From dmi.ens.fr!julienas!mcsun!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!dunix.drake.edu!acad.drake.edu!pk6811s Wed Jun 23 10:45:35 MET DST 1993 Article 1577 of rec.games.corewar: Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Path: dmi.ens.fr!julienas!mcsun!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!dunix.drake.edu!acad.drake.edu!pk6811s >From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: _Push Off_ Message-ID: <1993Jun22.121240.1@acad.drake.edu> Lines: 240 Sender: news@dunix.drake.edu (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: acad.drake.edu Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 18:12:40 GMT _PUSH OFF_ A midweek review of Corewar June 22, 1993 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. The Standings: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 45/ 35/ 20 Winter Werewolf 3 W. Mintardjo 156 82 2 47/ 44/ 9 Agony 6.0 Stefan Strack 150 18 3 46/ 43/ 12 Dragon Spear c w blue 148 866 4 45/ 43/ 12 Impurge Fredrik Ohrstrom 147 88 5 46/ 46/ 8 Backstabber Anders Ivner 146 315 6 44/ 43/ 13 Iron Gate 1.01 Wayne Sheppard 145 592 7 44/ 45/ 11 Fire Storm v1.1 W. Mintardjo 144 403 8 36/ 29/ 34 FlyPaper 3.0 J.Layland 143 188 9 44/ 46/ 10 cproba nandor sieben 142 106 10 33/ 25/ 42 Snake Wayne Sheppard 142 524 11 33/ 24/ 43 Imprimis 7 P.Kline 142 4 12 42/ 42/ 16 Herem V Anders Ivner 141 6 13 32/ 23/ 44 Incrimination v1.0 Brant D. Thomsen 141 168 14 32/ 25/ 43 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 139 764 15 32/ 26/ 42 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 139 1762 16 39/ 42/ 19 Distance v6.3 Brant D. Thomsen 137 258 17 38/ 43/ 19 Emerald 5.1000 P.Kline 132 1 18 30/ 28/ 43 HeremPaper v0.9 Anders Ivner 132 7 19 33/ 36/ 30 Passport P.Kline 130 23 20 17/ 15/ 30 Imprimis 6 P.Kline 80 1164 21 9/ 67/ 23 Antidwarf Phil Long 52 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. The Basics: -Core War Archives are available via anonymous FTP at soda.berkeley.edu in pub/corewar... -FAQ for this newsgroup is available via anonymous FTP at rtfm.mit.edu as pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.z ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. The Scoop: Well, Sphinx v2.8 has probably set a new record for duration on KotH by the time you read this. Congratulations! How high can he go? Or how low can he go and survive, since, like Imprimis 6, Sphinx has had the ho-hum-score flu lately, and has been skulking around the bottom of the Hill. I got tired of watching Imprimis holding up the other 19 players and thought I would get a jump on Mintardjo's new version of Sphinx by releasing Imprimis 7 early :-) Imprimis 7 puts fewer processes in the 7-point imps, and arranges to have a jmp -1 dropped on the core-clear routine for faster clearing (got that one from Moonstone :-). Meanwhile S. Strack gassed up Agony with some fresh numbers and raced back into the top five. Looks good, however WM's Winter Werewolf 3 _owns_ the number one spot (for now). Last week's Hint stirred up some interest in Vampires, and a flock of them assaulted the Hill, all unsuccessfully I think. We'll see what happens after this weeks follow-up Hint. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. The Outlook: 2 47/ 45/ 8 Agony 6.0 Stefan Strack 150 1 7 41/ 43/ 16 Herem V Anders Ivner 140 1 9 31/ 25/ 43 Imprimis 7 P.Kline 138 1 9 39/ 42/ 19 Herem II Anders Ivner 137 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- V. The Quick Look: 17 28/ 28/ 44 HeremPaper v0.9 Anders Ivner 129 1 18 39/ 43/ 18 Grimm's Vampyre c w blue 134 1 19 18/ 17/ 65 Pergament 0.32 Dan Nabutovsky 118 1 19 40/ 51/ 9 Cleaver Wayne Sheppard 128 1 20 6/ 90/ 4 challange Peter Auer 22 1 20 15/ 51/ 35 challange2 Peter Auer 78 1 20 16/ 35/ 49 Seventh Circle v1 Peter van Rossum 97 1 20 28/ 30/ 42 Stoned Again c w blue 125 1 20 32/ 38/ 30 Integrity t P.Kline 126 1 20 34/ 43/ 23 Herem III Anders Ivner 126 1 20 36/ 43/ 21 Herem IV Anders Ivner 128 1 21 0/ 67/ 33 multi-imp Peter Auer 33 0 21 0/ 92/ 7 Sufo Fredrik Ohrstrom 8 0 21 1/ 64/ 35 King Wannabe v0 Planar 38 0 21 3/ 62/ 36 Double spiral Phil Long 43 0 21 7/ 55/ 38 SuperImp 1.1a Jonathan Roy 59 0 21 9/ 67/ 23 Antidwarf Phil Long 52 0 21 9/ 79/ 12 multi-bomb Peter Auer 39 0 21 10/ 54/ 36 Expediency Michael Constant 67 0 21 10/ 68/ 21 pit Peter Auer 53 0 21 10/ 69/ 21 imp-gate Peter Auer 51 0 21 10/ 76/ 13 Bloodsucker I Phil Long 45 0 21 11/ 77/ 11 Chimp Phil Long 45 0 21 13/ 71/ 16 fast-bomb Peter Auer 54 0 21 16/ 38/ 45 multi mice nandor sieben 94 0 21 16/ 78/ 5 KSC 1.0 Devin Kilminster 55 0 21 20/ 73/ 7 Genie Michael Constant 67 0 21 21/ 42/ 37 Unknown Albert Ma 101 0 21 23/ 32/ 46 Deck of Many Things c w blue 114 0 21 24/ 45/ 31 JRoy Imps P.Kline 102 0 21 25/ 52/ 24 IHTFP Albert Ma 97 0 21 26/ 59/ 16 Little Killer Phil Long 93 0 21 26/ 63/ 11 Dwarf28.2 Peter Auer and Phil 90 0 21 27/ 62/ 11 Dwarf52 Phil Long 93 0 21 27/ 64/ 9 Dwarf84 Phil Long 90 0 21 27/ 69/ 4 fast-dwarf Peter Auer 85 0 21 29/ 52/ 19 Anti-Anti-Vamp Vamp Michael Constant 106 0 21 29/ 65/ 6 BloodStalker Fredrik Ohrstrom 93 0 21 30/ 40/ 30 Integrity P.Kline 119 0 21 32/ 51/ 17 Wimp 7.0 Brant D. Thomsen 113 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VI. The Hint: Vampires - deadly opponents or patsies? The Achille's heel of Vampires is their 'fang'. What other warrior puts pointers to itself all over core? (well, imps okay, but that's another topic :-) Here's what a typical fang in core looks like: jmp a,b In reality, here's what it represents: jmp pitlocation,-fangsource Now if we could turn either of those pointers to advantage, we could zero in on the vamp and squelch him. Since several of the better vampires (Sucker, Twilight Pits, and Grimm's Vampyre) locate the fang just after their bombing code, they are easily attacked by this code: spl 0 avamp mov bomb,<-100 sub @avamp,From: jlayland@kilroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (James Layland) Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: Sample Vampire from _Push Off_ Date: 22 Jun 1993 17:28:23 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Lines: 22 Message-ID: <207ffn$e15@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov I was just looking over the Hint from Paul's last _Push Off_. I believe there is a minor error in the sample vampire he posted. It should be: inc dat #3364,#-3364 fang jmp trap-4,4 ^^ start spl 0 add inc,fang mov fang,@fang jmp -2 trap mov 10,<-10 spl -1 jmp -2 As originally posted, the fangs will caused bombed programs to jump to trap+4 (presumably a DAT), which makes this simply a dwarf-type bomber rather than a pit-trapper. Makes a big difference against replicators. James From dmi.ens.fr!julienas!mcsun!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!dunix.drake.edu!acad.drake.edu!pk6811s Wed Jun 23 10:47:10 MET DST 1993 Article 1579 of rec.games.corewar: Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Path: dmi.ens.fr!julienas!mcsun!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!dunix.drake.edu!acad.drake.edu!pk6811s >From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Sample Vampire from _Push Off_ Message-ID: <1993Jun22.134214.1@acad.drake.edu> Lines: 25 Sender: news@dunix.drake.edu (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: acad.drake.edu Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA References: <207ffn$e15@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 19:42:14 GMT In article <207ffn$e15@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, jlayland@kilroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (James Layland) writes: > I was just looking over the Hint from Paul's last _Push Off_. I believe > there is a minor error in the sample vampire he posted. It should be: >. . . . Nope, it works as written: inc dat #3364,#-3364 fang jmp trap,0 start spl 0 add inc,fang mov fang,@fang jmp -2 trap mov 10,<-10 spl -1 jmp -2 end start Yours works too, you have just offset the fang's a- and b-operands by 4 and -4 respectively. Which points out another vampire feature, namely that any X/-X can be used to increment the fang _AND_ that X can change during the run while maintaining fang viability. -Paul