Decoys Description Decoy, as the name suggests, is a part of warrior meant to decieve opponents. Decoys are part of warrior that is differing from the empty core, and that is detected by scanners. As decoys are not active part of a warrior, scanners will only waste time attacking the decoy while the warrior containing the decoy is trying to defeat the scanner. Bombers and Papers do not search for their opponents actively, so they are not hampered by a decoy. 1: Basics [This part needs to be rebuilt] Decoys themselves appear as a part of core different from "empty" dat 0,0 . If we want to use a decoy on a warrior, we want it to be as effective as possible, and makes decoys differ as much as visible as possible. This is achieved by having the instructions in a decoy have non-zero a- and b-fields, and have as much instructions as possible. Depending on the ruleset that is used currently, decoys may be tuned slightly. Under '94 ruleset it is possible to use .f-modifier on jmz-scanners , so that they look to both a- and b-fields of an instruction, while under '88 ruleset they could only look into b-fields. Under '88 ruleset a decoy would contain many non-zero b-fields. A-field scanning under '88 existed, because Cmp compared complete instructions instead of plain b-fields. At 94' ruleset scanning only a- or b-fields is becoming rare compared to scanning both fields (jmz.f) or complete instructions (seq/sne.i). Thus decoys nowadays are not biased towards either of the fields. Decoys on a warrior are made in two fashions: a) Decoymaker - A part of a code that modifies area of core to create a decoy. These are usually run before starting the main warrior. They create big decoys fast but cannot use Active decoys (see later). b) Bringing one to battle - Warriors can have quite large maximum size compared to the size of the effective components. Thus lots of useless code can be included as a decoy. This tactic is usually combined with booting as standing right next to a big decoy is not very good idea. For code examples see part #4 2: Active Decoys Decoys can also have a purpose in addition of just passively standing in the core annoying scanners. The instructions in a decoy dont have to be Dat's by any means, they can contain anything user wants. Using a pile of Spl-instructions can be useful if a wounded warrior leaks processes in the decoy, causing the warrior to slow down. This change can return few of the points lost when using a decoy against a paper, since papers have the biggest chance to end up damaged in the decoy. Adding instructions with a- and b-fields with value of 1 can annoy opponents that have added a djn-stream to their warrior. Mov-lines can be used for additional attack and Stp-lines can be added to cause brainwashing. Active decoys are usually not possible to be made very quickly during a battle, so one must be b) Brought into battle with the warrior, and this has its own setbacks, like being vulnerable to quickscanners. Another style of active decoys is to do something quickly with a long piece of a code, then leave it behind while the main warrior is booted away. Quickscanners and quickbombers fit into this category, since they sacrifice size for a short period of great speed. They do not contain tailored Spl-carpets or brainwashes, but have other uses. 3: Invisiblity Although decoys are meant to be used against scanners, nothing prohibits from using decoy with a scanner. On these cases, the decoy has to be crafted so that scanner does not detect its own decoy and spend time against useless target. (Unless of course, this is a part of some clever plan.) These crafted decoys are called invisible decoys, reflections, or decoys invisible to scanner(s). As an example, a decoy from a warrior Agony II shall be used: dat <1,>1 MOV {-9,<-9 dat {1,}1 dat }1,}1 ;4 dat @1,$1 dat $1,@1 ;3 dat $1,$1 dat *1,#1 ;1 dat >1,>1 dat #1,*1 ;2 dat {1,>1 dat #1,#1 dat {1,{1 MOV {-9,<-9 dat }1,<1 dat }1,}1 ;4 dat @1,@1 dat $1,@1 ;3 dat #1,$1 dat *1,#1 ;1 dat $1,*1 dat #1,*1 ;2 Notice those ;X -numbers? the difference of length between two same numbers is 12 instructions. A scanner that uses a compare scan, comparing places X and X+12 will see two same instructions when scanning this decoy. Needless to say, Agony II uses a compare scan, comparing places X,X+12 and is aligned right so that it does not attack its own decoy. A scan that a)uses different distance between two scanned locations, b) is a Jmz scan or c) has different aligment, will attack the decoy instead of Agony itself. The decoy also has lots of 1, 1-fields in it to slow djn-streams. But what's the idea with those mov {-9, <-9 's? They are a reflection to a part on the bootcode, so that the scanner wont attack its own bootcode, that is located very close to the decoy. 4: Making Decoys [Work in progress] 3c maker, Moore's selfkilling decoymaker, ideas on what kind of code to use on the "bringing"-style.