ConwayLife.com

Wow! It's nice to see this thing finally completed after having suggested this possibility so many years ago. I don't have any good naming suggestions here, other than that this is a very short and fat spaceship for its type, and so I think naming it after a long, thin creature like a worm or ...

Two new H-to-Gs using a new edgy HF-to-G based on one of the new HF catalysts:
x = 110, y = 51, rule = LifeHistory
D3.D.5D2.3D3.3D2.5D3.D4.3D3.3D17.D3.D.D3.D8.3D3.3D2.5D.5D2.3D$2D2.D.D
5.D3.D.D3.D3.D4.2D3.D3.D.D3.D16.2D2.D.D3.D7.D3.D.D3.D3.D7.D.D$D.D.D.D
9.D5.D3.D5.D3.D2.2D.D3.D16.D.D.D.D3.D11.D.D2 ...

Okay, can't use the H-to-G classifier script on this one because of the early interaction with the pre-H ... but I'm not getting either T43 or T61. Here's what I'm doing, so please check and see if I'm doing it wrong:
(...)
Now we just run the second and fourth conduits and see where the gliders ...

This is something that's been floating in my backlogs for a while, but there's this pi+block collision that it might be possible to make transparent and turn into a conduit. It's especially noteworthy because it produces a new Pi with such a narrow active area around it that it can feed into the ...

Realized today that the dependent(?) SW-13 I found a while back never made it into the H-to-G collection (reaction envelope is approximate around where the H comes in due to its extremely early interaction): x = 49, y = 90, rule = LifeHistory
2.3D2.D3.D9.D4.3D2.5D2.3D4.D$.D3.D.D3.D8.2D3.D3.D3.D3.D6 ...

Am I the only one who thinks guns should be optimised in terms of population, not bounding box?

I believe part of the reason behind the focus on bounding box is because beyond a certain point, most minimal population guns for a given period will just look like a glider reflector and glider ...

It turns out that a helix for this speed exists at the period of the reaction itself, and it only uses 4 LWSS per period:
x = 109, y = 177, rule = B3/S23
65b2o$65b3o$64bo2bo$63b2ob2o$63b2ob2o$64b2ob2o$67bo$64b3o$65bo$57b3o$
57bo2bo$57bo$57bo$58bobo2$61bo$54bo5b3o3b2o$53b3o3b2obo3b2o$53bob2o2b
3o ...

BTW this is a glider eater so it should show up as a lot of junk reactions; better use forbidden expressions for this!


It isn't, actually. A glider coming from infinity can't initiate a reaction with a still life on its two-cell leading edge during its s-tetromino phase, because both of those ...

Here's a new addition to the collection, a p22 (pre?)-teardrop hassler using a new catalyst I found today. Catalyst and oscillator were both discovered by hand:
x = 19, y = 20, rule = B3/S23
12b2o$12bo2b2o$9b2obo3bo$2b2o5bo2bobo$3bo6bobob2o$3bobo5b2o3bo$4b2o8b
2o2bo$15bob2o$15bo$7b3o4b2o$3b2o5bo ...

Keeping along with the recent themes of both clearance improvements and related catalysts, here's two new catalysts I found by hand, with comparison to some similar existing catalysts ( EDIT: An active cell in the second catalyst was originally incorrectly marked as a stator cell. This has been ...

Despite the lack of complete results, there seem to be some genuinely catalytic regions that might be worth further investigation.

The large still life produced in the leftmost result may have at least some niche utility, as it can react with a particular variety of active region, where there's ...

p17 sparker partial; domino spark or stable catalyst needed.

Urgh, this one really feels as if it should be possible, but so far no luck. Here's my collection of closest attempts (red dots on #2 indicate spark locations that can preserve the block):
x = 110, y = 24, rule = LifeHistory
98.2C$8 ...

Has anyone looked at this? The reaction seems general enough.


I don't remember seeing this catalyst before, but it has some resemblances to others I've seen, so I can't say for sure that it isn't known. That said, I noticed that this catalyst has some siblings with different catalytic ...

EDIT: This is old, see next paragraph. Crossposting from the Elementary Conduits collection to help keep things up-to-date here, an H-to-3G (new outputs NE25T122 and NE53T81, both on transparent lanes) based on Kazyan's recent conduit partial :
x = 52, y = 55, rule = LifeHistory
10.2A.2A$11.A.A$6 ...

This reaction throws its chaos pretty far from the input:

Here's 3 elementary conduits based off this reaction that have new outputs. There's an elementary Bx227 (H->H) with a unique output geometry, an H->G with new outputs NE25T122 and NE53T81 in addition to the standard SW-2 ( EDIT: known ...

all that is needed is to clean up the leftover blocks

Not really... The primary issue here with the original glider+block crawler, as I gather it, is not that there are more outputs than inputs to the crawler, or that the blocks show up again in a different position, but that the crawler as it ...

That's an interesting one, for sure -- an orthogonal 28c/83 R-pentomino crawler! Produces two gliders for every input glider. I don't think that one has been seen before.

I've seen the underlying reaction before, but I didn't look into it too much in regular B3/S23 because R sequences are so ...

Half of Kazyan's beehive push catalyst can function as an HF catalyst when paired with an eater in a specific way. Here's an example: x = 45, y = 21, rule = B3/S23
7b2o28b2o$7bo29bo$5bobo27bobo$5b2o28b2o$bo29bo10bo$obo27bobo7b3o$obo
27bobo6bo$bo29bo7bob2o$38b2obobo$37bo6bo$38b7o2$40b3o$40bo2bo$42b2o ...

Yeah, I think Herschel-to-nothing or pi-to-nothing converters are going to be the right idea. It's pretty easy to find catalyses that work at p89, so it's just a matter of digging up one with an edgy domino spark.

Here's a suitable Herschel-to-domino, which allows the oscillator to be supported ...

Also, some serious p34 potential here.

While I don't have a finite solution for this, there is at least a way to make it into a P34 agar: x = 80, y = 70, rule = B3/S23:T80,72
o2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo6bo2bo$o2b2o5bo2b2o5bo2b2o5bo
2b2o5bo2b2o5bo2b2o5bo2b2o5bo2b2o ...

An odd-symmetric pair of converging gliders (ie. about to make a bi-block) can be catalyzed by a beehive into making another beehive, which I thought was kind of neat even if it's mostly pointless:

Almost a very weird blockic HLx38H... I think?? The location of the natural B's block must be unoccupied, but unfortunately there's a boat left behind that the natural glider doesn't clean up. It also features the earliest "H" interaction I've ever seen, starting from the 9-tick (!) Herschel ...

Your p1380 is still a very interesting crystal-based construction, though! With a longer crystallization track, and maybe a few quadri-Snarks on the output packed into the unused corner, and maybe a different period for the base gun, it should be possible to invent compact guns with very high ...

Here are some proof-of-concept salvos 1, 2, and 3 (plus glider source) that can be used to automatically build a 6c/13 wick, and that can be toggled on and off when it rams into strategically placed blocks:
#C Bistable slide gun salvos for building a 6c/13 wick.
#C These examples aren't very ...

One thing that might be worth noting for helping reduce the length of tape required is that some clean fuse sections are cheaper than others. 6c/13 appears like it may potentially be the cheapest per blinker - just 1G per side, plus an eventual single HWSS per side for the entire chain (which must ...