Issue 67 18 May,1998
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Core Warrior is a 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 from:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z
http://www.koth.org/corewar-faq.html
FTP site is: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror
and: ftp://www.koth.org/corewar
pMARS itself is also available from:
Stormking web pages--http://www.koth.org/pmars.html
Terry's web page--http://www.ncs.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/
Fechter ftp site--ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar
Web pages are at:
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!
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
_______________________________________________________________________________
Hi everybody,
here it is... the next issue. After the Redcode Maniac Tournament was over
the traffic on the hill was very high.
Sorry for the big gap since the last issue, but I hope you'll be satisfied
with the code of Alien, one of my actual hill warriors.
Ok, happy programming...
Christian
_______________________________________________________________________________
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 35.8/ 29.2/ 35.0 Fixed Ken Espiritu 142.4 57
2 35.0/ 28.6/ 36.4 Vigor Ken Espiritu 141.5 61
3 32.9/ 25.2/ 41.9 Tuesday Afternoon John K W 140.6 1
4 34.2/ 27.9/ 37.9 Alien Christian Schmidt 140.5 6
5 33.5/ 27.1/ 39.4 Vain Ian Oversby 139.9 73
6 42.5/ 45.7/ 11.8 Silccon M. J. Pihlaja 139.3 15
7 35.0/ 31.4/ 33.6 Sphere Christian Schmidt 138.5 6
8 38.0/ 38.7/ 23.3 The Body Guard Ian Oversby 137.4 0
9 39.3/ 42.8/ 17.9 hTest 6000 P.Kline 135.8 0
10 34.8/ 33.9/ 31.3 Digitalis 4 Christian Schmidt 135.6 45
11 38.3/ 41.9/ 19.8 Electric Head 2 Anton Marsden 134.6 1
12 30.4/ 26.6/ 43.0 Newt Ian Oversby 134.1 151
13 30.0/ 26.0/ 43.9 Ultraviolet-B Ken Espiritu 134.1 83
14 34.2/ 34.8/ 31.0 Scanitator Pro Christian Schmidt 133.7 1
15 34.0/ 34.8/ 31.2 Fire and Ice David Moore 133.3 46
16 24.7/ 16.9/ 58.4 Return Of Return Of The J John K W 132.6 23
17 25.5/ 20.1/ 54.4 Fugitive David Moore 130.8 27
18 28.0/ 27.2/ 44.8 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 128.7 2
19 31.2/ 33.9/ 34.9 obvious to those who know Robert Macrae 128.4 109
20 34.4/ 41.0/ 24.6 BiShot Christian Schmidt 127.8 17
21 35.5/ 43.8/ 20.7 )(( Ca*mou*flage ))( Sayembara 127.2 7
22 32.3/ 37.6/ 30.2 Tornado 4 Beppe Bezzi 126.9 75
23 34.9/ 44.6/ 20.6 One or Zero Sayembara 125.2 3
24 28.0/ 31.1/ 40.9 Indecisive Robert Hale 124.9 8
25 30.8/ 39.4/ 29.8 Vixen Robert Hale 122.2 1
Age since last issue: 34 ( 11 last issue, 6 the issue before )
New warriors: 16 Turnover/age rate 53%
Average age: 32 ( 34 last issue, 34 the issue before )
Average score: 133 ( 135 last issue, 134 the issue before )
The top 25 warriors are represented by 12 independent authors: Schmidt with 5,
Oversby, Espiritu and Wilkinson with 3, Hale, Moore and Sayembara with 2 and
everyone else with just one.
It's the time of Espiritu with his two very strong papers Fixed and Vigor in
the first two ranks.
_______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's New (sorted by rank and points)
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 27.3/ 8.9/ 63.8 Fugitive David Moore 145.7 0
1 40.5/ 36.6/ 22.9 The Story In Your Eyes John K W 144.4 0
1 38.9/ 35.3/ 25.9 The Body Guard Ian Oversby 142.5 1
1 35.6/ 28.8/ 35.6 Sphere Christian Schmidt 142.5 1
2 38.3/ 35.8/ 25.9 Liquid Paper v.1.01 Sean McDonald 140.9 1
2 33.3/ 27.1/ 39.6 Alien Christian Schmidt 139.5 0
4 26.7/ 13.3/ 60.1 Return Of Return Of The J John K W 140.1 1
5 43.2/ 44.7/ 12.1 Silccon M. J. Pihlaja 141.7 1
5 31.1/ 25.3/ 43.6 Tuesday Afternoon John K W 137.0 0
8 34.9/ 34.1/ 31.0 Scanitator Pro Christian Schmidt 135.7 0
9 39.3/ 42.8/ 17.9 hTest 6000 P.Kline 135.8 0
9 37.7/ 41.7/ 20.6 Electric Head 2 Anton Marsden 133.6 0
10 37.4/ 42.5/ 20.1 )(( Ca*mou*flage ))( Sayembara 132.2 1
11 28.9/ 23.8/ 47.3 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 134.0 0
12 35.9/ 41.1/ 23.0 BiShot Christian Schmidt 130.6 0
13 33.0/ 33.0/ 34.0 Indecisive Robert Hale 133.0 0
15 40.6/ 47.4/ 12.1 Harquebus M. J. Pihlaja 133.8 0
15 23.2/ 18.1/ 58.6 ROROTJ-11pt John K W 128.5 1
16 37.8/ 42.7/ 19.5 myVamp5.5 Paulsson 132.9 1
19 24.2/ 20.7/ 55.1 Emperor 2 Robert Hale 127.8 0
20 27.3/ 44.5/ 18.2 One or Zero Sayembara 130.1 1
20 32.6/ 37.3/ 30.1 Vixen Robert Hale 127.8 1
21 38.3/ 49.2/ 12.5 harquebus? :) jkw 127.4 1
22 37.5/ 47.3/ 15.1 Eggbeater Anton Marsden 127.7 0
24 25.4/ 30.1/ 44.5 Metal 3 Ivan Krajnovic 120.7 1
25 24.9/ 25.8/ 49.3 The Emperor's Child Robert Hale 124.0 1
So, as everybody can see there are lots of high quality entries and also lots
of KotH's.
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94 - What's No More (sorted by age >15)
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
26 33.5/ 43.6/ 22.9 Electric Head Anton Marsden 123.5 140
26 27.9/ 30.6/ 41.5 Pulp v0.5 Ian Oversby 125.3 105
26 25.8/ 31.2/ 43.1 Vengeance Robert Hale 120.3 101
26 25.6/ 27.3/ 47.1 Benchmark [94] Zul Nadzri 123.8 61
26 30.0/ 34.7/ 35.4 Nomolos Ian Oversby 125.3 43
26 29.6/ 34.9/ 35.5 traumatic smurf bjoern guenzel 124.3 39
26 36.4/ 48.4/ 15.2 Harquebus M. J. Pihlaja 124.4 26
26 33.4/ 45.9/ 20.7 myVamp5.4a Paulsson (+IO) 120.9 26
26 24.3/ 25.6/ 50.1 LeatherNeck Robert Hale 122.9 24
26 33.4/ 44.0/ 22.6 Diamonds and Rust Christian Schmidt 122.8 24
26 34.5/ 45.5/ 20.0 Recycled Bits -- David Moore 123.6 21
26 23.8/ 22.1/ 54.1 Emperor 2 Robert Hale 125.5 17
For the third consecutive issue, the Hill loses its oldest warrior. And with
Pulp and Vangeance two warriors are falling shortly before they enter the new
hall of fame.
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94 - What's Old
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
12 30.4/ 26.6/ 43.0 Newt Ian Oversby 134.1 151
19 31.2/ 33.9/ 34.9 obvious to those who know Robert Macrae 128.4 109
13 30.0/ 26.0/ 43.9 Ultraviolet-B Ken Espiritu 134.1 83
Newt is now the oldest warrior on the hill.
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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
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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 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 373 Q^2 -> Bomber
4 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 357 Q^2 -> Stone/imp
5 unrequited love kafka 346 Q^2 -> Paper
6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 345 Stone/imp
7 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 332 Q^2 -> Stone/imp
8 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior
9 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 232 Q^2 -> Stone/imp
10 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/imp
11 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 -> Scanner/bomber
12 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior
13 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior
14 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 QScan -> Stone/imp
15 Trident^2 John K W 195 Q^2 -> Stone/imp
16 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/imp
17 Frogz Franz 172 Q^2 -> Paper
18 The Machine Anton Marsden 164 Scanner
19 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner
20 Newt Ian Oversby 151 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp
21 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 142 Q^2 -> Paper
22 Electric Head Anton Marsden 140 P-warrior
23 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 Q^2 -> Paper
24 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 116 Stone and scanner
25 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Q^2 -> Paper
Newt climbs to the 20th place, while Electric Head stops on the 22th.
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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: Fri May 15 00:16:19 PDT 1998
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
1 49.8/ 9.5/ 40.8 Bob the ImpStoneer V 1.1 Sean McDonald 190.1 25
2 57.3/ 29.5/ 13.2 meld M. J. Pihlaja 185.1 53
3 52.0/ 29.7/ 18.3 Beescan M. J. Pihlaja 174.2 61
4 49.6/ 26.4/ 24.0 cute John K. Lewis 172.7 91
5 37.0/ 9.1/ 53.8 p-U v.4 Ryan Coleman 164.9 69
6 48.5/ 34.7/ 16.7 Death kiss with a dash of Anders Rosendal 162.3 75
7 46.1/ 33.1/ 20.8 Death kiss Anders Rosendal 159.0 47
8 43.2/ 27.7/ 29.1 Torn M. J. Pihlaja 158.7 89
9 46.2/ 37.9/ 15.9 Incisor+ John Metcalf 154.5 76
10 41.7/ 30.8/ 27.5 Get A-life V3.00 Don H. McGee 152.7 72
11 35.9/ 19.9/ 44.2 March 0.93c Csaba Biro 151.9 38
12 34.2/ 16.9/ 48.9 March 0.92c Csaba Biro 151.5 83
13 41.2/ 31.7/ 27.2 Get A-life V2.04 Don H. McGee 150.6 84
14 28.8/ 16.2/ 54.9 March 0.94 Csaba Biro 141.4 77
15 29.1/ 16.9/ 54.0 fylle Klaus 141.2 87
16 29.2/ 19.8/ 51.0 Qilk v.1 Ryan Coleman 138.6 63
17 26.1/ 15.2/ 58.7 Cold Company John Metcalf 137.1 96
18 34.5/ 36.9/ 28.7 Enceladus v5 Ryan Coleman 132.1 16
19 36.8/ 43.7/ 19.5 kinda 2-pass d-clear P._V._K. 129.9 1
20 22.5/ 42.3/ 35.2 Sachinhamirwasia Sapan Bhatia 102.8 4
21 21.7/ 44.5/ 33.8 Sachinhamirwasia ver 2 Sapan Bhatia 98.9 6
22 17.7/ 55.3/ 27.0 wart02 Anonymous 80.0 12
23 17.2/ 59.7/ 23.0 Sachinhamirwasia ver 2 Sapan Bhatia 74.8 7
24 12.4/ 51.1/ 36.6 Winslet Sapan Bhatia 73.7 14
25 4.5/ 53.2/ 42.3 IMPy WFB 55.8 2
McDonald and Pihlaja dominates the beginner hill followed by Lewis, Rosendal
and Coleman. There are also serveral new names here.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Extra Extra - Alien by Christian Schmidt
Well, as nobody has an article ready for this issue and the gap since the last
issue was getting bigger and bigger I decided to publish one of my hill
warrior. Alien. I choosed this name, because it looks different to all
stone/imp-warriors I've seen before.
The starting idea came after Pihlaja published Harquebus. He talked about how
he lost against Krajnovic's stone/imp warriors and that he eventually used
Carbonite as stone. Mmmh, I decided that this sounds not to bad for some
experiments and I started to build up a stone/imp with Carbonite. The first few
tries weren't very successfull. I booted the Carbonite, started that and then
launched the imp. If the imp was strong (launching with lot of processes)
it lost most of the offensive power and if I used less processes for the
imp it lost too much defensive power. And I wasn't able to find an optimal
point between both these extremes.
Then I remembered how Digitalis works. The JMP/ADD-launcher starts the imp-
spiral AND speeds up the d-clear with lots of processes. So, am I not still
working with a self-splitting stone? Why don't I try the same.
And here is the result of this idea filled with some short comments:
cBoot spl iStart
It gives the best results if it runs parallel, the bootstrap of the stone and
the imp-launcher.
mov cBomb, cSp+cBptr+198
mov cSp, cSp+cBptr
mov cSp+1, cSp+cBptr+1
mov cSp+2, cSp+cBptr+2
mov cSp+3, cSp+cBptr+3
jmp cSp+cBptr, {0
Ok, that's the bootstrap of the stone. Nothing else to say about it.
iStart spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
This five SPL 1 makes 32 parallel processes for the 3-pt imps. Wow, that's a
lot.
spl 2, 0
djn.f imp, <-250
add bst, -1
The JMP/ADD-launcher looks a bit different, due to the DJN instruction. But
it doesn't matter what's used for. I took this directly from Kao's Dust 0.7,
that's the reason.
djn.f cSp+cBptr, <-100
This DJN instruction will decrement 32 consecutive cells in the core by
the 32 processes.
bst dat iStep, -100
Here is the impstep-size for the JMP/ADD-launcher, which add -100 into the
b-field of the first DJN instruction. This means it decrements one cell per
100.
I haven't checked this, but both decrementing actions gives some extra 1/10
points.
cSp spl #0, <-1151+3
mov 197, cAd-(197*3500)
cAd add.ab {0, }0
djn.f -2, <-1151
cBomb dat >-1, >1
Yeah, Carbonite. Directly from Electric Head.
imp mov.i #iStep, *0
And the Imp...
The last step was to add a q^2-scanner in front of the code. I used the
reordered one from Macrae's Benj's Revenge (aka obvious) but with
a tornado-style bomb routine.
;redcode-94
;name Alien
;author Christian Schmidt
;strategy q^2 -> stone/imp
;strategy faster launcher
;assert 1
org start
QS equ (0-200)
QD equ 100
QB equ (start-350)
CR equ (fnd-which)
datz equ (table-3)
GAP equ 8
REP equ 15
cBptr equ 3000
iStep equ 2667
qinc dat >(-1)*GAP*2, >GAP
dat 9*QS, 1*QS
table: dat 5*QS, 2*QS
dat 13*QS, 17*QS
P: add.f table, table
slow: add.ab *P, fnd
fast: add.b @P, @-1
which: sne.i datz, @fnd
add.ab #QD, fnd
add.ba fnd, fnd
qbo mov.i qinc, @fnd
mov.i qinc, *fnd
fnd mov.i (-1)*(GAP/2), @QB
sub.x qinc, fnd
djn.b qbo, #REP
jmp cBoot, }-300
start:
seq.i QB+QS*0,QB+QS*0+QD
jmp which, 0
seq.i QB+QS*2,QB+QS*2+QD
jmp fast, 0
seq.i QB+QS*1,QB+QS*1+QD
jmp fast, <P
seq.i QB+QS*17,QB+QS*17+QD
jmp fast, >P
seq.i QB+QS*7,QB+QS*7+QD
jmp slow, 0
seq.i QB+QS*6,QB+QS*6+QD
jmp slow, <P
seq.i QB+QS*22,QB+QS*22+QD
jmp slow, >P
seq.i QB+QS*11,QB+QS*11+QD
jmp slow, {P
seq.i QB+QS*15,QB+QS*15+QD
jmp slow, }P
seq.i QB+QS*10,QB+QS*10+QD
djn.f slow, P
seq.i QB+QS*5,QB+QS*5+QD
jmp >fast, 0
seq.i QB+QS*9,QB+QS*9+QD
jmp >fast, {P
seq.i QB+QS*13,QB+QS*13+QD
jmp >fast, }P
seq.i QB+QS*14,QB+QS*14+QD
jmp P, 0
seq.i QB+QS*8,QB+QS*8+QD
jmp P, <P
seq.i QB+QS*12,QB+QS*12+QD
jmp P, {P
seq.i QB+QS*32,QB+QS*32+QD
jmp P, }P
seq.i QB+QS*20,QB+QS*20+QD
djn.f P, P
seq.i QB+QS*4,QB+QS*4+QD
jmp }slow, 0
seq.i QB+QS*3,QB+QS*3+QD
jmp }slow, {P
seq.i QB+QS*19,QB+QS*19+QD
jmp }slow, }P
seq.i QB+QS*18,QB+QS*18+QD
djn.f <fast, P
seq.i QB+QS*36+CR,QB+QS*36+QD+CR
jmp }fast, 0
cBoot spl iStart
mov cBomb, cSp+cBptr+198
mov cSp, cSp+cBptr
mov cSp+1, cSp+cBptr+1
mov cSp+2, cSp+cBptr+2
mov cSp+3, cSp+cBptr+3
jmp cSp+cBptr, {0
iStart spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 1, 0
spl 2, 0
djn.f imp, <-250
add bst, -1
djn.f cSp+cBptr, <-100
bst dat iStep, -100
cSp spl #0, <-1151+3
mov 197, cAd-(197*3500)
cAd add.ab {0, }0
djn.f -2, <-1151
cBomb dat >-1, >1
imp mov.i #iStep, *0
Now lets see how well Alien (and three other stone/imps) works against some
warriors:
(200 fights) : DC : TCC : TM : HSA : OS : P : : G : NSS : N : A :
______________________________________________________________________________
Gigolo : 311 : 227 : 242 : 392 : 213 : 289 : : - : 235 : 245 : 251 :
Nine Seven Six : 291 : 333 : 195 : 389 : 249 : 180 : : 283 : - : 287 : 298 :
Newt : 373 : 260 : 257 : 313 : 330 : 190 : : 266 : 224 : - : 268 :
Alien : 331 : 325 : 294 : 448 : 333 : 216 : : 272 : 229 : 244 : - :
DC: d-clear TCC: The Core Clear TM: The Machine HSA: He Scans Alone
OS: Oneshot P: Pulp G: Gigolo NSS: Nine Seven Six N: Newt A: Alien
That looks not bad. Against d-clear and The Core Clear it scores as good as
the other stone/imps. But it scores much better against scanner. HSA loses
really badly against Alien.
____________________________________________________________________________
Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care.
Authors: Beppe Bezzi <giuseppe.bezzi@galactica.it>, Anton Marsden
<amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz>, Christian Schmidt <schmc003@goofy.zdv.Uni-Mainz.de>
and Philip Kendall <pak21@cam.ac.uk>
|
