_____ _ _ (_ _(_)_ __ _ ___ ____ _ _ _ _ _(_) ___ _ _ | | | | '_ \| | | \ \/\/ / _' | '_| '_| |/ _ \| '_) | | | | | | | |_| |\ / (_| | | | | | | (_) | | Issue 1 |_| |_|_| |_|\__, | \/\/ \__,_|_| |_| |_|\___/|_| 20 July, 2004 ===============(___/========================================================= Welcome... You're looking at the first issue of Tinywarrior - a newletter reporting events and techniques on the tiny hills. If you haven't yet discovered them, the specs for the tiny hills are: coresize: 800 max. processes: 800 duration: after 8,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 20 minimum distance: 20 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft In this issue you'll discovered how Provenance dodges other oneshots and what's really inside the mystery warrior, Unknown! ============================================================================= Current Status of the SAL Tiny Hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46.9/ 46.6/ 6.5 Muskrat John Metcalf 147.3 27 2 39.9/ 32.9/ 27.1 Easter Egg John Metcalf 146.9 76 3 34.4/ 22.2/ 43.3 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 146.7 109 4 43.6/ 41.3/ 15.1 RedBorg v1.0r7 The MicroGP Corewa 145.8 32 5 42.1/ 41.8/ 16.1 Four Winds John Metcalf 142.5 22 6 27.5/ 13.4/ 59.2 tiny Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 141.6 123 7 41.7/ 42.4/ 16.0 RedBorg v1.2r6 The MicroGP Corewa 141.0 5 8 41.2/ 42.3/ 16.5 SledgeHammer (RBv1.5r7) The MicroGP Corewa 140.0 3 9 34.6/ 30.0/ 35.3 Soft as Silk Sascha Zapf 139.2 86 10 32.5/ 27.5/ 39.9 3p(c) Sascha Zapf 137.6 31 11 40.3/ 43.2/ 16.5 Sidestep Christian Schmidt 137.5 44 12 29.9/ 22.9/ 47.2 Where's Giles? John Metcalf 137.0 54 13 40.8/ 44.8/ 14.4 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 136.9 96 14 34.1/ 31.9/ 34.0 Ugly Uncle Christian Schmidt 136.2 122 15 40.4/ 45.1/ 14.5 Milkshake IV LAchi 135.7 74 16 40.6/ 46.2/ 13.2 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 135.0 73 17 38.2/ 41.5/ 20.3 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 134.9 68 18 39.5/ 44.7/ 15.7 Provenance John Metcalf 134.3 48 19 39.5/ 45.1/ 15.4 Tinyshot John Metcalf 134.0 111 20 40.6/ 47.6/ 11.8 Diamondette David Houston 133.7 120 21 24.9/ 16.6/ 58.5 palm leaves Metcalf/Schmidt 133.2 28 22 38.5/ 45.1/ 16.4 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 131.9 124 23 32.4/ 34.9/ 32.6 The clown G.Labarga 129.9 17 24 37.0/ 44.1/ 18.9 E-clear Christian Schmidt 129.8 1 25 34.6/ 41.1/ 24.3 The Color of Core Christian Schmidt 128.1 2 The strategy mix currently on the hill is dominated by oneshots (11 in total, 3 evolved) and papers (8, with 2 using imps). The 6 remaining warriors are 2 bombers, 2 clears, a clear/imp and a scanner. Since the creation of the hill, 7 warriors have perished after attaining an age of 50 or above. Betadine fell slightly short of the 100 milestone, age 97. Also pushed from the hill were Origin of Storms (age 90), Table Scan (85), Xyzzy (77), Son of Darkness 2 (74), Evolving Magic (71), and Cream and Chocolate (61). Koth report: Digital Swarm has been seen at the top of the hill most often, after 27 successful challenges in all. Also frequently in first place have been Sidestep (after 16), Easter Egg (15), Muskrat (15) and Table Scan (12). ============================================================================= The Tiny Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 124 * oneshot 2 tiny Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 123 * paper/imp 3 Ugly Uncle Christian Schmidt 122 * qscan -> paper 4 Diamondette David Houston 120 * stone 5 Tinyshot John Metcalf 111 * oneshot 6 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 109 * qscan -> paper 7 Betadine M Joonas Pihlaja 97 oneshot 8 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 96 * oneshot 9 Origin of Storms John Metcalf 90 scanner 10 Soft as Silk Sascha Zapf 86 * qbomb -> paper 11 Table Scan John Metcalf 85 oneshot 12 Xyzzy John Metcalf 77 paper/stone 13 Easter Egg John Metcalf 76 * qscan -> paper 14 Milkshake IV LAchi 74 * oneshot = Son of Darkness 2 Christian Schmidt 74 paper/stone 16 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 73 * decoy maker -> scanner 17 Evolving Magic Christian Schmidt 71 qbomb -> paper 18 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 68 * decoy maker -> oneshot 19 Cream and Chocolate LAchi 61 oneshot 20 Where's Giles? John Metcalf 54 * qscan -> paper 21 Provenance John Metcalf 48 * oneshot/dodger 22 Hellish Glare John Metcalf 45 incendiary bomber 23 Sidestep Christian Schmidt 44 * oneshot/dodger = Snowstorm John Metcalf 44 stone/imp 25 W.I.P.E. Christian Schmidt 43 clear A sign of a young hill - 15 active warriors in the Hall of Fame :-) ============================================================================= Current Status of the corewar.co.uk Infitiny Hill: The infitiny hill is where all of the published tiny warriors battle round-robin. Here are shown the top 25 of 161 warriors: # %w %l %t Name Author Score 1 52.8 33.3 15.1 Tinyshot John Metcalf 173.56 2 50.1 28.5 22.6 Evolving Threat Dave Hillis 172.89 3 52.0 34.1 15.1 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 171.14 4 52.0 34.7 14.6 Betadine M Joonas Pihlaja 170.46 5 51.6 34.1 15.5 Provenance John Metcalf 170.28 6 50.3 32.7 18.2 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 169.15 7 47.3 26.8 27.1 Easter Egg John Metcalf 169.12 8 45.2 22.9 33.2 Wilt ;) G.Labarga 168.70 9 50.5 33.9 16.9 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 168.32 10 50.2 34.0 17.0 Cream and Chocolate LAchi 167.73 11 49.5 32.7 19.1 Table Scan John Metcalf 167.46 12 50.6 35.5 15.1 t766-- Michal Janeczek 166.97 13 49.7 34.0 17.6 s774++ Michal Janeczek 166.74 14 45.0 24.9 31.3 Potenza Leonardo H. Liporati 166.42 15 40.1 15.4 45.7 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 166.06 16 49.6 34.3 17.3 Four Winds John Metcalf 166.04 17 49.4 34.5 17.4 WingShot T Ben Ford 165.50 18 49.2 34.4 17.7 WingShot Ben Ford 165.20 19 49.3 34.9 17.1 Dettol Test 487 Steve Gunnell 164.96 20 49.7 35.8 15.8 clock strikes twelve John Metcalf 164.93 21 50.6 37.6 13.1 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 164.90 22 50.5 37.3 13.5 dark skies Simon Wainwright 164.89 23 48.9 34.5 17.8 Tiny Boss Neogryzor 164.58 24 49.0 34.8 17.4 Hired Sword John Metcalf 164.44 25 44.1 25.0 32.2 Ugly Uncle Christian Schmidt 164.43 The current balance seems to favour oneshots, of which there are 17. The remaining warriors are 5 papers (1 of which is evolved) and 2 scanners. ============================================================================= Extra Extra - Provenance by John Metcalf Provenance is a oneshot which attempts to take advantage of the excess of other oneshots on the tiny hill. During the scan phase, it watches for an enemy clear approaching. Should one be detected, it quickly boots away a d-clear to a safe location. To determine how effective the technique is, I created a standard oneshot from Provenance by simply removing the code for the boot / d-clear. I then tested both against a selection of tiny oneshots to compare the scores. The table below shows the results - an overall improvement of 19.1% to the score. However the method isn't infallible, and the score is worse against two of the opponents. standard oneshot Provenance Score %w %l %t %w %l %t +/-% Cream and Chocolate | 42.9 55.2 1.9 | 65.0 32.3 2.8 | +51.4 Tiny Boss | 47.2 49.5 3.3 | 71.3 25.4 3.3 | +50.0 Tiny BiShot 2.0 | 47.0 51.1 2.0 | 69.9 25.8 4.3 | +49.8 Lone Gunman | 31.2 67.1 1.7 | 44.5 53.7 1.8 | +42.0 s774++ | 41.3 55.5 3.3 | 58.6 38.0 3.4 | +41.0 WingShot | 51.2 46.7 2.0 | 70.5 26.2 3.3 | +37.9 six minutes | 41.8 54.4 3.8 | 50.1 45.7 4.2 | +19.7 Pop! | 30.6 65.6 3.8 | 36.2 59.1 4.7 | +18.7 Table Scan | 43.2 54.9 2.0 | 50.6 48.0 1.4 | +16.5 clock strikes twelve | 51.4 47.5 1.1 | 59.3 38.8 1.8 | +15.7 Dettol Test 487 | 50.5 48.2 1.2 | 58.4 40.5 1.1 | +15.4 dark skies | 48.8 49.6 1.6 | 53.9 44.2 1.9 | +10.5 Betadine | 46.3 53.0 0.7 | 50.8 47.5 1.7 | +10.5 Four Winds | 34.6 60.2 5.3 | 37.5 57.8 4.8 | +7.5 t766-- | 39.4 57.4 3.2 | 42.5 54.6 2.9 | +7.4 Strawberry and Lemon | 60.2 37.4 2.4 | 64.3 32.6 3.1 | +7.1 Tinyshot | 43.8 53.0 3.2 | 44.6 52.2 3.2 | +1.8 Sneaky Spike | 45.9 47.0 7.1 | 45.7 45.9 8.3 | +0.5 Seek and Destroy | 50.0 49.1 0.9 | 47.1 51.6 1.2 | -5.5 TinyLuke | 57.2 39.1 3.7 | 48.0 47.2 4.8 | -15.1 | | | Average | 45.2 52.1 2.7 | 53.4 43.4 3.2 | +19.1 All constants were chosen without computer assistance ;-) Without further delay, here's the code: ;redcode-tiny ;name Provenance ;author John Metcalf ;strategy oneshot with escape route ;assert CORESIZE==800 step equ 48 diff equ 8 first equ wipe+201 gate equ dbmb-1 safe equ wipe-40 ; ** typical spl/dat clear ** ptr dat first, first-diff dat 2, 9 sbmb spl #-30, 14 wipe mov @bptr, >ptr mov @bptr, >ptr bptr djn.f wipe, {sbmb for 3 dat 0, 0 rof ; ** oneshot / dodger loop ** scan sub inc, ptr seq *ptr, @ptr djn.f sbmb, ptr jmz.f scan, bptr+1 ; check ; ** panic, launch d-clear ** copy mov @boot, {boot djn copy, boot boot djn.f *safe, #dclr+2 dbmb dat <1, 11 inc spl #-step, }-step dclr mov dbmb, >gate djn.f dclr, >gate end scan+1 ============================================================================= Extra Extra - Unknown by John Metcalf After sending one of my tiny warriors to the hill, I issued a challenge to figure out its strategy from how the warrior scores. In all, 9 players tried to determine the solution, but only German Labarga and Christian Schmidt came up with the right answer. Unknown is a clear/imp. It uses a d-clear with an a-field gate and a vector launched a-imp spiral. Two values have been computer optimised, iboot and the initial contents of gate. After arriving on the hill in 3rd place, it dropped quickly, leaving age 21. Unknown hopefully shows clear/imp can be a successful strategy on the tiny hill and maybe a few more redcoders will give them a try. So finally, here's the code you've been waiting for: ;redcode-tiny ;name Unknown ;author John Metcalf ;strategy puzzle in miniature ;strategy to win a copy of my code, ;strategy can you tell me what I am? ;assert CORESIZE==800 iboot equ imp+69 iStep equ 267 gate dat iboot+80, 0 dbmb dat 8, 1 dat 0, 0 clear spl #0, 0 cloop mov dbmb, }gate djn.f cloop, }gate for 3 dat 0, 0 rof imp mov.i #iStep, *0 vect spl iboot+iStep*1, iboot spl iboot+iStep*3, iboot+iStep*2 jmp iboot+iStep*5, iboot+iStep*4 less spl clear, }iboot+iStep*6 mov imp, iboot spl 1, }-261 spl 1, {-283 spl 2, {-305 jmp @vect, }0 jmp *vect, }0 end less ============================================================================= Tiny resources available on the web: http://sal.math.ualberta.ca/ ; SAL - the home of the Tiny hill http://corewars.sourceforge.net/ ; hills for no-pspace & evolved warriors http://corewar.co.uk/tiny.htm ; Tiny page - benchmarks, hints & more http://www.ociw.edu/~birk/COREWAR/ ; home to the infinite Tiny hill =============================================================================