From news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!freenet.columbus.oh.us!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!lerc.nasa.gov!purdue!mozo.cc.purdue.edu!cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu!bremermr Tue Nov 7 11:40:35 1995 Article: 2809 of rec.games.corewar Path: news-rocq.inria.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!freenet.columbus.oh.us!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!lerc.nasa.gov!purdue!mozo.cc.purdue.edu!cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu!bremermr From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: Core_Warrior_ #4 Date: 6 Nov 1995 18:29:21 GMT Organization: Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN Lines: 826 Message-ID: <47lk61$aji@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu .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 4 Nov 6, 1995 ______________________________________________________________________________ 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 http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings. It's been two weeks since I've last forced you to read my rantings. I suppose it's time to impose my will once again. I'm happy to announce that this week's Extra Extra is written by 'guest columnist' Damien Doligez a.k.a. Planar. Thought you knew a lot about imps? Check out his thoughts on Impfinity--a continously launching imp SPIRAL ( no wimpy series of imp rings here ). As always, contributions are welcome becuase it means I don't have to write as much. 8-) ______________________________________________________________________________ Tournament Time (details at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/nsfcwt.html) Round 5 is over, and boy was it a pain to score. We had 5 fast sorters (quick-, shell-) and 8 slower bubble/insertion sorters. The fast sorters ended up holding the top 4 positions in the overall rank. The smallest sorter was Magnus Paulsson's myKindOfSort with 33 instructions; the fastest sorter was Robert Macrae's Shell Sort; and the best overall was Steven Morrell's Sort of, which ranked #6 in size and #2 in speed. Data sets: Sets ranged from 20 to 854 instructions in length (average: 409); 5 had to be sorted in ascending, 5 in descending order; duplicates had to be deleted in 6 sets. Data set 1,2,8,9 were for/rof generated; set 7 was pseudo-random number generated; the remaining sets were concatenated pre-assembled warrior codes in various pre- sort stages. An interesting set is #6 which is strongly presorted and highly redundant, taxing the deletion routines. Drop a note if you want a copy of the test sets. Sorted by length: ----------------- Length index: Program "myKindOfSort" (length 33) by "Paulsson" 0.53 Program "Mister Understudy" (length 39) by "Derek Ross" 0.626 Program "Points is Points" (length 45) by "Karl Lewin" 0.723 Program "PaulSort" (length 50) by "P.Kline" 0.803 Program "bubble gum" (length 51) by "M R Bremer" 0.819 Program "Sort of" (length 54) by "Steven Morrell" 0.867 Program "Bubble-Sort" (length 54) by "G. Eadon" 0.867 Program "SnafSort v0.5" (length 54) by "anders scholl" 0.867 Program "sort of sorter" (length 56) by "Beppe Bezzi" 0.899 Program "Shell Sort" (length 60) by "Robert Macrae" 0.964 Program "SnailSort" (length 61) by "Maurizio Vittuari" 0.98 Program "Consortium" (length 96) by "Randy Graham" 1.542 Program "Kurt's Qsort" (length 156) by "Kurt Franke" 2.506 average length: 62.23, index = length/62.23 Cycles required: set(len) P.Kline K.Franke B.Bezzi M.Bremer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 (525) 180,134 0.17 68,362 0.06 2,572,613 2.55 848,917 0.84 1 (300) 41,647 0.18 130,561 0.56 581,159 2.52 325,876 1.41 2 (300) 37,684 0.15 28,330 0.11 442,350 1.78 233,273 0.94 3 (178) 47,857 0.49 15,110 0.15 203,804 2.09 92,156 0.94 4 (854) 475,822 0.20 98,277 0.04 5,347,465 2.31 2,561,037 1.10 5 (268) 77,508 0.33 32,379 0.14 611,536 2.64 238,839 1.03 6 (401) 80,204 0.20 27,064 0.06 1,215,022 3.05 541,308 1.35 7 (499) 233,783 0.29 64,632 0.08 1,759,465 2.25 686,847 0.87 8 (20) 624 0.57 1,118 1.02 754 0.69 211 0.19 9 (750) 200,345 0.11 89,910 0.05 3,535,038 2.05 2,078,960 1.20 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avg. index 0.27357668 0.23163087 2.19801421 0.99347397 R.Macrae R.Graham S.Morrell M.Paulsson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 (525) 64,221 0.06 55,898 0.05 39,789 0.03 920,836 0.91 1 (300) 25,475 0.11 36,610 0.15 19,515 0.08 97,355 0.42 2 (300) 20,751 0.08 33,550 0.13 19,082 0.07 295,648 1.19 3 (178) 15,439 0.15 14,308 0.14 12,268 0.12 107,230 1.10 4 (854) 110,751 0.04 96,670 0.04 85,497 0.03 2,691,899 1.16 5 (268) 56,023 0.24 27,615 0.11 20,602 0.08 195,258 0.84 6 (401) 27,837 0.06 154,935 0.38 124,374 0.31 29,740 0.07 7 (499) 61,767 0.07 46,844 0.05 38,149 0.04 811,726 1.03 8 (20) 519 0.47 408 0.37 646 0.59 1,240 1.13 9 (750) 85,285 0.04 73,101 0.04 60,245 0.03 2,092,599 1.21 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avg. index 0.13824197 0.15245615 0.14426386 0.91166251 G.Eadon D.Ross K.Lewin M.Vittuari ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 (525) 1,711,257 1.70 1,241,525 1.23 1,528,707 1.51 1,648,478 1.63 1 (300) 32,628 0.14 131,559 0.57 416,132 1.80 619,280 2.68 2 (300) 303,303 1.22 316,321 1.27 499,758 2.02 383,131 1.54 3 (178) 104,887 1.07 112,616 1.15 178,306 1.83 175,408 1.80 4 (854) 2,641,569 1.14 2,575,723 1.11 4,045,693 1.75 4,688,083 2.03 5 (268) 178,923 0.77 255,462 1.10 397,633 1.72 471,450 2.04 6 (401) 45,728 0.11 40,272 0.10 698,546 1.75 858,134 2.15 7 (499) 947,669 1.21 1,120,708 1.43 1,377,600 1.76 1,187,956 1.52 8 (20) 629 0.57 1,957 1.79 2,436 2.23 307 0.28 9 (750) 1,882,398 1.09 1,969,529 1.14 3,107,832 1.80 3,694,820 2.15 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avg. index 0.90663812 1.09411928 1.82153461 1.78592881 A.Scholl ---------------------- 0 (525) 2,204,582 2.19 1 (300) 535,834 2.32 Numbers are given as: 2 (300) 601,235 2.43 Cycles Index 3 (178) 184,700 1.89 where Index is Cycles/AvgCycles 4 (854) 4,589,327 1.98 5 (268) 548,652 2.37 6 (401) 1,335,274 3.35 7 (499) 1,820,651 2.33 8 (20) 3,321 3.04 9 (750) 3,470,048 2.01 ---------------------- Avg. index 2.39604507 Sorted by speed: ---------------- Program "Shell Sort" (length 60) by "Robert Macrae" 0.13824197 Program "Sort of" (length 54) by "Steven Morrell" 0.14426386 Program "Consortium" (length 96) by "Randy Graham" 0.15245615 Program "Kurt's Qsort" (length 156) by "Kurt Franke" 0.23163087 Program "PaulSort" (length 50) by "P.Kline" 0.27357668 Program "Bubble-Sort" (length 54) by "G. Eadon" 0.90663812 Program "myKindOfSort" (length 33) by "Paulsson" 0.91166251 Program "bubble gum" (length 51) by "M R Bremer" 0.99347397 Program "Mister Understudy" (length 39) by "Derek Ross" 1.09411928 Program "SnailSort" (length 61) by "Maurizio Vittuari" 1.78592881 Program "Points is Points" (length 45) by "Karl Lewin" 1.82153461 Program "sort of sorter" (length 56) by "Beppe Bezzi" 2.19801421 Program "SnafSort v0.5" (length 54) by "anders scholl" 2.39604507 Overall rank (length index * speed index): ------------- pts. Program "Sort of" (length 54) by "Steven Morrell" 0.12507677 13 Program "Shell Sort" (length 60) by "Robert Macrae" 0.13326526 12 Program "PaulSort" (length 50) by "P.Kline" 0.21968207 11 Program "Consortium" (length 96) by "Randy Graham" 0.23508738 10 Program "myKindOfSort" (length 33) by "Paulsson" 0.48318113 9 Program "Kurt's Qsort" (length 156) by "Kurt Franke" 0.58046696 8 Program "Mister Understudy" (length 39) by "Derek Ross" 0.68491867 7 Program "Bubble-Sort" (length 54) by "G. Eadon" 0.78605525 6 Program "bubble gum" (length 51) by "M R Bremer" 0.81365518 5 Program "Points is Points" (length 45) by "Karl Lewin" 1.31696952 4 Program "SnailSort" (length 61) by "Maurizio Vittuari" 1.75021023 3 Program "sort of sorter" (length 56) by "Beppe Bezzi" 1.97601477 2 Program "SnafSort v0.5" (length 54) by "anders scholl" 2.07737108 1 Name pts for round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Total so far ________________________________________________________________________ Beppe Bezzi 7 7 13 2 | 29 M R Bremer 7 4 3.6 5 | 19.6 G. Eadon 1.5 2 5 6 | 14.5 Randy Graham - - 8 10 | 18 Anders Ivner 5.5 8 4 - | 17.5 P.Kline 7.5 9 7 11 | 34.5 Karl Lewin - - 10 4 | 14 John Lewis - - 3 - | 3 Calvin Loh - - 1 - | 1 Steven Morrell 5 10 9 13 | 37 Paulsson 7.5 11 11 9 | 38.5 Derek Ross 3.5 3 3.3 7 | 16.8 Anders Scholl - 1 2 1 | 4 Maurizio Vittuari 6.5 5 6 3 | 20.5 John K. Wilkinson 4 6 12 - | 22 Robert Macrae - - - 12 | 12 Kurt Franke - - - 8 | 8 Good luck for round 5, Nandor & Stefan ______________________________________________________________________________ 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: 250 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft Last challenge: Mon Nov 6 09:53:41 PST 1995 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 40/ 41/ 19 Porch Swing + Randy Graham 140 38 2 41/ 43/ 15 Frontwards Steven Morrell 139 272 3 37/ 36/ 28 endpoint . M R Bremer 138 18 4 33/ 28/ 39 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 138 439 5 31/ 26/ 42 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 136 325 6 36/ 35/ 29 Armory 6.1 Wilkinson 136 6 7 34/ 32/ 34 Torch t18 P.Kline 136 337 8 40/ 45/ 15 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 135 133 9 36/ 39/ 25 myZizzor Paulsson 134 68 10 36/ 38/ 25 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 134 305 11 26/ 19/ 55 Impfinity v3e7 Planar 132 2 12 33/ 35/ 32 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 132 476 13 39/ 46/ 15 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 132 242 14 29/ 26/ 45 .Brain Vamp. B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 131 39 15 24/ 19/ 57 Tican John Wilkinson 130 31 16 32/ 35/ 32 Tornado 1.8 Beppe Bezzi 129 191 17 24/ 19/ 57 paper01o Beppe Bezzi 129 15 18 18/ 7/ 75 Chugging Along Karl Lewin 128 22 19 37/ 47/ 16 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 127 142 20 28/ 33/ 40 test ss04 Beppe Bezzi 123 1 It's been a sloooooooowwwww week for the '94 draft hill. I suspect most authors are polishing up their more benign programming skills by writing sorting algorithms instead of blood thirsty warriors. Beppe Bezzi has been testing away giving all the warriors on the hill some easy 'age'. A new version of Father and Son appeared and that's about it. ( The real action is on the beginner's hill this week! ) ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New 3 37/ 36/ 28 endpoint . M R Bremer 138 18 6 36/ 35/ 29 Armory 6.1 Wilkinson 136 6 11 26/ 19/ 55 Impfinity v3e7 Planar 132 2 17 24/ 19/ 57 paper01o Beppe Bezzi 129 15 20 28/ 33/ 40 test ss04 Beppe Bezzi 123 1 Seems John decided to polish up Armory and resubmit it. You ARE going to kill off your old version, right? 8) Congratulations to Planar for getting a warrior on the '94 draft hill. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More 21 23/ 66/ 10 Tornado 1.9a Beppe Bezzi 80 0 Bezzi pushes off his own warrior with a test. I guess there are worse ways to go. . . ______________________________________________________________________________ HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still running; > score isn't exact Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 2 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 3 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 4 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 5 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 6 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber 7 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator 8 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 476 * P-warrior 9 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 439 * Qscan -> replicator 10 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp 11 Cannonade P.Kline 382 Stone/ imp 12 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber 13 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack 355 Stone/ imp 14 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire 15 Dragon Spear c w blue 346 CMP scanner 16 Torch t18 P.Kline 337 * Bomber 17 juliet storm M R Bremer 333 Stone/ imp 18 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 325 * P-warrior 19 TimeScape (1.0) J. Pohjalainen 322 Replicator 20 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 320 CMP scanner Torch t18 moves up to number 16 from number 19. Jack in the Box also moves up this week. myVamp is next in line to enter the HALL OF FAME. Thanks to Steven Morrell for providing missing data. ______________________________________________________________________________ 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: 250 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft Last challenge: Mon Nov 6 07:08:38 PST 1995 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 27/ 31 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 156 28 2 29/ 11/ 60 juliet storm M R Bremer 148 67 3 39/ 31/ 29 Test-Fc G. Eadon 147 53 4 28/ 13/ 59 Trapper 1.1 Kurt Franke 143 3 5 38/ 40/ 22 Searching Kurt Franke 135 34 6 39/ 44/ 17 Heatseek2 Phil Whineray 135 45 7 31/ 32/ 37 Hint Test v4 M R Bremer 131 1 8 20/ 10/ 71 Impfinity v3c11 Planar 130 10 9 17/ 9/ 74 Sheet 1.0 J. Doster 125 8 10 16/ 10/ 74 Paper8 G. Eadon 123 29 11 11/ 5/ 84 Impfinity v1 Planar 117 42 12 13/ 11/ 76 RingWorm_v1.0 Calvin Loh 114 14 13 12/ 10/ 78 RingWorm_v1.4 Calvin Loh 114 12 14 16/ 20/ 63 NewPaper Kurt Franke 112 15 15 15/ 21/ 64 Paper Dragon Kurt Franke 110 24 16 20/ 31/ 49 Morgenshtern II+ Don Julian 108 4 17 23/ 37/ 40 Weasel Kurt Franke 108 59 18 11/ 16/ 73 P_Banzai_v1.2 Calvin Loh 105 16 19 11/ 20/ 69 Cyclone Scott Manley 103 55 20 20/ 40/ 40 Forked Lite Ning 4.02 Ansel Greenwood Serm 101 19 The beginner hill has been active. Since I've last wrote, the hill as aged by approximately 37 warriors. And most of these weren't repeated tests, either. Kurt Franke decided he didn't like the rankings on the hill, so he went about changing them. First came the scanners: Weasel, Lurker, Searching. That was all good for juliet's reign. Unsatisfied, Franke probed juliet's weaknesses with Paper Dragon and NewPaper. Coupled with papers from G. Eadon ( Paper8 ) and J. Doster ( Sheet 1.0 ), Lurker was able to claim the top slot. Congratulations. Phil Whineray has been quiet ever since the introduction of Heatseek 2. Heatseek has hung around on the top despite the efforts of Franke and others. Hopefully, he'll have something ready before his warrior dies of old age. Speaking of which, two programs--Mythicon and Shadow Imp--proved to be too tough to kill in 100 challenges. I hope to see new and improved versions soon. ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint Core_Warrior_ #2 contained some improvements to Scott Manley's Mutagen. We are going to continously improve this warrior until it reaches the top of the beginner hill. Daunting challenge? We'll see. The code that _was_ residing on the beginner hill is included below: ;redcode-b ;name Hint Test v2 ;author M R Bremer ;strategy Original code based on Scott Manley's Mutagen ;strategy Once through scan --> spl spl dat dat coreclear ;strategy Core_Warrior_ #2: compressed code ;kill Hint ;assert CORESIZE==8000 step EQU 11 begin SPL a1+2 jmp start for 20 dat 0, 0 rof start add.f split, scan scan sne.i 112, 113 djn.f -2, <-400 ;djn.f will decrement both the a and b field mov.i split, *scan mov.i jump, @scan jmn.b -5, scan jmp a1 split spl #step, #step ;try to find other uses for these jump jmp -1 ;can be anywhere in code DAT 0 , 0 DAT 0 , 0 DAT 0 , 0 ptr1 dat a1, out+200 a4 dat 0, out+2+1 a3 dat 1, out+2+2 a2 spl #2, out+2+3 a1 spl #3, out+2+4 mov *ptr1, >ptr1 mov *ptr1, >ptr1 mov *ptr1, >ptr1 out djn.f -3, <4000 END begin Hint Test was introduced onto the hill at #7. All the replicators that have landed on the hill ( thanks to Beppe Bezzi's hints I believe ) have pushed it even higher. Unless you're in a coma, you may have figured out that papers are going to be a lot tougher in the future due to the optimization procedures Bezzi wrote about. For Mutagen to survive, we are going to have to improve its scanner element. And you other scanner boys have been scoring way too many points against Mutagen. Time for that to end. A pspaced bomber should do the trick. Lucky for you, we'll save that step until Bezzi presents a The Hint on bombers next week. SCANNERS: That's a big topic. There are two general types of scans--jmz scanners and cmp scanners. A jmz scanner is very small but only scans core at 1 scan in a two instruction loop or .5c. A simple jmz scanner could look something like this: inc add.ab #8, scan ;set up location to scan scan jmz.f -1, 100 ;if both value at b-field = 0, goto inc attack mov bomb, @-1 ;attack jmn.a -3, -2 ;check to see if done bomb spl #0, <-10 mov 1, -1 bombs for additional stun power. myZizzor by Paulsson uses a once through jmz scan with variable length spl 0 carpet to great effect. One version is published. Get your copy today. Cmp scanners are bigger, but faster. They can scan 2 locations in a three instruction loop for a speed of .66c. The basic scan engine looks something like this: inc add step, scan scan cmp 100, 112 ;remember that cmp is the same is seq! slt.ab #special_value, scan ;we'll talk about the value later djn.f inc, check clear step dat X, X Since most of core is filled with dat 0, 0's, the cmp instruction will most likely being comparing these empty core locations. Therefore it will skip the slt instruction. The add/cmp/djn cycle will repeat until either the a or b operand point to different instructions. One of these locations ( a or b ) may have the enemy code. When the cmp finds something, the slt instruction is executed. This instruction is used to protect the scanning code from bombing itself. When the scan finds itself, the slt checks one of the pointers and makes sure that it is greater than the last instruction in the scanner. If it is, it will skip the djn instruction and do the attack routine. Otherwise the djn will be executed and it will continue to scan. Notice that the first two instructions are not protected. We can use this fact to determine when to start the coreclear. This will become more clear later with some examples I hope. Although cmp scanners are faster, we have to have some way of checking or attacking _both_ the a and b targets. Afterall, the enemy code can potentially be at a or b ( or maybe both ). I know of two approaches. Attack the b value and then add a special offset to the scan to make the last scan's a value be the b value. That way, if there is something there, it will get attacked on the second 'special' scan. Iron Gate uses this approach and is included below ( I hope the author doesn't mind ): ;redcode ;name Iron Gate ;author Wayne Sheppard ;strategy CMPscanner dist equ 98 scan equ dist*2 a add d,@x c cmp a+dist,a slt #20,@x djn a,<7000 mov j,@c x mov s,-IVAL+1 mov incr,<-2 incr dat >-IVAL,>-IVAL Agony compares location N and N+12. Its scan phase operates much the same as Iron Gate. However, it has a completely different method of attacking both the a and b pointers. If it finds something, it will bomb locations N, N+1, N+2, . . . N+12, N+13, N+14, and N+15 with spl 0's. Again, the coreclear is started ( the jmn drops through ) when Agony attack its own code that is not protected. We are going to utilize Iron Gate's constants and basic structure, but attack the a and b locations specifically. dist equ 98 scan equ dist*2 a add d,c c cmp a+2*dist,a+dist slt.a #dist+m-a, c djn.f a,<7000 mov s, *c x mov m, @c jmn a,a s spl #-dist+1, <0 mov 1, <-3 d dat spl spl dat dat coreclear ;strategy Core_Warrior_ #2: compressed code ;strategy Core_Warrior_ #4: improved scanner ;kill Hint ;assert CORESIZE==8000 dist equ 98 scan equ dist*2 begin SPL b1+2 jmp a for 20 dat 0, 0 rof a add d,c c cmp a+2*dist,a+dist slt.a #dist+ptr2-a, c djn.f a,<7000 mov s, *c x mov m, @c jmn a,a s spl #-dist+1, <0 mov *ptr2, . ______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra: This is Impfinity v1. Seeing how Imp Craze did well (but it's falling off the beginner hill even as I'm writing this), I started thinking harder about imp spirals. I was dreaming of an spiral with an ever-growing number of processes. This would be very hard to kill. It turns out this can be done by continuously launching the spiral. I started with the standard binary launch. In a binary launch, you draw a binary tree of SPLs, and you put jumps to the imp processes at the leaves. For a 3-process spiral, you have this tree: A / \ B C / \ | D E F And here is the corresponding redcode: A spl C B spl E D jmp imp E jmp imp+step C nop F jmp imp+2*step imp mov 0, step Here is what happens when you launch it. I'll represent the run queue as a list of labels. We start with only A in the run queue: [A]. We execute the first instruction in the run queue (instruction at A). This is an spl, so it will push back at the end of the queue, first its following instruction (B), then its target (C): [B C]. We then execute the next instruction: B. It is also an spl, so it pushes back D and E: [C D E]. Then we execute C. It does nothing and pushes the next instruction (F) into the queue: [D E F]. We now execute D, E, and F which jump to the three parts of the ring: [imp imp+step imp+2*step]. Now the imp ring is launched. So we see that the program will execute the tree in top-to-bottom order: A then B, C then D, E, F. Let's add an instruction at the start: Z spl Z This adds a loop at the top of the tree (not easy to draw): +-+ | | Z-+ | A ... etc. This spl-loop will send processes down the tree, one after the other: [Z] [A Z] [B C A Z] [D E F B C A Z] [imp imp+step imp+2*step D E F B C A Z] etc. I'll call "rounds" the lines in this sequence: one round is executing all the processes in the process queue. (This is what the cdb command "thread" does: execute one round.) So we can launch imp ring after imp ring. This is not a true spiral because the process queue after the next round is: [imp+1 imp+step+1 imp+2*step+1 imp imp+step imp+2*step D E F B C A Z] A true imp spiral would be: (imp+2 is the same as imp+3*step+1) [imp+1 imp+step+2 imp+2*step+1 imp+2 imp+step+2 imp+2*step+2 ...] So we need to add 2 to each JMP instruction in each round. We can do this with a-field postincrement addressing mode, because we have six nodes in our tree, and each node is executed once in each round. A spl C, }D B spl E, }E D jmp imp, }D E jmp imp+step, }E C nop }F F jmp imp+2*step, }F imp mov 0, step This is almost working code. We now have to adjust the JMPs to compensate for the incrementations during the first few rounds, and we get the code to launch a continously-growing imp spiral: Z spl Z A spl C, }D B spl E, }E D jmp imp-2, }D E jmp imp+step-1, }E C nop }F F jmp imp+2*step-1, }F imp mov 0, step And this is all there is to Impfinity. I have used the idle cycle at C to launch a bombing process. This is not nearly enough bombing to do much difference. Impfinity wins mostly by overrunning the opponent with its spiral. It resists anti-imp programs thanks to its unorthodox spiral size. This is the code: ;redcode-b ;name Impfinity v1 ;author Planar ;strategy continuous-launching 13-point imp spiral + a few incendiary bombs ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 step equ 3077 bstep equ -50 binit equ -200 org a bomb1 spl #6, <2667 bomb2 mov.i -1, {-1 a spl #binit, }z0 b spl d, }z1 c spl f, }z2 e spl j, }z4 i spl z1, }z8 z0 jmp imp-5, }z0 z1 jmp imp+step-4, }z1 j spl z3, }z9 z2 jmp imp+2*step-3, }z2 z3 jmp imp+3*step-3, }z3 f spl l, }z5 k spl z5, }z10 z4 jmp imp+4*step-2, }z4 z5 jmp imp+5*step-2, }z5 l spl z7, }z11 z6 jmp imp+6*step-2, }z6 z7 jmp imp+7*step-2, }z7 d spl h, }z3 g spl n, }z6 m spl z9, }z12 z8 jmp imp+8*step-1, }z8 z9 jmp imp+9*step-1, }z9 n mov.i bomb1, }a z10 jmp imp+10*step-1, }z10 h spl p, }z7 o mov.i bomb2, *a z11 jmp imp+11*step-1, }z11 p add.a #bstep-1, a z12 jmp imp+12*step-1, }z12 imp mov.i #1, step end I'd like to add a word about the choice of a spiral size. There is one warrior on the beginner hill with a 9-point spiral. I think this is a bad idea. Because 2667 is a multiple of 889, an anti-3-point-imp bomb (dat <2667, <5334) will also cause a 9-point spiral to decrement its own instructions. (The same is true for any multiple of 3.) Against myZizzor, for example, a 9-point version of Impfinity get very bad scores compared to a 7-point version or an 11-point version. So if you choose a big size for your spiral, make it a prime number. Finally, you may want to know if there's a way of doing an SPL/ADD continuous launch. Yes. That's what Impfinity v3 uses (soon on a hill near you--I hope). A vector launch is also possible, but I haven't written the code yet. My warriors are not very good, but they are fun to write. http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/ EDITOR'S NOTE: Damien is much too modest. Imp spirals are one of the most difficult subjects to understand. Impfinity missed the '94 draft hill by only a fraction of a point. I'm sure he'll breach the hill very soon. Spoke too soon. Impfinity has just entered the hill as I am posting. ______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to: Beppe Bezzi or Myer R Bremer