[Stone Archetype] High-Speed Bombing: Minimizing Footprint and Maximizing Firepower Density
Why a blind, ultra-compact Stone bomber consistently shatters a sophisticated, sensory-equipped Scissors scanner
In Chapter 5, you will master the CoreWar Metagame Triad (Stone, Paper, Scissors)! - ๐ชจ Stone (Bomber) beats โ๏ธ Scissors (Scanner)! (Scanners have larger bodies to house their sensory organs, making them easy targets for compact, fast Stone bombers.)
However, our Stone currently has a step size of #16 on line 1, which is too wide and jumps right over the enemy Scanner at 0400โ0405.
๐ฏ Your Task Change the bombing step size A (Left Value) on row 0000 from #16 to #4 (or #8) and press [PLAY] to shatter the enemy Scanner!
1. Entering the Metagame Triad: Why Stone Crushes Scissors
Welcome to Chapter 5, the culmination of the Academy curriculum! Over these final six steps, you will master the ecological triad that governs CoreWarโStone (Bombers), Paper (Self-Replicators), and Scissors (Scanners)โalong with the insidious Vampire (Control-Flow Trap).
At first glance, intuition suggests that an intelligent Scanner (Scissors) equipped with sensory eyes ("SEQ") should easily outclass a blind Bomber (Stone) that hurls bombs at random. Yet in the CoreWar ecosystem, the exact opposite is true: ๐ชจ Stone is the natural predator of โ๏ธ Scissors!
How does a simple, blind Stone consistently shatter a sophisticated Scissors program? Two fundamental laws of computational physics explain why: 1. TARGET FOOTPRINT (Code Size): Because a Scanner needs extra instructions to compare cells ("SEQ") and extra reference cells to compare against, its body is physically larger (6 to 12+ cells). A Stone bomber, by contrast, is stripped to the bare boneโjust 3 or 4 lines long. In a firefight, a larger body presents a much bigger target cross-section! 2. OFFENSIVE DENSITY: Every time Stone completes its tight 3-cycle loop, it permanently mutates memory with a lethal DAT bomb. Even if Scissors scans quickly, its delicate multi-instruction loop shatters the instant a single stray Stone bomb lands anywhere on its 6-line frame.
๐ชจ STONE (4 lines = Small Target) โ๏ธ SCISSORS (6 lines = 1.5x Larger Target!)
[0000] ADD.AB #4, $3 [0400] ADD.AB #12, $4
[0001] MOV.I $2, @2 โโ(Mod-4 Barrage!)โโโบ [0401] SEQ.I @3, $4
[0002] JMP.A $-2, #0 [0402] MOV.I $3, @2 โโโ ๐ฅ Guaranteed Hit!
[0003] DAT.F #0, #390 [0403] JMP.A $-3, #0
[0404] DAT.F #0, #12
[0405] DAT.F #0, #02. Matching Bombing Granularity to the Enemy's Body Length
Even with Stone's structural advantage, a bomber is only as effective as its step size (granularity). In Step 25, the enemy Scissors occupied 6 consecutive cells of memory, from Address 0400 through Address 0405. Initially, your Stone's step size on row 0000 was set to "#16". Starting from base pointer 0003 + 390 = 0393, a stride of #16 caused the very first bomb to land at 0393 + 16 = Address 0409โvaulting clean over the entire 6-cell body of the enemy Scanner at 0400โ0405!
By applying a fundamental principle of discrete mathematicsโthe Pigeonhole Principleโwe can derive the guaranteed hit condition: To guarantee that a sequential bomber cannot step over a contiguous enemy of length L cells (here, L = 6), the bombing stride S must satisfy S โค L! When you tightened the step size from #16 to #4 (or #8), the landing coordinates became 0393 + 4 = 0397 โ 0401 โ 0405 (or 0393 + 8 = 0401), slamming a DAT bomb directly into Row 0401 ("SEQ.I") of the enemy Scanner and blinding it instantly. Notice how critical that first hit on Row 0401 is: even if the enemy Scanner's execution pointer is currently at Row 0400 or Row 0403 when the bomb lands on 0401, within at most 3 cycles the enemy pointer will loop around, step onto the newly planted DAT bomb at 0401, and terminate!
3. The KISS Principle in Systems Design
In software engineering and systems architecture, there is a famous maxim known as the KISS Principle ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"): the more complex machinery you add to a system, the more points of failure you introduce and the more overhead you pay on every cycle.
In CoreWar, the Stone archetype is the ultimate embodiment of the KISS principle. By refusing to spend cycles or code lines on sensory organs, it achieves maximum compactness and relentless offensive output. In modern tournament play, elite Stone warriors (such as "Carbonite" or "ornado") push this philosophy even further by using self-splitting Mod-2 or Mod-4 loops paired with a final "core clear" carpet bomb that wipes the entire memory clean once the enemy is crippled. Yet even the mightiest Stone has an Achilles' heel. What kind of organism can survive an unstoppable barrage of rocks? Turn to Step 26 to meet "Paper".
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