A midweek review of Corewar
April 21, 1993
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. The Standings:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 38/ 21/ 41 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 154 112
2 47/ 44/ 9 Backstabber Anders Ivner 150 32
3 46/ 45/ 8 Agony 5.1 Stefan Strack 148 266
4 35/ 25/ 40 Imprimis 6 P.Kline 145 512
5 44/ 44/ 11 Dragon Spear c w blue 145 214
6 45/ 46/ 9 Medusa's v7 Mintardjo & Strack 144 405
7 33/ 23/ 44 +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 143 1542
8 33/ 24/ 43 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 143 1110
9 32/ 22/ 46 Silver Paper W. Mintardjo 143 143
10 43/ 46/ 11 Zipp c w blue 141 21
11 42/ 44/ 14 Sucker 6 Stefan Strack 140 134
12 42/ 45/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 139 1068
13 39/ 40/ 21 Leprechaun 1b Anders Ivner 138 1024
14 30/ 22/ 48 Itt nandor sieben 137 40
15 37/ 37/ 27 Nurgle c w blue 137 95
16 31/ 27/ 42 Full moon Dan Nabutovsky 135 7
17 41/ 48/ 12 cproba nandor sieben 133 39
18 40/ 47/ 13 Emerald 4 P.Kline 132 87
19 32/ 53/ 16 Zoiks! C. Parrinello 110 8
20 24/ 50/ 26 Passport P.Kline 98 1
21 1/ 2/ 1 sub-type-aix c w blue 5 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. The Basics:
-Core War Archives are available via anonymous FTP at
soda.berkeley.edu in pub/corewar...
-FAQ for this newsgroup is available via anonymous FTP at
rtfm.mit.edu as pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.z
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. The Scoop:
This week we have a little of the old, and a little of the new.
For the old, a big round of applause to +0 Stormbringer which passed 1500,
and also to A. Ivner whose Leprechaun 1b has joined the over-1000 ranks
(the over-the-hill gang? :-)
In the new category, S. Adkins released a new version of Core Wars Deluxe
(v2.0b) and deserves many thanks for supporting CoreWars. Also Nandor
Sieben has created a program 'macroed' which takes limited-shorthand
input and creates standard redcode. This may be the beginning of a whole
new generation of tools for program-writing. Imagine a program which
could process instructions like:
- copy the next M lines N times
- insert the step-increment that optimally bombs M locations without
bombing the previous N locations
- make me a copy routine to bootstrap M locations starting at location
X and write them at location Y
- include xxx-program here
- ??? (your imagination needed here)
Take note of S. Halvorsen's re-entry into the fray, ImpStop, bearing
these warnings:
;Strategy This is my first attempt in a long time, so if you beat
;Strategy me, I'll just have to come back with something worse !
Well, sticks and stones may break my bones, but let's see those scores! :-)
Did anyone else note the 'irony' in Wayne's comment announcing the
source-posting of Iron Sword:
"But it can't score enough, so I post it for the general public."
Gee, thanks.
Lastly, if I had a program that scored like this, I would probably
call it 'pu' too :-)
21 11/ 70/ 19 sub-type-pu c w blue 51
-well, actually I have quite a few programs that score like that :-(
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV. The Outlook:
1 47/ 44/ 9 Backstabber Anders Ivner 151 1
10 30/ 23/ 47 Night Crawler III Wayne Sheppard 137 1
7 45/ 47/ 8 Juggernaut v1.5 Anders Ivner 143 1
2 35/ 18/ 47 Test Crawler Wayne Sheppard 152 1
2 40/ 21/ 40 sub-type-aix c w blue 159 1
10 28/ 19/ 53 proba nandor sieben 138 1
10 43/ 46/ 11 CraMPon c w blue 140 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
V. The Quick Look:
21 7/ 86/ 7 ik j.layland 28 0
17 24/ 21/ 54 Itt nandor sieben 127 1
21 34/ 62/ 4 ugh j.layland 106 0
21 1/ 0/ 4 Zipp c w blue 6 61
21 19/ 77/ 4 test j.layland 61 0
20 35/ 51/ 14 Irony Wayne Sheppard 120 1
21 30/ 64/ 6 Snake Wayne Sheppard 95 0
21 29/ 61/ 11 Wedge Rodney Schuler 97 0
21 32/ 60/ 8 test1 j.layland 103 0
21 9/ 82/ 9 Dwarfs Andre van Dalen 35 0
21 23/ 69/ 7 Invest Andre van Dalen 77 0
20 33/ 50/ 17 Zoiks! C. Parrinello 116 1
19 39/ 50/ 12 cproba nandor sieben 127 1
21 22/ 24/ 53 p2roba nandor sieben 120 0
21 24/ 70/ 6 spy2.0 Kirk Gorden 79 0
19 33/ 51/ 16 test 2 P.Kline 116 1
21 20/ 74/ 7 Blofeld Fredrik 65 0
18 41/ 48/ 12 CraMPon c w blue 134 1
21 18/ 74/ 7 DemonIV Cormac Walsh 62 0
21 20/ 52/ 28 ImpStop S. Halvorsen 88 0
21 6/ 61/ 33 cmp-add Wayne Sheppard 50 0
20 27/ 68/ 5 Bscanner Wayne Sheppard 86 1
21 4/ 31/ 65 Buzzbomb Paul Bobby 78 0
21 6/ 91/ 3 DNA ring A.T. Crowley 22 0
21 24/ 43/ 33 DemonIII Cormac Walsh 105 0
21 0/ 93/ 7 Dust 1.1 Paul Svensson <paul@ 7 0
20 30/ 29/ 42 Ice Cube c w blue 131 1
21 11/ 39/ 50 MPCC 1.1 A.T. Crowley 82 0
20 33/ 58/ 9 Orff 3.2 Fredrik 107 1
19 28/ 39/ 33 Passport P.Kline 116 1
21 25/ 62/ 13 Sleuth3.0 Kirk R. Gorden 89 0
20 13/ 57/ 30 Iron Fence Wayne Sheppard 68 1
19 34/ 49/ 17 Iron Sword Wayne Sheppard 118 1
20 33/ 47/ 19 Tomb Stone c w blue 119 1
20 19/ 60/ 21 sub-type-b c w blue 79 1
21 18/ 53/ 29 sub-type-i c w blue 84 0
20 36/ 44/ 19 sub-type-n c w blue 129 1
20 37/ 50/ 13 Charon v8.2 Cisek,Strack,Kline 125 1
18 37/ 44/ 19 Moonstone 2 Unknown 131 1
20 11/ 37/ 52 Pouser v2.1 Joshua Houk 86 1
21 30/ 53/ 18 sub-type-bs c w blue 107 0
21 11/ 70/ 19 sub-type-pu c w blue 51 0
21 25/ 66/ 10 ImpStop 1.01 S. Halvorsen 83 0
21 0/ 43/ 56 New Low v2.1 Joshua Houk 57 0
18 38/ 48/ 14 sub-type-cmp c w blue 128 1
20 36/ 52/ 12 Distance v5.0 Brant D. Thomsen 119 1
21 3/ 41/ 56 sub-type-bs-2 c w blue 65 0
21 9/ 60/ 31 Be my Neighbor Michael Patterson (m 57 0
21 5/ 59/ 36 Metadwarf v1.0 Joshua Houk 51 0
18 29/ 30/ 41 Moonstone ring Dan Nabutovsky 128 1
20 32/ 48/ 20 Moonstone v1.1 Unknown 117 1
21 18/ 70/ 11 Sleracil v0.5b Arto Vuori 66 0
21 10/ 47/ 43 House Pouser v2.4 Joshua Houk 72 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI. The Hint:
Several people have asked how I know what style warrior 'xxx' fighter
is. Well, in some cases I don't have any idea. Some others have
been posted, some have been described by their authors, and sometimes
authors have used ;strategy lines in earlier versions but removed
them in later versions. I also make guesses based on how the fighter
performs against my own fighters. For what it's worth, here is my best
guess for the current 20 fighters on KotH: (* indicates it has been posted):
Night Crawler * imp-stone
Backstabber brief bscan, core-clear, ???
Agony 5.1 cmp-scanner, spl-0 carpet (Agony 2.4 *)
Imprimis 6 * imp-stone, anti-vamp
Dragon Spear cmp-scanner
Medusa's v7 cmp-scanner, spl-0 carpet (Medusa v4 *)
+0 Stormbringer imp-stone
Sphinx v2.8 * imp-stone
Silver Paper paper-stone (Gamma Paper *)
Zipp ???
Sucker 6 vampire (Sucker 5 *)
Iron Gate * cmp-scanner
Leprechaun 1b * bomber/bscanner
Itt imp-stone
Nurgle paper-stone
Full moon imp-stone
cproba scanner
Emerald 4 stone, anti-vamp
Zoiks! ???
Passport paper-stone
I apologize for any mistakes. Corrections and additions are appreciated.
The best policy is to ask the author - don't expect an immediate response,
some are busy people, but most are very helpful. Some prefer to give
hints, not code, and some of our best competitors are non-native English
speakers - so beware eh, WM?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII. The End:
Paul Kline
pk6811s@acad.drake.edu