Rog-O-Matic XIV (description)

[Michael Mauldin]

Rog-O-Matic XIV is the latest release of CMU's now famous automatic
Rogue playing program, and is now available for the first time on
net.sources without cost or obligation whatsoever.

Changes from version XIII include:

	o the genetic learning module described in our CSCSI-84
	  paper is now included.  Rog-O-Matic uses genetic learning
	  to determine eight parameters:

		srch:	Propensity for searching for traps
		door:	Propensity for searching for doors
		rest:	Propensity for resting
		arch:	Propensity for firing arrows at monsters
		exper:	Level on which to experiment with unknown items
		run:	Propensity for retreating
		wake:	Propensity for waking things up
		food:	Propensity for hoarding food

	o some of the modifications made at the University of Texas
	  (where Rog-O-Matic achieved its first total winner against
	  version 5.3 of Rogue) have been included.  Thanks to Dan
	  Reynolds at UTexas for his permission to include them.

	o numerous bugs have been fixed

	o numerous bugs have been added :-)

Rog-O-Matic will play the following versions of Rogue

	o Rogue 3.6 (Total winner, September 26, 1982 at CMU)

	o Rogue 5.2 (Total winner, October 10, 1983 at Waterloo)

	o Rogue 5.3 (Total winner, February 16, 1984 at Utexas)

Rog-O-Matic will not play Hack (that's about a month of enhancement
effort, and right now I've got this thesis proposal to write).  I will
be glad to help anyone who wants to modify Rogo to play Hack, just
getting it to play should be straightforward.

There are 10 shar format files (each less than 47,000) characters in
this distribution, for a total of 422,000 source characters and 14,000
lines of C code.  The 'unshar' command I recently posted will unpackage
them for you.

You will need Unix (or Rice Phoenix) on a Vax to run Rog-O-Matic, plus
your own copy of Rogue, and a friendly (or sleeping :-) ) sysad.

If you do snarf a copy from the net and get it running, I would very
much appreciate your sending me mail letting me know that you have a
running copy.  I would also appreciate mail concerning Rog-O-Matic's
performance against your version on Rogue, and I want to know if it
gets any more Total Winners (except in cheat mode against Rogue 3.6).

Michael Mauldin (Fuzzy)
Department of Computer Science
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA  15213
(412) 578-3065,  mauldin at cmu-cs-a.arpa