From news-rocq!jussieu.fr!fu-berlin.de!server1.netnews.ja.net!hgmp.mrc.ac.uk!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail Wed Dec 15 15:40:23 1999 Article: 11072 of rec.games.corewar Path: news-rocq!jussieu.fr!fu-berlin.de!server1.netnews.ja.net!hgmp.mrc.ac.uk!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail From: Philip Kendall Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: Core Warrior 76 Date: 14 Dec 1999 16:28:15 +0000 Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 684 Sender: pak@cass52.hoyle.star.fleet Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: cass52.ast.cam.ac.uk X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Xref: news-rocq rec.games.corewar:11072 .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 76 12 December, 1999 _______________________________________________________________________________ Core Warrior is a newsletter promoting the game of corewar. Emphasis is placed on the most active hills - currently the '94 draft hill, the beginner hill and the '94 no-pspace hill. Coverage will follow where ever the action is. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about then check out these five-star internet locals for more information: FAQs are available from: http://www.koth.org/corewar-faq.html http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html The ftp site and it's mirrors are at: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror ftp://www.koth.org/corewar pMARS itself is also available from: http://www.koth.org/pmars ;pMARS home page ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar ;Fechner ftp site Web pages are at: http://www.koth.org/ ;KOTH http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ;Pizza http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar ;Planar Newbies should check the above pages for the FAQ, language specification, guides, and tutorials. Post questions to rec.games.corewar. All new players are infinitely welcome! _______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings... Apologies for the length of time passed since last issue. Fortunately however, plenty of fascinating redcode has been published. New entries on Koenigstuhl's '94 Hill include Jade (16th), nPaper II (19th) and Goonie (20th). Interestingly, Ian Oversby has the only two non-scanners in the top ten with Newt (4th) and Recovery (10th). -- John Metcalf _______________________________________________________________________________ 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 # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 40.9/ 33.7/ 25.4 Origami Harquebus mjp 148.0 11 2 36.4/ 29.7/ 33.8 Vilex Ken Espiritu 143.1 15 3 41.0/ 39.5/ 19.6 SnooPy P.Kline 142.5 10 4 38.4/ 35.5/ 26.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 141.4 63 5 30.1/ 19.9/ 50.1 Wintermute John Metcalf 140.3 4 6 29.1/ 18.4/ 52.5 Jade Ben Ford 139.8 40 7 31.7/ 24.7/ 43.6 Digital Dream Christian Schmidt 138.7 0 8 38.1/ 37.5/ 24.4 Recycled Bits David Moore 138.7 117 9 26.5/ 14.8/ 58.7 Return of the Fugitive David Moore 138.3 44 10 26.0/ 14.5/ 59.5 Cinammon John Metcalf 137.5 13 11 30.5/ 23.7/ 45.7 Stonewashed Christian Schmidt 137.4 57 12 28.0/ 19.3/ 52.8 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 136.7 14 13 38.8/ 41.2/ 20.0 Snowman John Metcalf 136.4 61 14 34.2/ 32.6/ 33.1 Am I alive? Christian Schmidt 135.8 16 15 26.2/ 17.7/ 56.0 Stylized Euphoria Ken Espiritu 134.7 7 16 27.7/ 21.5/ 50.8 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 134.0 20 17 35.6/ 37.8/ 26.7 Trefoil the original Steve Gunnell 133.4 8 18 37.7/ 42.1/ 20.2 myBlur2 Paulsson 133.3 28 19 28.1/ 23.0/ 48.9 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 133.3 20 20 25.4/ 17.8/ 56.8 Safety in Numbers Ken Espiritu 133.1 14 21 29.7/ 26.6/ 43.7 Trefoil b Steve Gunnell 132.9 0 22 27.0/ 21.2/ 51.8 Exor Ken Espiritu 132.7 20 23 30.6/ 28.9/ 40.5 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 132.4 117 24 40.2/ 48.6/ 11.2 Kenshin c Steve Gunnell 131.8 0 25 37.6/ 45.6/ 16.7 Qshot Christian Schmidt 129.7 0 Age since last issue: 20 ( 25 last issue, 43 the issue before ) Days since last issue: 101 ( 37 last issue, 61 the issue before ) Average age: 28 ( 33 last issue, 24 the issue before ) Average score: 137 ( 141 last issue, 141 the issue before ) Average movement: -4.2 ( -0.4 last issue, -8.3 the issue before ) Warriors surviving: 9 ( 13 last issue, 4 the issue before ) The top 25 warriors are represented by just 10 independent authors: Schmidt with 6, Espiritu with 5, Gunnell and Metcalf with 3 each, Moore and Ford with 2, and the remaining four authors with a single warrior. ( 10 authors last issue, 9 the issue before ) Pihlaja returns to the 94 hill, claiming a strong hold on top rank with his Origami Harquebus scanner/paper. Only myBlur successfully gains rank since last issue - moving up 6 places... The average movement for the 9 warriors which survive in the same version since last issue is down 4.2 ranks. The top four positions are held by pspacers. Only Paulsson and Khuong maintain a presence on the '94 hill without one. Maybe scanners would do well to include brainwashing, since they suffer more than most... _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New (Sorted by rank and score) # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 38.7/ 35.6/ 25.6 Origami Harquebus mjp 141.9 1 3 39.9/ 37.8/ 22.3 Vile Ken Espiritu 142.0 1 3 37.3/ 33.8/ 28.9 Am I alive? Christian Schmidt 140.9 1 3 29.8/ 21.1/ 49.1 Wintermute John Metcalf 138.5 1 4 35.7/ 32.3/ 32.0 Vilex Ken Espiritu 139.1 0 7 41.3/ 44.1/ 14.6 Stalker P.Kline 138.6 0 7 29.9/ 22.6/ 47.5 Exor Ken Espiritu 137.3 0 7 29.8/ 22.9/ 47.3 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 136.7 0 9 39.9/ 43.6/ 16.5 Ignominy Ian Sutton 136.2 1 9 28.8/ 22.6/ 48.6 Baseline Deluxe Ken Espiritu 135.0 1 10 38.2/ 43.3/ 18.5 Jinx Christian Schmidt 133.0 0 11 28.4/ 21.7/ 49.9 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 135.1 1 11 26.4/ 18.2/ 55.4 Safety in Numbers Ken Espiritu 134.7 0 11 25.6/ 18.3/ 56.1 Stylized Euphoria Ken Espiritu 132.9 1 12 29.3/ 28.1/ 42.6 Trefoil b Steve Gunnell 130.4 0 13 24.1/ 16.2/ 59.7 Cinammon John Metcalf 132.0 1 16 37.2/ 42.9/ 19.9 SnooPy P.Kline 131.5 0 18 38.4/ 49.7/ 11.9 Kenshin c Steve Gunnell 127.1 0 19 34.2/ 38.7/ 27.1 Trefoil the original Steve Gunnell 129.6 1 21 38.2/ 49.7/ 12.1 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 126.8 1 22 26.8/ 27.5/ 45.6 Trefoil a Steve Gunnell 126.1 1 23 37.7/ 47.3/ 15.0 ping pong Steve Gunnell 128.1 1 23 27.5/ 28.9/ 43.6 Digital Dream Christian Schmidt 126.2 0 24 36.8/ 45.2/ 17.9 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 128.4 1 24 26.2/ 26.8/ 47.0 Experimental John Metcalf 125.6 1 25 35.0/ 48.2/ 16.8 Qshot Christian Schmidt 121.7 0 Players entering hill since last issue: 7 ( 9 last issue, 8 the issue before ) Average rank of new entries: 13 ( 11 last issue, 9 the issue before ) Some interesting ideas make up for the lack of hill activity. Amoung the more unusual are a self-modifying imp launcher, anti-Carbonite and delayed imps. Undoubtedly, there will be some interesting tricks in several of the other new warriors too... For an anti-Carb p-space component, Pihlaja's back-tracker from Quick Cooking makes a good starting point. _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More (Sorted by age) # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 26 32.0/ 40.8/ 27.2 death by redcode Simon Wainwright 123.2 91 26 32.5/ 40.6/ 26.9 Stranger John Metcalf 124.3 73 26 27.9/ 27.8/ 44.3 One Step Beyond John Metcalf 127.9 67 26 32.5/ 38.7/ 28.8 Draken Fire Ben Ford 126.2 63 26 28.6/ 29.9/ 41.5 Icen Ben Ford 127.4 50 26 20.8/ 18.6/ 60.5 No More Innocuous Leonardo H. Liporati 123.1 49 26 26.4/ 26.3/ 47.3 Slippery Eels Ben Ford 126.5 42 26 37.2/ 47.7/ 15.1 Qshot Christian Schmidt 126.8 34 26 1.6/ 2.3/ 0.1 SnooPy P.Kline 4.9 33 26 36.7/ 46.8/ 16.5 goonie David Moore 126.7 29 26 35.4/ 46.8/ 17.8 Stalker P.Kline 124.0 15 26 31.7/ 36.2/ 32.1 The Endless Knot John Metcalf 127.2 14 26 39.5/ 51.4/ 9.1 QHSA Ken Espiritu 127.6 12 26 0.5/ 0.5/ 3.0 Exor Ken Espiritu 4.5 12 26 2.6/ 1.3/ 0.1 Jinx Christian Schmidt 7.8 11 26 29.1/ 31.0/ 39.9 Sword'n'shield Christian Schmidt 127.3 10 26 36.4/ 46.5/ 17.1 Ignominy Ian Sutton 126.3 10 26 2.0/ 1.3/ 0.7 Vile Ken Espiritu 6.6 5 26 25.8/ 25.2/ 49.0 Baseline Deluxe Ken Espiritu 126.4 4 26 35.7/ 48.8/ 15.5 ping pong Steve Gunnell 122.5 3 26 1.5/ 1.7/ 0.9 Trefoil a Steve Gunnell 5.2 3 26 0.3/ 0.5/ 3.1 EvoP Ken Espiritu 4.1 3 26 26.5/ 27.5/ 46.0 Experimental John Metcalf 125.6 2 26 37.6/ 50.3/ 12.0 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 124.9 2 26 35.6/ 46.5/ 18.0 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 124.6 2 26 35.1/ 47.3/ 17.6 TheFlyOnTheWall Christian Schmidt 122.9 1 Wainwright, Liporati and Sutton leave the hill completely. _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 8 38.1/ 37.5/ 24.4 Recycled Bits David Moore 138.7 117 23 30.6/ 28.9/ 40.5 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 132.4 117 4 38.4/ 35.5/ 26.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 141.4 63 13 38.8/ 41.2/ 20.0 Snowman John Metcalf 136.4 61 11 30.5/ 23.7/ 45.7 Stonewashed Christian Schmidt 137.4 57 The age gap between the ancient duo and the rest of the pack becomes even larger, though Stormbringer isn't looking as healthy as it once was. _______________________________________________________________________________ The Extended New Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Probe Anton Marsden 403 Q^2 -> Bomber 2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 396 Scanner 3 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 373 Q^2 -> Bomber 4 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 357 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 5 unrequited love kafka 346 Q^2 -> Paper 6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 345 Stone/imp 7 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 332 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 8 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior 9 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 232 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 10 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/imp 11 Newt Ian Oversby 216 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 12 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 -> Scanner/bomber 13 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior 14 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior 15 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 QScan -> Stone/imp 16 Trident^2 John K W 195 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 17 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/imp 18 Frogz Franz 172 Q^2 -> Paper 19 The Machine Anton Marsden 164 Scanner 20 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner 21 Vain Ian Oversby 147 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 22 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 142 Q^2 -> Paper 23 Electric Head Anton Marsden 140 P-warrior 24 Vigor Ken Espiritu 138 Q^2 -> Paper 25 Fixed Ken Espiritu 135 Q^2 -> Paper 26 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 Q^2 -> Paper 27 Ultraviolet-B Ken Espiritu 120 Q^2 -> Paper 28 Recycled Bits David Moore 117* P-warrior = The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 117* Q^2 -> Stone/imp = obvious to those who k Robert Macrae 117 Q^2 -> Paper 31 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 116 Stone and scanner 32 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Q^2 -> Paper 33 mrb-test M R Bremer 106 *Unknown* 34 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 105 Bomber = Pulp v0.5 Ian Oversby 105 Q^2 -> Paper 36 Fugitive David Moore 102 Q^2 -> Paper/imp 37 Vengeance Robert Hale 101 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 38 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 100 P-warrior = Fire and Ice David Moore 100 P-warrior 40 Oblivion Ian Sutton 99 P-warrior 41 Silver Talon 1.2 Edgar 93 Scanner 42 death by redcode Simon Wainwright 91 Q^2 -> Bomber 43 Bodge 1 Robert Macrae 85 Q^2 -> Scanner 44 Inferno 2.4 Philip Kendall 84 Qscan -> Bomber 45 Test Anton Marsden 83 *Unknown* = NCC-1701-A Philip Kendall 83 P-warrior 47 RetroQ Paul Kline 82 Q^2 -> Paper 48 Tornado 4 Beppe Bezzi 78 Bomber 49 He Scans Again Paul Kline 76 Scanner 50 Digitalis 4 Christian Schmidt 73 Q^2 -> Clear/imp = Stranger John Metcalf 73 Q^3 -> Bomber Death by redcode reaches rank 42, it's final resting place. Another qscanning bomber, Stranger, only just scrapes into the HoF with an age equal to the age of Digitalis. The two remaining active warriors climb 11 places to reach 28th. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Beginner 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 # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 58.1/ 34.2/ 7.7 Nuke it! Silvio Sampietro 182.0 80 2 55.2/ 33.9/ 10.9 Grand Mal 1.0 Ransom Smith 176.4 15 3 45.2/ 24.2/ 30.6 PC WFB 166.3 52 4 48.7/ 38.1/ 13.3 Golden Gun Ken Hubbard 159.3 17 5 49.0/ 41.1/ 9.9 Forgotten Lore Simon Duff 157.0 31 6 45.9/ 36.1/ 17.9 the boy's a time bomb aCM 155.7 8 7 47.6/ 39.9/ 12.5 Gomjabbar V Ingo S Kacza 155.3 12 8 45.6/ 39.1/ 15.3 da mutant Paul-V Khuong 152.1 61 9 43.4/ 35.5/ 21.1 jollyblu aCM 151.3 16 10 45.3/ 44.3/ 10.4 Nuke it! (V 0.2) Silvio Sampietro 146.2 87 11 44.1/ 43.1/ 12.8 Wild-Fire P_.V_.K./John Metcal 145.1 62 12 36.2/ 27.7/ 36.1 Quickest Zeta Leonardo Humberto 144.7 83 13 43.8/ 43.8/ 12.4 B-52 #001 A.S. Mehlos 143.8 35 14 43.9/ 44.0/ 12.1 Neverland II John Metcalf 143.7 51 15 41.3/ 39.0/ 19.7 Arsonic C P._V._K. 143.6 59 16 45.5/ 47.5/ 7.0 Kenshin d Steve Gunnell 143.4 3 17 41.0/ 40.7/ 18.3 FireMaster 2 P._V._K. 141.4 57 18 38.9/ 36.5/ 24.6 DiHydrogen Monoxide Josh Yeager 141.2 14 19 40.9/ 41.1/ 18.1 Simpsons4Ever v0.4 Maurice Fern ndez 140.7 37 20 38.2/ 36.5/ 25.3 Silken Half Life v4.0 Dale Neal 139.8 88 21 31.3/ 24.6/ 44.0 2stoned aCM 138.0 22 22 29.9/ 22.7/ 47.4 Caladan II Ingo S Kacza 137.2 34 23 37.2/ 40.3/ 22.5 Silken Half Life Dale Neal 134.1 91 24 39.8/ 48.1/ 12.1 Gomjabbar IV Ingo S Kacza 131.5 13 25 23.4/ 57.3/ 19.3 x12 Herve Lepaisant 89.5 1 After an age of 34 since last issue, Nuke It! still dominates. Hardcore and Quicker Zeta both retired, and Quick Zeta almost made it, dropping off age 99. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 No Pspace 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: 250 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft, excluding ldp and stp # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 36/ 20/ 44 Uninvited John Metcalf 151 6 2 45/ 42/ 13 Stalker P.Kline 149 39 3 36/ 26/ 38 Experimental John Metcalf 146 10 4 35/ 24/ 41 Omnibus John Metcalf 146 63 5 32/ 19/ 48 Jade Ben Ford 146 123 6 44/ 43/ 14 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 145 11 7 43/ 42/ 15 Zooom... John Metcalf 145 190 8 33/ 21/ 47 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 144 54 9 36/ 28/ 35 Blacken Ian Oversby 144 301 10 32/ 20/ 48 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 143 41 11 32/ 21/ 47 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 143 50 12 43/ 43/ 14 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 143 316 13 43/ 44/ 14 Jinx Christian Schmidt 142 17 14 43/ 45/ 12 Win! David Moore 142 289 15 45/ 48/ 8 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 142 9 16 28/ 15/ 57 Cinammon John Metcalf 141 19 17 32/ 27/ 41 Icen Ben Ford 137 148 18 32/ 28/ 40 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 137 149 19 41/ 45/ 14 Qshot Christian Schmidt 136 60 20 42/ 49/ 9 htest P.Kline 135 1 Four old warriors met their end during the 52 successful challenges since last issue, Recovery (280), PC (134), The Pendragon (120) and goonie (108). Only Blacken climbed, moving up a mere 3 ranks. For the 10 warriors which survive from last issue, the average loss of rank is 5 places. _______________________________________________________________________________ Tournament Results - Ilmari's Mini Tournament #2: Ilmari's Mini Tournament #2 is over. The 22 competitiors each consisted of just 4 redcode instructions, intended to battle for supremacy in an 80 cell 'teenie-weenie' core. And the winner was - Dave Hillis with his h1_36.red - which amazingly was created using a genetic algorithm. This illustrates how effective redcode evolved in the correct environment can be. # Score %W %L %T Strat Name Author 1 6882 67.6 21.1 11.2 clear h1_36.red Dave Hillis 2 5716 54.9 31.9 13.1 clear R-clear Ken Espiritu 3 5690 55.6 34.1 10.2 clear Petit Mal Ransom Smith 4 5634 54.0 32.7 13.1 clear 00 Clear Christian Schmidt 5 5577 50.5 27.4 22.0 paper invicta John Lewis 6 5273 52.6 41.1 6.1 stone Philosopher's Stone John Metcalf 7 5134 47.7 35.7 16.4 clear Target Practice Brian Haskin 8 4924 47.6 42.0 10.2 clear Those Lovely Banana... mjp 9 4912 46.9 41.0 11.9 clear pumpkin 4x Simon Wainwright 10 4876 41.8 31.8 26.3 stone Little scare Beppe Bezzi 11 4318 35.9 37.5 26.4 stone Obvious Leonardo H. Liporati 12 4308 28.8 23.6 47.4 imp Ring Thing Simon Duff 13 4109 33.8 39.8 26.3 s/imp MyGunIsQuick P.Kline 14 4037 39.6 53.5 6.7 scan Red Carpet Robert Macrae 15 3892 28.4 35.6 35.8 paper IMT#2_w2 Herve Lepaisant 16 3889 28.3 35.7 35.8 paper Nano Paper III Maurice Fernandez 17 3771 26.5 35.7 37.6 p/imp Chihuahua Chalupa David Moore 18 3621 29.5 46.4 24.0 clear hehehe Anders Rosendal 19 3562 30.0 49.2 20.6 clear Mini-Me WFB 20 3078 30.2 64.7 4.9 clear Dumb_Luck Kevin Brunelle 21 2732 10.1 35.1 54.7 stone A Little Something Planar 22 2307 16.9 61.9 21.1 clear Evolved C.Stubbs The strategies in the table above provide the most minimal details and in several cases are over-simplified. However, reading through the source reveals interesting techniques plentiful. Thanks to Ilmari for conceiving and hosting a superb tournament. Check out the tournament homepage at: http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/imt2 _______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra - Safety In Numbers by Ken Espiritu Paper launched imp spirals are not new. They have been successfully used before on the Hill. Some early examples include Diehard and theMystery. More modern versions include Terkonit and the Fugitive. There are many ways to launch imp spirals via paper: carrying an imp spiral launcher in the paper (Diehard), binary launching the paper (theMystery, Terkonit) or using steps in the paper which form imp spirals (the Fugitive). I chose binary launching since it gives the most flexibility in chosing the steps for the replicator. The problem with binary launch is that the paper spends a lot of time at boot up, since it needs to boot 2 copies into core before it can create imp spirals for 3-point imps. Initially, the idea was to improve a paper I made a long time ago called Bashful, which was an 8 process binary launched paper. One problem with it was it was very susceptible to scanner attacks. By using lower processes, scanners become less of a problem since the paper spends less time at each location in core - which creates more decoys for the scanner to attack. Also, spl carpets are less effective at stunning since only 4 processes are caused to split versus 8. The problem is stones can more readily kill the paper since the paper is longer and has more vulnerable instructions. Since the paper is splitting very rapidly, it takes time before the child can get its turn, and while it is waiting the stone could damage the replicator causing it to die when it's turn comes. By using imp spirals, destruction of the replicator section doesn't hurt the imp spirals formed. At first I tried to use as few processes as possible, so I attempted to use just 3 processes. This didn't score very well and it seemed it didn't bomb enough; it was getting a very high amount of ties. Next I went to 4 processes and as I needed an extra instruction in the paper, I chose to use the anti-imp and anti-djn bomb from the Fugitive (mov.i #1, {1). This bomb is very good at killing a-field driven imps such as mov.i #2667, *0. You may wonder would the bomb we are carrying affect our own imps? Yes, but the carpet bombs laid down typically avoid hitting our own imps. Also the bomb forces any type of djn whether it be djn.a, djn.b, or djn.f to fall through, causing stones which use djn to lose built up processes, or drop processes into their end game strategy. It also causes coreclears to drop through if djn is used for loop back to the clear. To understand binary launching we first must look at how a simple imp spiral can be formed. Below is code to start a 3 process 3-point imp spiral: spl first spl last middle jmp imp+2667*1 ;process 1 last jmp imp+2667*2 ;process 2 first nop 0 ;process 0 imp mov.i #0, 2667 What we see is that all processes must be started at the same time and in the correct sequence. Order of execution is imp+2667*0, imp+2667*1, imp+2667*2, imp+2667*3, imp+2667*4, etc. So to make a paper launching version we must place the paper at the proper locations also and start it in the correct sequence. p equ 3 ;3 processes spl 1 mov.i {0, #0 ;same as mov.i -1, #0 mov 1234 mov }top, >top imp mov.i #0, 2667 Finally computer optimization was used to optimize both the bombing step and paper's step constants. The optimization was performed by using a mini-hill tournament which has variants of the paper which were scored against each other by using modern scanners, one-shots and incendiary bombers as opponents. After a couple of days of computation time, papers were outputted based on score and age, and are tested on the real Hills. Some improvements to this paper are the use of the decrements in the spl b-fields in conjunction with the first carpet bomb run to create a decoy to set off one-shots. Later, I added the new mini-q^3 that was published in nPaper (Core Warrior 75), I also adjusted the q^3 constants to give it the best score possible on the Hill with the paper. Below is the code for Safety in Numbers: ;redcode-94 ;name Safety in Numbers ;author Ken Espiritu ;strategy q^3 -> imp/paper ;strategy binary launched imp spirals ;assert 1 org qGo p equ 4 stepa equ -3604 stepb equ -2748 bstep equ -1306 istep equ 2667 pGo spl 1, {imp+bstep+1+2*0 ; 4 processes spl 1, {imp+bstep+1+2*1 mov {top, {middle mov {top, {middle mov top mov }top, >top second spl @0, >stepb mov }second, >second mov.i #1, {1 imp mov.i #bstep, istep for 41 dat 0,0 rof qf equ qKil qs equ (qd*3) qd equ 100 qi equ 7 qr equ 11 ; -+)>] 0/1 cycles [(<+- qGo seq qd+qf+qs, qf+qs ; 1 jmp qSki, {qd+qf+qs+qi seq qd+qf+6*qs, qf+6*qs ; B jmp qFas, {qd+qf+6*qs+qi seq qd+qf+5*qs, qf+5*qs ; B-1 jmp qFas, qBmb seq qd+qf+9*qs, qf+9*qs ; A-1 djn qFas, {qFas seq qd+qf+10*qs, qf+10*qs ; A jmp qFas, {qFas ; -+>)] 2 cycles [(<+- seq qd+qf+3*qs, qf+3*qs ; C jmp >qFas, {qd+qf+3*qs+qi seq qd+qf+2*qs, qf+2*qs ; C-1 jmp >qFas, {qSlo seq qd+qf+4*qs, qf+4*qs ; C+1 jmp >qFas, }qSlo seq qd+qf+12*qs, qf+12*qs ; B*C-B jmp qSlo, {qSlo seq qd+qf+15*qs, qf+15*qs ; B*C-C jmp qSlo, qBmb seq qd+qf+24*qs, qf+24*qs ; B*C+B jmp qSlo, }qSlo seq qd+qf+27*qs, qf+27*qs ; A*C-C djn qSlo, {qFas seq qd+qf+30*qs, qf+30*qs ; A*C jmp qSlo, {qFas sne qd+qf+18*qs, qf+18*qs ; B*C jmz.f pGo, qd+qf+18*qs-10 qSlo mul.ab #3, qKil ; C=3 qFas mul.b qBmb, @qSlo qSki sne }imp+bstep+1+2*5, @qKil add #qd, qKil qLoo mov qBmb, @qKil qKil mov qBmb, *qs sub #qi, qKil djn qLoo, #qr jmp pGo, >10 ; A=10 qBmb dat {qi*qr-10, {6 ; B=6 end _______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra Extra - Wintermute by John Metcalf Wintermute represents the final incarnation of the stone/imp Spooky Wench, more lately known as One Step Beyond. Briefly then, Spooky Wench employed a full Q^3 and a-driven imps; One Step Beyond simply moved to a miniQ^3 and finally Wintermute changed to b-driven imps. Some improvement or other has been made to the boot code with each new version - which now utilises 5 parallel processes to copy the imp-launcher and stone. The stone is similar in concept to the much used Carbonite, but has been designed to slow djn.f streams and d-clears with it's dat 1,>1 bomb. The imp-launcher is almost identical to those typically used, having only one small improvement. 7-point imps are also used. The miniQ^3 is the same as the one which nPaper II uses, with a simple alteration - the loop has been adjusted so the first of the 22 bombs is placed not on the instruction found by the scan, but where-ever this instruction's a-field points. This has shown a slight improvement in performance against certain p-space and qscanning warriors. (Why?) Anyhow, here is the code: ;redcode-94 ;name Wintermute ;author John Metcalf ;strategy MiniQ^3 -> Stone/Imp ;assert CORESIZE==8000 org qGo sBoot equ (sPtr+2093) iBoot equ (sBoot-sStep) pGo: spl 2, >-200 ; 5 processes spl 2, >-350 spl 1, {-500 mov -550 ; and 1 process for the imp sStep equ 3039 sTime equ 3357 spl #0, 0 sLp: mov sBmb, @sP sSel:add #sStep, sP sP: djn.f sLp, {sSel-sStep*sTime sBmb:dat 2, >6 ; used as boot pointer for imp iStep equ 1143 ; 7-point imps iPmp:spl #iImp, >-20 sub.f #-iStep-1, iJmp sPtr:mov iImp, }iPmp ; used as boot pointer for stone iJmp:jmp iImp-2*(iStep+1),>iImp+2*iStep-1 iImp:mov.i #iStep/2, iStep for 41 dat 0,0 rof qf equ qKil qs equ (qd*2) qd equ 100 qi equ 7 qr equ 11 ; -+)>] 0/1 cycles [(<+- qGo: seq qd+qf+qs, qf+qs ; 1 jmp qSki, {qd+qf+qs+qi seq qd+qf+6*qs, qf+6*qs ; B jmp qFas, {qd+qf+6*qs+qi seq qd+qf+5*qs, qf+5*qs ; B-1 jmp qFas, qBmb seq qd+qf+9*qs, qf+9*qs ; A-1 djn qFas, {qFas seq qd+qf+10*qs, qf+10*qs ; A jmp qFas, {qFas ; -+>)] 2 cycles [(<+- seq qd+qf+3*qs, qf+3*qs ; C jmp >qFas, {qd+qf+3*qs+qi seq qd+qf+2*qs, qf+2*qs ; C-1 jmp >qFas, {qSlo seq qd+qf+4*qs, qf+4*qs ; C+1 jmp >qFas, }qSlo seq qd+qf+12*qs, qf+12*qs ; B*C-B jmp qSlo, {qSlo seq qd+qf+15*qs, qf+15*qs ; B*C-C jmp qSlo, qBmb seq qd+qf+24*qs, qf+24*qs ; B*C+B jmp qSlo, }qSlo seq qd+qf+27*qs, qf+27*qs ; A*C-C djn qSlo, {qFas seq qd+qf+30*qs, qf+30*qs ; A*C jmp qSlo, {qFas sne qd+qf+18*qs, qf+18*qs ; B*C jmz.f pGo, qd+qf+18*qs-10 qSlo:mul.ab #3, qKil ; C=3 qFas:mul.b qBmb, @qSlo qSki:sne >3456, @qKil add #qd, qKil qKil:mov qBmb, *qs sub #qi, qKil mov qBmb, @qKil djn qKil, #qr jmp pGo, >10 ; A=10 qBmb:dat {qi*qr-10, {6 ; B=6 end _______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care. Beppe Bezzi , Philip Kendall , Anton Marsden , John Metcalf and Christian Schmidt