Article 2526 of rec.games.corewar:
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
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From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu
Subject: Re: general CW strategies
Message-ID: <1994Feb27.162450.1@acad.drake.edu>
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Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
References: <CLwFu5.6JE@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 22:24:50 GMT

In article <CLwFu5.6JE@acsu.buffalo.edu>, bcohen@acsu.buffalo.edu (Bram Cohen) writes:
... description of two programs deleted :-)
> 
> I'd be *very* surprised if anyone can come up with a program which defeats both
> of these programs consistently.

Bram...tsk tsk tsk,

What, no progress, no improvements, no innovations in 6 YEARS?  You really
are a pessimist :-)

Actually I met Powerbomb several years ago as part of a corewars package
released on the Mac.  And it was tough!  But things have changed since.
Powerbomb is an example of a b-scanning 'vampire', and anti-vampire code
has become an extensive field of study.  And let's don't even talk
about the efficiency of step numbers.  Plus I always wondered why you
didn't use spl-zero for the NULL instruction, it has lots more stopping
power.

Your second program is just a tiny b-scanning bomber, without even a
core-clear.  Any replicating program will kill it about 95% of the
time.  Add a little anti-vamp and program #1 will go down about the same.
And any of the imp-spirals will defeat either of them nearly 100%.
Yes, things have changed.  But I'm really glad to hear from you, I
cut my teeth on a bad redcode emulator trying to beat early programs
like Powerbomb.

You should check out the FAQ and the corewars archives:

       -Core War Archives, including many helpful articles, warrior source
        code, and reliable emulators, 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

Here's a copy of Note Paper by Scott Nelson which should beat either of
your programs at least 50%.  Note Paper (like most modern replicators)
is 'self-splitting', meaning it generates and uses so many processes within
itself that it is not easily defeated by vampires.

;name Note Paper
;author Scott Nelson
;strategy Small version of Plain Paper.
;strategy smaller.
 
start   spl	p2	;decrease chance of lucky hit by dwarf.
	spl	1
	spl	1
	spl	1	;start 8 processes going
	spl	paper2
	spl	paper3
	spl	paper4
	spl	paper5
;
       	mov	#8,	0	    ;set source
paper1 	mov	<-1,	<1  	;make copy
       	spl	@0,	6301 	;split to copy
       	mov	2,	<-1	   ;make next copy a little further away
       	jmz	-4,	-4	   ;loop
	       dat		#-100	
       	dat	#8
       	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper2	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	6501
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper3	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	6701
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#300
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper4	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	6901
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper5	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	5901
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper6	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	5701
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper7	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	5501
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper8	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	5301
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
	dat	#8
	dat	#8
 
	dat	#8
 
	mov	#8,	8
paper9	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	5201
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
	dat		#-100
;
p2	spl	1
	spl	1
	spl	1
 
	spl	paper6
	spl	paper7
	spl	paper8
	spl	paper9
 
paper10	mov	#8,	0
	mov	<-1,	<1
	spl	@0,	7001
	mov	2,	<-1
	jmz	-4,	-4
 
	end	start

Paul Kline
pk6811s@acad.drake.edu