From news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!oleane!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news.new-york.net!news.stormking.com!bezzi@iol.it Tue Mar 5 14:16:52 1996 Article: 4168 of rec.games.corewar Path: news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!oleane!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!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 19 Date: 5 Mar 1996 05:19:11 -0500 Organization: Storm King Ind. Inc. Lines: 733 Sender: server@news.stormking.com Distribution: world Message-ID: <199603051014.LAA30451@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 19 March 4, 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 Newbies should check the stormking page for the FAQ, language specification, guides, and tutorials. Post questions to rec.games.corewar. Notice: ftp.csua.berkeley.edu is out of service, eveen is Michael assured it will be soon OK You can download Pmars at Terry's web page: http://www.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/ ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. Hi, after two weeks I'm back again to you with a new issue of Corewarrior. I'm a bit sorry for delay, but I don't know how, Myer managed to transmit me its intestinal disease. I heard of computer viruses transmitted in the net, but I were thinking that Montezuma curse were not one of them :-) This issue we have a lot of interesting posting: Frontwards v2 by Steven Morrell, that's now near 1000 age in 94 hill, Wayne Sheppard's Cleaver/75, an interesting imp scanning engine, and a p-space hint written by David Boeren, maybe the 'secret of the Octupus' can be found here. Many thanks to them and to anyone wishing to send us something to publish. As I tell every time, anyone wanting to join the staff is welcome. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 06:23:37 -0800 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 31/ 26 Grilled Octopus v0.3 David Boeren 155 34 2 44/ 36/ 20 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 152 30 3 39/ 29/ 32 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 150 490 4 41/ 35/ 24 Chameleon M R Bremer 146 160 5 39/ 32/ 30 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 146 414 6 39/ 34/ 27 Thermite II Robert Macrae 145 689 7 43/ 41/ 16 quiz Schitzo 145 1088 8 40/ 35/ 25 C I A Anders Ivner 145 1 9 42/ 40/ 18 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 941 10 27/ 14/ 59 Hazy Shade Of Winter John K W 141 317 11 44/ 47/ 10 Memories Beppe Bezzi 141 82 12 32/ 23/ 45 Clisson P.Kline 141 16 13 29/ 18/ 53 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 140 888 14 36/ 32/ 32 Torch t18 P.Kline 139 1467 15 32/ 26/ 42 Barrage Anton Marsden 139 162 16 41/ 48/ 11 Wild Card M R Bremer 135 242 17 24/ 13/ 63 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 135 703 18 39/ 44/ 17 S.E.T.I. II John K W 134 90 19 39/ 45/ 16 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 134 602 20 33/ 31/ 36 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 134 1455 21 22/ 10/ 68 Q.S.P. John K W 133 3 22 39/ 47/ 14 Hipshot J E Long 131 33 23 26/ 20/ 54 Blizzard Anton Marsden 131 408 24 31/ 34/ 35 Breeder V3.1 J E Long 129 31 25 4/ 0/ 0 test cia Anders Ivner 12 2 Weekly age: 150 New warriors 10 Turnover/age rate 7% Average age: 414 ( 333 last week, 308 the week before ) Average score: 135 ( 139 last week, 139 the week before ) The 25 warriors on the hill are represented by 14 authors. Congratulation to J E Long making the 94 hill with a couple of warriors. Not many news this week, even if the number of challenges has been very high. New version of the Octopus holds hilltop from its coming, apart a very brief lead by Franke's new vampire, Stepping stone. No other challenger did the hill in the top positions. quiz joined the 'we have a four number age' restricted club and Frontwards is near passing 1000 age. At present hill aging rate Impfinity too is scheduled to pass this score for next week. Apart the pspacers Grilled Octopus and Chameleon, and the vampire Stepping Stone, bombers seem to be the winning strategy compared to scanners and replicators. Qscanners too seem to have lost a little All aged warriors hold their positions, worth noting are quiz and Frontwards, still in the top ten. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 41/ 31/ 28 Grilled Octopus v0.3 David Boeren 152 1 3 43/ 38/ 19 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 149 1 7 38/ 36/ 26 C I A Anders Ivner 139 1 8 38/ 36/ 26 test cia Anders Ivner 139 1 12 43/ 48/ 10 Memories Beppe Bezzi 137 1 15 28/ 25/ 47 Clisson P.Kline 131 1 17 39/ 45/ 16 S.E.T.I. II John K W 132 1 21 18/ 10/ 71 Q.S.P. John K W 126 1 23 36/ 52/ 12 Hipshot J E Long 120 1 23 29/ 35/ 35 Breeder V3.1 J E Long 124 1 Two entries in the top five: Grilled Octopus v0.3 and Stepping Stone. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More. # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 26 28/ 35/ 38 patroclus Kafka and Kurt 121 363 26 2/ 1/ 0 Wraith Kurt Franke 7 136 26 26/ 29/ 46 Link Kurt Franke 123 134 26 2/ 2/ 0 Grilled Octopus v0.2 David Boeren 5 133 26 0/ 1/ 3 Trade Wars P.Kline 4 38 26 2/ 1/ 0 test MT00 Beppe Bezzi 7 27 26 0/ 0/ 4 Clisson P.Kline 4 26 26 1/ 1/ 1 C I A Anders Ivner 5 26 26 0/ 0/ 3 Haziest Shade Of Winter John K W 4 14 26 34/ 48/ 19 test me 120 9 Patroclus is the only aged warrior to leave us. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 14 36/ 32/ 32 Torch t18 P.Kline 139 1467 20 33/ 31/ 36 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 134 1455 7 43/ 41/ 16 quiz Schitzo 145 1088 9 42/ 40/ 18 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 144 941 13 29/ 18/ 53 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 140 888 17 24/ 13/ 63 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 135 703 6 39/ 34/ 27 Thermite II Robert Macrae 145 689 19 39/ 45/ 16 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 134 602 3 39/ 29/ 32 Tornado 3.0 Beppe 150 490 5 39/ 32/ 30 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 146 414 23 26/ 20/ 54 Blizzard Anton Marsden 131 408 10 27/ 14/ 59 Hazy Shade Of Winter John K W 141 317 16 41/ 48/ 11 Wild Card M R Bremer 135 242 quiz joined the the 1000+ exclusive club. 1500 milestone is at easy reach for Torch and Jack. ______________________________________________________________________________ HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still running. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Torch t18 P.Kline 1467 * Bomber 2 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 1455 * P-warrior 3 quiz Schitzo 1088 * Scanner/ bomber 4 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 941 * One shot scanner 5 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 6 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 7 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 888 * Stone/ imp 8 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 9 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 10 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 11 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator 12 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 703 * Replicator 13 Thermite II Robert Macrae 689 * Bomber 14 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber 15 La Bomba Beppe Bezzi 650 Qscan -> replicator 16 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 643 Vampire 17 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 609 P-warrior 18 juliet and paper Bremer & Bezzi 607 P-warrior 19 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 602 * Scanner/ bomber 20 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 589 Qscan -> replicator 21 Hector 2 Kurt Franke 561 Qscan -> replicator 22 Boombastic Maurizio Vittuari 521 Bomber 23 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator 24 Tornado 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 490 * Bomber 25 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 414 * Bomber NC 94 and Cannonade leave the Hall, replaced by Tornado 3.0 and T.N.T. The first 4 warriors in the hall are living, the 1500 milestone is now near and 2000 too isn't that far. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 Mar 4 21:42:59 PST 1996 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 56/ 33/ 11 Hipshot J E Long 179 27 2 45/ 19/ 36 Breeder V3 J E Long 171 47 3 43/ 21/ 37 Pretentious v0.2 Ian Oversby 164 2 4 49/ 36/ 15 Test Ian Oversby 163 1 5 48/ 35/ 16 Auntie v1.0 Ian Oversby 161 32 6 45/ 30/ 24 Evil Elf V.8 Andy Nevermind 161 36 7 37/ 14/ 49 silkworm v3.0 Brian Haskin 159 48 8 45/ 35/ 20 Judge Nutmeg Scott Manley 155 51 9 37/ 25/ 38 Hyakutake C/1996 B2 + Scott Manley 149 8 10 34/ 20/ 46 AB Scanner 2.9.4 Chris Hodson 148 62 11 41/ 38/ 22 Paralyze v0.1 Ian Oversby 144 31 12 40/ 37/ 23 Swan's Lament Chris Arguin 142 92 13 31/ 23/ 47 RingWorm_v2.7 Calvin Loh 140 38 14 42/ 44/ 14 Maniac v0.3 Ian Oversby 139 25 15 36/ 34/ 30 Hyakutake Rising Scott Manley 138 50 16 35/ 38/ 28 Forked Lite Ning 4.074 Ansel Greenwood Serm 132 55 17 27/ 26/ 47 XXXOOO v2.0 Joshua Houk 128 13 18 32/ 36/ 33 Pommes-Ketchup V1.32 S. Schroeder 128 3 19 32/ 37/ 31 Pommes-Ketchup V1.31 S. Schroeder 127 4 20 28/ 42/ 31 Blubbi V1i.0b bjoern guenzel 114 58 21 32/ 50/ 18 Pensive v0.1 Ian Oversby 113 12 22 25/ 42/ 33 Test-bomb V1.5 Jens Heunemann 108 15 23 33/ 59/ 8 Optma Dwarf v3.0 Phoenix 107 44 24 27/ 49/ 24 Pink Bunny V 2.1 Neil Padgett 106 52 25 4/ 0/ 0 El Cheapo Scanner David Boeren 12 64 Sorry, but I haven't checked the level of the beginners hill submitting one of my warriors. J E Long leads it, with a couple of warriors that are in the pro hill too. ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint Memories Memories is my first cmp scanner of success, having climbed, in one of its previous versions, up to the top position. I started it as a 94 improvement of the classic Iron gate, but, tweaking here and there, it's now like my old knife I changed three times the blade and twice the handle but it's always my old knife. :-) The article is a bit long, but shows how to, or better how I, work to make a warrior. Prepare your coffee, Italian of course, and be sure to have cigarettes for the night. Scanners are the kind of warriors that look at core and attack it only when they find something. They can be divided in two big subclasses, according to the instruction they use to scan the core: cmp scanners and jmz (most usually jmz.b) scanners. Scanner's code is composed by three parts: scan, attack and clear. The clear is a must because usually scanners don't kill the enemy with their attacks but drop bombs that make it generate many processes, the so called stun attack; so we have to kill them filling core with dats once finished our scan routine. Wishing to make a cmp scanner I started with Wayne Sheppard's Iron Gate, an 88 classic scoring more than 900 age in the 94 hill too. Here is is code: ;redcode-94 ;name Iron Gate ;author Wayne Sheppard ;strategy cmp scanner-SPL/JMP-Gate dist equ 73 scan equ dist*2 add off, @x ;Scan block. It exits the b-field of the cmp loc cmp dist-1, -1 ;instruction if the lines pointed by the cmp slt #14, @x ;itself are different djn -3, <7000 mov j, @loc ;Attack block. Drops a spl 0/ jmp -1 bomb and x mov s, addressing. Having a jmp -2 line to be used for the bomb I added a mov in the clear, making it faster, even if more vulnerable. Here is first Memories version: [header omitted] dist equ 229 ;not the real one scan equ dist*2 safe equ (kill-first+2) stun equ kill+30 jmp s+1 ;jmp to clear if hit by djn stream first add off, @x ;scan part is the same as Iron Gate loc cmp.f dist-1, -1 ;Only removed the djn stream to keep core clean slt #safe, @x ;mostly for lazyness :-) jmp first mov j, @loc ;attack block drops a wider bomb x mov stun, first-1 ;forward running dat clear mov kill, >first-1 j jmp -2, #0 off dat first-1 mov kill, >first-1 j jmp -2, #0 off dat = 80 step equ 12 offset equ 608 ;608 stream equ cc-1406 ;-806 first equ (cc-offset+202) ;203 gate equ -50 org boot stp #1,{1 for 17 stp #1,}1 stp.b #1,{1 stp #1,{1 rof stp #1,}1 p dat #first,{first+step dat #30,{-1 dat #30,{-2 stp.b #30,{-3 cc spl 30,stream-660 ; stp #1,{1 ; stp #1,}1 boot mov top+5,top+offset+5 for 5 mov {boot, ______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra Cleaver /75 by Wayne Sheppard Guys, here's the code for Cleaver/75. I was about to post it to r.g.c when I thought that you might want to include it in the CoreWarrior. So everyone doesn't think I was kidding, here is how I can scan for imps with two lines of code. As a warning, this can't catch 94 imps (mov #1234,2667), but it does detect 88 and diehard imps. This code can catch 3, 7, and 9 point imps. 3, 7, and 9 point imps all have one thing in common, they are all evenly divisable by 127. This has been used to make spiral clears that can kill imps before. But it can also be used to detect imps. If you MOD an instruction with DAT 127,127 the result will be 0,0 if the instruction was a multiple of 127. Then a simple JMZ.F to the imp routine. I implemented this at the bottom of a bombing loop. ADD offset,loc loc MOV starta,startb jmz.f -2,*loc mod impdat,*loc jmn.f -4,*loc ;impstomper starts here The final version adds another indirect bomb for a total speed of .75c. But 19 lines of code and no paper protection makes the final version score too low. ;redcode-94 ;name Cleaver/75 ;author Wayne Sheppard ;strategy .75c bomber/scanner with active imp scan ;strategy mod10 equ -70 starta equ hit-1+mod10 startb equ starta+mod10*2 irun equ loc-15 ;hit here hit mov bomb,*loc ;not in main loop, executed only when mod doesnt find imp mov bomb,@loc loc mov starta,@startb sub s,loc jmz.f -3,*loc ;check a-pointer mod i127,*loc ;see if multiple of 127 jmn.f hit,*loc ;if not, bomb it and continue bombing jmp scc ;jump to SpiralCC i127 dat 127,127 dat 0 ;hit here scc add.x {loc,*loc ;get impnumber into A mov *loc,scc ;move increment to where I can use it jmn.f 0,{loc ;back up to start of imp mov s,*loc ;spiral SPL add scc,loc djn -2,#400 s spl #mod10*3, ______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care: Beppe Bezzi or Myer R Bremer Joined the staff this week, in alfabetical order: David Boeren , Steven C. Morrell , Wayne Sheppard