A midweek review of Corewar
September 7, 1993
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I. The Standings:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 33/ 23/ 45 FlyPaper 3.0 J.Layland 142 452
2 32/ 23/ 45 ttt nandor sieben 140 252
3 32/ 24/ 44 NC II Wayne Sheppard 140 7
4 29/ 20/ 51 pMARS pMARS project 138 77
5 31/ 23/ 46 Imprimis 7 P.Kline 138 268
6 36/ 36/ 29 Winter Werewolf 3 W. Mintardjo 136 346
7 40/ 43/ 17 Grimm's Vampyre c w blue 136 211
8 29/ 23/ 48 Hydra Stephen Linhart 136 97
9 30/ 25/ 45 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 136 1028
10 30/ 25/ 46 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 135 2026
11 41/ 47/ 12 Impurge Fredrik Ohrstrom 134 352
12 29/ 24/ 48 Impact v1.0 Anders Ivner 134 165
13 40/ 48/ 12 Iron Gate 1.01 Wayne Sheppard 133 171
14 34/ 36/ 30 Keystone t6 P.Kline 131 1
15 41/ 50/ 9 Agony 6.0 Stefan Strack 131 282
16 33/ 37/ 29 Herem VI Anders Ivner 129 200
17 39/ 50/ 12 Dragon Spear c w blue 128 1130
18 35/ 44/ 21 Distance v6.4 Brant D. Thomsen 127 107
19 34/ 42/ 24 Leprechaun 1b Anders Ivner 127 96
20 2/ 2/ 1 Keystone t5 P.Kline 7 2
21 1/ 2/ 2 Keystone t4 P.Kline 6 4
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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:
More accolades to W. Mintardjo whose Sphinx v2.8 just went over 2000 challenges.
Most of us have found that it is not hard to design a program
that clobbers Sphinx, its just hard to get those programs on the Hill.
Night Crawler also passed a rare milestone, age 1000. Congratulations!
One notable casualty was B. Thomsen's Incrimination v1.0 which was pushed
off at the respectable age of 380. With Snake and Incrimination off, have
we put to bed the vampire/spiral combination? Time will tell :-)
Then there was the appearance of 'ttt' and pMARS, both presumably
N. Sieben offerings, and both very tough customers. ttt scores remarkably
like Shepard's NC II (version of Night Crawler), which uses a short
3-point spiral and a fast stone. pMARS scores a little lower
and my guess is it's just ttt with a 7-point spiral instead of 3-point.
(your mileage may vary :-)
Now if L. Tumbe could just change a few ties into wins:
21 0/ 50/ 50 Megimp Christopher L. Tumbe
And a big WELCOME! to all you newcomers who have been hitting the Hill
lately. Don't give up too easy. It takes time to understand the many
intricacies of today's warriors.
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IV. The Outlook:
1 36/ 24/ 40 FlyPaper 3.02 J.Layland 147 3
3 31/ 22/ 47 NC II Wayne Sheppard 140 1
7 28/ 19/ 53 pMARS pMARS project 137 1
10 35/ 34/ 31 Emerald 6 P.Kline 136 1
10 35/ 35/ 30 Keystone t4 P.Kline 135 1
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V. The Quick Look:
18 28/ 33/ 39 Anti-Impaper c w blue 122 1
19 25/ 58/ 17 Flakey J. Craig Brunson && 91 1
19 30/ 50/ 20 Stoned II Geoff 110 1
20 0/ 48/ 52 Timtest (not mine, but I'm M 53 1
20 12/ 73/ 15 Rattle 'n Hum(b) J-D Mountjoy 52 1
20 14/ 45/ 41 Shwing! v2.0 T. H. Davies 83 1
20 20/ 57/ 23 bangle 3.0 Steve Gunnell 83 1
20 20/ 63/ 17 TimTest2 (Dewdney) This is a 77 1
20 24/ 59/ 17 weevil 2 Steve Gunnell 89 1
20 25/ 61/ 13 Spiral Stephen Linhart 90 1
20 27/ 39/ 34 just some junk c w blue 115 1
20 28/ 50/ 23 Glass House 3.0 J.Layland 106 1
20 37/ 44/ 19 sub-type-os c w blue 130 1
20 38/ 50/ 12 Cleaver Wayne Sheppard 125 1
21 0/ 46/ 53 Megimp Christopher L. Tumbe 54 0
21 0/ 48/ 52 imp Unknown 52 0
21 0/ 58/ 42 Imp Army Mike Olson 42 0
21 0/ 72/ 28 PitcherIII J Kyle Kelso 29 0
21 0/ 86/ 14 Exponential2 Mike Olson 14 0
21 0/ 90/ 10 JMPbomb Mike Olson 10 0
21 0/ 93/ 7 Impgate J Kyle Kelso 7 0
21 1/ 38/ 62 Megimp2 Christopher L. Tumbe 64 0
21 1/ 61/ 38 smurf Mike Olson 40 0
21 1/ 61/ 39 Smurf Mike Olson 40 0
21 1/ 78/ 21 IMPair Mike Olson 23 0
21 1/ 87/ 12 assassin7 Mike Olson 15 0
21 1/ 93/ 6 Jumper Christopher L. Tumbe 8 0
21 2/ 61/ 37 Giant Mike Olson 43 0
21 2/ 71/ 27 DavidK Ben (-: bena@bruce.c 33 0
21 2/ 72/ 26 Giant1.1 Mike Olson 32 0
21 2/ 85/ 13 Assassin7.51 Mike Olson 19 0
21 2/ 98/ 0 Exponential Mike Olson 7 0
21 3/ 87/ 10 assassin7.2 Mike Olson 19 0
21 3/ 87/ 11 Assassin7.5 Mike Olson 19 0
21 3/ 97/ 0 Copy Cat Mike Olson 8 0
21 4/ 63/ 33 SUBmarine Jonathan Wolf 46 0
21 5/ 56/ 38 Doppleganger1.5 Mike Olson 55 0
21 5/ 56/ 40 Doppleganger Mike Olson 54 0
21 5/ 82/ 14 Migrator I J-D Mountjoy 27 0
21 5/ 85/ 10 IMPlode3 Mike Olson 25 0
21 5/ 90/ 5 Dugite 7004 Steve Gunnell 21 0
21 6/ 53/ 41 Combinatoris 0.1 J Kyle Kelso 60 0
21 7/ 71/ 22 BomboozalII Mountjoy 42 0
21 8/ 65/ 26 Parasite Kirk R. Gorden 51 0
21 8/ 65/ 27 Impring J Kyle Kelso 51 0
21 8/ 86/ 7 Red_Oktober Paul && Craig 30 0
21 9/ 86/ 5 base Greg Watkins 33 0
21 10/ 54/ 36 Tracy Paul S. Kilroy (kilr 66 0
21 10/ 66/ 23 Dugite B Steve Gunnell 55 0
21 11/ 77/ 12 Dugite A 1756 Steve Gunnell 45 0
21 11/ 84/ 5 Imp Killer? Paul 38 0
21 12/ 81/ 7 The Warne J Kyle Kelso 44 0
21 13/ 38/ 49 Lemmings Kirk R. Gorden 88 0
21 13/ 77/ 10 Repair1.0 Mike Olson 49 0
21 13/ 83/ 4 Rock-o-Gibraltar Geoff 42 0
21 14/ 66/ 20 Spy4.0 Kirk Gorden 61 0
21 14/ 76/ 10 WASP I J-D Mountjoy 52 0
21 14/ 82/ 4 Daemon spawn Graham L. Smith 47 0
21 15/ 59/ 25 jumpy/2 Paul Kilroy 71 0
21 15/ 68/ 17 Deadfall v2.7 Remy Wetzels 61 0
21 15/ 70/ 15 Reverse Dwarf10 Mike Olson 60 0
21 15/ 81/ 4 Double Engine Kirk R. Gorden 49 0
21 17/ 35/ 48 toilet paper v2.0 Steven Morrell 100 0
21 18/ 70/ 13 Reverse Dwarf Mike Olson 65 0
21 18/ 78/ 4 Encroacher 0.1 J Kyle Kelso 59 0
21 20/ 55/ 25 SplBomber Twist T. H. Davies 86 0
21 20/ 66/ 14 Dwarf T. H. Davies 74 0
21 20/ 69/ 12 New Kid Greg 70 0
21 20/ 72/ 8 Nosferatu 0.1 J Kyle Kelso 69 0
21 25/ 61/ 14 Dugite Steve Gunnell 89 0
21 25/ 67/ 8 jumpy Paul Kilroy 83 0
21 29/ 49/ 23 Opal Stephen Linhart 108 0
21 32/ 57/ 11 Creampuff II P. Kline 106 0
21 33/ 42/ 25 Tomb Stone c w blue 123 0
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VI. The Hint:
Hopefully, everyone is familiar with the 'optimal' numbers, those that
very efficiently scan/bomb core. One more time, here they are:
mod-1 3359/3039 under-100 -> 73
mod-2 3094/2234 under-100 -> 98
mod-4 3364/3044 under-100 -> 76
mod-5 3315/2365 under-100 -> 95
mod-8 2936/2376
mod-10 2930/2430
Here's a trivia question, what do these mod-1 numbers have in common:
13, 407, and 2527
Answer: they (and a bunch more) are much more efficient at finding an
opponent of size 13 than 3359 and 3039. The optimal numbers work by
subdividing core into smaller and smaller chunks. Ideally such a
number would continually bisect the largest outstanding chunk of core
until every location had been checked/bombed. So the optimal numbers
are optimized against a variety of opponent lengths, from 4000 to 1 (or
their mod-size). But in reality there are a limited number of opponent
sizes on KotH. In particular, 4-5 and 11-13 seem to be natural sizes for
many fighters.
So here are some numbers that are efficient at finding a size-13 fighter:
mod-1 mod-2 mod-4 mod-5
13 438 268 335
407 514 1028 555
649 578 2172 715
1141 982 2396 895
1411 1198 2404 1235
2183 1906 2932 1345
2323 2042 716 1645
2527 2534 876 1815
2671 3354 988 2385
2791 4646 1156 2565
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VII. The End:
Paul Kline
pk6811s@acad.drake.edu