Issue 60 11 July,1997
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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: (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.ncs.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
A collection of Bezzi's hints in the first issues is available at:
ftp://ftp.volftp.vol.it/pub/pc/msdos/games/solutions/bbhints.zip
Beppe Bezzi web page - http://www.aspide.it/freeweb/Bezzi
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Greetings.
OK, with some delay, here I am. My first issue and also my first hint.
There are at the moment not much movements on the hill. But after Anton
Marsden published the p^2-engine and his incredible good Electric Head I
think everybody is working on new p-warriors.
The first round of Anton's Core War Tournament is now finish.
--Christian Schmidt
Round 1 Results
---------------
Name Score
-------------------------
Brian Haskin 8
Ilmari Karonen 7
Mole IX 5
Philipp Offermann 4
Zul Nadzri 3
Robert Hale 2
Christian Schmidt 1
Seaside sort (length 31) by Brian Haskin
Notes: works, fastest program
Average cycles: 320907
Bubbly Sort 1b (length 10) by Ilmari Karonen
Notes: works, smallest program
Average cycles: 13505607
Particle Sorter (length 12) by Mole IX
Notes: works, could be made a little bit faster :-)
Average cycles: 11644522
PSort v1.0 (length 12) by Philipp Offermann
Notes: works
Average cycles: 11998609
Sort v1.5 (length 20) by Zul Nadzri
Notes: doesn't work for ITEMS==0
Average cycles: 9066053
Consort (length 14+1) by Robert Hale
Notes: I had to add an extra line to make this terminate properly (it
assumes that the data consists of DAT instructions). I also had to change
some mov.i instructions to mov.f. This also sorts the list in descending
order. Apart from these details, it works just fine. :-)
Average cycles: 27968360
Sortidator (length 31) by Christian Schmidt
Notes: doesn't work for ITEMS==0 or ITEMS==CORESIZE/2
Average cycles: 68427233
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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 46.4/ 36.0/ 17.6 Electric Head Anton Marsden 156.8 22
2 47.6/ 43.6/ 8.8 He Scans Again P.Kline 151.6 10
3 35.5/ 23.2/ 41.3 Newt Ian Oversby 147.8 13
4 44.3/ 41.1/ 14.6 C^2 Christian Schmidt 147.4 17
5 30.7/ 16.7/ 52.6 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 144.7 267
6 36.5/ 28.7/ 34.9 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 144.3 131
7 38.9/ 33.8/ 27.3 PAN-TAU-RA Christian Schmidt 144.0 2
8 35.4/ 27.2/ 37.4 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 143.6 55
9 42.1/ 41.7/ 16.3 Blain Nimon 142.5 33
10 40.5/ 38.6/ 20.9 NCC-1701-A Philip Kendall 142.4 70
11 40.2/ 38.4/ 21.4 Guessed v0.1 Ian 142.0 7
12 29.6/ 17.1/ 53.3 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 142.0 306
13 37.7/ 34.6/ 27.8 First Strike Nimon 140.8 28
14 33.6/ 27.4/ 39.0 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 139.9 321
15 39.7/ 39.7/ 20.7 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 139.7 113
16 41.0/ 42.4/ 16.6 Fawkes v0.2 Ian Oversby 139.5 5
17 30.6/ 24.0/ 45.4 unrequited love kafka 137.3 14
18 30.8/ 24.7/ 44.5 RetroQ P.Kline 136.8 67
19 37.9/ 39.1/ 23.0 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 136.8 308
20 40.2/ 43.9/ 15.9 myVamp5.4 Paulsson 136.4 17
21 42.9/ 49.9/ 7.1 Obsidian Nimon 135.9 27
22 31.2/ 28.2/ 40.6 Ultraviolet Ken Espiritu 134.3 4
23 31.1/ 29.2/ 39.7 Terkonit 3 Christian Schmidt 132.9 10
24 28.9/ 26.5/ 44.6 Ultra-RQ^2 Ken Espiritu 131.3 5
25 12.5/ 45.5/ 42.0 Pure Genius Compudemon 79.5 0
Monthly age: 2 this issue ( 13 last issue, 14 the issue before )
New warriors: 3 Turnover/age rate 12%
Average age: 74 ( 72 last issue, 80 the issue before )
Average score: 139 ( 142 last issue, 138 the issue before )
The top 25 warriors are represented by 11 independent authors: Oversby
with 5; Schmidt with 4; Nimon with 3; Espiritu, Kline and Marsden with
2. All others with one warrior each.
Electric Head is still on top followed by He Scans Again and Newt.
______________________________________________________________________________
94 - What's New
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
?? ??.?/ ??.?/ ??.? Test T Ian Oversby ???.? 1
14 39.4/ 44.8/ 15.8 Tranken Ian 134.1 0
25 4.8/ 71.7/ 23.5 Super clone Compudemon 38.0 1
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94 - What's No More
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
26 1.5/ 1.5/ 1.0 Test T Ian Oversby 5.6 1
26 3.6/ 0.3/ 0.1 Tranken Ian 10.9 0
26 4.5/ 69.1/ 26.3 Super clone Compudemon 40.0 0
No significant losses.
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94 - What's Old
# %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age
14 33.6/ 27.4/ 39.0 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 139.9 321
19 37.9/ 39.1/ 23.0 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 136.8 308
12 29.6/ 17.1/ 53.3 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 142.0 306
5 30.7/ 16.7/ 52.6 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 144.7 267
No new entries.
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OLD 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 Rosebud Beppe Bezzi 993 Stone/ imp
15 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner
16 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 925 Bomber
17 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner
18 Barrage Anton Marsden 876 Qscan -> replicator
19 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp
20 Flurry Anton Marsden 835 Qscan -> pwarrior
21 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber
22 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp
23 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator
24 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 736 Scanner/ bomber
25 Blizzard Anton Marsden 713 Qscan -> replicator
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NEW HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still active.
Pos Name Author Age Strategy
1 Probe Anton Marsden 403 Q^2 -> Bomber
2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 396 Scanner
3 unrequited love kafka 346 Q^2 -> Paper
4 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 321 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp
5 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 306 * Q^2 -> Bomber
6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 306 * Stone/imp
7 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior
8 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 267 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp
9 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/imp
10 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 ->Scanner/bomber
11 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior
12 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior
13 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 QScan -> Stone/imp
14 Trident^2 John K W 195 Q^2 -> Stone/imp
15 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/imp
16 Frogz Franz 172 Q^2 -> Paper
17 The Machine Anton Marsden 164 Scanner
18 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner
19 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 Q^2 -> Paper
20 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 131 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp
21 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 113 * Stone and scanner
22 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Q^2 -> Paper
23 mrb-test m r bremer 106 ?
24 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 105 Bomber
25 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 100 P-warrior
No new entries.
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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 50.2/ 36.8/ 13.0 Guessed v0.1 Ian 163.6 14
2 50.8/ 38.1/ 11.1 Pentagram 2.a J.A.Denny 163.4 76
3 47.3/ 34.6/ 18.2 Hexagram J.A.Denny 160.0 74
4 40.2/ 25.6/ 34.2 Sections Zul Nadzri 154.7 34
5 39.4/ 27.5/ 33.1 Flimsy v0.6 Ian Oversby 151.2 75
6 38.0/ 25.2/ 36.9 Scanitator 3.0 Christian Schmidt 150.8 81
7 35.7/ 21.2/ 43.1 Dust 7.0 Justin Kao 150.1 54
8 46.3/ 43.1/ 10.5 The Stainless Steel Rat Christian Schmidt 149.5 97
9 45.6/ 42.7/ 11.7 qDeath v .169 Ryan Coleman 148.4 21
10 30.5/ 15.1/ 54.4 DemonSpawn J.A.Denny 145.8 84
11 43.4/ 44.5/ 12.1 Short Sword 4 JS Pulido 142.4 56
12 40.6/ 41.0/ 18.4 qbomber v .469 Ryan Coleman 140.2 25
13 31.8/ 25.0/ 43.1 Six-Finger Discount From Ryan Coleman 138.6 28
14 29.4/ 21.4/ 49.2 Quantum Christian Schmidt 137.3 78
15 34.7/ 34.3/ 31.0 If I only had a brain? Ryan Coleman 135.2 26
16 30.0/ 25.4/ 44.6 It's a Harmless Addition Robert Hale 134.6 12
17 40.9/ 47.5/ 11.6 Scankiller 0.1 Christian Schmidt 134.2 86
18 39.7/ 45.3/ 15.0 Dwa Michaly b Waldemar Bartolik 134.2 62
19 31.3/ 29.8/ 38.9 Zorm-B Anonymous 132.7 59
20 26.5/ 23.2/ 50.3 4-Finger Discount From th Ryan Coleman 129.8 29
21 30.0/ 30.3/ 39.7 It's a Harmless Addiction Robert Hale 129.6 15
22 28.8/ 30.6/ 40.6 Kohonenian Dream Robert J. Street 127.1 48
23 26.4/ 43.8/ 29.8 Nautilus Mole IX 109.1 1
24 5.4/ 1.0/ 1.6 Nautilus Mole IX 17.8 2
25 5.4/ 1.0/ 1.6 Nautilus Mole IX 17.8 4
Top 25 Averages:
34.7/ 30.2/ 27.8 131.9 45
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The Hint
Replicators (part 3)
In the first two parts (issue 1 and 3) Beppe Bezzi discus the basics of
replicators (called papers) and a way to optimize their constants. But
over the time new ideas were tried to improve the offensive power of
replicators (the greatest disadvantage of them) based on new strategies
or in different ways of optimizing constants.
In this hint I give with three examples only a short overview and how
they work against some warriors. I hope this will animate to further
ideas. You can find all of them at Planar`s warrior archive.
Let's start with kafkas unrequited love (IMPORTANT: I extract only the
replicator of the appropriate programs for clarity. I hope the authors
will forgive me these sacrilege) which was based on Beppes paper01o.
;redcode-94
;name unrequited love
;author kafka
;assert 1
dest0 equ 7889
dest1 equ 3602
dest2 equ 4095
range equ 1253
paper spl 1, <-300
spl 1, <-400
spl 1, <-500
silk spl @0, {dest0
mov.i }-1, >-1
silk1 spl @0, <dest1
mov.i }-1, >-1
mov bomba, }range
mov {silk1, <silk2
silk2 jmp @0, >dest2
bomba dat <2667, <5334
;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
Kafka optimize the constants of his unrequited love against actual,
published warriors of the hill. In contrast to Stefan Strack`s cdb-macro
Beppe described in issue 3, which find the best value for spreading,
kafkas method can have a slightly advantage on the hill. But only as
long as the used warriors are on the hill.
Another way to improve the offensive power is to increase the number of
bombing instruction, like in Beppe`s huge Maria Trionfale. A smaller but
also very aggressive one is for example Ian Oversby`s Pulp.
;redcode-94
;name Pulp
;author Ian Oversby
;assert 1
dest1 equ 1400 ; For Pulp v0.2
dest2 equ 5460
dest3 equ 725
pos1 equ 930
pos2 equ 3359
pos3 equ 1009 ; clear old copies
org paper
paper SPL.B 1, <-300
MOV.I -1, 0
MOV.I -1, 0
SPL.B 1, {-300
silk SPL..B @0, >dest1
MOV.I }-1, >-1
MOV.I bomb, >pos1
silk2 SPL.B @0, >dest2
MOV.I }-1, >-1
MOV.I bomb, >pos2 ; linear bombing
MOV.I bomb, }pos3 ; anti-vamp
MOV.I {silk2, <silk3
silk3 JMP.B @0, >dest3
bomb DAT.F <2667, <5334
A complete different strategy used franz, with great success, in his CC
Paper. He don't throw bombs but he combined in a effective way a
replicator with a coreclear. The advantage is that every copy starts his
own coreclear and the chance to kill the opponent by a dat-wipe is much
higher than by a single bomb.
;redcode-94
;name CC Paper 2
;author Franz
;assert CORESIZE==8000
len EQU 9
fcp EQU 3039
scp EQU 2365
tcp EQU 777
boot spl 1,<-3000 ;letz get 9 processes together
mov -1,0
mov -1,0
mov -1,0
frog spl @0, <fcp-len
mov }-1, >-1
spl @0, <scp
mov }-1, >-1
spl @0, <tcp
mov }-1, >-1
mov 2, <-1
jmp -1, <-10
dat <2667, <2667*2
datz end
Now, let's see how well (or worth) they work in 1000 fights against the
following list of warriors. As a standard paper is use also J.
Pohjalainen`s TimeScape (1.0)
1) He scans alone (the publicated version, not the actual) (Scanner)
2) MyVamp 5.4 (Vamp)
3) Bluefunk (light stone/imp)
4) Impish v0.2 (heavy stone/imp)
5) Damage Incorporated (q^2 + stone)
And here is the table of the results
HSA MyVamp Bluefunk Impish Damag Inc.
TimeScape 308-604- 88 376-422-202 204- 27-769 22- 9-969 268-193-539
1012 Pts 1330 Pts 1381 Pts 1035 Pts 1343 Pts
unrequited love 241-674- 85 534-311-155 231- 32-737 60- 3-937 302-219-479
808 Pts 1757 Pts 1430 Pts 1117 Pts 1385 Pts
paper 01o 227-687- 86 461-363-176 219- 43-738 38- 13-949 297-212-491
767 Pts 1559 Pts 1395 Pts 1063 Pts 1382 Pts
Pulp 252-682- 66 524-331-145 337-141-522 170- 28-802 313-350-337
822 Pts 1717 Pts 1533 Pts 1312 Pts 1276 Pts
CC Paper 242-680- 78 508-331-161 325-211-464 97-166-737 335-311-354
804 Pts 1685 Pts 1439 Pts 1028 Pts 1359 Pts
He Scans Alone kick them all. Only TimeScape scores slightly better than
the rest but he works worther against MyVamp. The other paper win in
contrast more or less the half of the fights. Against the both
Stone/imp-warriors Pulp get the most points. And finally against Damage
Incorporated no one scores significant better.
If we compare the unrequited love and paper01o we can see a slight
advantage of kafka`s warrior. Mmmh, it seems to be that unrequited love
are not only optimized against the warriors which kafka used, but also
against all other. The strengths of Ian Oversby`s Pulp is the good
scoring against stone/imps. And finally franz`s CC Paper shows no
significant disadvantage and is for my feeling a good all-round paper.
______________________________________________________________________________
Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care.
authors: Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@nemo.it> or Philip Kendall <pak21@cam.ac.uk> or
Anton Marsden <amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz> or Christian Schmidt
<schmc003@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>
|
