Issue 21 March 18, 1996
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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 ;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.
After many month, this now I'm not thrilled checking my mail; good old Jack
is fallen, bringing quiz with him soon later, and establishing a new record
of lost age in a week. Maybe Torch fall last week has altered the cosmic
balance or freed some evil force from the depths of Pizza hill.
--Beppe Bezzi
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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/ 33/ 24 Grilled Octopus v0.5 David Boeren 153 102
2 40/ 33/ 28 Chameleon M R Bremer 146 357
3 35/ 25/ 40 Barrage Anton Marsden 146 359
4 40/ 35/ 25 Thermite II Robert Macrae 146 886
5 42/ 41/ 17 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 1138
6 43/ 43/ 14 Hipshot v2.1 J E Long 143 79
7 43/ 43/ 14 Memories Beppe Bezzi 143 279
8 40/ 37/ 23 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 143 227
9 42/ 41/ 17 C I A Anders Ivner 143 145
10 30/ 18/ 52 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 142 1085
11 36/ 31/ 33 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 141 687
12 33/ 28/ 39 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 139 30
13 27/ 16/ 57 Q.S.P. John K W 139 43
14 38/ 39/ 23 qtest 14 Beppe Bezzi 138 3
15 35/ 32/ 34 Lithium John K Wilkinson 138 54
16 24/ 10/ 65 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 138 900
17 26/ 15/ 58 Hazy Shade Of Winter John K W 137 514
18 29/ 21/ 51 Blizzard Anton Marsden 137 605
19 38/ 41/ 21 myConfuser Paulsson 136 68
20 34/ 33/ 32 Torch t18 P.Kline 136 123
21 35/ 35/ 30 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 136 611
22 37/ 42/ 21 Naked dancer Beppe Bezzi 133 1
23 30/ 28/ 42 Clisson P.Kline 131 6
24 34/ 37/ 29 Test Anton Marsden 131 2
25 28/ 26/ 47 Paper Test v2a Ian Oversby 130 13
Weekly age: 83
New warriors 10 Turnover/age rate 12%
Average age: 333 ( 431 last week, 414 the week before )
Average score: 140 ( 142 last week, 135 the week before )
The top 25 warriors are represented by 16 authors.
Jack in the box, king of the Hall of fame, has fallen dead. That's the new
of the week, compared with wich even the falls of quiz and Mirage are of
secondary importance. The hill is now a lot younger, losing near 100 in
average age. The fall of quiz has been impresive, from third to out in less
than a week.
Now the oldest warriors are Frontwards v2, who has been at great risk too
this week, and Impfinity v4g1.
Hilltop is always kept by Boeren's Grilled octopus, even if a few warrior
have claimed king position for a while, maybe the octopus grasp in beginning
to get a bit more feeble.
Ten new warriors are in the hill this week, but only a few test, soon
retired, have made it in the top five position, next week we'll see them
showdown with their full strenght.
Pspacers and qscanners hold the top positions, none knows who will prevail
in the long run, while bombers are losing power, with Tornado exiting the
top five after a long time and the ex king TNT near the hill bottom.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's New
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
6 43/ 44/ 13 Hipshot v2.1 J E Long 141 1
18 37/ 41/ 22 myConfuser Paulsson 134 1
15 35/ 33/ 32 Lithium John K Wilkinson 136 1
7 28/ 15/ 57 Q.S.P. John K W 140 1
14 32/ 28/ 40 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 136 1
25 22/ 24/ 54 Paper Test v2a Ian Oversby 121 1
16 31/ 29/ 41 Clisson P.Kline 133 1
15 37/ 39/ 24 qtest 14 Beppe Bezzi 134 1
23 32/ 39/ 30 Test Anton Marsden 125 1
16 37/ 42/ 21 Naked dancer Beppe Bezzi 133 1
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's No More.
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
26 30/ 35/ 35 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 124 1620
26 36/ 47/ 17 quiz Schitzo 126 1262
26 37/ 49/ 15 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 125 736
26 38/ 51/ 11 Wild Card M R Bremer 125 398
26 18/ 11/ 71 Q.S.P. John K W 125 132
26 38/ 50/ 12 Test J E Long 126 30
26 2/ 2/ 0 myConfuser Paulsson 5 28
26 2/ 2/ 0 Hipshot V2 J E Long 6 19
26 3/ 0/ 1 Lithium And Water John K Wilkinson 9 13
26 2/ 1/ 0 Gem of the Ocean P.Kline 7 2
New record of lost age in a week: 4240 (51% of present hill age) it will be
very difficult to surpass this score in future. Previous record 2103 12 -
Feb - 96
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's Old
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
5 42/ 41/ 17 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 1138
10 30/ 18/ 52 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 142 1085
16 24/ 10/ 65 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 138 900
4 40/ 35/ 25 Thermite II Robert Macrae 146 886
11 36/ 31/ 33 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 141 687
21 35/ 35/ 30 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 136 611
18 29/ 21/ 51 Blizzard Anton Marsden 137 605
17 26/ 15/ 58 Hazy Shade Of Winter John K W 137 514
3 35/ 25/ 40 Barrage Anton Marsden 146 359
2 40/ 33/ 28 Chameleon M R Bremer 146 357
7 43/ 43/ 14 Memories Beppe Bezzi 143 279
8 40/ 37/ 23 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 143 227
Four out: Jack, quiz, Mirage and Wild Card. Two new entries: Memories and
Stepping stone
______________________________________________________________________________
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 quiz Schitzo 1262 Scanner/ bomber
4 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 1138 * One shot scanner
5 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 1085 * Stone/ imp
6 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner
7 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner
8 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 900 * Imp / stone
9 Thermite II Robert Macrae 886 * Qscan -> bomber
10 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp
11 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber
12 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp
13 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator
14 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 736 Scanner/ bomber
15 Tornado 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 687 * Bomber
16 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber
17 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 650 Qscan -> replicator
18 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 643 Vampire
19 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 611 * Bomber
20 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 609 P-warrior
21 Blizzard Anton Marsden 605 * Qscan -> replicator
22 juliet and paper Bremer & Bezzi 607 P-warrior
23 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 589 Qscan -> replicator
24 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 561 Qscan -> replicator
25 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 521 Bomber
Jack in the box, king of te Hall, has stopped his run, but keeps a
considerable advantage over his nex living competitors, Frontwards and
Impfinity, having quiz too been pushed off the hill. No new entry in the
Hall, Hazy shade of winter is very near.
______________________________________________________________________________
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
Last challenge: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 01:11:13 -0800
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 47/ 14/ 38 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 181 1
2 54/ 34/ 12 GPT 15j David van Dam 173 2
3 47/ 28/ 26 ExPensive v0.1 Ian Oversby 165 8
4 41/ 20/ 39 NNAA John K. Lewis 162 79
5 39/ 19/ 42 Hyakutake C/1996 B2 + Scott Manley 159 90
6 46/ 36/ 18 Auntie v1.1 Ian Oversby 156 7
7 34/ 18/ 48 Obvious Thief John K. Lewis 151 16
8 30/ 13/ 57 Well Dressed Imp Robert J. Street 146 59
9 40/ 41/ 19 Simple Scanner-bomber Scott Manley 138 11
10 31/ 25/ 44 Stephanie's Pajamas v1.2 Robert J. Street 137 68
11 28/ 19/ 53 TieMaster v0.1 Christoph C. Birk 136 47
12 34/ 34/ 32 Pommes-Ketchup V1.35 S. Schroeder 134 48
13 39/ 45/ 16 GPT 09f David van Dam 133 29
14 30/ 29/ 41 Stephanie's Pajamas v1.3 Robert J. Street 131 55
15 24/ 21/ 54 XXXOOO v2.0 Joshua Houk 127 95
16 36/ 46/ 18 GPT 09e David van Dam 127 37
17 35/ 46/ 19 C Seagal jShelton 124 40
18 34/ 46/ 20 Optma Dwarf v4.0 Phoenix 123 78
19 33/ 46/ 21 Killer Ian Oversby 120 4
20 30/ 42/ 29 Alien Kiss V1.0 bjoern guenzel 118 81
21 32/ 48/ 20 jmztest George Eadon 117 54
22 28/ 46/ 26 Hyakutake Approaches Scott Manley 111 6
23 8/ 7/ 85 D'Spiral Chris Hodson 110 36
24 30/ 50/ 20 Vampy Jens Heunemann 110 23
25 31/ 62/ 7 Elmar Fudd Brian A. Robbins 99 19
I submitted Jack here to check the level of beginner's hill, to give
newcomers a chance to challenge the king of the 94 Hall of fame and to let
Jack live a bit more :-) According to scores he's still an hard challenger
for beginners, maybe a bit too hard.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Hint by Beppe Bezzi
How to live longer.
No sex, no wine, no smoke.
Maybe you'll live longer, sure your life will seem longer to you. :-)
Getting serious. Some warriors score very good on the hill but don't live
long, while others, even if not scoring that good, live longer, sometimes
very long resiting for hundreds of challenges near the bottom to see younger
and apparently stronger warriors fall dead before them.
Someone will remember the spectacular fall of SETI, an anti imp scanner by
JK Wilkinson, scoring king at the entry, to be pushed off the hill shortly
after, or Whitershins Thrice and Porch swing, dominating the hill with great
advantage this summer, and disappeared without leaving trace in the hall of
fame. Torch and Jack in the box instead never dominated the hill and have
hang a lot in the hill bottom before being pushed off.
What's the secret of the longevity ? the answer is, IMO at least, the
flexibility, i.e. the ability of those warriors to perform well not only
against the hill as is at the moment of their submission but also as it will
be some month later. Obviously none can tell how the hill will be next
summer, it's difficult to forecast how the hill will be next month, and none
can foreview radical changes like the coming of imp rings or p-space, but
something can be done, paying some point now to gain them tomorrow.
Score distribution- You may score your points beating heavily some warriors
and losing badly against others or scoring average good against most
warriors on hill. First choice may give more points now, but your warrior
will die of starvation as soon as your preys are pushed off, while second
option will assure you something to eat when the hill changes. When
evaluating your scores don't look only at the sum but consider the variance too.
Boot- To boot or not to boot, that's the question, as Paul told in a Push
off hint some time ago. We can easily test our warrior with and without boot
and see what version performs better. Should it be the no boot version we
can sacrify something and boot anyway, maybe tomorrow a wae of quickscanners
and one shot scanners, like Frontwards and Porch Swing, will come, and the
booting version survive his non booting comrades.
Bombs- You look at the hill, it's full of scanners, well you make a nice
fast dat bomber with a fast dat clear and you score very good. In a short
time other bombers will come and push the scanners off, a wave of
replicators will fill the hole left and you are in serious troubles. If,
instead of a dat bomber, you had chosen a slightly less effective incendiary
one now you have the strenght to resist.
Brainwashing- Look at the hill last month, but one pspacer, no need to
increase your warrior footprint adding a brainwash line to your clear. Now
the hill is full of pspacers, if you had added it you were able to resist
them much better.
Imp protection- Killing imps requires often specialized clears, that are
less effective against standard replicators, but who knows how many imp
warriors will come in future, or how many standard silk of course.
Qscans- If your warrior is short and boot away from a decoy it's easy to use
a qscan instead of the decoy. You'll gain a lot against all static warriors,
but tomorrow warriors will born with a boot routine so your qscan will prove
but a waste of time.
The end- If you follow all those hint your warrior will score points against
every opponent and miss the hill by little, not only as it's now but also in
future; not the best way to enter the Hall of Fame :-)
-Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@iol.it>
______________________________________________________________________________
Extra extra.
Jack in the box
by Beppe Bezzi
The warrior is well known, having been posted shortly after his appearance
on the hill with but a few EQUs changed, but I think Jack deserves a
reposting in the newsletter. Here is the original version.
;redcode-94
;name Jack in the box
;author Beppe Bezzi
;strategy Marcia Trionfale 1.3 with Tornado
;strategy popping up if confronted by a scanner
;kill Jack
;assert CORESIZE == 8000
org think ;v 09
PIN 1991
_RES equ #0
_STR equ #314
step equ 85
count equ 533
away equ -3750
A0 equ 3488
A1 equ 1860
A2 equ 3740
AA0 equ 3620
AA1 equ 1270
AA2 equ -350
marcia
spl starta, <1000 ;activate body n. 2
spl 1, <300 ;\
spl 1, <600 ;-\ generate 16
spl 1, <500 ;-/ parallel processes
spl 1, <400 ;/
silk spl @0, }A0 ;split
mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy
mov.i bomb1, >123 ;bombing
silk2 spl @0, }A1 ;split
mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy
mov.i bomb1, >1001 ;bombing
mov.i bomb , }2042 ;A-indirect bombing
mov.i {silk2, <silk3 ;copy
silk3 jmp @0, >A2 ;jmp new copy
bomb dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb
bomb1 dat >1, }1 ;anti clear bomb
for 12
dat 0,0
rof
think
res ldp.ab _RES, #0
str ldp.a _STR, str1 ;load strategy in use
sne.ab #0, res ;check result
lost add.a #1, str1 ;lost change
mod.a #2, str1 ;secure result
win stp.ab str1, _STR
str1 jmp @0, tornado
dat 0, marcia
for 12
dat 0,0
rof
tornado mov bm, djmp+away+31
mov bd, djmp+away+32
mov *tptr, @tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
mov {tptr, <tptr
jmp @tptr
tptr dat djmp, away+djmp
bomber mov bd+30, *stone
mov bm+30, @stone
stone mov *step+2,*(2*step)+2
add incr, stone
jump djn.b bomber, #count
incr spl #3*step,#3*step
clr mov -12, }bomber+1
djmp jmp clr, <bomber-5
;29 lines
bm mov step, 1
bd dat #step, #1
for 12
dat 0,0
rof
starta
spl 1, <300 ;\
spl 1, <600 ;-\ generate 16
spl 1, <500 ;-/ consecutive processes
spl 1, <400 ;/
silka spl @0, }AA0 ;split
mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy
mov.i bomba1, >113 ;bombing
silk2a spl @0, }AA1 ;split
mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy
mov.i bomba, >1001 ;bombing
mov.i bomba1, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing
mov.i {silk2a,<silk3a ;copy
silk3a jmp @silk3a,>AA2 ;jmp new copy
bomba dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb
bomba1 dat >1, }1 ;anti clear bomb
end
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Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care:
authors: Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@iol.it> or Myer R Bremer <bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu>
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