt 139.4 3
18 38.7/ 38.5/ 22.7 Scanitator 5 Christian Schmidt 138.9 3
19 29.9/ 21.3/ 48.8 Trident^2 John K W 138.5 168
20 37.5/ 39.8/ 22.7 More testing Thos 135.3 3
21 27.7/ 21.7/ 50.6 blue spark 0.04 bjoern guenzel 133.8 18
22 37.5/ 41.2/ 21.3 One Man Army v1.0 Ian Sutton 133.7 2
23 33.1/ 33.5/ 33.4 Fast Fast Fast v2 Franz 132.7 52
24 39.3/ 46.7/ 14.0 Instant Ogre Edgar 132.0 1
25 32.4/ 34.8/ 32.8 Instant Ogre Edgar 130.1 21
Monthly age: 12 this month ( 13 last issue, 9 the issue before )
New warriors: Turnover/age rate %
Average age: 88 ( 93 last issue, 119 the issue before )
Average score: 141 ( 135 last issue, 134 the issue before )
The top 25 warriors are represented by 14 independent authors: Oversby with
4; Schmidt with 3; Sutton, Kline, JKW, Marsden and Edgar with 2. All others
with one warrior each.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's New
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 44.7/ 36.6/ 18.7 The Bloodhound Ian Sutton 152.8 10
9 37.7/ 31.0/ 31.3 Quimp v0.2 Ian Oversby 144.4 6
15 40.4/ 41.1/ 18.6 Blain Nimon 139.7 4
17 39.2/ 39.0/ 21.8 Ace of Spades 2 Christian Schmidt 139.4 3
18 38.7/ 38.5/ 22.7 Scanitator 5 Christian Schmidt 138.9 3
20 37.5/ 39.8/ 22.7 More testing Thos 135.3 3
22 37.5/ 41.2/ 21.3 One Man Army v1.0 Ian Sutton 133.7 2
24 39.3/ 46.7/ 14.0 Instant Ogre Edgar 132.0 1
Bloodhound vaults onto the scene.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's No More
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
26 1.3/ 1.9/ 0.9 QFalcon (vii) Ian Oversby 4.6 23
26 26.6/ 29.4/ 44.1 Terkonit 0.4 Christian Schmidt 123.8 43
26 30.7/ 41.6/ 27.8 Scanitator 4 Christian Schmidt 119.7 37
26 33.0/ 43.2/ 23.8 Instant Wolf Edgar 122.8 57
26 38.2/ 50.8/ 10.9 Memories Beppe 125.6 152
26 34.4/ 47.1/ 18.4 Oblivion Ian Sutton 121.7 99
26 27.9/ 35.1/ 37.0 Dust 7.0 Justin Kao 120.6 6
26 2.2/ 0.6/ 1.2 Test I Ian Oversby 7.8 3
Bezzi's well known Memories falls. QFalcon was killed by its author and
replaced by the successful Quimp. Oblivion falls just short of the New Hall
of Fame.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's Old
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
12 32.7/ 23.4/ 43.9 unrequited love kafka 142.1 336
6 34.7/ 24.0/ 41.2 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 145.5 292
16 38.9/ 38.3/ 22.7 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 139.5 279
14 29.6/ 18.8/ 51.6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 140.5 277
7 30.8/ 16.2/ 53.0 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 145.5 238
______________________________________________________________________________
OLD 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
______________________________________________________________________________
NEW HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still active.
Pos Name Author Age Strategy
1 Probe Anton Marsden 403 Q^2 -> Bomber
2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 396 Scanner
3 unrequited love kafka 336 * Stone/ imp
4 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 292 * Q^2 -> Stone/ imp
5 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 279 * Q^2 -> Bomber
6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 277 * Stone/ imp
7 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior
8 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 238 * Q^2 -> Stone/ imp
9 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/ imp
10 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 -> Scanner/ bomber
11 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior
12 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior
13 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 Stone/ imp
14 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/ imp
15 Frogz Franz 172 Paper
16 Trident^2 John K W 168 * Stone/ imp
17 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner
18 The Machine Anton Marsden 144 * Scanner
19 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 P-warrior
20 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Paper
21 mrb-test m r bremer 106 ?
22 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 105 Bomber
23 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 102 * Q^2 -> Stone / imp
24 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 100 P-warrior
Nine Seven Six enter the hall while Bezzi's Memories ends its run.
______________________________________________________________________________
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
Last challenge: Sun Mar 30 11:23:28 PST 1997
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 51.4/ 38.5/ 10.1 Pentagram 2.a J.A.Denny 164.4 40
2 47.2/ 34.7/ 18.1 Hexagram J.A.Denny 159.8 38
3 47.4/ 43.6/ 9.0 Scankiller 0.1 Christian Schmidt 151.3 50
4 46.0/ 41.2/ 12.8 Flamberge 13.4 Matt Lewinski 150.7 88
5 37.6/ 24.7/ 37.7 Dust 7.0 Justin Kao 150.5 18
6 46.8/ 43.4/ 9.9 The Stainless Steel Rat Christian Schmidt 150.2 61
7 41.0/ 32.0/ 27.0 Flimsy v0.6 Ian Oversby 149.9 39
8 38.6/ 27.4/ 34.1 Scanitator 3.0 Christian Schmidt 149.7 45
9 45.8/ 42.0/ 12.2 Mostly Harmless v1.1 Justin Kao 149.5 69
10 43.3/ 37.8/ 18.9 Vivid Radiation 2.0 Matt Lewinski 148.7 87
11 44.8/ 41.6/ 13.5 Short Sword 4 JS Pulido 148.1 20
12 40.5/ 33.5/ 26.0 Versatility 1.7 Ross Morgan-Linial 147.5 66
13 38.2/ 30.5/ 31.2 Zorm-B Anonymous 145.9 23
14 45.1/ 46.9/ 8.0 qDeath v .069 Ryan Coleman 143.3 3
15 42.3/ 44.2/ 13.5 Dwa Michaly b Waldemar Bartolik 140.3 26
16 28.8/ 17.9/ 53.3 DemonSpawn J.A.Denny 139.7 48
17 35.3/ 32.6/ 32.0 Apocalypse Matt Lewinski 138.1 96
18 29.7/ 23.2/ 47.1 Quantum Christian Schmidt 136.2 42
19 31.6/ 29.8/ 38.6 Heartworm Edgar 133.3 36
20 30.2/ 31.3/ 38.4 Kohonenian Dream Robert J. Street 129.1 12
21 31.7/ 35.2/ 33.1 Kohonenian Dream Robert J. Street 128.3 11
22 33.6/ 41.7/ 24.7 Time Lag 1c3 Ilmari Karonen 125.4 22
23 31.1/ 39.5/ 29.4 Five-Finger Discount From Ryan Coleman 122.8 2
24 33.8/ 46.1/ 20.1 Five-Finger Discount From Ryan Coleman 121.5 8
25 34.3/ 52.4/ 13.3 Five-Finger Discount From Ryan Coleman 116.1 1
Top 25 Averages:
39.0/ 36.5/ 24.5 141.6 38
______________________________________________________________________________
Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Limited Process Hill:
Hill Specs:
coresize: 8000
max. processes: 8
duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
max. entry length: 200
minimum distance: 200
rounds fought: 200
instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft
Last challenge: Fri Mar 28 21:18:16 PST 1997
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 60.0/ 29.2/ 10.7 Limb Rending Incisors Ian Sutton 190.8 5
2 55.1/ 34.7/ 10.3 Solomon LP v0.1 Ian Oversby 175.4 2
3 50.2/ 33.0/ 16.8 Flips Zul Nadzri 167.4 6
4 45.8/ 24.3/ 29.9 Indecisive v0.1 Ian Oversby 167.4 11
5 46.3/ 31.9/ 21.8 Bolder v0.01 Ian Oversby 160.7 10
6 49.0/ 37.5/ 13.5 Romulan Warbird Philip Kendall 160.5 15
7 45.0/ 30.6/ 24.4 Twin Flame Ian Oversby 159.4 36
8 43.0/ 28.0/ 28.9 Paper 'LP' II Philip Kendall 158.1 32
9 41.0/ 27.7/ 31.3 Benchmark 1.0 Zul Nadzri 154.3 30
10 42.3/ 36.8/ 21.0 Bag of Tricks Anton Marsden 147.8 20
11 41.5/ 35.8/ 22.7 red marble bjoern guenzel 147.2 25
12 40.7/ 35.7/ 23.5 Romantica Zul Nadzri 145.8 3
13 39.3/ 36.5/ 24.2 Inferno 1.8 Philip Kendall 142.2 52
14 41.8/ 41.3/ 16.9 red eye bjoern guenzel 142.2 26
15 34.1/ 26.3/ 39.6 Paper 'LP' Philip Kendall 141.9 53
16 36.0/ 33.8/ 30.2 Iocane 0.0 John K W 138.2 19
17 36.5/ 38.4/ 25.1 oldtimer bjoern guenzel 134.6 38
18 35.0/ 40.4/ 24.6 rimmer 2.0 jkw 129.6 44
19 37.0/ 45.6/ 17.4 Hopefully Indestructible Ian Sutton 128.5 24
20 37.0/ 46.6/ 16.4 Juggernaut Anton Marsden 127.4 29
21 33.7/ 45.1/ 21.2 Dr. Gate v4 Franz 122.3 40
22 31.0/ 46.1/ 22.9 Dr. Gate Franz 115.9 42
23 21.5/ 33.9/ 44.6 Completely Indestructible Ian Sutton 109.1 22
24 32.3/ 56.7/ 11.0 One Man Army v1.0 Ian Sutton 107.8 28
25 4.0/ 0.0/ 0.0 test Philip Kendall 12.0 1
Top 25 Averages:
39.2/ 35.0/ 22.0 139.5 24
______________________________________________________________________________
The Hint--by Philip Kendall
Some pspace engines
Whilst I was developing NCC-1701-A (the Starship Enterprise, for any
non-trekkies out there :-) ), a pspaced one shot and suicidal stone, I got the
feeling that the simple switch-on-loss pspace algorithm wasn't working that
well: an unlucky loss for my one shot would kick the stone in, which would
then lose again, and my losses would be doubled. So, I went looking for some
more complex pspace algorithms, but didn't find anything that really grabbed
my attention. Quite a few concentrated on detecting brainwashing, and
recovering from it, but at the time I wrote Enterprise, there weren't any
brainwashers on the hill, and there were a lot of qscans, making fast response
times crucial. Eventually, a couple of things that looked like what I wanted
showed up: the switcher from Core Warrior 39, which switched on
loss/loss,loss/tie,tie/loss or tie/tie and that used in Ian Sutton's Oblivion,
which switched on n losses without a win. However, both of these looked like
they could have a couple of cycles and instructions shaved off them, so I went
about building my own. Whilst I was at it, I built up a small library of
pspace routines, which is basically what's here - the entry point for all
routines is pGo, and also any constants are defined only in the first switcher
they are used in, so check back if you get any undefined symbol errors.
(For those of you not familiar with pspace, Beppe wrote a brief introduction
in Core Warrior 5, available from Planar's page:
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/
as are all warriors mentioned in this article)
Basic switch-on-loss from Core Warrior 5
This is just the switcher used by Beppe in Core Warrior 5, just re-labelled.
It's probably the simplest switcher possible: it's main virtues are that it
is short and fast (always good!) and that it won't suicide if brainwashed.
However, as mentioned above, spurious losses will mean that the optimal
strategy will not always be running, and this costs points.
One simple modification which can be made to this is to change the pThink line
to sne.ab #1,pGo which changes this from a switch-on-loss to a switch-on-loss
or tie.
pResult equ 0 ; pMARS puts results in here
pSpace equ 1 ; we store our current strategy here
pNum equ 2 ; how many strategies are we using?
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,#0
ldp.a #pSpace,pTable
pThink sne.ab #0,pGo
add.a #1,pTable
mod.a #pNum,pTable
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
[other strategies if you want them, remember to increase pNum]
end pGo
Length: 6 + 1/strategy
Cycles to completion: after Win/Tie: 6
Loss : 7
Improved switch-on-loss
This is very similar to the above switcher, but with two changes: firstly, and
less important, the add.a #1,pTable line has been changed to
nop.f }pTable,}-1000: this has two advantages 1) If the b-field of this
instruction happens to be hit very early in the round, the warrior will still
behave properly and 2) It gets a free bomb in. Both minor advantages, but
there are no disadvantages, so why not? The second, and more important, change
is that the pspace value is not re-stored unless it has changed (note that it
still always undergoes a mod before being used); this saves a cycle and leads
to exactly the same behaviour (well, almost exactly... bonus point to the
first person to e-mail me with the difference). Disadvantages of this
switcher: same as before, and also it can't be modified to a switch-on-loss or
tie, without losing it's speed advantage.
If the jmn.b pGood,pGo line is changed to jmn.b pTable,pGo, the switcher gets
another cycle quicker on a win or a tie, but it then has the possibility of
suicide if it is brainwashed and doesn't lose. Whether this is a good thing or
not depends on the number of brainwashers on the hill, what they're
brainwashing with, how quick your boot routine is and countless other things.
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,#0
ldp.a #pSpace,pTable
jmn.b pGood,pGo
nop.f }pTable,}-1000
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace
pGood mod.a #pNum,pTable
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
end pGo
Length: 6 + 1/strategy
Cycles: Win/Tie: 5
Loss: 7
Switch on n consecutive losses
This is the switcher used in NCC-1701-A: if the warrior loses for pLosses
consecutive rounds, then it will switch to the next strategy in its table.
This means that a spurious loss for the optimal strategy won't kick in another
strategy, and so the hill placing is (hopefully) improved. Also, after a win
or a tie, it is as quick as the above switchers, but is quite a bit slower
after a loss, and also bigger.
One potential problem with this switcher is that it is very zero brainwash
sensitive: if it is brainwashed with a zero, the first strategy in the table
will be selected, and the loss counter reset, which could produce problems if
this strategy lost reguarly to the brainwasher. If pLosses is 2, the switcher
can be modified by changing pLoss to ldp.ab #pSpace2,#1 and pThink to jmz.b
pWin,pLoss, to make it sensitive to a 1-brainwash rather than 0-brainwash,
whilst if pLosses>2, then changing pLoss to ldp.ab #pSpace2,#1 and pThink to
cmp.b pLoss,#1 will have the same effect, but increasing the running time by 1
cycle for a loss without switch.
One final modification that can be made is changing the first three lines to
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,pJump
ldp.a #pSpace1,pTable
pJump jmp.a @0,pLoss
dat.f 0,pTie
which will lead to a switch after pLosses rounds without a win. Note that this
modification is not compatible with the brainwash changes above, and changes
the stats to: Length: 12+1/strategy. Cycles: Win: 6, Tie/Loss no switch:10,
Tie/Loss switch: 12, First round: 4
pSpace1 equ 1 ; used to store the current strategy
pSpace2 equ 2 ; used to store the loss counter
pLosses equ 3 ; how many losses before we switch
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,#0
ldp.a #pSpace1,pTable
pJump jmn.b pWin,pGo
pLoss ldp.ab #pSpace2,#0
nop.f >pLoss,}-1000
mod.ab #pLosses,pLoss
pThink jmn.b pWin,pLoss
nop.f }pTable,}-2000
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace1
pWin stp.b pLoss,#pSpace2
mod.a #pNum,pTable
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
end pGo
Length: 11 + 1/strategy
Cycles: Win/Tie: 6
Loss: when no strategy switch occurs: 10
when switch occurs: 12
Switch on loss, select on tie number 1
This switcher and the next have the same behaviour: on a loss, they will
change to the next strategy in their table, whilst they will select a specific
strategy after a tie. This first switcher (taken from Ian Oversby's Falcon
v0.5, hope he doesn't mind :-) ) is slower but smaller than the second.
pSelect equ 0 ; which to select on tie
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,#0
ldp.a #pSpace,pTable
sne.ab #0,pGo
add.a #1,pTable
sne.ab #2,pGo
mov.a #pSelect,pTable
mod.a #pNum,pTable
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
Length: 8 + 1/strategy
Cycles: Win: 7
Tie/Loss: 8
Switch on loss, select on tie number 2
pGo ldp.a #pResult,pJump
ldp.a #pSpace,pTable
pJump jmp.a @0,pLoss
dat.f 0,pWin
dat.f 0,pTie
[any number of instructions you like in here]
pTie mov.a #(pSelect-1),pTable
pLoss nop.f }pTable,}-1000
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace
pWin mod.a #pNum,pTable
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
Length: 9 + 1/strategy
Cycles: First round: 4
Win: 5
Tie: 8
Loss: 7
Switch on n losses without a win
This switcher is very similar to the switch on n consecutive losses switcher
above, but has different enough behaviour to warrant a separate entry (I
think, and I'm writing this, so it does!). The only difference here is that a
tie will not reset the loss count, so a sequence of loss-tie-loss-loss will
cause a switch, if pLosses is equal to 3. Note that this is both smaller and
faster than that used by Ian Sutton in Oblivion :-)
pGo ldp.ab #pResult,pJump
ldp.a #pSpace1,pTable
pJump jmp.a @0,pLoss
dat.f 0,pWin
dat.f 0,pTie
[any number of instructions here]
pLoss ldp.ab #pSpace2,#0
nop.f >pLoss,}-1000
mod.ab #pLosses,pLoss
pThink jmn.b pWin,pLoss
nop.f }pTable,}-2000
stp.ab pTable,#pSpace1
pWin stp.b pLoss,#pSpace2
pTie mod.a #pNum,pTable
pTable jmp.a @0,strat1
dat.f 0,strat2
Length: 13+1/strategy
Cycles: First round: 4
Win: 6
Tie: 5
Loss: switch: 12
no switch: 10
Now, the difficult question: which of these switchers should you use? Well, as
you'd expect, there's no simple answer to that: it depends on your components
and the warriors on the hill, and the warriors to come on the hill in the
future. All these switchers have fast response times, meaning that quickscans
are not a serious problem, if you have fast boot routines, but are quite
sensitive to brainwashing. This reflects the make-up of the hill when I wrote
them, but who's to say what the future will hold? - a brainwashing paper has
already appeared on the hill...
Other switchers I could mention include that used by Paul Kline in Yogi Bear,
which can actually have different responses for each component depending on
whether a win, a loss or a tie occured, but which is rather big and slow, and
that used by John K Wilkinson in Hazy Shade II, which is very resistant to
brainwashes.
Philip Kendall
pak21@cam.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extra Extra
NCC-1701-A by Philip Kendall
By most successful '94 warrior to date, there's nothing really original in
this warrior apart from the switcher - everything else has been seen before.
As it comes in three parts, Phasers, a suicidal stone, Photon Torpedoes, a
one-shot scanner and the switcher, I'll make some quick comments on each part
individually:
1. Phasers: this is basically Carbonite, taken from Ian Sutton's Oblivion,
with just a few changes by me: firstly, I increased the bombing run to its
maximum duration (about another 30 bombs in 3500), and also I made the spare
field on the spl drive the djn stream. As Beppe mentioned back in Core Warrior
31, this has three advantages: it make the djn stream cover a wider area
(decrementing most of a warrior will normally be effective), it can trigger
more cmp scans, and it can decrement a warrior without triggering its
decrement detector (eg jmz.b loop,#0 in Torch t18). The boot routine has also
been changed slightly. The suicidal tendency of this component is an advantage
here, as it means the switcher can be more responsive, as Phasers tends to
either win or lose, with very few ties.
2. Photon Torpedoes: this is just One Shot, as was seen in the lower reaches
of the hill a while back: it was designed specifically as a stone/imp killer,
and still does that job quite effectively, even when pspaced with Phasers, but
maybe a spl/spl/dat clear would be better than the stargate clear used here on
the hill as it is - oh well, ideas for the future!
3. Captain Kirk: this switcher, a switch on 5 consecutive losses (see above)
basically has the effect of switching at most once during the fight - it
starts off with Phasers active, and if something beats this 5 times
consecutively, then Photon Torpedoes will be used instead; whilst many things
can get 5 consecutive wins against Phasers, due to its suicidal coreclear, not
much get can do this against Photon Torpedoes, meaning that this component
will tend to stay active once it is switched to.
As I write this, Memories, which NCC-1701-A trashed due to its pure stone, has
just been kicked off the hill, so I predict a downward jump for the Enterprise
:-( Well, it was good while it lasted! One last thing - in case you hadn't
noticed, most of the source code has been available via ;show source, but
here's the full version, with all the constants etc as on the hill, so don't
abuse them...
;redcode-94
;name NCC-1701-A
;author Philip Kendall
;strategy Captain Kirk is commanding the USS Enterprise
;strategy He has two weapons at his disposal:
;strategy 1) Photon Torpedoes (aka One Shot)
;strategy 2) Phasers (modified Carbonite)
;strategy Original self-destructed over Genesis to prevent Khan
;strategy from gaining possession
;strategy The new version has an improved phaser array
;strategy Also, Kirk has had advanced tactical training from Starfleet
;assert CORESIZE==8000
;planar pspace,boot,stone,scan,clear,gate
;show source
;show off
tStep equ 30
tSep equ 15
tStream equ (tPtr-412)
;show on
tScan1 equ (tInc+tStep)
tImp equ 2667
tCstart equ (tLast+2-tPtr)
tPtr dat.f tBomb1,#0 ; scanned-low
tBomb3 dat.f >tImp,>(2*tImp)
tInc dat.f tStep,tStep
tBomb2 spl.a #(tBomb3-tPtr),tCstart
tLoop add.f tInc,tScan
tScan sne.i tScan1,tScan1+tSep
djn.f tLoop,<tStream
mov.ab tScan,tPtr
tBomb1 spl.a #(tBomb2-tPtr),tCstart
tClear mov.i *tPtr,>tPtr
mov.i *tPtr,>tPtr
tLast djn.f tClear,<tStream
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
dat.f (tBomb1-tPtr),#0 ; scanned-hi
;show off
tBdist equ 3018
;show on
tBoot
i for (tLast-tPtr+1)
mov.i (tPtr+i-1),>tBptr
rof
spl.a *tBptr,>-1000
div.f tBptr,tBptr
tBptr dat.f (tScan+tBdist),(tPtr+tBdist) ; scanned-low
spl.a #1,1
;show off
pspace1 equ 318
pspace2 equ 167
;show on
losses equ 4
kirk ldp.ab #0,#0
ldp.a #pspace1,strat
jmn.b win,kirk
loss ldp.ab #pspace2,#0
nop.f >loss,}-400
mod.ab #losses,loss
jmn.b win,loss
nop.f }strat,>-800
stp.ab strat,#pspace1
win stp.b loss,#pspace2
mod.a #2,strat
strat jmp.a @0,pBoot
spl.a #1,tBoot
dat.f 1,1 ; scanned-hi
spl.a #1,*1
;show off
pBdist equ -2138
;show on
pBoot mov.i {pBomb,{pBptr
mov.i pBomb,@pBptr
mov.i {pBomb,{pBptr
mov.i {pBomb,{pBptr
mov.i {pBomb,{pBptr
spl.a *pBptr,<4000
div.f pBptr,pBptr
pBptr dat.f #pStart+pBdist,#pStart+pBdist-pOffset-4
spl.ab *1,#1
spl.ba *1,#1
spl.f *1,#1
spl.x *1,#1
spl.i *1,#1
spl.a #1,#1 ; scanned-low
spl.a #1,*1
spl.b #1,*1
;show off
pOffset equ 15
pStep equ 197
pStream equ (pStart-1152)
;show on
pStart spl.a #0, <pStream
pLoop mov.i (pStart-pOffset), pStep
pHit add.ab #pStep,pLoop ; gets bombed to start coreclear
djn.f pLoop, <pStream
pBomb dat.f >0, >2667 ; a-field changed to -1 by boot
spl.a *1,#1
spl.b *1,#1
spl.ab *1,#1
spl.ba *1,#1
spl.f *1,#1
spl.x *1,#1
spl.i *1,#1
spl.a #1,#1 ; scanned-hi
spl.a #1,*1
spl.b #1,*1
spl.ab #1,*1
spl.ba #1,*1
spl.f #1,*1
spl.x #1,*1
spl.i #1,*1
spl.a *1,#1
spl.b *1,#1
spl.ab *1,#1
spl.ba *1,#1
spl.f *1,#1
spl.x *1,#1
spl.i *1,#1
dat.f 0,0 ; scanned-low
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
spl.a #1,1
end kirk
_____________________________________________________________________________
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>
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