.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 38 July 15, 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 ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. Summer brings some news in the hills; last year was pmars 08 with pspace, this year we have our beloved hill maintainer working hard at hill format. Thos, Pizza lord, is working at many small changes in formatting and new sintax, last new has been the automatic calculation of scores averages, thank you from the Core Warrior staff. Tuc, Stormking boss, completed his planned phase 1 and changed the address of his web page, now frame based and very cool, and hills, moving them on a faster server. New addresses are: web page: http://www.koth.org/ hills: koth@koth.org With the new server I think that the 94x (big) hill can have answer in a much shorter time and so get some more traffic. Stormking new web page implements many interesting features, give a look at it, it's worth the time. You are encouraged to send them your opinions, suggestions, congratulations and flames; they need our feedback. This week I had a few problem submitting a warrior to the limited processes hill because of a bug; now the bug has been fixed, thank to Andrew work, so you can submit your warriors to with a ;redcode-94lp header. --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 43.1/ 34.6/ 22.3 Probe Anton Marsden 151.6 30 2 31.3/ 10.9/ 57.8 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 151.6 18 3 45.9/ 40.5/ 13.5 Mist P.Kline 151.3 3 4 46.7/ 42.7/ 10.7 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 150.7 80 5 36.9/ 26.2/ 36.9 Simple v0.4 Ian Oversby 147.6 126 6 43.7/ 41.0/ 15.4 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 146.3 29 7 34.6/ 25.6/ 39.8 Pulp v0.2 Ian Oversby 143.7 125 8 42.7/ 42.0/ 15.3 myVamp5.4 Paulsson 143.5 78 9 39.7/ 36.4/ 23.9 Dura v0.1 Ian Oversby 143.0 59 10 39.6/ 37.0/ 23.4 Yogi Bear P.Kline 142.2 234 11 31.8/ 23.6/ 44.6 Armory II John K W 140.0 169 12 40.7/ 41.4/ 17.8 Harmony P.Kline 140.0 2 13 30.5/ 21.5/ 48.0 Rosebud Beppe 139.4 703 14 33.2/ 27.2/ 39.5 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 139.2 387 15 31.0/ 23.3/ 45.8 blue flame c1/10 bjoern guenzel 138.6 14 16 37.9/ 37.9/ 24.2 Paper, Scissors and Stone David van Dam 137.8 158 17 40.2/ 43.3/ 16.5 Goldfinch P.Kline 137.0 179 18 37.5/ 38.4/ 24.0 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 136.6 748 19 25.6/ 14.9/ 59.4 ompega Steven Morrell 136.3 145 20 36.8/ 38.0/ 25.2 airBag Paulsson 135.6 71 21 38.0/ 40.8/ 21.2 Twister Beppe Bezzi 135.2 484 22 37.4/ 39.9/ 22.7 Goliath David van Dam 134.9 178 23 36.3/ 38.7/ 25.0 Scimitar 2 P.Kline 133.9 96 24 31.8/ 31.1/ 37.1 the historian bjoern guenzel 132.5 503 25 27.8/ 23.6/ 48.7 Ties, Ties, Ties! (+3) Ross Morgan-Linial 132.0 1 Weekly age: 84 ( 90 last week, 56 the week before ) New warriors: 11 Turnover/age rate 13% Average age: 184 ( 158 last week, 275 the week before ) Average score: 141 ( 141 last week, 133 the week before ) The top 25 warriors are represented by 12 authors: Kline with 5; Bezzi, and Oversby with 3; Marsden, Guenzel, van Dam, JKW and Paulsson with 2. King Report: Q^2 Miro dominated the begiining of the week until come Probe then and Return of Jedimp that kept the lead until last challenge. All those warriors use the advanced qscan architecture explained in the last CW hint. Other good warriors entering in the first spots are myVamp 5.4, see Extra extra for details, and Mist a scanner based on Blur, both reaching second spot. The hill is still changing quickly and all veteran are suffering, confined in the lower half; expecially true for Twister and the historian, often seen in the red alert zone. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 2 47.7/ 41.8/ 10.5 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 153.6 1 2 44.2/ 39.6/ 16.2 myVamp5.4 Paulsson 148.9 1 7 39.0/ 36.9/ 24.0 airBag Paulsson 141.1 1 6 40.0/ 37.6/ 22.4 Dura v0.1 Ian Oversby 142.4 1 1 31.0/ 10.3/ 58.7 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 151.7 1 2 45.6/ 41.7/ 12.8 Mist P.Kline 149.4 1 2 43.8/ 36.5/ 19.8 Probe Anton Marsden 151.1 1 8 41.5/ 43.2/ 15.3 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 139.8 1 17 31.3/ 24.4/ 44.3 blue flame c1/10 bjoern guenzel 138.2 1 19 36.1/ 40.8/ 23.1 earthquake v0.1 Bjoern & Ian 131.3 1 25 31.2/ 35.7/ 33.0 Test F Ian Oversby 126.7 1 A lot of high quality new warriors entered the high spots of the 94 hill. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 26 1.7/ 1.9/ 0.2 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 5.4 32 26 7.8/ 46.8/ 45.3 Jam Sponge Dave Newton 68.9 7 26 1.2/ 1.3/ 1.3 myVamp5.3 Paulsson 4.9 109 26 35.9/ 49.6/ 14.5 pavement v0.14 bjoern guenzel 122.2 13 26 2.6/ 2.2/ 2.8 Simple v0.3 Ian Oversby 10.7 116 26 1.6/ 2.0/ 0.2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 5.2 48 26 0.6/ 1.3/ 1.9 test me2 Beppe Bezzi 3.7 42 26 31.2/ 39.2/ 29.6 Versatility 1.5 Ross Morgan-Linial 123.3 41 26 2.2/ 1.5/ 0.1 test A P.Kline 6.7 29 26 27.6/ 29.0/ 43.5 blue candle bjoern guenzel 126.1 574 26 0.3/ 0.9/ 2.9 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 3.7 71 Guenzel's blue candle is the oldest warrior pushed off this week, and the only one worth mention, being others killed by their author or very young. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 18 37.5/ 38.4/ 24.0 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 136.6 748 13 30.5/ 21.5/ 48.0 Rosebud Beppe 139.4 703 24 31.8/ 31.1/ 37.1 the historian bjoern guenzel 132.5 503 21 38.0/ 40.8/ 21.2 Twister Beppe Bezzi 135.2 484 14 33.2/ 27.2/ 39.5 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 139.2 387 No new entries and a loss: blue candle. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 15 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 16 Barrage Anton Marsden 876 Qscan -> replicator 17 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 18 Flurry Anton Marsden 835 Qscan -> pwarrior 19 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 20 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 21 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator 22 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 748 * Bomber 23 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 736 Scanner/ bomber 24 Blizzard Anton Marsden 713 Qscan -> replicator 25 Rosebud Beppe 703 * Stone/ imp Rosebud enters the Hall, pushing HeremScimitar off; T.N.T. pro begins climbing the standings. No new warrior is near entering being the historian still far from the threshold, now at more than 700 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 63.3/ 19.5/ 17.3 Yet 4b Justin Kao 207.0 36 2 56.3/ 25.3/ 18.4 Sandwich Bags Andy Nevermind 187.4 99 3 53.5/ 21.6/ 24.9 Versatility 1.5 Ross Morgan-Linial 185.3 26 4 55.2/ 26.2/ 18.6 Velveeta Shift-F shar 184.2 34 5 50.6/ 19.0/ 30.4 (-: :-) Ross 182.2 59 6 53.5/ 27.2/ 19.3 Saboteur v0.4k shar 179.9 67 7 46.4/ 26.5/ 27.1 Inferno 1.0 Philip Kendall 166.3 49 8 43.6/ 27.9/ 28.5 Antivenin Ross 159.2 98 9 31.3/ 12.7/ 55.9 Ties, Ties, Ties! (+2) Ross 150.0 61 10 31.3/ 25.7/ 43.0 Utility Knife Robert J. Street 137.0 69 11 23.8/ 10.7/ 65.5 Wasps 1.3 Ross 137.0 60 12 23.3/ 12.6/ 64.1 Ties and Wasps Ross 133.9 13 13 23.8/ 14.9/ 61.3 more testing Anonymous 132.8 20 14 20.1/ 8.6/ 71.2 Nematode v1.4b Jonathan Stott 131.6 33 15 22.4/ 20.2/ 57.4 Fork 4/13 Christoph C. Birk 124.5 53 16 18.7/ 29.6/ 51.8 Handy Man Robert J. Street 107.7 27 17 17.6/ 36.7/ 45.7 silken stomp harleyQ2 98.6 9 18 6.9/ 16.8/ 76.3 Impy Stalker II Edgar 96.9 15 19 9.3/ 24.3/ 66.3 silkbombQ2 harleyQ2 94.4 32 20 8.0/ 22.2/ 69.8 Mama's Boy Robert J. Street 93.7 14 21 13.5/ 38.9/ 47.7 b3 harleyQ2 88.0 1 22 13.2/ 38.8/ 47.9 silken train harleyQ2 87.6 2 23 6.7/ 36.4/ 56.9 b harleyQ2 77.1 8 24 19.3/ 7.4/ 9.3 Centurion 2.01 Edgar 67.3 19 25 10.6/ 54.5/ 34.9 b2 harleyQ2 66.6 3 The three leaders of last week died for old age. Kao is new King with a good lead over the others even if it proved unable to stay on the 94 hill. ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint Bomb dodgers by Ian Oversby Since the advent of P-space it has been possible to write components, specifically to beat certain warrior classes. For example, that small stone which would have been no use before as it loses really badly to papers and imps can be very good against bombers and scanners. One component, which was designed specifically to beat a certain class of warriors is the bomb dodger. The bomb dodger is based on a very simple principle: A bomber usually produces many bombs in a regular pattern and only bombs each location once before entering the core-clear. Therefore, if we scan for the bombs, we are far more likely to find a bomb, before that bomb finds us. Then, we can place a small component over the bomb where we are safe from attack. Here is the dodger from Wind-up Toy v0.4. spt equ (dodge-130) safe DAT.F $0, $0 ... ... ... ... dodge JMN.F dboot, safe ; monitor for one-shots JMZ.F dodge, spt ; linear bomb-scan SUB.AB #2, spt ; 2 seems to be good cloop MOV.I >bptr, >spt DJN.B cloop, #5 SUB.AB #3, spt bptr JMP.B @spt, #gat gat DAT.F #0, #5 bomb DAT.F #0, #5 SPL.B #0, >gat+2667 dloop MOV.I bomb, >gat dlt DJN.F dloop, >gat The location that this is copied over looks like this: Code: DAT DAT SPL MOV DJN Core locations: . X . . . Why this is better than any other pattern, I don't know. I tried placing the SPL and the MOV over the X, all with worse results. Other differences between this and the old dodger are, this does not monitor for one-shots attacks. Then, the bomb that I find is closer to the enemy bomber. We now no longer have a problem with imps, even Rosebud with MOV #2667, *0 style imps seems to succumb. This also scored very well against Thermite, I believe the reason is that the clear is functioning so fast, we hit Thermite before another bomb lands near us. Also, there are only three vulnerable locations for the bomb to land. If the gate is overwritten, we merely start clearing from somewhere else. This dodger, when submitted on its own actually got to number 8! However, that was when there was no paper on the hill. It no longer stands a chance on its own. Finally, here is a complete warrior including the dodger. An earlier version reached number 1 when the hill was a little more receptive to the dodger. I'm not sure how it would do now. The p-space brain is also very susceptible to brainwashing with 0. ;redcode-94 ;name Manfred v0.3 ;author Ian Oversby ;strategy P-Spacer ;strategy v0.1 Imps/Imp gates/... ;strategy v0.2 Stronger gate ;strategy v0.3 Updated components ;kill Manfred ;assert 1 org str plc equ 5 ; Not really dval equ 800 spt equ (last+300) gate1 equ (stone-3) impstep equ 2667 sval equ 1900 ;;------------------------------------------------------------ str LDP.A #plc, pval ;load wins/losses ADD.A pval, check MOD.A #13, check JMN.A boot, check ;permanent switch res LDP.AB #0, #0 sec SNE.AB #0, res ;check for loss lost ADD.A #13, pval SNE.AB #1, res ;check for win won SUB.A #13, pval STP.AB pval, #plc jump JMP.B dboot, <-100 pval DAT.F $0, $0 check DAT.F $7904, $0 ; 13 / 8 ;;---------------------- Dodger , 11 lines ------------------------ for 15 DAT.F $0, $0 rof dboot MOV.I {dptr, spt ; linear bomb-scan SUB.AB #2, spt ; Try 2, 3 and 4 cloop MOV.I >bptr, >spt DJN.B cloop, #5 SUB.AB #3, spt bptr JMP.B @spt, #gat gat DAT.F #0, #5 bomb DAT.F >2667, #5 SPL.B #0, >gat+2667 dloop MOV.I bomb, >gat ; anti-imping dirty core-clear dl DJN.F dloop, >gat ; Thank you Bjoern. ;;---------- Simple v0.2a with 16 process, point spiral ----------- for 20 DAT.F $0, $0 rof mimp SPL.B 1, <-500 ; 16 process 3 point imp SPL.B 1, {-500 ; and decoy-maker :-) SPL.B 1, <-500 SPL.B 1, <-500 SPL.B 2, {-500 JMP.B imp ADD.A #impstep, -1 die DAT.F $0, $0 imp MOV.I #-5, impstep boot MOV.I {sptr, -95 SPL.B #0, >gate1-hit loop MOV.I {0+95, 2-95 ADD.F stone, loop hit DJN.F loop, <1900 last MOV.I gate, }gate1 gate DAT.F gate-gate1+2, >gate1 end Further work: I wanted to alter it so I placed a multi-pass clear over the bomb. This, I hoped, would give me wins against Ompega and Impfinity style imp/stones. So far, I have been unable to get it to work. ______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra myVamp 5.4 by Magnus Paulsson Hi there, thought I should publish myVamp 5.4 now that it has been on (I mean near, that fu..ing Blur and Miro!) top for a while, and when I'm at it, I might as well write a lot of rubbish :-) myVamp 3.7's engine was like this: fang jmp *trap,0 next add.f step,fang mov.i @0,@fang jmz.a next,*fang mov.i fang,*fang mov.x *fang,*fang jmp next It also had a spl/spl/dat coreclear and boot. When I had optimized 3.7 I thought that there wasen't anything more to improve, how wrong I was! After a while I learned a much better coreclear that was a lot better and faster while still as small : ptr dat.f 0,0 dat -20,20 dat -20,20 cclear spl #-20,20 mov.i @bmbp,>ptr mov.i @bmbp,>ptr djn.b -2,{cclear I tried to get this coreclear into myVamp 4.? several times but the result was always worse than 3.7, very anoying.... Then came Stepping Stone by K.Franke which improved myVamp removing the unnessesary "mov.x *fang,*fang" (egg on my face, having a line of code that isn't realy needed!) and now Stepping Stone is the leader (competitive thinking, can't stand that someone else wrote a better vampire, but I will get past SteppingStone in the hall of fame this authum (Praing for it at least)). Then came d-clear (my first favorite on the naming, the second is: the clear that is VERY god against imps and stones and scanners but VERY bad against papers, tctiVgaiasasbVbap?) and that was that thing that got me started with myVamp5.0. I'm sure that everyone playing (? ARE WE PLAYING ?) Corewar has some inferior complex against some of the wariors, my favorite complex is Torcht18 which beats myVamp3.7, this brings me to the second improvement in myVamp5.0, the ability to take a hit of a spl bomb (YES, myVamp now beats Torch!!), this give 4-5 points against my test series (se below)! fang jmp *trap+st,-st check dat.f 0,0 ;******* dat.f 0,0 ptr dat.f 0,100 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 jmp cclear next add.f step,fang ;The engine from SteppingStone start mov.i @0,>fang jmz.a next,*fang mov.i check ;******* step spl #st,-st-1 ;d-clear cclear mov.i bmb,>ptr djn.f cclear,>ptr Look at the lines marked with *******, normal operation is timed to work like normal, if there is a hit with a spl bomb the timing will be off and the d-clear will be executed. There is some thought put into the engine and clear that makes the d-clear execute if a djn stream overruns the code. The above warior(?) "drops like a stone" against paper, because of the d-clear. This made me put in a spl/spl/dat clear that is only run when myVamp has catched something. This increases the score against papers and lowers it against stones. Then I had some trouble with one-shot scanners and I added a decoy maker since there is a lot of code to boot. I still don't lose to q-scans but my luck might run out ... To test my wariors I've written the ugglies unix script ever (I'll mail it to anyone who wants a realy god laugh) that runs 100 battles against the 17 wariors below. Armory-A5 Impfinityv4g1 SteppingStone Twister Chameleon Jackinthebox T.N.T..tx YogiBear thehistorian Frontwardsv2 NightTrain ThermiteII bluecandle GemOfTheOcean Rosebud Torcht18 stoninc myVamp 5.4 : 154.5 Stepping stone : 145 myVamp3.7 : 133 And finaly after all the talk about how good I am here is myVamp5.4: (If you did understand any of the above congratulations, I reread it and it's not very pretty with a lot of weird () comments). -Magnus Paulsson ************************************************************ ;redcode-94 ;name myVamp5.4 ;author Paulsson ;strategy 5.0, Chasing SteppingStone ;strategy 5.1, Spl/Spl/Dat CoreClear ;strategy 5.2 small changes, + some points... ;strategy 5.3&4 Decoy, small changes ;strategy July, 1996 ;kill myVamp ;for Planar, vamp,scan,coreclear,decoy(?) st equ 912 org decoy trap jmp pit,#0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 fang jmp *trap+st,-st ;hit check dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 ptr dat.f 0,100 dat.f -20,0 dat.f 0,0 jmp cclear next add.f step,fang start mov.i @0,>fang ;scan jmz.a next,*fang mov.i check step spl #st,-st-1 cclear mov.i bmb,>ptr djn.f cclear,>ptr dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 ;hit dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,18 bmb dat.f 0,18 for 32 dat.f 0,0 rof ptr2 dat.f 0,20 dat.f 0,20 ;hit dat.f -10,20 dat.f -10,20 cclear2 spl #4000,20 mov.i @2,>ptr2 mov.i @1,>ptr2 djn.b -2,{cclear2 dat.f 0,0 dat.f 0,0 stop2 jmp cclear2-stop,stop offsA equ (start-4000) offsB equ (start-2005) stepD equ 127 decoy mov or Myer Bremer or Anton Marsden