Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 17:32:25 -0500 (EST) From: "John Metcalf" To: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L Subject: Core Warrior #86 .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 86 01 April, 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 10 weeks which have passed since last issue have been an eventful time. In rec.games.corewar, Planar announced his retirement from Corewar. Planar is the father of the warrior archive (still an invaluable tool), and an early contributor to Core Warrior. We wish him all the best for the future. Rounds 6, 7 and 8 of the ongoing tournament have taken place, and the winners are: 6) Multi Maniac 7) Smart Switching 8) Random Rage Simon Duff German Labarga Christian Schmidt Michal Janeczek is still at the head of the pack in the tournament rankings, with 393.9 out of a possible 400 points. Ben Ford is in 2nd place, closely followed by Roy van Rijn. A recent development is the speed Redcoding challenge held every Sunday in the #COREWARS IRC channel on irc.koth.org. Competitors have just 30 minutes after the rules are announced to create their warriors. The winners: 1) Nano Core 2) Tiny, no -1,1 3) Standard, only -1,0,1 Christian Schmidt Roy van Rijn Phil Thorne 4) Exact Location 5) Tiny, no < { } > Thorne & Kozisek Jakub Kozisek Check Fizmo's Ultimate Corewar page for details of the above, and further developments. -- John Metcalf ______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 No Pspace Hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 50/ 43/ 7 Recon 2 David Moore 156.6 5 2 46/ 38/ 16 Toxic Spirit Philip Thorne 153.4 236 3 38/ 25/ 36 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 151.9 782 4 47/ 45/ 7 Solo Roy van Rijn 148.8 6 5 45/ 41/ 14 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 148.7 326 6 44/ 40/ 15 run to the hills Simon Wainwright 148.4 16 7 38/ 28/ 34 Thunderstrike Lukasz Grabun 146.8 156 8 43/ 39/ 18 Return of Vanquisher Lukasz Grabun 146.5 313 9 35/ 26/ 39 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 144.8 1551 10 42/ 42/ 15 Harmony Snoot Lukasz Grabun 141.7 126 11 41/ 40/ 19 Driftwood John Metcalf 141.5 235 12 45/ 49/ 5 Claw Fizmo 141.0 519 13 32/ 24/ 43 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo/Roy 140.3 589 14 30/ 20/ 50 Dawn Roy van Rijn 140.0 167 15 28/ 17/ 55 PolyPap II Jakub/Roy 139.5 31 16 32/ 26/ 42 Fast Action III Christian Schmidt 139.1 25 17 34/ 29/ 36 Pixie Lukasz Grabun 138.7 199 18 36/ 34/ 30 My First Paper Michal Janeczek 137.9 150 19 30/ 24/ 46 Firestorm John Metcalf 135.6 587 20 30/ 36/ 34 Bestia-X test Neogryzor 122.6 1 181 successful challenges have passed since last issue. Driftwood becomes the 100th warrior to reach the age of 100. Of those 100 centenarians, 28 were written by Schmidt, 14 by Metcalf, 7 by Oversby and 6 each by Espiritu, Grabun and Moore. The warriors which are no longer with us include Positive Knife (age 449), Decoy Signal (378), Return of the Pendragon (318), Herbal Avenger (276), The Three-Handed Knight (221) and Digitalis 2002a (131). Koth report: Most often seen in the top spot has been Toxic Spirit, king of the hill after 82 successful challenges. Also performing well were Reepicheep (65 times king) and Claw (10 times). _______________________________________________________________________________ The '94 No Pspace Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 1551 * 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 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 782 * Q^4 -> Paper/stone 10 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 781 Scanner 11 Inky Ian Oversby 736 Q^4 -> Paper/stone 12 Jinx Christian Schmidt 662 Q^3 -> Scanner 13 Blade Fizmo 643 Qscan -> Scanner 14 Jade Ben Ford 600 Q^4 -> Stone/imp 15 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo+Roy 589 * Q^4 -> Paper 16 Firestorm John Metcalf 587 * MiniQ^3 -> Paper/imp 17 Claw Fizmo 519 * Qscan -> Scanner 18 G3-b David Moore 503 Twoshot 19 Vanquisher Lukasz Grabun 469 Q^4 -> Bomber 20 Revival Fire P.Kline 468 Bomber 21 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 465 Qscan -> Paper/imp 22 The Stormkeeper Christian Schmidt 460 Q^3 -> Stone/imp 23 Positive Knife Ken Espiritu 449 Q^4 -> Stone/imp 24 Boys are Back in Town Philip Kendall 441 Scanner = Zooom... John Metcalf 441 Scanner Christian Schmidt's Claw is our only new HoF entry this issue. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 Draft Hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 44/ 34/ 22 Mantrap Arcade Dave Hillis 154.3 58 2 46/ 39/ 15 Bustling Spirit Christian Schmidt 153.9 101 3 44/ 38/ 18 Return of Vanquisher PsP Lukasz Grabun 150.1 71 4 37/ 25/ 38 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 148.9 260 5 36/ 23/ 41 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 147.9 231 6 42/ 40/ 18 my new tiny warrior John Metcalf 144.5 15 7 42/ 39/ 19 Microvenator Michal Janeczek 144.2 64 8 43/ 41/ 16 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 143.7 143 9 42/ 40/ 19 CrazyShot 2 Christian Schmidt 143.2 243 10 45/ 48/ 7 Recon 2 David Moore 142.9 12 11 34/ 26/ 40 PolyPap Jakub Kozisek 142.2 19 12 32/ 23/ 45 V Christian Schmidt 142.0 18 13 42/ 43/ 15 Woozily Higgle Christian Schmidt 141.3 46 14 34/ 28/ 38 Bitter Sweet Lukasz Grabun 141.0 53 15 32/ 22/ 46 Dawn Roy van Rijn 140.8 38 16 41/ 43/ 16 Tilt!!! Christian Schmidt 140.3 3 17 42/ 44/ 15 run to the hills Simon Wainwright 139.9 16 18 31/ 23/ 45 Incredible! John Metcalf 138.8 126 19 28/ 18/ 54 Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 137.0 187 20 35/ 39/ 26 J/R test Roy 131.0 1 Revenge of the Papers perishes, age 204. Also leaving the hill this issue are Combatra (131), Cyanide Excuse (117) and Dark Lowlands (98). Koth report: Since last issue the hill has aged by just 41. Mantrap Arcade has been on top of the hill most often, after just 12 successful challenges. Reepicheep was also seen in the number 1 spot, 10 time altogether. _______________________________________________________________________________ The '94 Draft Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 260 * Q^4 -> Paper/stone 2 CrazyShot 2 Christian Schmidt 243 * Q^4 -> Oneshot 3 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 231 * Q^4 -> Stone/imp 4 Revenge of the Papers Fizmo/Roy 204 Q^4 -> Paper 5 Uninvited John Metcalf 194 MiniQ^3 -> Stone/imp 6 Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 187 * Q^4 -> Paper/imp 7 Wallpaper Christian Schmidt 175 Q^4 -> Paper/stone 8 Herbal Avenger Michal Janeczek 143 * Scanner = Joyful Maw Dave Hillis 143 P-warrior 10 Paperazor Christian Schmidt 141 Paper 11 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 132 P-warrior 12 Combatra David Moore 131 Boot distance calculator 13 Incredible! John Metcalf 126 * Paper/imp 14 Mad Christian Schmidt 123 P-warrior 15 Cyanide Excuse Dave Hillis 117 P-warrior 16 Shapeshifter Michal Janeczek 107 P-warrior 17 Bustling Spirit Christian Schmidt 101 * P-warrior 18 Help...I'm Scared Roy van Rijn 98 Oneshot = Dark Lowlands Roy van Rijn 98 *Unknown* 20 Dry Ice Ben Ford 92 P-warrior 21 Digitalis 2002 Christian Schmidt 89 Q^4 -> Clear/imp = WingShot++ Ben Ford 89 Oneshot 23 Origami Harquebus mjp 88 P-warrior 24 Firestorm John Metcalf 80 MiniQ^3 -> Paper/imp 25 Pattel's Virus Ben Ford 73 P-warrior Just one new entry in the Draft HoF this issue - Bustling Spirit from Christian Schmidt. _______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra - Tangle Trap 3 by David Moore - Effective '88 Vamp with Airbag Feelin' retro? Tangle Trap 3 is an '88 vampire... with a taste for garlic. Other vampires typically deliver their "fangs" like this: mov fang, @fang Somewhere out in core, the JMP bomb looks like this: jmp trap - x, x The problem with that attack is that each bomb yields a big clue about where the vampire is. Why is this a problem? ;redcode ;name garlic ;kill garlic ;author Stefan Strack ;strategy vampires are afraid of it ;strategy Submitted: @date@ scan jmz scan,const jmp.f exec+OFFSET end start But what makes this code so deadly against some scanners? Well, the reason is the dat line of the code. If the program jumps through the core it always copies beginning with the dat instruction, which contains the pointer. If the hopper jumps onto the opponents code, the chance is high that the opponents loop is broken and he will finally die by executing the dat line of the hopper. I optimized the jump distance by generating 50 random constants and benchmark them against the scanner from the table below. In a second step I repeated the same procedure with the decrementing constant I've added to the jump-instruction. Below is the final code I received after the optimization: ;redcode-94 ;name Lethal Frog ;author Christian Schmidt ;assert 1 ;strategy pStep EQU 4499 pBomb EQU 1536 front dat #0, #pStep mov.i }-1, >-1 jmp pStep-1, d-clear ;assert CORESIZE==8000 || CORESIZE==800 for CORESIZE==8000 step equ 17 first equ 240 dist equ 3022 time equ 285 rof for CORESIZE==800 step equ 13 first equ 40 dist equ 204 time equ 43 rof ptr: sne first, first+dist add db, ptr p: mov bomb, }ptr mov bomb, >ptr djn @p, #time bomb: spl #1, 1 mov db, >ptr djn.f -1, >ptr db: dat step-1, step-1 end _______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care. Beppe Bezzi , Philip Kendall , Anton Marsden , John Metcalf and Christian Schmidt