A midweek review of Corewar
July 20, 1993
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I. The Standings:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 44/ 44/ 12 Dragon Spear c w blue 144 998
2 39/ 36/ 25 Winter Werewolf 3 W. Mintardjo 143 214
3 43/ 44/ 12 Iron Gate 1.01 Wayne Sheppard 142 39
4 44/ 47/ 9 Agony 6.0 Stefan Strack 142 150
5 41/ 42/ 17 Grimm's Vampyre c w blue 140 79
6 32/ 24/ 44 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 140 1894
7 43/ 46/ 12 Fire Storm v1.1 W. Mintardjo 139 535
8 43/ 47/ 9 Creampuff II P. Kline 139 1
9 32/ 24/ 44 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 139 896
10 37/ 36/ 27 Herem VI Anders Ivner 139 68
11 32/ 26/ 42 ttt nandor sieben 138 120
12 31/ 25/ 44 Imprimis 7 P.Kline 136 136
13 30/ 24/ 45 Impact v1.0 Anders Ivner 136 33
14 33/ 29/ 38 FlyPaper 3.0 J.Layland 136 320
15 31/ 27/ 42 Hydra Stephen Linhart 135 3
16 40/ 47/ 13 Impurge Fredrik Ohrstrom 134 220
17 29/ 26/ 46 Incrimination v1.0 Brant D. Thomsen 132 300
18 39/ 47/ 13 Charon v8.1 Cisek,Strack,Kline 131 57
19 28/ 30/ 42 Deck of Many Things c w blue 126 25
20 21/ 16/ 63 Imps! Imps! Imps!-d Steven Morrell 125 130
21 29/ 54/ 17 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 104 2
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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
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III. The Scoop:
Well, things have been a little damp here in Des Moines, so no _Push Off_
last week (on top of being too busy the previous week). Drake University
was more-or-less closed last week, and the phone system was down for most
of the time, so I couldn't even dial in. :-( Now we are in limited operation
with classes and some offices running.
Let's see, we were talking about Vampires and Antivamp. Of course my
hope was to completely wipe out vamps - it looks so easy! But CW Blue
blew that idea away, his Grimm's Vampyre is riding higher than ever.
Some people may have noticed a high-flying imp program making it's
appearance in first place, with a VERY high score, which was immediately
knocked off by the author. I received this message (names removed
to protect the innocent :-) :
I have always felt that I was an anti-imp person (This started back when
Impire and others first hit the hill, and they started to slaughter my
warriors), I always wanted to come up with something to make imps extinct.
Now I think I have come up with a better imp/stone......but
what do I do???? I hate Imps!!!!! Do I go over to the other side....do I
go "If ya can't beat them join them". I don't know Paul, what do I do?
Gee, this one's too big for me, what do you all think? I used to think
scanners were the enemy, til I figured out how to make Charon a little
better.
Then there was Hydra, S Linhart's marvelously successful 'multiple bomber'
program. Did I see a reference to 'self-regenerating' in there? Anyway,
congrats! Seems to be a little succeptible to paper, though.
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IV. The Outlook:
1 34/ 24/ 42 Hydra Stephen Linhart 143 2
2 41/ 41/ 18 Grimm's Vampyre c w blue 141 44
2 45/ 43/ 12 Iron Gate 1.01 Wayne Sheppard 147 1
3 37/ 38/ 25 Winter Werewolf 3 W. Mintardjo 137 179
4 30/ 23/ 46 ttt nandor sieben 137 85
5 42/ 46/ 12 Impurge Fredrik Ohrstrom 137 185
6 32/ 28/ 40 FlyPaper 3.0 J.Layland 137 285
7 28/ 19/ 53 testing Anders Ivner 138 1
8 42/ 46/ 12 Charon v8.1 Cisek,Strack,Kline 138 1
9 30/ 25/ 45 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 136 1859
9 31/ 25/ 43 Deck of Many Things c w blue 137 1
10 29/ 22/ 48 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 136 861
10 34/ 31/ 35 sub-type-imp c w blue 136 1
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V. The Quick Look:
19 24/ 24/ 51 Snake v3 Wayne Sheppard 124 1
19 36/ 45/ 19 sub-type-bs c w blue 127 1
19 38/ 50/ 12 Dracula's Revenge V Fredrik Ohrstrom 125 1
20 10/ 36/ 54 DumbHatter 0.1477 P.P.Sigra 84 1
20 10/ 37/ 53 Demons Stephen Linhart 83 1
20 20/ 63/ 17 Pebble Stephen Linhart 77 1
20 23/ 68/ 9 Skip Vampire 3.0 Devin Kilminster 78 1
20 28/ 36/ 36 Letter Head 0.02 Dak 120 1
20 28/ 62/ 10 Spiral Stephen Linhart 95 1
20 29/ 54/ 17 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 105 1
20 36/ 48/ 16 Eclipse II P.Kline 123 1
20 37/ 47/ 16 Eclipse III P.Kline 126 1
21 0/ 48/ 52 imptest Unknown 53 0
21 0/ 83/ 17 Dumb Dumb 0.0 P.P.Sigra 17 0
21 0/ 84/ 16 Sitting Bull Unknown 16 0
21 0/ 85/ 14 Dumb, Plain Dumb P.P.Sigra 15 0
21 0/ 90/ 9 DumbJump 3 P.P.Sigra 10 0
21 0/ 91/ 9 DumbJump P.P.Sigra 9 0
21 1/ 32/ 67 Tie! James Ojaste 70 0
21 1/ 58/ 41 CC C. Walsh 44 0
21 1/ 63/ 37 Deaf Dumb & Blind Kid 3 P.P.Sigra 38 0
21 1/ 86/ 13 Peek-a-Boo, I See You! Nathan Sullivan 15 0
21 2/ 15/ 84 Boyo 1 Scriv 89 0
21 2/ 37/ 60 DumbImp 0.30 P.P.Sigra 67 0
21 2/ 72/ 27 Front 242 Michael 31 0
21 3/ 32/ 65 DumbImp 0.211 P.P.Sigra 74 0
21 3/ 38/ 59 DumbFalseImproved 0.20 P.P.Sigra 67 0
21 4/ 36/ 60 DumbImp 0.9 P.P.Sigra 71 0
21 4/ 52/ 43 Diamond Michael Constant 57 0
21 4/ 65/ 32 Tie Fighter Darth Vader 43 0
21 6/ 58/ 36 Deaf Dumb and Blind Kid 1 P.P.Sigra 55 0
21 7/ 68/ 25 Spiral Hydra Stephen Linhart 46 0
21 8/ 64/ 28 :( Steven Morrell 51 0
21 8/ 92/ 0 Hopper1 James Ojaste 25 0
21 9/ 33/ 57 DumbHatter 0.211 Minus P.P.Sigra 85 0
21 9/ 67/ 24 Zoink1 James Ojaste 51 0
21 10/ 36/ 53 DumbShort 2 P.P.Sigra 85 0
21 10/ 42/ 48 B Ratz 4.0 Rodney Schuler 77 0
21 11/ 35/ 55 DumbShort 0.211 P.P.Sigra 87 0
21 12/ 41/ 48 DumbHatter 0.844 P.P.Sigra 82 0
21 12/ 82/ 6 Stealthy Stephen Linhart 43 0
21 12/ 87/ 0 Twins James Ojaste 38 0
21 13/ 50/ 38 DumbImpDwarf 0.9.63 P.P.Sigra 76 0
21 13/ 74/ 13 test 3100 Rodney Schuler 53 0
21 13/ 86/ 1 Twins2 James Ojaste 39 0
21 14/ 47/ 40 DumbImpDwarf 0.211 P.P.Sigra 81 0
21 15/ 48/ 37 Stinger Rodney Schuler 82 0
21 15/ 75/ 10 ZE D. McDaniels 54 0
21 18/ 74/ 8 Tinyvamp Phil Long 63 0
21 19/ 63/ 19 Berserk 2 Planar 75 0
21 19/ 81/ 1 wimp James Ojaste 56 0
21 20/ 49/ 32 Flash Light v2.0 Michael Constant 90 0
21 20/ 73/ 8 DemonIV Cormac Walsh 66 0
21 21/ 63/ 16 vertigo Steven Morrell 78 0
21 21/ 70/ 9 cboing1 James Ojaste 72 0
21 24/ 33/ 43 Big Wall Stephen Linhart 114 0
21 24/ 74/ 2 hah! James Ojaste 75 0
21 25/ 59/ 16 worthless Steven Morrell 90 0
21 27/ 72/ 1 007 j.layland 82 0
21 36/ 61/ 3 Are we out there? Unknown 111 0
21 14/ 73/ 14 DumbJump 5 P.P.Sigra 55 0
21 13/ 71/ 15 DumbJump 6 P.P.Sigra 55 0
21 5/ 80/ 15 DumbJump 7 P.P.Sigra 31 0
19 31/ 31/ 38 Fire Walls Stephen Linhart 131 1
21 9/ 50/ 41 DumbHatter 0.1296 P.P.Sigra 69 0
21 7/ 35/ 58 Demon Wall Stephen Linhart 80 0
21 10/ 63/ 27 test Devin Kilminster 58 0
20 25/ 33/ 42 Fire Walls Stephen Linhart 117 2
20 25/ 33/ 41 Fire Walls Stephen Linhart 117 2
19 28/ 33/ 39 Fire Walls Stephen Linhart 123 1
21 21/ 74/ 5 Speck Stephen Linhart 68 0
20 10/ 35/ 56 DumbHatter 0.1266 P.P.Sigra 85 1
20 10/ 40/ 50 Fast Paper Stephen Linhart 80 1
21 3/ 57/ 40 DJN Stephen Linhart 49 0
21 2/ 98/ 0 Spurious Michael 7 0
21 28/ 64/ 8 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 93 0
21 1/ 73/ 26 Spurious V2 Michael 29 0
21 28/ 62/ 10 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 95 0
21 18/ 57/ 25 Ugh Scriv 80 0
21 18/ 63/ 20 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 72 0
21 9/ 35/ 56 DumbHatter 0.211 Plus(?) P.P.Sigra 84 0
21 30/ 58/ 12 :( v1.1 Steven Morrell 103 0
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VI. The Hint:
Avoid building on flood plains. Other than that, I was playing with some
new number theories, but don't have them worked out just yet. Here are
some discussion items however.
First, if you and your opponent are the same size and bomb at the same
rate, one of you may actually have an unbeatable advantage. Here
is how it works. Let's say you are both length 100. You bomb forward
with a step size of 99, your opponent bombs backward with a step size of
101. You will get whacked first every time because his 101 crosses the
gap faster than your 99. If you both bomb the same direction you have
a more even chance. So one thing to do is test your step sizes both
with addition and with subtraction.
Second, the 'optimal' numbers work well because they chunk up large areas
of core into smaller and smaller pieces very efficiently. Another
way of saying this is that after scanning location N, they will not
scan N+/-I, where 'I' is any small number, until very late. A side-effect
of this is that they will also not scan N+/-J, where J is any large
factor of the core size, until late also. One way for an opponent to
take advantage of this effect would be to place components J locations
apart. So if you place 4 small bombers at locations 0, 2000, 4000, and 6000,
any 'optimally' scanning/bombing opponent will not take out all 4 bombers
very rapidly.
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VII. The End:
Paul Kline
pk6811s@acad.drake.edu