From news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news.new-york.net!news.stormking.com!bezzi@iol.it Tue Feb 6 11:21:49 1996 Article: 3799 of rec.games.corewar Path: news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news.new-york.net!news.stormking.com!bezzi@iol.it From: Beppe Bezzi Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: Core Warrior 15 Date: 5 Feb 1996 12:32:46 -0500 Organization: Storm King Ind. Inc. Lines: 391 Sender: server@news.stormking.com Distribution: world Message-ID: <199602051722.SAA18469@iol-mail.iol.it> Reply-To: bezzi@iol.it NNTP-Posting-Host: valhalla.stormking.com Originator: corewar-l@stormking.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 .xX$$x. .x$$$$$$$x. d$$$$$$$$$$$ ,$$$$$$$P' `P' , . $$$$$$P' ' .d b $$$$$P b ,$$x ,$$x ,$$x ,$$b $$. Y$$$$' `$. $$$$$$. $$$$$$ $$P~d$. d$$$b d d$$$ `$$$$ ,$$ $$$$$$$b $$$P `$ $$$b.$$b `Y$$$d$d$$$' . . a . a a .aa . a `$$$ ,$$$,$$' `$$$ $$$' ' $$P$XX$' `$$$$$$$$$ .dP' `$'$ `$'$ , $''$ `$'$ `Y$b ,d$$$P `$b,d$P' `$$. `$$. , `$$P $$$' Y $. $ $ $ Y..P $ `$$$$$$$' $$$P' `$$b `$$$P `P `$' `Y'k. $. $. $. $$' $. Issue 15 February 5, 1996 ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. This week I were hoping to be the men to announce the first 94 warrior passing 1000 age; I was wrong because the hill has been calm and aged half than the week before so this honor will go, with most chances, to my co-authour Myer, who has already announced the new King of the Hall of Fame; some person have all lucks :-) This week is announced the Core War Hall of Fame in Stormking's web page. I haven't been able to submit my GIF, I hope to do it soon, but I'm curious to see others. Last week Myer asked if warriors are all females like ships; apart that a female named Jack will have a few problem when greeting, I can say that Jack, Tornado and La Bomba are all male, while was a female Marcia Trionfale, being a replicator :-) ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 Last challenge: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 18:37:20 -0800 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 29/ 34 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 145 8 2 43/ 41/ 16 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 459 3 41/ 40/ 19 quiz Schitzo 141 606 4 42/ 42/ 16 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 141 120 5 37/ 35/ 28 Thermite II Robert Macrae 140 207 6 34/ 31/ 35 Torch t18 P.Kline 137 985 7 39/ 40/ 22 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 137 13 8 39/ 40/ 21 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 137 341 9 36/ 37/ 27 Koolaid II: WoGG v2.2 David Boeren 136 11 10 40/ 44/ 17 seventyfive Anders Ivner 135 106 11 21/ 9/ 70 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 133 221 12 38/ 44/ 18 smart crow again Karl Lewin 132 3 13 24/ 18/ 58 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 130 406 14 22/ 15/ 63 Hazy.Shade.Of.Winter John K W 130 153 15 30/ 29/ 41 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 130 973 16 30/ 31/ 39 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 130 2 17 36/ 43/ 21 Harmony P.Kline 130 1 18 17/ 8/ 75 Night Train Karl Lewin 127 493 19 36/ 45/ 20 ajax Kafka and Kurt 127 102 20 38/ 49/ 13 Days John K W 127 36 21 28/ 31/ 41 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 125 601 22 23/ 22/ 54 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 124 521 23 28/ 33/ 39 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 123 54 24 19/ 15/ 66 The Lime Twig 2.1 John K W 123 76 25 24/ 25/ 52 juliet and paper M R Bremer, B. Bezzi 123 602 Weekly age: 54 New warriors 8 Turnover/age rate 15% Average age: 284 ( 265 last week, 203 the week before ) Average score: 132 ( 131 last week, 135 the week before ) The 25 warriors on the hill are represented by 16 authors. The hill has been rather calm this week, aging little more than 50, and few warriors changed a lot their positions. Impressive the fall of Mason, pushed off from sixth place in few challenges, and the rise of seventyfive gaining more than 10 positions. Fast bombers and scanners are dominating, replicators are still having bad times and stone/imps are losing positions. The average score is the same of last week and the hill aged a bit in the average having lost but two 100+ aged warriors. The king position has been held by Frontwards, quiz, Mirage and Tornado, but none kept a strong grasp on it. Congratulations to J. E. Long, making the 94 hill with his warrior Breeder v2. Torch has solved its problems and now is running toward age 1000 in a safe position, as does Jack in the box; both have an high chance to break the wall soon. A few veterans have been for long, and still are indeed, in the bottom of the hill at great risk of being pushed off, thy are juliet and paper, La Bomba and Hector; next week announces to be full of meaningful events and I hope my partner will be able to reenter and report them :-) A few notes: Of the 25 warriors on hill but 7 have been published in a working format, plus 7 others published in an older version and but a few published only as samples and code snippets. Publishing our warriors, once they aged enough not be subject to further improvements, can help to reduce the number of test submitted. Some authors don't use the ;strategy line to tell what their warriors do. I think that adding a few words like bomber, scanner, etc.. won't hinder their warriors performance. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New Last week 25 19/ 11/ 70 The Lime Twig 2.1 John K W 127 1 1 38/ 29/ 33 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 148 1 4 39/ 39/ 22 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 139 1 10 30/ 29/ 42 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 131 1 12 36/ 37/ 27 Koolaid II: WoGG v2.2 David Boeren 134 1 15 39/ 43/ 18 smart crow again Karl Lewin 136 1 17 30/ 31/ 39 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 130 1 17 36/ 43/ 21 Harmony P.Kline 130 1 19 38/ 49/ 13 Days John K W 126 1 Worth mention are Tornado 3.0 and testnorm, both coming after a very long serie of test; Breeder is the only other new warrior entering the top ten ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old 8 34/ 30/ 35 Torch t18 P.Kline 138 985 14 31/ 28/ 41 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 133 973 3 41/ 39/ 20 quiz Schitzo 144 606 25 25/ 24/ 52 juliet and paper M R Bremer, B. Bezzi 125 602 20 29/ 30/ 41 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 128 601 22 24/ 22/ 53 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 127 521 17 19/ 7/ 75 Night Train Karl Lewin 131 493 2 43/ 41/ 16 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 146 459 7 39/ 40/ 21 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 138 341 11 22/ 8/ 70 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 136 221 6 37/ 35/ 28 Thermite II Robert Macrae 139 207 Eleven warrior aged more than 200. Two new entries: Evol cap and Thermite; and a loss: Mason, the discovery of it's secret hanshake proved deadly for it. Torch and Jack are now very near 1000 age and in good health, as are quiz and Frontwards v2, always near the hilltop. Three of the oldest warriors, juliet & paper, La Bomba and Hector, seem to be in trouble, even if Torch and Jack in the box have swown us that some warriors have nine lives, like cats. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More. Last week 26 36/ 46/ 19 Provascan 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 126 281 26 31/ 40/ 30 Mason 2.0 Robert Macrae 122 333 26 25/ 31/ 43 Blue Funk 5 Steven Morrell 119 189 26 1/ 2/ 1 blister soul schitzo 5 44 26 32/ 44/ 24 daedelus Kafka 119 32 26 25/ 31/ 44 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 120 27 26 2/ 2/ 0 testnorm Maurizio Vittuari 5 13 26 20/ 21/ 59 Delusion M R Bremer 119 9 26 4/ 3/ 1 Tornado 2.7e Beppe Bezzi 12 3 Mason is the older guy killed, followed by Blue Funk 5 ______________________________________________________________________________ HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still running. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Torch t18 P.Kline 985 * Bomber 2 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 973 * P-warrior 3 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 4 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 5 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 6 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 7 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 8 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber 9 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 643 Vampire 10 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 609 P-warrior 11 quiz Schitzo 606 * Scanner/ bomber 12 juliet and paper Bremer & Bezzi 602 * P-warrior 13 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 601 * Qscan -> replicator 14 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 589 Qscan -> replicator 15 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 521 * Qscan -> replicator 16 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator 17 Night Train Karl Lewin 493 * Replicator 18 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 459 * One shot scanner 19 Impfinity v4g1 Damien Doligez 403 * Stone/ imp 20 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp 21 Cannonade P.Kline 382 Stone/ imp 22 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber 23 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack 355 Stone/ imp 24 Derision M R Bremer 351 Scanner 25 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire Torch and Jack are leading the 94 Hall of fame, and near 1000 age. The second wave is climbing fast and facing the top ten position even if j&p and La Bomba have some trouble and a third wave is around 500 age Next in line to enter is Vittuari's Boombastic ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 Feb 5 00:51:59 PST 1996 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 58/ 25/ 16 Mirage 1.0 Anton Marsden 191 79 2 51/ 18/ 31 CoreWarrior M R Bremer 183 4 3 39/ 13/ 47 Breeder v2 J. E. Long 166 45 4 37/ 11/ 52 silkworm v3.0 Brian Haskin 164 32 5 34/ 11/ 55 Breeder J. E. Long 156 55 6 31/ 7/ 62 Test2 George Eadon 155 12 7 43/ 32/ 25 Qwiksand Wayne Sheppard 154 73 8 31/ 11/ 58 New Papery v0.1 Ian Oversby 151 53 9 44/ 38/ 18 Our Vamp v3 R Bartolome & JS Pul 149 63 10 31/ 15/ 53 Paper8-IV 2.5 George Eadon 147 30 11 25/ 5/ 69 RingWorm_v2.6 Calvin Loh 145 88 12 23/ 11/ 66 Thunder V 1.2 Andy Nevermind 136 44 13 27/ 23/ 50 Spacehead 1.3 Warpi & Philemon 131 85 14 30/ 32/ 39 You Wouln't Let It Lie! Scott Manley 128 39 15 24/ 22/ 55 AB Scanner 2.9.1 Chris Hodson 125 15 16 30/ 35/ 35 Szyzyg Scott Manley 124 29 17 28/ 33/ 39 D'arko Scott Manley 122 19 18 28/ 34/ 38 Uvavu Scott Manley 121 40 19 29/ 38/ 33 idiot/savant v0.1 Brian Haskin 119 47 20 28/ 41/ 31 Maya v1.6c Christoph C. Birk 116 13 21 30/ 46/ 25 Slaver v1.1 Christoph C. Birk 114 7 22 17/ 29/ 55 Paper3 Christoph C. Birk 104 8 23 24/ 50/ 26 CounterMeasures V4 Chris Arguin 98 1 24 28/ 58/ 14 Lenochka 3p Julian 97 6 25 23/ 61/ 16 Maya v2.0 Christoph C. Birk 86 9 Marsden still holds first place with Mirage 1.0 a new version of it is in the top of 94 hill J.E. Long's Breeder v2 is too in the 94 hill. Is not difficult to guess that Bremer too will soon make the step in the big league :-) ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint by Kurt Franke This week the hint has been made by Kurt Franke that will explain a way to start core clears with bombers and scanners. I thank Kurt a lot, for saving me some time to develop Tornado 3.0 :-) --- Self-bombing and number of scans One thing I found particularly confusing when learning core war was self-bombing programs. It seemed impossible to figure out where the bomb was going to hit and how many bombs are thrown before the program hits itself. With the macros of pmars, it is easy to control (some kinds of) self-bombing. Here is an example, the bomber from juliet storm. s spl #445, <-445 spl #0, <-446 mov {445-1, -445+2 add -3, -1 djn.f -2, <-2667-500 mov 33, <-20 go dat #0, #ptr Here was my impression when I first saw this code: "Huh??" The mov/add/djn loop is the bomber, while the mov 33, <-20 line will do the core clear, once the djn line is bombed with a split 0 instruction. Adding a few labels, start spl #445, <-445 ptr spl #start+1, <-446 bomb mov {445+ptr, -445+target add start, bomb target djn.f -2, <-2667-500 clear mov 33, <-20 go dat #0, #ptr The start line contains the increments that are added to the bomb line each time. If the bomb line read bomb mov {ptr, target then it would decrement ptr, take what it points to (start) and put it onto target (the djn line). Good; that's what we want. Now we just back up. If the bomb line were bomb mov {ptr-445, target+445 then after adding start once, the bomb line will make the self- modification. And of course bomb mov {ptr-2*445, target+2*445 would take two adds before the bomb line modifies our code. Here's the general idea: NBOMBS equ start spl #445, <-445 ptr spl #start+1, <-446 bomb mov {ptr-445*NBOMBS, target+445*NBOMBS add start, bomb target djn.f -2, <-2667-500 clear mov 33, <-20 go dat #0, #ptr Now we get NBOMBS number of bombs (more or less) before the self-bomb that starts a core clear. Except NBOMBS can be at most the total number of places to bomb. (445 will hit every fifth place in memory, for 1600 total). Putting a -1 for NBOMBS would give the maximum number of bombs (like -1 is the maximum number in core), and that is what is coded in Juliet. Here is a cmp scanner (strikingly similar to Rave) done the same way. ;redcode-94 ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 ;author Kurt Franke ;name CMP scanner ;strategy rave-type scanner (original by Stefan Strack) ;strategy ;strategy this will bomb itself after SCANS iterations, ;strategy triggering a core clear. WIDTH equ 12 STEP equ 42 ;; modula 2 step SCANS equ 3999 ;; the maximum FIRST equ (next - STEP * SCANS) ;; need to end up bombing 'next' BOMBLEN equ WIDTH+2 next sub.f $incr, $scan ;; Get next location scan seq $FIRST-WIDTH, $FIRST ;; check for code slt.ab #incr-scan+BOMBLEN, $scan jmp next, gate incr dat #-STEP, <-STEP end scan - Kurt ______________________________________________________________________________ Planar's Corner Sorry, no Planar's corner this week :-( ______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care: Beppe Bezzi , Myer R Bremer , Kurt Franke