Issue 3 30/10/95
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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
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth
______________________________________________________________________________
Hi people,
this week I'm back again to write Core warrior for you. As suggested by
Myers, very many wrote complaint letter about his number, asking me to write
again :-) and here I'm. Just kidding.
Anyone wanting to join the staff is welcome as anyone with hints suggestions
and warriors to publish.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Tournament Time
(details at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/nsfcwt.html)
Results for round 3 of NSFCWT are in. The challenge was to submit a
*pair* of warriors that would work together to kill other pairs of warriors.
The score formula was modified to reward partnership, i.e. you received
more points if you left your team mate alife. Real communication between
warriors in a team was apparently difficult to implement effectively, since
only two players chose that strategy (Randy Graham's Aces/Eights and,
passively, Anders Scholl's Claudia/Lestat). Most players in this round
submitted partners that were simply unable to kill each other (like papers)
achieving some sort of cheap cooperativity. It's possible that redcode
simply can't support effective cooperativity, or maybe it's just a matter
of tweaking the score formula some more. Anyways, here the scores:
S/P Warrior #1 by G. Eadon scores 3304
Die Hard by P.Kline scores 2916
Marcia Trionfale 1.3 by Beppe Bezzi scores 2608
Tican by John Wilkinson scores 2308
theMystery2.0 1 by Paulsson scores 2175
Not Expecting Too Much 1 by Karl Lewin scores 2161
theMystery2.0 2 by Paulsson scores 2148
Not Expecting Too Much 2 by Karl Lewin scores 2139
Aces by Randy Graham scores 2136
Juliet Storm+Spiral by John Wilkinson scores 2130
test 1 by Steven Morrell scores 2129
test 2 by Steven Morrell scores 2101
Jack in the box by Beppe Bezzi scores 1981
Twins 2 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969
Twins 1 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969
Eights by Randy Graham scores 1937
kwclear 2 by Anders Ivner scores 1788
kwclear 1 by Anders Ivner scores 1683
lewis 1 by John Lewis scores 1115
blackTN by P.Kline scores 1102
lewis 2 by John Lewis scores 1016
Claudia incarnation0.3 by anders scholl scores 952
2IR 2 by Calvin Loh scores 694
2IR 1 by Calvin Loh scores 684
Lestat Incarnation0.2 by anders scholl scores 579
S/P Warrior #2 by G. Eadon scores 380
Combined scores:
Beppe Bezzi 4589
John Wilkinson 4438
Magnus Paulsson 4323
Karl Lewin 4300
Steven Morrell 4230
Randy Graham 4073
Paul Kline 4018
Maurizio Vittuari 3938
Greg Eadon 3684
Anders Ivner 3471
John Lewis 2131
Anders Scholl 1531
Calvin Loh 1378
Overall scores so far:
Name pts for round 1 2 3 Tot.
____________________________________________________
Paulsson 7.5 11 11 29.5
Beppe Bezzi 7 7 13 27
Steven Morrell 5 10 9 24
P.Kline 7.5 9 7 23.5
John K. Wilkinson 4 6 12 22
Anders Ivner 5.5 8 4 17.5
Maurizio Vittuari 6.5 5 6 17.5
M R Bremer 7 4 - 11
Karl Lewin - - 10 10
G. Eadon 1.5 2 5 8.5
Randy Graham - - 8 8
Derek Ross 3.5 3 - 6.5
John Lewis - - 3 3
Anders Scholl - 1 2 3
Calvin Loh - - 1 1
Magnus Paulsson still leads with 29.5 points, followed by Beppe Bezzi with
27, and Steven Morrell and Paul Kline with 24 and 23.5 points, respectively.
Thanks for playing,
Nandor & Stefan
----------
Standings are still very open with 5 players in but 7.5 points.
Welcome to Karl Levin, Randy Graham, John Lewis and Calvin Loh, joining the
tournament this round.
I should not comment this round but I can see the winner, let's hear his
first impressions: "thank you, thank you, has been very, very hard, but I
did it" :-)))
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94 Hill - Standings
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 40/ 29/ 31 Torch t18 P.Kline 150 319
2 44/ 42/ 14 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 146 115
3 41/ 37/ 22 Porch Swing + Randy Graham 145 20
4 35/ 27/ 38 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 143 421
5 35/ 26/ 39 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 143 22
6 38/ 34/ 28 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 141 287
7 32/ 23/ 45 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 141 307
8 41/ 42/ 17 Frontwards Steven Morrell 140 254
9 29/ 19/ 52 test r 02 Beppe Bezzi 139 35
10 35/ 31/ 35 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 139 458
11 31/ 25/ 44 .Brain Vamp. B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 137 21
12 41/ 46/ 13 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 136 124
13 26/ 16/ 58 Tican John Wilkinson 136 13
14 40/ 44/ 16 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 135 224
15 21/ 7/ 73 Chugging Along Karl Lewin 135 4
16 34/ 33/ 33 Tornado 1.8 Beppe Bezzi 134 173
17 31/ 37/ 32 myZizzor Paulsson 125 50
18 17/ 15/ 68 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 118 2
19 15/ 15/ 71 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 114 1
20 30/ 46/ 24 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 113 3
Also this week we have standard non-p warriors in great majority (15/5) on
the hill and keeping the top four positions. Randy Graham showed down with
its new Porch Swing+, climbing high; a few paper warriors have entered the
lower part of the hill. A few kills of test warriors have increased the
top/bottom rate, now at 32.7%
A quiet week, the tournament is keeping busy most redcoders.
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94 - What's new
1 44/ 40/ 16 Porch Swing + Randy Graham 148 1
Welcome back Randy !!
10 32/ 31/ 37 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 134 1
11 28/ 23/ 49 test r 02 Beppe Bezzi 132 1
13 31/ 29/ 40 .Brain Vamp. B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 132 1
14 22/ 9/ 69 Chugging Along Karl Lewin 136 1
19 22/ 18/ 60 Tican John Wilkinson 127 1
18 17/ 18/ 65 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 116 1
18 30/ 50/ 21 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 110 1
19 15/ 15/ 71 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 114 1
Worth noting new Porch Swing +, not dominating like this summer, but always
a dangerous guy.
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__________
94 - What's no more
21 2/ 1/ 2 Brain Vamp B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 7 137
21 1/ 2/ 2 Firestorm 08 Beppe Bezzi 6 114
21 36/ 51/ 13 SandBlast 1a John K. Wilkinson 121 55
21 37/ 47/ 16 blackTN P.Kline 126 43
21 16/ 11/ 73 Die Hard P.Kline 121 13
Very little, in my weeks warriors age without risks :-) A couple of warriors
have been killed by their author, to be replaced by new versions or others
warriors.
Other losses include Sandblast, Black TN and Die Hard.
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What's old
10 35/ 31/ 35 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 139 458
4 35/ 27/ 38 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 143 421
1 40/ 29/ 31 Torch t18 P.Kline 150 319
7 32/ 23/ 45 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 141 307
6 38/ 34/ 28 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 141 287
8 41/ 42/ 17 Frontwards Steven Morrell 140 254
14 40/ 44/ 16 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 135 224
Armory is now the leader, with some advantage on Phq and a good one on the
trio: Torch, Jack in the Box, both over 300, and myVamp. Two new entries in
the more than 200 old, Frontwards and Leprechaun deluxe.
All the group seems to be in good health.
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HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still running; > score isn't exact
Pos Name Author Age Strategy
1 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner
2 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner
3 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp
4 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber
5 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp
6 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber
7 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator
8 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 458 * P-warrior
9 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 421 * Qscan -> replicator
10 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp
11 Cannonade P.Kline >378 Stone/ imp
12 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber
13 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack >350 Stone/ imp
14 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire
15 Dragon Spear c w blue 346 ?
16 juliet storm M R Bremer 333 Stone/ imp
17 TimeScape (1.0) J. Pohjalainen 322 Replicator
18 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 320 CMP scanner
19 Torch t18 P.Kline 319 * Bomber
20 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 307 * P-warrior
Phq enters the top 10, Torch t18 and Jack in the box enter in the bottom,
Christopher and Aeka leave the top 20
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Beginner's Hill standings
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 53/ 8/ 39 juliet storm M R Bremer 197 41
2 39/ 9/ 52 paper01o Beppe Bezzi 169 1
3 37/ 15/ 49 Paper8 G. Eadon 159 3
4 43/ 32/ 25 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 155 2
5 42/ 34/ 24 Test-Fc G. Eadon 149 27
6 41/ 41/ 18 Hint Test M R Bremer 142 21
7 43/ 44/ 13 Heatseek2 Phil Whineray 141 19
8 23/ 8/ 69 Impfinity v1 Planar 138 16
9 39/ 40/ 21 Searching Kurt Franke 137 8
10 40/ 46/ 14 Web Gareth Thomas 133 42
11 38/ 44/ 18 Mythicon v1.1a G. Eadon 132 100
12 35/ 40/ 25 1stscanner Kurt Franke 130 14
13 25/ 23/ 53 Cyclone Scott Manley 126 29
14 36/ 53/ 10 Skimmer Gareth Thomas 119 68
15 29/ 39/ 32 Weasel Kurt Franke 119 33
16 29/ 41/ 30 Banzaiv1.3 Calvin Loh 118 5
17 21/ 29/ 50 P_Banzai Calvin Loh 113 4
18 20/ 27/ 53 Imp Craze 91.43 Planar 113 17
19 29/ 47/ 24 Banzaiv1.2 Calvin Loh 112 6
20 32/ 54/ 15 PlinyScan G. Eadon 110 23
Sorry for the submission of paper01o, a warrior that entered the -94 hill too.
I did it to get standings and to compare results with 94 hill's.
In -94 hill paper01o scored 126, entering near position 15. Its code is
discussed in the hint, with notes on how to make a similar warrior.
If anyone wants results of paper01o againts others beginner's or -94 hill
warriors, mail me. Is worth noting paper01o won all single matches on -b
hill, (1/0/249 against Paper8 and Impfinity), but the one against PlinyScan
(82/113/55 for it)
Against juliet storm, scored but 22/0/228, having very little anti imp.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The hint
Replicators (part 2)
Hi, happy to see you again.
Last time we spoke of basic replicator concepts, now I'll try to speak of
some advanced topics.
To begin let's give a look at another replicating engine, the best one in my
opinion, first introduced by Jippo Pohjalainen in its warrior Timescape.
We report slightly simplified, the way it has been proposed as White warrior
by Nandor and Stefan in the tournament.
warrior
spl 1, <-200
mov.i -1, 0 ;this block generates 6 processes
spl 1, <-300
tim2 spl @tim2, }TSTEP
tim2a mov.i }tim2, >tim2
cel2 spl @cel2, }CSTEP ;these four lines are the main body
cel2a mov.i }cel2, >cel2
;here you can insert some bombing line
ncl2a mov.i {cel2, <ncl2
ncl2 jmp @ncl2, >NSTEP
All you know, having read part 1, how the first four lines work, they split
away and copy the warrior body where the processes are going to execute, is
worth noting that the lines cel2, cel2a don't copy the warrior from the
beginning but copy two blank lines in the bottom, after ncl2.
Line ncl2a copies again the warrior, fron cel2 to ncl2+2, backward because
of the pre decrements and last line jumps to the beginning of this copy
resetting the pointer.
The main advantage of this structure is that all the code is executed but
once, to be left as a decoy to foul scanners; this is a great advantage
compared with the older structure of the first hint. Another advantage is
that the warrior will continue to work, slowed, even if wounded by a bomb in
its last two lines.
This guy was the harder thing to kill before Paul Kline created Die Hard.
With this structure have been made some others replicators of success, worth
mention are Nobody special by Mike Nonemacher and Marcia Trionfale by...me.
Now we have a solid structure to work on, to make it deadlier we can add
some other form of attack than overwriting our opponent. The original
Timescape has this single bombing line inserted after cel2a:
mov.i <-FSTEP,{FSTEP
how it works, remember we have some processes working in papallel:
every process takes the cell -FSTEP away, decrements its b-field, take the
cell pointed by and moves it in the position pointed by the decremented
a-field of the cell FSTEP cells away. Simple? NO! :-)
OK. From the beginning:
dat 0,0
-FSTEP dat 0,0 ;will became dat 0,-1
...
mov.i <-FSTEP,{FSTEP ;here we are
...
begin mov bomb, nearme
... [enemy code] ;Our enemy is here, we are lucky :-)
end jmp begin
dat 0,0
FSTEP dat 0,0 ;will became dat -1,0
Now 1st process takes the cell -FSTEP and decrements its b-field, takes the
cell pointed by the decremented b-field (in the example the cell before) and
moves it; where? It takes the cell FSTEP and decrements its a-field thake
the cell pointed by it, here he hits. Missed, don't worry we have process 2
taking cell -FSTEP-2 and moving it at FSTEP-2 and so on till we have
processes executing the bombing line. At the end the enemy is no more, in
the example at least.
Bombing is useful not only to get rid of our enemy but also to get rid of
ourself ... yes, enemy scanners have the bad use to cover our poor
replicators with carpets of spl 0 and similar nasty things. Those bombs
don't kill, but cause us to generate unuseful processes slowing down our
spread. If we bomb with dat our old copies, that have a chance to be
infected, we can reduce this effect; should happen we hit a good copy don't
worry, we are so many that we can withstand a few losses.
Others warriors use different kind of bombs, more useful to kill our
enemies, the drawback is that we have to carry the bomb with us. The bombing
line will beacme:
mov bomb, <target ;or > or { or }
now the first bomb laid down will become the pointer for the following carpet.
Most used bomb is the anti imp bomb
dat <-2666, <2667
this bomb is very good at killing 3 points imp ring, otherwise difficult to
kill by replicators.
Another bomb I used with some success, in Jack in the box, is this simple one:
dat 1, 1
This bomb is targeted against djn streams and forward clears, two forms of
attack often used by paper enemies. The effect on streams is to make the
process go ot of the loop, wasting time; the effect on forward clears is
deadly, look at a simple forward clear
gate dat 100, 1000 ;the clear is running 1000 cells away
....
clr mov bomb, >gate ;what's bomb don't matter, sure nothing with
jmp clr ;a b-field of 1
If we hit gate with a dat 1,1 the clear will begin running inside itself,
till it reaches clr line and self destructs, very effective and very funny :-)
Like the bombing/scanning step for stones and scanners the spread constants
can make the difference beetween a good and a bad warrior. You have to
choose them so as to assure a good spread of the copies in the core.
Corestep.c by Jay Han and Mopt by Stefan Strack, available at the FTP site,
can give you a starting point, but for replicators the job is, far more
complex because they change their constants in the spread process; let me
explain with an example, same structure 4 parallel processes:
a spl @0, 100
b mov }-1, >-1
c mov {d, <d
d jmp @0, >1000
First time lines a-b are executed they splits and copy 100 locations away
but, when lines c-d copy them the value of b-field is 104, and so on.
I don't know any mathematical method or optimization program to find best
values and I look at what happens using pmarsv. If I notice that modules
don't spread well I change something and so on, art more than science.
In the replicator I'm working at now I use a step modulo 200 for first
constant (anything beetween 100 and 400 is good) a mod 20/40 for second one
and ... my nose :-) for the last one.
Stefan Strack suggested a method using Pmars macros to automatize, in part
at least, the search; here is what he says:
----------
A better way to optimize constants
is to run your warrior with pmars and use cdb macros that change code
sections and record the result. Suppose we want to optimize a slighly
"un-optimized" version of T.Hsu's Ryooki:
nxt_paper equ 100 ;chosen with room for improvement
boot_paper spl 1 ,>4000
mov.i -1,#0
mov.i -1,#0
paper spl @paper,<nxt_paper ; A-fld is src, B-fld is dest
copy mov.i }paper,>paper
mov.i bomb ,>paper ; anti-imp
mov.i bomb ,}800 ; anti-vampire
jmn.f @copy ,{paper
bomb dat <2667 ,<2667*2
and we want to find a better offset between copies than the "100" in the
nxt_paper EQU. First we need to come up with some good
ways to measure an even spread between paper bodies in core. Here's an
approximation that cdb can easily provide:
after a few thousand cycles, a paper with a good offset
1) has more processes
2) covers more core locations
than a paper with a bad offset
Now the idea is simply to run multiple rounds, systematically changing the
silk offset at the beginning of each round, and having cdb report process
number and number of covered core locations after 5000 cycles or so. This can
all be automated with macros, so you can have pmars find optimal constants
while you get coffee (jolt? :). Once you have a few candidate offsets, you
should make sure they're working as you expect by looking at the core
display. You can than go on to find optimal bombing constants for your
set of optimal offsets in pretty much the same manner. As an example using
Ryooki above:
pmars -br 1000 -e ryooki.red
00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000
(cdb) 0,7
00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000
00001 MOV.I $ -1, # 0
00002 MOV.I $ -1, # 0
00003 SPL.B @ 0, < 100
00004 MOV.I } -1, > -1
00005 MOV.I $ 3, > -2
00006 MOV.I $ 2, } 800
00007 JMN.F @ -3, { -4
(cdb) calc i=99
99
This sets a variable "i" to our starting constant.
(cdb)@ed 3~spl @0,<i=i+1~@sk 5000~@pq~ca i,$+1~@pq off~m count~@go~@st
100,987
1830
(cdb)
This is a bit complicated. The "@ed 3~spl @0,<i=i+1" sequence edits address
3 and writes to it the instruction "SPL @ 0, < 100", having incremen-
ted the "i" variable by 1. "@sk 5000" executes 5000 cycles silently, "@pq"
then switches into "process queue" display/edit mode. "calc i,$+1" echoes
the current value of the "i" variable, followed by the number of processes
("$" is the number of the last process). The output is seen on the next line:
"100,987". "@pq off" then switches back into core display/edit mode.
"macro count" executes a macro that is already defined in pmars.mac; the
"count" macro simply echoes the number of core locations that have anything
other than "dat 0,0" in them (here: 1830). Finally, "@go~@st" advance to the
end of this round and to the first cycle of the next round.
When you now press <Enter>, the command sequence is repeated with an offset
value of 101:
(cdb) <Enter>
101,1058
1971
(cdb)
The 101 offset results in a greater number of processes (1058) and more
addresses written to (1971). If you want to run the whole thing automated,
just inclose the command sequence in a loop (!!~...~!) and send the
results to a file like so:
(cdb) ca i=99
99
(cdb) write ryooki.opt
Opening logfile
(cdb) !!~&ed 3~spl @0,<i=i+1~&sk 5000~&pq~ca i,$+1~&pq off~m count~&go~&st~!
To avoid sending _a_lot_ of garbish output to the log file, we have to use &
in stead of @ in this macro and in the macro count in pmars.mac; just edit it.
count= &ca z=.~m w?~&ca x=.,c=0~!!~m w?~&ca c=c+1~if .!=x~!~ca c~&l z
w?= &search ,
You can easily make this more complicated by only echoing
#processes/locations if the values are larger than anything so far (left as an
exercise to the reader), but at this point you are probably ready
to save yourself some typing by defining your own macros. Remember that
you can add macros from within the cdb session using the "@macro ,user"
command (a shorthand is "m="). You could even replace the rather simplistic
check for #processes/locations with a more elaborate macro that calculates
the variance of intervals between papers.
----------
Now we are ready to start making a paper warrior, what we have to do is
putting things together and begin working.
First the structure, we'll make a mid-size warrior, 8 lines, so we need 8
processes.
start spl 1, <300 ;so we make 8 parallel processes
spl 1, <400 ;the <### are not needed to make it work
spl 1, <500 ;but may damage something and cost nothing
silk spl @0, {dest0
mov.i }-1, >-1
silk1 spl @0, <dest1
mov.i }-1, >-1
mov.i bomba, }range
mov {silk1, <silk2
silk2 jmp @0, >dest2
bomba dat <2667, <1
Now the constants: dest0 is the less used, let's take a modulo 200 value,
for dest1 we take a mod 20 one. Now we begin optimization using Stefan
method. I have a rather slow computer so I choosed to analyze but values
ranging from -2000 to -1000. Before doing so I changed the mov bomb line in
a nop instruction, optimizing bombing will come later.
Running Stefan's macro I got -1278 as best value.
Then I replaced the nop with a mov and runned again the macro, choosing a
range for bombing beetween 500 and 1000. Best value 933
I put values in the warrior and submitted it to 94 hill: score: 125.98
Not bad, a little better than hand made one.
For you to enjoy here is the code to play with.
Boyz on the hill, ready your scanners. They are coming :-)
;redcode-94
;name paper01o
;author Beppe Bezzi
;strategy paper module, partially optimized with pmars
;assert CORESIZE == 8000
dest0 equ 2200
dest1 equ 3740
dest2 equ -1278 ;pmars optimized
range equ 933 ;pmars optimized
paper
spl 1, <300 ;\
spl 1, <400 ;-> generate 8 consecutive processes
spl 1, <500 ;/
silk spl @0, {dest0
mov.i }-1, >-1
silk1 spl @0, <dest1
mov.i }-1, >-1
mov.i bomba, }range
mov {silk1, <silk2
silk2 jmp @0, >dest2
bomba dat <2667, <1
end paper
For next hint I would like a little input from you about the argument to be
treated; my first choice is p-space followed by bombers, two arguments I
know at least a little, having made some successful warriors, but I wish to
hear from you.
_____________________________________________________________________________
For questions mail me <bezzi@iol.it> or if you think it's of general
interest post to rec.games.corewar
Anyone with hints or warriors to publish is welcome.
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