From: "John Metcalf" Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: Core Warrior #85 (repost) Date: 27 Jan 2003 15:03:25 -0500 Organization: TTSG Lines: 797 Sender: server@odin.ttsg.com Distribution: world Message-ID: <002a01c2c63a$5aca37c0$5dbae150@vaio> Reply-To: corewar@tiscali.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: odin.ttsg.com X-Trace: odin.ttsg.com 1043697805 22791 216.231.111.29 (27 Jan 2003 20:03:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@news.ttsg.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Jan 2003 20:03:25 GMT Originator: corewar-l@koth.org X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 .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 85 18 January, 2003 _______________________________________________________________________________ Core Warrior is a newsletter promoting the game of corewar. Emphasis is placed on the most active hills - currently the '94 no-pspace and '94 draft hills. Coverage will follow wherever 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 Web pages are at: http://www.koth.org/ ;KOTH http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ;Pizza (down) http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar ;Planar http://www.ociw.edu/~birk/corewar ;C.Birk http://de.geocities.com/fizmo_master ;Fizmo Newbies should check the above pages for the FAQs, language specification, guides, and tutorials. Post questions to rec.games.corewar. All new players are infinitely welcome! _______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings... The final results for the (inappropriately named) Spring / Summer 2002 tournament are included this issue, as are a collection of Hints by Joonas Pihlaja and Thunderstrike by Lukasz Grabun. The deadline for the Redcoders' Frenzy: the ongoing corewar tournament is the 1st February, so if you haven't done so already, check out the rules on Fizmo's corewar page: http://de.geocities.com/fizmo_master/cwt.htm -- John Metcalf ______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 No Pspace Hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 38/ 20 Toxic Spirit Philip Thorne 146.3 55 2 40/ 37/ 22 Return of Vanquisher Lukasz Grabun 143.1 132 3 32/ 22/ 46 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 141.7 601 4 45/ 49/ 6 Claw Fizmo 141.3 338 5 33/ 24/ 43 Thunderstrike Lukasz Grabun 141.3 6 6 30/ 19/ 51 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo/Roy 140.9 408 7 28/ 16/ 56 test Roy van Rijn 139.9 1 8 40/ 41/ 19 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 139.4 145 9 31/ 23/ 46 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 138.9 1370 10 38/ 38/ 23 Driftwood John Metcalf 138.2 54 11 39/ 42/ 19 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 136.4 219 12 26/ 17/ 57 Return of the Pendragon Christian Schmidt 136.1 207 13 24/ 13/ 63 The Three-Handed Knight Christian Schmidt 135.7 103 14 27/ 19/ 54 Firestorm John Metcalf 134.4 406 15 25/ 17/ 58 test mj 134.0 11 16 42/ 49/ 9 Chainsaw Christian Schmidt 133.8 3 17 21/ 8/ 71 Decoy Signal Ben Ford 132.8 297 18 30/ 29/ 41 Digitalis 2002a Christian Schmidt 130.8 127 19 29/ 27/ 44 Pixie Lukasz Grabun 129.9 18 20 26/ 23/ 50 Positive Knife Ken Espiritu 129.0 444 182 successful challenges pass since the previous issue, and Son of Vain becomes the oldest warrior ever on the '94nop hill. Blade, the second oldest warrior last issue, perishes (age 643). Also pushed into the fatal 21st place were The Stormkeeper (460), Hazy Lazy ... reborn (284), Blowrag (234), Willow revised (205) and Dark Lowlands (108). Koth report: Most often seen in the top spot has been Son of Vain, king after 59 successful challenges. Also performing well were Reepicheep (55 times king), Toxic Spirit (28) and Return of Vanquisher (22). _______________________________________________________________________________ The '94 No Pspace Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 1370 * Q^4 -> Stone/imp 2 Blacken Ian Oversby 1363 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 3 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 1270 MiniQ^3 -> Paper 4 Uninvited John Metcalf 1130 MiniQ^3 -> Stone/imp 5 Behemot Michal Janeczek 1078 MiniQ^3 -> Bomber 6 Olivia Ben Ford 886 Q^4 -> Stone/imp 7 Keyser Soze Anton Marsden 823 Qscan -> Bomber/paper/imp 8 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 789 Q^4 -> Stone/imp 9 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 781 Scanner 10 Inky Ian Oversby 736 Q^4 -> Paper/stone 11 Jinx Christian Schmidt 662 Q^3 -> Scanner 12 Blade Fizmo 643 Qscan -> Scanner 13 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 601 * Q^4 -> Paper/stone 14 Jade Ben Ford 600 Q^4 -> Stone/imp 15 G3-b David Moore 503 Twoshot 16 Vanquisher Lukasz Grabun 469 Q^4 -> Bomber 17 Revival Fire P.Kline 468 Bomber 18 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 465 Qscan -> Paper/imp 19 The Stormkeeper Christian Schmidt 460 Q^3 -> Stone/imp 20 Positive Knife Ken Espiritu 444 * Q^4 -> Stone/imp 21 Boys are Back in Town Philip Kendall 441 Scanner = Zooom... John Metcalf 441 Scanner 23 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo+Roy 408 * Q^4 -> Paper 24 Firestorm John Metcalf 406 * MiniQ^3 -> Paper/imp 25 Qtest Christian Schmidt 394 Q^3 -> Paper 4 new entries, 2 stone/imp and 2 paper. Next to enter should be Claw. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 Draft Hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 38/ 19 Combatra David Moore 147.9 91 2 32/ 22/ 45 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 142.8 219 3 32/ 22/ 46 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 142.7 190 4 41/ 39/ 21 Return of Vanquisher PsP Lukasz Grabun 142.3 30 5 42/ 41/ 17 Bustling Spirit Christian Schmidt 142.3 60 6 40/ 40/ 20 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 140.3 102 7 37/ 33/ 30 Cyanide Excuse Dave Hillis 140.0 92 8 28/ 17/ 55 Incredible! John Metcalf 139.0 85 9 36/ 33/ 30 Mantrap Arcade Dave Hillis 139.0 17 10 40/ 42/ 18 Woozily Higgle Christian Schmidt 138.6 5 11 32/ 25/ 43 Bitter Sweet Lukasz Grabun 138.4 12 12 38/ 39/ 23 Microvenator Michal Janeczek 137.7 23 13 26/ 14/ 60 Defensive Christian Schmidt 137.1 15 14 26/ 16/ 58 Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 136.5 146 15 38/ 39/ 23 CrazyShot 2 Christian Schmidt 136.4 202 16 26/ 17/ 57 Monolith John Metcalf 136.3 28 17 32/ 27/ 41 Dark Lowlands Roy van Rijn 136.3 95 18 32/ 28/ 40 Digitalis 2002a Christian Schmidt 136.0 29 19 29/ 22/ 49 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo/Roy 135.3 197 20 25/ 19/ 56 The Three-Handed Knight Christian Schmidt 131.1 1 Koth report: Since last issue the hill has aged by 59. Combatra has been King most frequently, after 32 successful challenges. Bustling Spirit was often atop the hill too, 17 times in all. _______________________________________________________________________________ The '94 Draft Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 219 * Q^4 -> Paper/stone 2 CrazyShot 2 Christian Schmidt 202 * Q^4 -> Oneshot 3 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo/Roy 197 * Q^4 -> Paper 4 Uninvited John Metcalf 194 MiniQ^3 -> Stone/imp 5 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 190 * Q^4 -> Stone/imp 6 Wallpaper Christian Schmidt 175 Q^4 -> Paper/stone 7 Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 146 * Q^4 -> Paper/imp 8 Joyful Maw Dave Hillis 143 P-warrior 9 Paperazor Christian Schmidt 141 Paper 10 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 132 P-warrior 11 Mad Christian Schmidt 123 P-warrior 12 Shapeshifter Michal Janeczek 107 P-warrior 13 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 102 * Scanner 14 Help...I'm Scared Roy van Rijn 98 Oneshot 15 Dark Lowlands Roy van Rijn 95 * *Unknown* 16 Cyanide Excuse Dave Hillis 92 * P-warrior = Dry Ice Ben Ford 92 P-warrior 18 Combatra David Moore 91 * Boot distance calculator 19 Digitalis 2002 Christian Schmidt 89 Q^4 -> Clear/imp = WingShot++ Ben Ford 89 Oneshot 21 Origami Harquebus mjp 88 P-warrior 22 Incredible! John Metcalf 85 * Paper/imp 23 Firestorm John Metcalf 80 MiniQ^3 -> Paper/imp 24 Pattel's Virus Ben Ford 73 P-warrior 25 Hazy Lazy ... reborn Steve Gunnell 67 Scanner Yet another hall of fame :-) _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Koenigstuhl Recursive ICWS '94 Draft Hill: Koenigstuhl is a collection of 8 infinite hills found at: http://www.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html Below we show the top 25 of a total 801 warriors: rank name author score -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 170.18 2 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 167.57 3 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 166.35 4 Blue Pike Roy van Rijn 165.79 5 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 165.06 6 Pixie Lukasz Grabun 163.90 7 Uninvited John Metcalf 163.04 8 Hazy Lazy ... Steve Gunnell 162.96 9 Cheep! Half-Off! Ben Ford 162.84 10 Behemot Michal Janeczek 161.70 11 Firestorm John Metcalf 160.61 12 procoptodon Steve Gunnell 159.91 13 Jinx Christian Schmidt 159.82 14 Return of Vanquisher Lukasz Grabun 159.70 15 Vanquisher II Lukasz Grabun 159.30 16 Candy Lukasz Grabun 159.14 17 Geist v0.1 Ben Ford 157.82 18 Olivia Ben Ford 157.79 19 The Machine Anton Marsden 157.65 20 Purifier Lukasz Grabun 157.58 21 Silver Talon 1.2 Edgar 157.19 22 Deep Freeze X Lukasz Grabun 156.79 23 Recovery Ian Oversby 156.53 24 Newt Ian Oversby 156.06 25 The Pendragon Christian Schmidt 156.03 Almost half of the top 25 are new entries: Reepicheep, Herbal Avenger, Blue Pike, Pixie, Cheep! Half-Off!, Firestorm, procoptodon, Jinx, Return of Vanquisher, Geist v0.1, Olivia and finally The Pendragon. Also new in the top 100 are The Marsupial Lion (in rank 32), Digitalis 2002 (37), Revenge of the Papers (54), Fast Action (56), Blowrag (63), The Demon Duck of Doom (93) and Help I'm Scared (95). The '88 infinite hill has some strong new entries too, with Quicksilver '88 (in rank 2), '88 test IV (3) and vm5 (4). _______________________________________________________________________________ Spring / Summer 2002 Corewar Tournament - Round 5 Results and Final Standings: In round 5, competitors take part in three event. Warriors have been written without the use of the add / sub opcodes. Pattern bombers / scanners are still possible using mul, and several of these have been entered. * Our first event is multi-warrior, with three warriors in core, 5 points for a win, 2 points for a two-way tie, and 1 point for a three-way tie. All 969 combinations of three warriors are played: # %Won Lost Tie2 Tie3 Name Author Score % 1 29.0 53.4 5.2 12.4 Russ Post Steve Gunnell 167.77 100.0 2 23.8 48.7 10.5 17.0 LuckyLuke Philip Thorne 156.93 93.5 3 5.8 10.0 35.8 48.4 The Duelist Michal Janeczek 149.05 88.8 4 19.7 45.0 15.2 20.1 Huanchot G.Labarga 148.90 88.8 5 2.6 2.4 36.7 58.3 Blackheart Ben Ford 144.65 86.2 6 11.3 26.2 24.5 38.0 Digimon Christian Schmidt 143.56 85.6 7 2.4 6.4 37.4 53.7 Pokemon Christian Schmidt 140.69 83.9 8 6.9 16.6 27.7 48.8 Dan Dare Simon Wainwright 138.57 82.6 9 6.6 18.4 30.0 45.0 Bravo Lukasz Grabun 137.95 82.2 10 19.4 52.7 11.0 16.8 Magneto Roy van Rijn 135.92 81.0 11 3.6 13.8 32.2 50.5 Shadowfax Roy van Rijn 132.68 79.1 12 3.1 13.9 32.3 50.6 Jolly Jumper Philip Thorne 130.88 78.0 13 10.9 38.0 21.5 29.6 Dixie Lukasz Grabun 126.96 75.7 14 11.3 38.8 19.5 30.3 Commander Heliotornado Michal Janeczek 125.98 75.1 15 1.4 11.6 27.2 59.8 Ron Post Steve Gunnell 121.35 72.3 16 4.1 25.0 25.3 45.6 Spiderman Ben Ford 116.63 69.5 17 3.0 31.9 23.1 42.0 Yak Snout Dave Hillis 103.09 61.4 18 2.7 40.5 20.3 36.5 Bonzo Sascha Zapf 90.68 54.1 19 0.3 65.8 11.5 22.4 Mekon Simon Wainwright 47.01 28.0 * The second is a standard round-robin battle, with no self-fights, 4 points for a win, and 1 point for a tie: # %Won Lost Tied Name Author Score % 1 56.0 33.3 10.7 Russ Post Steve Gunnell 234.83 100.0 2 42.5 27.9 29.6 The Duelist Michal Janeczek 199.58 85.0 3 45.1 38.2 16.7 LuckyLuke Philip Thorne 197.27 84.0 4 43.0 33.3 23.7 Huanchot G.Labarga 195.64 83.3 5 44.2 38.3 17.5 Magneto Roy van Rijn 194.41 82.8 6 37.8 21.0 41.2 Commander Heliotornado Michal Janeczek 192.42 81.9 7 26.4 18.1 55.4 Digimon Christian Schmidt 161.12 68.6 8 23.3 17.6 59.1 Bravo Lukasz Grabun 152.33 64.9 9 17.6 12.1 70.3 Shadowfax Roy van Rijn 140.78 59.9 10 18.1 14.4 67.5 Dan Dare Simon Wainwright 139.99 59.6 11 22.9 32.2 44.9 Dixie Lukasz Grabun 136.56 58.2 12 16.0 12.4 71.6 Jolly Jumper Philip Thorne 135.75 57.8 13 11.8 4.4 83.8 Pokemon Christian Schmidt 131.13 55.8 14 11.2 3.6 85.2 Blackheart Ben Ford 129.92 55.3 15 10.2 10.8 79.0 Ron Post Steve Gunnell 119.64 50.9 16 12.7 26.7 60.6 Spiderman Ben Ford 111.36 47.4 17 14.9 34.0 51.1 Bonzo Sascha Zapf 110.68 47.1 18 12.4 34.3 53.3 Yak Snout Dave Hillis 102.92 43.8 19 2.8 56.5 40.6 Mekon Simon Wainwright 51.98 22.1 * The final event sees the entries battle against the 'White Army' benchmark of 20 warriors, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie. The score of Commander Heliotornado just has to be admired: # Name Author %W %L %T Score % 1 Commander Heliotornado Michal Janeczek 54 26 20 182.30 100.0 2 LuckyLuke Philip Thorne 40 46 14 134.10 73.6 3 Pokemon Christian Schmidt 21 10 69 131.64 72.2 4 Blackheart Ben Ford 18 12 70 123.30 67.6 5 Bravo Lukasz Grabun 27 31 42 123.24 67.6 6 Shadowfax Roy van Rijn 24 25 51 122.58 67.2 7 Jolly Jumper Philip Thorne [PVK/JM] 24 26 49 122.31 67.1 8 Digimon Christian Schmidt 30 39 31 122.02 66.9 9 Dan Dare Simon Wainwright 22 30 48 114.65 62.9 10 Ron Post Steve Gunnell 18 23 58 112.70 61.8 11 The Duelist Michal Janeczek 28 43 29 112.42 61.7 12 Dixie Lukasz Grabun 27 45 28 108.32 59.4 13 Russ Post Steve Gunnell 33 58 9 108.26 59.4 14 Huanchot G.Labarga 26 53 21 99.61 54.6 15 Magneto Roy van Rijn 26 58 16 94.11 51.6 16 Spiderman Ben Ford 14 41 45 87.08 47.8 17 Bonzo Sascha Zapf 16 62 22 70.45 38.6 18 Yak Snout Dave Hillis 10 57 34 62.26 34.2 19 Mekon Simon Wainwright 7 70 23 45.29 24.8 Among the entries, paper is the most common strategy, with 4 in total, (Jolly Jumper, Shadowfax, Spiderman and Ron Post). Also, there are 3 paper/imp (Pokemon, Bonzo and Blackheart) and a paper/clear (Bravo). Oneshots are well represented with 3, (Lucky Luke, Huanchot and Magneto) and there's just one scanner (Ross Pot). Two clear/imps (Dixie and Digimon) take part, as do an evolved warrior (Yak Snout) and an imp (Mekon). The remaining 3 warriors are p-spacers, (Dan Dare, The Duelist and Commander Heliotornado). The total score for round 5: # Competitor Multi Robin Bmark Total 1 Michal Janeczek 88.8 85.0 100.0 273.8 2 Steve Gunnell 100.0 100.0 61.8 261.8 3 Philip Thorne 93.5 84.0 73.6 251.1 4 Roy van Rijn 81.0 82.8 67.2 231.0 5 German Labarga 88.8 83.3 54.6 226.7 6 Christian Schmidt 85.6 68.6 72.2 226.4 7 Lukasz Grabun 82.2 64.9 67.6 214.7 8 Ben Ford 86.2 55.3 67.6 209.1 9 Simon Wainwright 82.6 59.6 62.9 205.1 10 Sascha Zapf 54.1 47.1 38.6 139.8 11 Dave Hillis 61.4 43.8 34.2 139.4 And finally, we have the Spring / Summer 2002 results. For those players who took part in all 5 rounds, only the highest 4 results count toward the final score: # Competitor Tiny BigLP 88Win Len50 3Atha Total Final 1 Michal Janeczek 93.3 100.0 100.0 98.6 273.8 665.7 : 572.4 2 Steve Gunnell 91.0 85.0 82.4 96.2 261.8 616.4 : 534.0 3 Philip Thorne 75.5 68.0 72.7 89.0 251.1 556.3 : 488.3 4 Ben Ford 100.0 74.4 75.1 100.0 209.1 558.6 : 484.2 5 Simon Wainwright 79.1 71.5 89.1 79.0 205.1 523.8 : 452.3 6 Lukasz Grabun 81.3 . 67.6 70.7 214.7 434.3 : 434.3 7 Dave Hillis 99.9 84.3 87.3 87.7 139.4 498.6 : 414.3 8 Roy Van Rijn . . . 92.8 231.0 323.8 : 323.8 9 Christian Schmidt . . . 90.7 226.4 317.1 : 317.1 10 German Labarga . . . 60.0 226.7 286.7 : 286.7 11 Robert Macrae 89.7 61.0 . . . 150.7 : 150.7 12 Sascha Zapf . . . . 139.8 139.8 : 139.8 13 Winston Featherly-Bean 72.9 47.3 . . . 120.2 : 120.2 14 David Moore . 51.4 63.6 . . 115.0 : 115.0 15 Martin Ankerl 88.2 . . . . 88.2 : 88.2 16 Ken Espiritu . . 86.3 . . 86.3 : 86.3 17 Leonardo H. Liporati 84.3 . . . . 84.3 : 84.3 18 mushroommaker 71.3 . . . . 71.3 : 71.3 19 Arek Paterek 66.0 . . . . 66.0 : 66.0 20 Paul Drake 61.9 . . . . 61.9 : 61.9 21 Sheep . . . 60.2 . 60.2 : 60.2 22 Compudemon 53.9 . . . . 53.9 : 53.9 23 Darek L. . . . 35.2 . 35.2 : 35.2 24 bvowk . . . 27.0 . 27.0 : 27.0 So, the overall winner is Michal Janeczek, who wins the International Money Order for $100 (US). The best performance in an individual round also goes to Michal, for FragPaper in the BigLP round. The highest ranking tournament newcomer is Philip Thorne, in 3rd place. Congratulations to everyone who has taken part. _______________________________________________________________________________ Seven Hints, by Joonas Pihlaja Here are some hints that you probably know already, but might refresh your memory. 1) In a stone you can spread out your decrement stream by having the decrement pointer change like the main bombing pointer does: ;redcode ;assert 1 STEP equ (3039*8) steps spl #3*STEP,3*STEP add steps, ptr ptr mov bmb+2+2*STEP, *bmb+2 mov bmb, @ptr djn.f -3, *ptr bmb dat STEP, 0 end 2) When your one shot finds something, try moving your scan pointers back a bit so it has a better chance of stunning the enemy. Try it with and without the "add #-20, gate" line in the one shot below, for instance. ;redcode-94nop ;name one shot test ;strat .5c fscan -> .5c sdd clear ;assert 1 gate equ (bp-(bs-bp)) sca add #10, gate jmz.f sca, @gate add #-20, gate bp spl #bs, bd-gate mov *bp, >gate djn.f -1, {gate dat 0,0 dat 0,0 bd dat 0, 20-gate bs spl #bp-(gate-1), 20-gate end sca 3) You don't need a d-clear to have an effective gate in your clear. The loop works almost as well. (Thanks to David Moore, who pointed this one out.) mov bomb, >gate djn.f -1, {gate 4) When booting multi-component warriors where the components are heavy splitters, make sure all your processes leave the boot code at roughly the same time. Otherwise if you send processes to a heavy splitter and still have things to do in your boot code, then those remaining processes may linger in the boot code, just gagging to be spl wiped. 5) Don't buy the hype: There's no magic d-clear bomb. Use your spare fields for something useful. Here's the imp pump: pump spl 0,0 add.a #2667+1,2 mov imp,>1 jmp imp-2*2668,1 imp mov 0,2667 end And here's the d-clear: gate equ (clr-5) clr spl 0,0 mov 2,>gate djn.f -1,>gate dat AFIELD,2-gate ; AFIELD one of 0, <2667, etc. Here are the results for various AFIELD's from running pmars-server with the flags -r 1000 -F 1000 imp.red dclr.red. Wins are for the imp. 0: 3-536-461 <0: 3-536-461 <2666: 3-536-461 <5333: 3-535-462 <-1: 3-536-461 <2667: 3-540-457 <5334: 4-536-460 <1: 3-536-461 <2668: 3-536-461 <5335: 3-536-461 >0: 3-525-472 >2666: 3-471-526 >5333: 5-498-497 >-1: 4-507-489 >2667: 3-525-472 >5334: 4-525-471 >1: 4-535-461 >2668: 3-536-461 >5335: 10-525-465 Note that across the board the incrementing bombs score worse than the control bomb dat 0,2-gate by a fair deal, except once. Contrast that to the decrementing bombs where mostly there is no effect, except <2667, which has a very slight advantage. 6) Airbag techniques are more effective with larger loops. 7) Scan your opponent in unexpected ways. _______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra - Thunderstrike by Lukasz Grabun One way in which a warrior made by a experienced programmer differs from one made by a beginner is the variety of classes of other programs it can beat. Sure, it's easy to make a scanner that beats paper, but can we make it anti-stone enough to enter the hill and survive there? For a stone, it's important to score well against other stones, clears and paper. During the process of creating Thunderstrike I've realised that it is scanners which are sometimes the hardest to beat. The idea was given a few years ago by Ian Oversby in his article about Newt. ("Longevity, Imp/Stones and Newt", CW69). Here's what he stated: : So, how is it possible to future-proof your new program? I believe we : must look at the problem in the correct light. If we take the traditional : analogy of warriors to stone/paper/scissors then we condemn our warrior to : death as the hill balance changes. If we wrote a scanner then when many : stones enter the hill we will surely die. However, this analogy holds : very loosely. For example, it is possible to write a stone that will kill : paper or paper that will kill scissors. That attitude that we _can_ beat : a warrior type that would usually beat us is very important. It is : interesting to note that Vigor, allegedly a paper, suffers its worst : defeat at the hands of a stone - Newt. Thunderstrike originates from the idea expressed by Ian in his program: a strong and resilient stone to kill scanners, with a d-clear to wipe imps. TS's stone implements just one more trick while bombing: a Torch-like engine, as widely used by other stones. So, why not try it in a Newt-like bomber? The idea was quite easy to implement: step equ (3510) hop equ (46) gate equ (inc-6) from equ (0+step) hit equ (loop-step-hop) inc SPL.B #step , <-step MOV.I {from , gate DJN.F -1 , >gate bomb DAT.F >5335 , hop+1 It produces quite a good pattern of laid bombs/decrements: ...0..X..*...0..X..*... where 0 is a dat 0,0 bomb, X is a dat >5335,hop+1 and * is a decrement. As you will have noticed it is similar to Newt's pattern, though not so dense. The stone itself is large - 8 cells, opposed to 4-5 cells for the generic frenzy killers commonly used in stone/imps, which does not compare well. On the other hand, TS has a good offensive power against imps - not only does it have its own d-clear, but it also uses an anti-imp bomb as a pointer for the second bomb. Other stone/imps in general do not have their own clear, or they self-bomb to create a clumsy 0.33c clear, losing many processes when they do so. Skew Dwarf from Recycled Bits has the most offensive power against stone/imp warriors among generic stones - compare the results (scores calculated for SD, Candy and TS, respectively): : Skew Dwarf : Candy : Thunderstrike : : %W %L %T Sto S/I : %W %L %T Sto S/I : %W %L %T Sto S/I : Candy: 32 53 16 112 175 : 7 89 4 25 271 : 31 45 24 117 159 : Jade : 30 55 15 105 180 : 5 89 10 25 277 : 33 39 28 127 155 : QS : 22 72 6 72 222 : 12 85 3 39 279 : 35 51 13 118 166 : Uninv: 25 56 19 94 187 : 13 81 6 45 249 : 30 48 22 112 166 : Oliv : 24 57 19 91 190 : 6 82 12 30 258 : 25 51 27 102 180 : SoV : 18 51 32 76 185 : 8 85 3 27 253 : 21 51 27 90 180 : Newt : 24 53 24 96 183 : 9 81 10 37 253 : 22 42 36 102 162 : WMute: 12 72 15 51 231 : 9 83 8 35 257 : 22 55 23 89 188 : Storm: 26 57 17 95 188 : 6 89 5 23 272 : 27 40 33 114 153 : PenDr: 19 46 35 92 173 : 5 88 7 22 271 : 17 36 47 98 155 : Roseb: 22 71 7 73 219 : 9 83 8 35 256 : 27 50 24 100 172 : Avr : 23 57 20 89 191 : 8 85 7 31 262 : 26 46 28 106 166 : As you can see, Candy is totally unable to handle stone/imps. Skew Dwarf scores much better, but it is Thunderstrike that gains most wins and turns many losses into ties. Sidenote: the effectiveness with which Newt handles d-clear is strongly overstated. D-clear of the form: gate dat 0 , 100 dat 0 , 0 clear spl #0 , #0 mov bomb , >gate djn.f -1 , >gate bomb dat >5335 , 2-gate end clear ... scores even with a stone derived from Newt, while Thunderstrike beats it (52/42/6). To give you a better picture here are detailed results (pmars executed with -P option) Number of Newt's stone Thunders's stone cycles loses/wins loses/wins 1000 18/100 4/100 5000 92/100 55/100 10000 103/100 94/100 80000 103/100 118/100 Newt disables the d-clear sooner, but overall Thundestrike performs better. As I discovered, the average performarance of Newt against d-clear is caused by the double spl lines. Commenting first line in the stone helps a lot: Newt scores now 51/39/9. This leaves papers (and as I later found out, scanners) to take care of. Paper can harm Thunderstrike. This is a weakness of all stone/imp warriors and only a little can be done about this. After careful consideration and testing, I chose to use medium-weight imps (30 processes) and kill the launcher after 3000 cycles. If the stone survives the first 1200 cycles - the moment when d-clear is entered - it completely surpasses imps, to perform a better end-phase, and disallow the imps reaching any remaining gates. This is done in a similar manner to Newt - kind of double spl line when `loop' is hit produces so many processes, the imps slow down, hardly moving over the core. However, if the stone is killed during paper carpet bombing, the imps are strong enough to face paper bombs. For example, a paper derived from Purifier ties with Thunderstrike (2/4/94 - counted for paper). Reepicheep's paper scores about 13/7/80. However, stronger anti-imp papers, such as Disincentive, can do real harm. Hopefully, the times of stand-alone papers are gone. :-) While creating the stone, I discovered that even programs which by definition should be killed by stones (namely: scissors) can produce some real problems: : Skew Dwarf : Candy : Thunderstrike : : %W %L %T Sto Sca : %W %L %T Sto Sca : %W %L %T Sto Sca : HL : 63 31 6 195 99 : 66 28 6 204 90 : 42 51 7 133 160 : Boys : 68 25 6 210 81 : 68 25 7 211 82 : 57 37 5 176 116 : CS2 : 49 43 7 154 136 : 45 45 9 144 144 : 48 38 13 157 127 : DeepF: 67 28 4 205 88 : 65 27 7 202 88 : 45 45 10 145 145 : SilvT: 73 17 9 228 60 : 72 21 6 222 69 : 57 35 8 179 113 : Zooom: 73 21 6 225 69 : 78 16 5 239 53 : 57 35 8 179 113 : HerbA: 67 25 8 209 83 : 61 30 9 192 99 : 51 41 7 160 130 : Willw: 69 29 2 209 89 : 76 19 4 232 61 : 65 34 2 197 104 : Jinx : 73 18 8 227 62 : 70 22 7 217 73 : 57 35 7 178 112 : Avr : 68 26 6 210 84 : 67 25 7 208 82 : 53 39 8 167 125 : Thunderstrike scores well against traditional scanners. Those with anti-stone improvements cause some problems but overall the score is quite good. Skew Dwarf and Candy's stone score extraordinarily, and outrun scanners (no wonder, Candy *was* designed to kill them). Here are results counted for Thunderstrike against some top-notch warriors: %W %L %T Score =================================================== Behemot 41 43 16 139 Boys Are Back 45 40 14 150 Candy 24 9 67 140 Crazyshot 2 41 30 28 152 Deep Freeze X 42 42 16 143 Disincentive 13 24 62 102 Executor 45 35 20 156 Firestorm 15 14 71 117 Hazy Lazy 36 43 20 129 Herbal Avenger 42 37 21 146 Jade 31 8 61 153 Mini Jedi 12 9 79 116 Newt 25 27 48 124 nPaper II 9 11 80 108 Olivia 24 27 49 121 Purifier 15 12 72 118 Quicksilver 30 11 60 149 Recovery 21 19 60 123 Reepicheep 23 18 59 128 Return of Vanquisher 43 40 17 145 RotF Copy 13 7 80 119 Silver Talon 1.2 43 41 16 145 Son of Vain 22 23 55 121 Stylizede Euphoria 30 7 62 153 Uninvited 34 8 58 160 Vanquisher II 44 37 19 152 Wallpaper 21 25 54 116 Wintermute 30 10 60 150 Zooom 43 39 18 148 Here's the code. Enjoy. ;redcode-94nop ;author Lukasz Grabun ;assert (CORESIZE==8000) ;name Thunderstrike ;strategy Q^4 -> Stone/Imp orig z for 0 rof ; -- imp constants istep equ (2667) ; 3-point imps ioff equ (6338+orig) ; imp launcher offset qBmb dat {qOff , #qF ; -- imp launcher pump SPL.B #imp , #imp+1 SUB.F #-istep-1 , iloop MOV.I imp , }pump iloop JMP.B imp-2*(istep+1) , >imp+2*istep-1 imp MOV.I #0 , istep ; -- stone constants step equ (3510) hop equ (46) gate equ (inc-6) from equ (0+step) hit equ (loop-step-hop) soff equ (2498+ioff) ; stone offset ; -- stone inc SPL.B #step , <-step MOV.I {from , gate DJN.F -1 , >gate bomb DAT.F >5335 , hop+1 ; -- boot boot MOV.I bomb , soff MOV.I {boot , , Philip Kendall , Anton Marsden , John Metcalf and Christian Schmidt