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BY READING THIS WORD, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY AND ARE BECOMING A PARTY TO THIS AGREEMENT TO SUBSCRIBE CORE WARRIOR FOR THE REMAINING PART OF 1996 AT THE FAVOUR PRICE OF 800 US DOLLARS BY READING THE DATE OF THE ISSUE YOU ARE FREE FROM WHAT STATED IN PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH ______________________________________________________________________________ .xX$$x. .x$$$$$$$x. d$$$$$$$$$$$ ,$$$$$$$P' `P' , . $$$$$$P' ' .d b $$$$$P b ,$$x ,$$x ,$$x ,$$b $$. Y$$$$' `$. $$$$$$. $$$$$$ $$P~d$. d$$$b d d$$$ `$$$$ ,$$ $$$$$$$b $$$P `$ $$$b.$$b `Y$$$d$d$$$' . . a . a a .aa . a `$$$ ,$$$,$$' `$$$ $$$' ' $$P$XX$' `$$$$$$$$$ .dP' `$'$ `$'$ , $''$ `$'$ `Y$b ,d$$$P `$b,d$P' `$$. `$$. , `$$P $$$' Y $. $ $ $ Y..P $ `$$$$$$$' $$$P' `$$b `$$$P `P `$' `Y'k. $. $. $. $$' $. Issue 23 April 1, 1996 ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. 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: http://www.stormking.com/~koth ;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 still out of service, you can download Pmars at Terry's web page--http://www.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/ ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. Greetings to all and good first of April, I hope you enjoyed our little joke. This was a quiet week, but 90 challenges and no important warrior pushed off; even if the turnover has been high most charges have been new versions of existing warriors. Just a bit of relax for the spring, or something burning under the ashes. Planar's corner is back this week, we hope he will continue working for us. Anyone wanting to pupblish an article or write his own number is welcome. --Beppe Bezzi P.S. I changed my mail address; new one is: bezzi@nemo.it I still have the old one, but it will be checked less often. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 47/ 32/ 21 Gem of the Ocean P.Kline 162 3 2 48/ 40/ 12 Naked dancer Beppe Bezzi 156 55 3 41/ 34/ 25 Thermite II Robert Macrae 147 1105 4 41/ 34/ 26 prova Maurizio Vittuari 147 81 5 41/ 35/ 24 Chameleon M R Bremer 147 576 6 41/ 37/ 22 Grilled Octopus v0.5 David Boeren 146 321 7 34/ 25/ 41 Barrage Anton Marsden 144 578 8 43/ 41/ 16 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 144 446 9 43/ 43/ 14 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 143 1357 10 39/ 35/ 26 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 143 830 11 37/ 32/ 31 A Hard Day's Night Maurizio Vittuari 142 67 12 37/ 32/ 31 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 142 906 13 36/ 30/ 35 Flurry Anton Marsden 142 66 14 27/ 15/ 58 Hazy Shade II John K W 140 64 15 41/ 42/ 17 Wind-up Toy v0.4 Ian Oversby 139 21 16 23/ 9/ 68 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 138 1119 17 43/ 49/ 8 Memories Beppe Bezzi 137 498 18 34/ 32/ 34 Lithium John K Wilkinson 137 112 19 27/ 18/ 54 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 137 1304 20 40/ 43/ 17 Error 0 Planar 136 38 21 38/ 41/ 20 Sloth v0.4 Ian Oversby 135 94 22 30/ 25/ 46 Hector 3 Kurt Franke 134 109 23 38/ 42/ 20 myConfuser2.1 Paulsson 134 16 24 32/ 31/ 37 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 134 249 25 29/ 34/ 38 tripod v1.3 Brian Haskin 124 1 Weekly age: 91 New warriors 10 Turnover/age rate 11% Average age: 401 ( 350 last week, 333 the week before ) Average score: 141 ( 142 last week, 142 the week before ) The top 25 warriors are represented by 14 authors; welcome to Ian and Brian The age of the Octopus seems to be over; Paul Kline, with his new version of Gem of the Ocean, has managed to reach n. 1 spot, the only one making him feel confortable; and this with but 33 submissions this week. Will now David refurbish the Octopus, submitting v04 to claim again top spot, or let it age toward the hall of fame? Beppe's Naked Dancer, and Grilled Octopus, are the only other warrior to have been in top position. After past weeks carnage, no aged warrior, not even mid aged, left us; all millenaries seem to be in good health, even if Thermite has been for a while in the red zone, under 20th position, to rebounce quickly up. Planar, after a long silence, has submitted a new warrior. Next week, perhaps, we'll see in these columns what our archiver is doing. Bombers and P-spacers are sharing the top positions, while scanners are having bad times and replicator near extinction, with but Barrage an Hector to represent them on the hill. The scores are very balanced, there are but 13 points beetween n 3 and n. 24, should a new warrior enter in mid hill none will feel safe. Maybe next week we'll see some movement again ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 7 37/ 36/ 27 prova Maurizio Vittuari 138 1 15 33/ 33/ 33 A Hard Day's Night Maurizio Vittuari 133 1 19 30/ 30/ 40 Flurry Anton Marsden 130 1 4 25/ 15/ 60 Hazy Shade II John K W 136 1 10 41/ 44/ 15 Naked dancer Beppe Bezzi 137 1 20 37/ 45/ 17 Error 0 Planar 129 1 23 36/ 44/ 20 myConfuser2.1 Paulsson 127 1 1 45/ 34/ 21 Gem of the Ocean P.Kline 156 1 25 27/ 35/ 38 tripod v1.3 Brian Haskin 119 1 New versions of: Gem of the Ocean, Naked dancer, prova, Flurry, A Hard day's Night, Hazy Shade II. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More. # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 26 10/ 12/ 5 Gem of the Ocean P.Kline 35 66 26 37/ 48/ 15 Pagan John K W 127 27 26 1/ 1/ 2 Flurry Anton Marsden 6 13 26 3/ 1/ 0 Gem of the Ocean P.Kline 9 16 26 2/ 1/ 1 prova Maurizio Vittuari 6 24 26 2/ 1/ 1 A Hard Day's Night Maurizio Vittuari 6 24 26 0/ 0/ 3 Hazy Shade II John K W 4 64 26 29/ 37/ 34 Clueless v0.4 Ian Oversby 122 34 26 2/ 2/ 0 Naked dancer Beppe Bezzi 6 85 26 30/ 43/ 27 Spook v0.1 Ian Oversby 116 16 26 3/ 0/ 0 myConfuser2.0 Paulsson 9 42 ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 9 43/ 43/ 14 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 143 1357 19 27/ 18/ 54 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 137 1304 16 23/ 9/ 68 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 138 1119 3 41/ 34/ 25 Thermite II Robert Macrae 147 1105 12 37/ 32/ 31 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 142 906 10 39/ 35/ 26 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 143 830 7 34/ 25/ 41 Barrage Anton Marsden 144 578 5 41/ 35/ 24 Chameleon M R Bremer 147 576 17 43/ 49/ 8 Memories Beppe Bezzi 137 498 8 43/ 41/ 16 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 144 446 6 41/ 37/ 22 Grilled Octopus v0.5 David Boeren 146 321 24 32/ 31/ 37 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 134 249 ______________________________________________________________________________ HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still running. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 1620 P-warrior 2 Torch t18 P.Kline 1539 Bomber 3 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 1357 * One shot scanner 4 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 1304 * Stone/ imp 5 quiz Schitzo 1262 Scanner/ bomber 6 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 1119 * Imp / stone 7 Thermite II Robert Macrae 1105 * Qscan -> bomber 8 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 9 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 10 Tornado 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 906 * Bomber 11 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 12 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 830 * Bomber 13 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 14 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 14 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator 16 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 736 Scanner/ bomber 17 Blizzard Anton Marsden 713 Qscan -> replicator 18 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber 19 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 650 Qscan -> replicator 20 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 643 Vampire 21 Hazy Shade Of Winter John Wilkinson 616 P-warrior 22 Armory - A5 John Wilkinson 609 P-warrior 23 juliet and paper Bremer & Bezzi 607 P-warrior 24 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 589 Qscan -> replicator 25 Barrage Anton Marsden 578 * Qscan -> replicator Frontwards and Impfinity are quickly approaching Torch, both passing 1300 milestone; Tornado should enter the over 1000 club next week if, crossing fingers, it survives. Barrage enters in the last spot, pushing Hector 2 off. Chameleon is scheduled for next week being at 576 age. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 55/ 34/ 11 Violent Micro v0.2 basehead 177 58 2 45/ 16/ 39 Vectorfantasy v0.2 basehead 173 59 3 48/ 37/ 14 Living Let Die III Julian 159 3 4 50/ 41/ 9 C-Seagal II Test jShelton 158 97 5 50/ 42/ 8 GPT 15l David van Dam 157 96 6 42/ 27/ 31 Obvious Thief.2 John K. Lewis 157 84 7 49/ 41/ 10 Machido jShelton 157 33 8 48/ 43/ 9 Goliath 0.3 David van Dam 154 53 9 41/ 29/ 30 Hyakutake Zenith Scott Manley 152 70 10 41/ 31/ 28 Bag of Tricks II Andy Nevermind 152 30 11 47/ 42/ 11 Revision Three Andy Nevermind 151 93 12 47/ 44/ 9 GPT 18a David van Dam 150 14 13 43/ 36/ 21 Ineffectual Ian Oversby 149 5 14 43/ 41/ 16 GPT 09k David van Dam 145 89 15 44/ 47/ 8 bloodstone V2.0 bjoern guenzel 142 15 16 42/ 44/ 14 Extreme Prejudice Scott Manley 141 91 17 33/ 28/ 38 AB Scanner 2.9.6 Chris Hodson 138 38 18 40/ 47/ 13 Optma Dwarf v5.1 Phoenix 133 19 19 36/ 40/ 23 Three Core Monty Andrew Fabbro 132 50 20 36/ 42/ 23 Testing V1.21 bjoern guenzel 130 4 21 29/ 30/ 41 Unknown John K. Lewis 127 83 22 35/ 53/ 12 Optma Dwarf v5.0 Phoenix 118 21 23 27/ 62/ 11 MissleCommand_v2 harleyQ2 91 2 24 14/ 56/ 30 djn monster bjoern guenzel 73 7 25 8/ 67/ 25 babyQ2 harleyQ2 50 1 Jack in the box is dead of old age today, this means that the beginners hill is aged exactly 100 in last two weeks; don't worry, you won't see Jack anymore. Basehead is dominating the hill with a couple of warriors seen in the pro hill for a while, Julian and jShelton too did the 94 hill for short periods. ______________________________________________________________________________ Stormking 94x hill standings. We had some movement in this hill in the past weeks, so we report hill standings. Hill Specs: redcode 94x coresize: 55440 max. processes: 55440 duration: after 500,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 200 minimum distance: 200 rounds fought: 250 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft Last battle concluded at : Mon Mar 25 21:13:40 EST 1996 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 35/ 3/ 62 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 166 19 2 48/ 40/ 12 Illusion-94/55 Randy Graham 156 1 3 47/ 39/ 13 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 156 49 4 46/ 38/ 15 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 154 5 5 42/ 32/ 27 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 152 10 6 46/ 41/ 13 Memories Beppe Bezzi 151 26 7 43/ 38/ 18 Derision M R Bremer 148 36 8 41/ 35/ 24 BigBoy Robert Macrae 146 44 9 43/ 44/ 13 Pagan John K W 143 4 10 38/ 34/ 27 Lithium X John K Wilkinson 142 17 11 39/ 35/ 26 Tornado 2.0 x Beppe Bezzi 142 43 12 39/ 39/ 21 Fire Master Xv1 JS Pulido 140 41 13 31/ 26/ 44 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 136 39 14 42/ 48/ 10 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 135 20 15 30/ 26/ 44 Aleph 1 Jay Han 135 9 16 38/ 47/ 16 Watcher-h Kurt Franke 128 38 17 36/ 44/ 20 impthingX Kurt Franke 128 3 18 37/ 46/ 17 Watcher Kurt Franke 127 42 19 31/ 39/ 30 Nice Try M R Bremer 122 48 20 37/ 53/ 10 Withershins Thrice P.Kline 120 2 The big hill uses the same redcode as 94 hill. Strategies are a bit different, seems that imps are more powerful and qscan are obviously less dangerous, but there is a lot to discover here. Tuc has implemented many interesting features, send a mail to koth@stormking.com with body of ' help ' (no quotes) to get them. ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint by Beppe Bezzi --- A collection of my hints in previous numbers of CW is available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar/documents/bbhints.zip --- Wilkinson's beginners benchmark. J K Wilkinson posted to the newsgroup his beginner's benchmark, a collection of warriors ,good for beginners to test their warriors against. Steve Bailey asked me for some comments on them and here they are. ;name Blue Funk 3 ;author Steven Morrell ;strategy Fixed another in-memory/in-register bug The strategy line doesn't explain a lo about what the warriors does, unless you know Blue Funk and Kline's Emerald, but a little testing can easily show that Blue Funk 3 is a classic stone with a binary launched imp spiral. The most interesting property of the stone is the self modifying bombing pattern; in practice BF3, after completing its modulo 4 bomb run shifts the pattern and repeat it displaced, going to bomb the whole core. To better see it, try running BF3 after changing the 'spl i' line in a dat, so deactivating the spiral. ;name Cannonade ;author P.Kline, Paul Kline, pk6811s@acad.drake.edu ;strategy break gates, score points ;strategy stone and gate-busting imp-spiral(s) Cannonade is worth mention mainly for the stone structure, well described by S. Morrell in its book, and for the gate busting imps, descibed in Morrell's manual too. Cannonade relies more on the imps for attack than on the stone, using it, with a wide mod 10 pattern, to kill scanners and provide a core clear. Unfortunaltely, for it, 94 redcode allows forward clears and increment gates, and Cannonade's imps are unable to crash them; it's still a powerful opponent in 88 redcode. ;name Fire Storm v1.1 ;author W. Mintardjo ;strategy Stone with anti-imp core clear Firestorm is another stone, worth mention as a way to implement a two pass clear in 88 redcode. To see it trace the 'ptr' line and look how the clear pointers self modify. ;name Marcia Trionfale 1.3 ;author Beppe Bezzi ;strategy attemping a more aggressive behaviour That's the version of Marcia Trionfale I used in last winter tournament, together with Tornado, but using more processes, it's half Jack in the Box. Marcia Trionfale is a very aggressive silk replicator, very good against stone imps like Blue Funk and Juliet storm, but vulnerable to scanners. ;name nobody special ;author Mike Nonemacher ;strategy Paper like TimeScape, but with lots more ;strategy core-trashing, anti-imping, etc. nobody special is another silk replicator, relative of Timescape. It's less aggressive than Marcia Trionfale, but more than Timescape. Interesting how the add instruction, together with the bombing mov in the other body, creates a non-carpet bombing. ;name Paperone ;author Beppe Bezzi ;strategy Silk replicator Paperone is my first warrior to make 94 hill, it's nothing more than Jippo's Silk Warrior with different constants. ;name TimeScape (1.0) ;author J. Pohjalainen ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;strategy I'm stuck with replicators! Here is _The Latest_ one! ;strategy \---------------------------\ ---------------------- ;strategy / ts1 spl @ts1, }STEP1 / Phoenix/Cell warrior ;strategy \ mov.i }ts1, >ts1 \ body, 6+ processes to ;strategy / ts2 spl @ts2, }STEP2 / keep That Thing alive, ;strategy \ mov.i }ts2, >ts2 \ two of them working ;strategy / mov.i {ts2, >--> TimeScape! ;strategy \T I M E T O E S C A P E\ ---------------------- ;strategy v1.0: added more havoc in above code (or I hope so!) Timescape is the father of modern replicators. With very few exceptions, all use its structure. For a better discussion on silk replicators see Core Warrior 1 and 3 ;name Iron Gate ;author Wayne Sheppard ;strategy cmp scanner-SPL/JMP-Gate Iron gate is a classic 88 redcode cmp scanner, using spl 0 /jmp -1 stun bombs. Worth notice are the compact code and the decrement protection. For a better discussion on Iron Gate and cmp scanners see my hint in Core Warrior 19 ;name Porch Swing ;Author Randy Graham ;strategy Swing with a little wider range. ;strategy Now 80% bomb/scan with djn-stream once-thru Porch Swing is the warrior I saw more dominate; last summer it scored more than 170 pts in the 94 hill, to disappear as soon as people began to take counter measures like boot and use of bombs with b-field of 1. It's a classic example of once through scanner bomber with a deadly multipass clear. ;name Rave ;author Stefan Strack ;strategy Carpet-bombing scanner based on Agony and Medusa's Rave is another classic cmp scanner, attacking with a carpet of spl 0. Its relative Agony II, similar but using boot, is one of the longest living warriors in the 94 hill. ;name Thermite 1.0 ;author Robert Macrae ;strategy Quick-scan -> incendiary bomber. An example of quick scanner, using vampire attacks, followed by an incendiary bomber. For a discussion on Thermite see Core Warrior 5 ;name Tornado ;author Beppe Bezzi ;strategy the original one ;strategy Fast 60% c bomber Tornado is the fastest pure bomber appeared till now (the 75% and 80% are mixed scan bombers) It's interesting the use of bombs as pointers for next one. Tornado is discussed in Core Warrior 7 The version in the benchmark never stood in the hill for long, being too vulnerable to paper, but was a good complement for Marcia Trionfale in the p-warrior Jack in the box (that was in the hill for very long :-) Exercise for the reader: make it self splitting to increase resistance, add a djn stream, a multipass clear and a bit of paper protection; if you can do it without bloating Tornado you'll make the hill with success. Yes, Tornado 3.0 Overall the benchmark is, IMO of course, a little unbalanced. There are too many replicators, and less scanners than in the 94 hill, stone bombers are outdated, modern bombers are different from Cannonade and Firestorm, a Die Hard style warrior could have found its place as like as a simple pwarrior like Jack or juliet and paper. Anyway we have to thank JKW fo doing the job, the warrior choice is sometimes personal taste, everybody has his preferred enemies, and trades off some overall point just to beat'em :-) I tested my warriors, and a few other famous guys on the 94 hill, using JKW benchmark; the results: Warrior Wilkstones (or whatever you want to call them, score for example :-) Frontwards v2 170.33 Naked Dancer 168.67 quiz 159.58 Tornado 3.0 156.33 Jack in the box 155.83 Impfinity v4g1 149.41 Memories 146.92 Torch t18 140.33 These are some other results, courtesy of Steve Bayley, other scores have been posted in r.g.c. The warriors of the benchmark itelf: Porch Swing 167.9583 Marcia t. 1.3 150.4167 Timescape 149.4167 nobody special 145.75 Blue Funk 3 142.25 Thermite 1.0 139.5 Paperone 138.875 Iron Gate 132.5 Cannonade 123.5417 Rave 120.125 Firestorm 107.5833 Tornado 84.375 And two classics Mice 87.08334 Dwarf 49.375 ______________________________________________________________________________ Planar's corner A true story Last week, I had a great idea for a new strategy. I wrote a first prototype warrior and tried it against my personal benchmark. This is 8 warriors taken from my own Web page, section "Warriors on the hill". They are: Clisson Lite Frontwards v2 Impfinity v4g1 Lithium Memories Blue Funk 3 Thermite 1.0 Tornado Some of these are old versions of current hill warriors. So I ran my benchmark and got something like this: opponent Win Los Tie Win Los Tie Win Los Tie Win Los Tie points 0ClissonLite 110 85 5 / 116 81 3 / 74 114 12 / 121 73 6 / 161 1Frontwards 115 69 16 / 112 62 26 / 119 63 18 / 121 67 12 / 184 2Impfinity 112 55 33 / 107 43 50 / 116 48 36 / 122 50 28 / 189 3Lithium 80 99 21 / 125 48 27 / 101 62 37 / 111 74 15 / 168 4Memories 74 124 2 / 86 114 0 / 113 82 5 / 85 115 0 / 135 9BlueFunk 121 44 35 / 79 84 37 / 107 65 28 / 113 51 36 / 174 9Thermite 19 167 14 / 22 173 5 / 19 171 10 / 15 176 9 / 32 Tornado.. 83 89 28 / 75 89 36 / 103 74 23 / 109 59 32 / 153 self 72 75 53 / 84 66 50 / 78 82 40 / 76 84 40 / 139 This looked promising, except for a definite weakness against quick-scanners, so I started working on the constants (and fixed a couple of bugs in the process). A number of hours later, and after more than 1000 battles (at 200 rounds each, this is a lot of computation), I had this: 0ClissonLite 125 73 2 / 121 77 2 / 112 87 1 / 34 39 127 / 163 1Frontwards 141 54 5 / 151 43 6 / 133 58 9 / 124 70 6 / 209 2Impfinity 113 53 34 / 141 44 15 / 114 55 31 / 120 43 37 / 197 3Lithium 103 56 41 / 107 63 30 / 94 76 30 / 87 75 38 / 164 4Memories 86 111 3 / 105 89 6 / 122 74 4 / 127 72 1 / 166 5BlueFunk 133 38 29 / 133 34 33 / 133 35 32 / 134 40 26 / 214 6Thermite 63 128 9 / 49 132 19 / 77 108 15 / 51 136 13 / 97 7Tornado. 116 84 0 / 121 79 0 / 136 64 0 / 119 81 0 / 184 self 99 88 13 / 92 89 19 / 130 49 21 / 93 91 16 / 163 "Good, I said, that should land me right on top of the hill, with at least 160 points." So I sent my program to the hill and eagerly awaited the results. Here they are: points name %W/ %L/ %T taken/given ----- Gem of the Ocean 52/ 38/ 10 166 / 124 Grilled Octopus v0.5 53/ 41/ 5 165 / 129 Frontwards v2 66/ 28/ 5 204 / 90 Impfinity v4g1 80/ 10/ 9 249 / 41 Chameleon 19/ 65/ 15 72 / 212 Barrage 21/ 57/ 21 86 / 192 Hazy Shade II 14/ 17/ 68 112 / 119 Naked dancer 29/ 42/ 28 117 / 154 prova 32/ 55/ 12 109 / 178 Evol Cap 6.6 9/ 24/ 66 95 / 138 Blue Funk 5 64/ 22/ 13 207 / 79 Tornado 3.0 27/ 53/ 20 101 / 179 myConfuser2.0 34/ 40/ 25 129 / 145 Memories 58/ 41/ 0 175 / 124 A Hard Day's Night 41/ 48/ 10 135 / 154 T.N.T. 31/ 64/ 4 99 / 196 Sloth v0.4 37/ 61/ 1 114 / 184 Flurry 15/ 70/ 14 60 / 225 Stepping Stone 42/ 49/ 8 134 / 157 Hector 3 28/ 52/ 20 104 / 176 Clisson 16/ 21/ 62 112 / 125 Thermite II 16/ 70/ 13 61 / 225 Lithium 39/ 41/ 20 137 / 143 C Seagal II 37/ 61/ 1 114 / 184 Living Let Die v2.6 27/ 66/ 6 88 / 205 self 44/ 44/ 11 143 / 145 What the hell ?! This gives me 127 points, 24th position on the hill. Needless to say, I'm not happy with these results. It's time to analyze. Note that the results are as good as expected against Frontwards, Blue Funk, and Lithium, and even better against Impfinity (can you say "suicide" ?). Note also the good results against Gem of the Ocean and Grilled Octopus. But my warrior fails miserably against a lot of others. The problem is described by one word: bias. My test suite is strongly biased. I won't tell you toward what because I don't want you to guess my new strategy. I think this story show the importance of a good, balanced test suite, and the necessity of live testing (i.e. sending test warriors to the hill), as opposed to off-line testing. Now I'll go back to the drawing board, but I feel just a little bit depressed. Maybe I can make it work, but it won't be as great as it should be. -- Planar ______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care. authors: Beppe Bezzi or Myer R Bremer