ConwayLife.com

Posted: **January 11th, 2026, 5:18 pm**

parrot wrote: January 11th, 2026, 5:14 pm The Elkies p5 page has a link to soup search results but actually links to an unrelated thread.

Fixed. I quickly dug through the thread, found the correct post, turns out one digit in the post ID was a typo somehow.

Posted: **January 13th, 2026, 11:11 pm**

In the "Helix" LifeWiki article, something like the following could be added:

-----

It is possible to build a helix which matches the speed and direction of any spaceship. In particular, a helix can be built for any rational orthogonal speed less than c/2.

A proof is shown in section 10.2.2 of the "Conway's Game Of Life - Mathematics and Construction" book by Nathaniel Johnston and Dave Greene (https://conwaylife.com/book/).

-----

The wording could probably be improved. I found it hard to be accurate and clear so I just kept it simple.

BCNU,
-dbell

Posted: **January 15th, 2026, 12:55 am**

In the p59 pi hassler page, it says the two pis are hassled by “two eater3s and two snakes” although they are drifty eater3s and regular eater3s does not work.

Posted: **January 15th, 2026, 8:28 pm**

List of spaceships should include solifuge.

Posted: **January 16th, 2026, 2:09 am**

parrot wrote: January 15th, 2026, 8:28 pm List of spaceships should include solifuge.

It does. Look under the Camelships section.

Posted: **January 19th, 2026, 4:36 pm**

traffic light hasslers is a big mess! Lots of missing sources, oversized sparkers, and inconsistent application of what does and doesn't belong. But foremost of all, I would like to initiate some discussion on what actually counts as a "traffic light hassler" since there is now are many examples of period-agnostic reactions involving traffic light hasslers like traffic stop and stable traffic jam wires.

Posted: **January 26th, 2026, 3:38 am**

54P3H1V0 should now be deleted. It has been over 14 days since the deletion tag was added, and it still isn't really notable. Although an eater has been added, it is still probably never going to be synthesized, completely useless, and contains almost zero information.

Posted: **January 28th, 2026, 6:58 pm**

Why does 45-degree mwss to g show the large catalyst stabilised by a boat instead of tub?

Posted: **January 29th, 2026, 12:35 am**

Also, period-ten sparkers page violates NPOV.

Posted: **January 31st, 2026, 1:24 am**

I have decided to create a new OCA page for OCA:Travelling Ts. The thread for the rule is at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6970. The reason that I have created this article is because:

The thread was created on May 29th and has been active for over 7 months, receiving 930 posts.
For comparison, the thread for Snowflakes, which also has a LifeWiki article, has 479 posts total. The time that the thread for Snowflakes was active was between Dec 27, 2017 and Jul 22, 2018 (also 7 months), meaning that the thread for Travelling Ts seems to be lasting longer than the thread for Snowflakes.
As another data point, Goat Flock only recieved 22 posts during its lifetime and somehow still managed to get a wiki page. It has received a proposed deletion for unnotability at least once.
If you look at the random soup displayed below, at first glance, you will see that this rule looks like it is bad for advanced tech (few large reactions), however, some advanced technology has been constructed (p248 based on an alien R62 conduit, LCM oscillators, glider guns, periodic reflectors, Turing-completeness, sawtooth made using 3c/8)

Code: Select all

#C Random pattern in Travelling Ts
#R B3/S23-a5
!
# [[ RANDOMIZE ]]

Code: Select all

#N p248 unnamed evolutionary sequence
#O R2INT
#C This p248 was found using ntCatForce, based on evolutionary sequence census results by PkmnQ.
#C The CatForce version was provided by PK22
x = 30, y = 30, rule = B3/S23-a5
20bo$18b3o$17bo$17b2o6$2o$bo$bobo$2b2o$6bo$5b2o$4bo2$6b3o17b2o$7bobo16b
obo$8bo19bo$7bo20b2o6$11b2o$12bo$9b3o$9bo!

What do you think?

Posted: **February 6th, 2026, 2:58 am**

Add pattern files (and synthesis files, if a synthesis exists) for the following recently discovered macro-spaceships:

Both thessalonic demonoids

Solifuge

All three unidimensional spaceships. I think the third one could fit in the article for the second.

Giraffe weevil

Silk Moth

Posted: **February 6th, 2026, 4:35 pm**

I6_I6 wrote: February 6th, 2026, 2:58 am Add pattern files (and synthesis files, if a synthesis exists) for the following recently discovered macro-spaceships:
Both thessalonic demonoids

Solifuge

All three unidimensional spaceships. I think the third one could fit in the article for the second.

Giraffe weevil

Silk Moth

Solifuge will get added this weekend by the auto-upload script -- it has been added in the RLE namespace as RLE:solifuge.

As a general rule of thumb, anything that's too big to add in the RLE namespace is probably also too big to add to the downloadable LifeWiki pattern collection.

For example, all.zip is currently 7.5 megabytes. Just adding the three unidimensional spaceships would more than double the zip file's size, just for three patterns that aren't really very much fun to work with outside of Golly anyway.

The giraffe weevil and silk moth are special intermediate cases, too big to fit reasonably in RLE but still tolerably small when they're stored in macrocell format. I can do a custom upload to the LifeWiki pattern collection for those.

Re: the Thessalonic Demonoids, Golly's "Very Large Patterns" online archive seems like a better place to put macro-spaceships in general -- or, with any luck, maybe the proposed Live Pattern Repository

We _could_ add the Thessalonic Demonoids and the unidimensional spaceships to all.zip, but then the question would be: where would we stop? At this point we have many dozens of similarly huge patterns, that would have an equal claim to being included. And it's an awkward one-by-one file upload that only moderators can do. So far it seems to have worked okay for larger patterns to simply include a good clear link to a download location in the article text, instead.

Posted: **February 18th, 2026, 12:54 pm**

I just realized — there were several pages on the LifeWiki that still state the old minimum Herschel-loop gun period of 62, despite the discovery of HRx65R / R152:

Herschel loop

LifeWiki wrote:A Herschel loop is a Herschel track with no overall displacement. Herschel loops are, in general, oscillators with a period equal to the length of the loop, or a factor thereof. Herschel loops can be compressed to period 62, and a further five ticks can be squeezed out if the output gliders are suppressed...

Period 58 is now doable with the new conduits, and still produce output gliders (R152), so this statement is no longer accurate.

Quetzal

LifeWiki wrote:A Quetzal is a Herschel track-based gun with a period lower than 62. First known Herschel conduits did not permit guns with periods less than 62, so alternate components were required...

It is true that the "first known Herschel conduits" didn't permit guns with periods less than 62. However, there is no mention of something along the lines of "(the repeat-time-58 R152 wasn't discovered until 2022)"

David Buckingham

LifeWiki wrote:Oscillators of all periods 58 and above can be obtained in this way -- the Herschels collide with each other if they are closer than 58 generations apart. Since Herschels naturally release gliders, this also yields glider guns of all periods 62 and above -- the Herschels collide with the escaping gliders if they are closer than 62 generations apart...

While David Buckingham's discovery back then was way before the discovery of R152, this paragraph was still stated as if 62 generations is the minimum today. I would have expected something like "(this has since been improved to 58 generations with the discovery of R152 in 2022)" to be included.

Posted: **March 9th, 2026, 10:12 pm**

The 'Blinker pull' LifeWiki article could include the following reaction.

Code: Select all

#C A reaction in which a blinker is pulled by (4,1) cells and phase shifted
#C by a LWSS.  Another LWSS can be used to repeat the reaction to pull the blinker
#C by 8 cells orthogonally with no phase shift.
x = 15, y = 8, rule = B3/S23
11bobbo$10bo$10bo3bo$10b4o$$o$o$o!

Similarly, the 'Loaf pull' LifeWiki article could include the following reaction.

Code: Select all

#C A reaction in which a loaf is pulled by (3,3) cells and flipped over by a
#C LWSS.  Another LWSS can be used to repeat the reaction to pull the loaf
#C by 6 cells orthogonally with no flipping.  (Also see 'Tractor beam'.)
x = 17, y = 8, rule = B3/S23
13bobbo$12bo$12bo3bo$12b4o$boo$obbo$obo$bo!

BCNU,
-dbell

Posted: **May 8th, 2026, 4:57 pm**

How complete is our documentation on periodic conduits? I know that a few periodic reflectors have LifeWiki pages, but everything else seems to be scattered throughout the forums, and there doesn't seem to be a downloadable collection anywhere like for stable conduits. I think that it would be a good idea to make a page similar to this page, which links a collection of stable elementary conduits.
https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Elementary_conduit
EDIT: Same with pulse dividers; there is a stable x5 and a stable x6 divider that is somehow not on the wiki:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6299&p=174800&hilit ... er#p174800

Posted: **May 9th, 2026, 7:45 am**

Should all versions of the undimensional spaceship be merged into one page titled "Unidimensional spaceships"? I was thinking about including a general definition of a unidimensional spaceship being any ship with at least one 1D phase, then adding the known versions under a header named "History".

On an unrelated note, I think the new four-digit Demonoid needs its own article.

Posted: **May 11th, 2026, 8:41 am**

wwei47 wrote: May 8th, 2026, 4:57 pm How complete is our documentation on periodic conduits? I know that a few periodic reflectors have LifeWiki pages, but everything else seems to be scattered throughout the forums, and there doesn't seem to be a downloadable collection anywhere like for stable conduits. I think that it would be a good idea to make a page similar to this page, which links a collection of stable elementary conduits.
https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Elementary_conduit
EDIT: Same with pulse dividers; there is a stable x5 and a stable x6 divider that is somehow not on the wiki:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6299&p=174800&hilit ... er#p174800

It'd be great to have a single-pattern curated collection of pulse dividers, for sure. We've been using this "period multiplicating" thread as a collection thread for years, but I don't own the first post and have only been semi-diligent about adding new discoveries into the second post. If anyone wants to volunteer as Pulse Divider Curator, I can supply the necessary Moderator Shenanigans to make a new editable first post -- or anyone could just start a new thread and post a clean stamp collection.

Periodic conduits ... there are eight pages of this collection thread, and if someone wants ownership of the first post to maintain a stamp collection, I am again happy to oblige.

However, I honestly think of that thread as being like the Fuse Thread. It seems like there's absolutely no end of things that can theoretically be discovered and posted to that thread. But then there's only a vanishingly small percentage that ever get used for anything, so it's a whole lot of stamp-collection maintenance for ultimately not very much usage (if someone wanted to make a comprehensive collection).

Maybe there could be a centralized "Best of..." collection, containing every periodic conduit that has actually been useful somewhere, like in a record-smallest gun?

Posted: **May 11th, 2026, 10:34 am**

dvgrn wrote: May 11th, 2026, 8:41 am However, I honestly think of that thread as being like the Fuse Thread. It seems like there's absolutely no end of things that can theoretically be discovered and posted to that thread. But then there's only a vanishingly small percentage that ever get used for anything, so it's a whole lot of stamp-collection maintenance for ultimately not very much usage (if someone wanted to make a comprehensive collection).

Maybe there could be a centralized "Best of..." collection, containing every periodic conduit that has actually been useful somewhere, like in a record-smallest gun?

Would it work to simply hold periodic conduits to the same standards as stable ones?

EDIT: Let me explain what inspired my original post. If you take AbhpzTa's conga line switch engine extruder and attempt to optimize it by using the new smaller P364 guns, you will find that you won't get very far. This is because despite the fact that the herschel loop guns he used are larger, AbhpzTa was extremely clever with his usage of the big guns: by using a periodic syringe, he could extract a second barrel from that gun, and then put that second barrel to good use, allowing one gun to feed two glider inputs for the synthesis. Additionally, he would often put two Herschels in a loop, meaning that each barrel would output two gliders. He would then use pulse dividers to turn the barrel outputs back into a single glider...but this way, he could sync one barrel with one Herschel and the other barrel with the other herschel, giving him more flexibility in timing and synchronization. And in one case, two gliders in the synthesis were on the same lane, allowing a double herschel'd gun to feed both of those glider inputs. Due to how clever he was with all this, trying to replace all the guns with the small guns ends up yielding a larger bounding box, because the small guns can't do any of these tricks. My hope with periodic conduits is that they could yield more ways to make herschel loops of a given period, allowing for more cleverness like what we see here.

Posted: **May 11th, 2026, 11:47 am**

wwei47 wrote: May 11th, 2026, 10:34 am Would it work to simply hold periodic conduits to the same standards as stable ones?

For all I really know, that might work fine.

I just think there would be easily hundreds of thousands of periodic conduits that fit those standard bounding-box and repeat-time measurements -- if people really spent time searching for them and cataloguing them. There are often several variants of a conduit with different geometries but the same period (i.e., different shaped sparkers that allow for different connections to nearby conduits). Each of several periods ends up with its own group of variants.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were ways to use sparkers to modify the output for any number of recent conduit discoveries. We just don't tend to spend all that much time looking for things like that. Bolting a sparker on to a stable conduit makes it suddenly extremely special purpose, no longer suitable for most uses.

If somebody really wants to devote the time to doing all of the cataloguing work, of course I don't have any objection. I just want to broadcast a very clear fair warning about what a neverending task it would likely become.

I do have some experience here, from having ended up as the de facto maintainer of the Hersrch conduit database for a while. Hersrch supported periodic conduits, and the maintenance for that part of the database was painfully time-consuming and always incomplete.

Posted: **May 30th, 2026, 9:41 am**

I would like the "Wicks" category on the Main Page to be replaced with a link (in bold) to the OCA:Main Page, as suggested by Nathaniel. In its current state, the OCA Main Page is ready to be linked (although the same protections currently granted to the Main Page might also have to be given to its OCA version, in which case, the "editor" permission should be sufficient.)

Posted: **June 2nd, 2026, 2:40 pm**

I suggest that the article for spacefillers note that growing at a quadratic rate is often true but not required to be a spacefiller, because it is possible to have linear growth patterns that fill all of space with an agar. Spiral growth patterns are an example of this.

Posted: **June 5th, 2026, 5:44 pm**

can the front page of the wiki be adjusted to shrink the "Did you know" section to a reasonable size?

Also, there was some talk about adding a link to OCA-based wiki frontpage, instead of solely a link to wicks. Can that be altered now?

Posted: **June 5th, 2026, 9:29 pm**

Another edit: on Editable news items submission page, can the OCA:Main_Page be linked to direct people looking to post news items about OCA? (I also think the current version of this on the OCA page needs expanding, and that the link in the top right corner should be bolded)

Posted: **June 6th, 2026, 12:48 am**

WhiteHawk wrote: June 5th, 2026, 9:29 pm Another edit: on Editable news items submission page, can the OCA:Main_Page be linked to direct people looking to post news items about OCA? (I also think the current version of this on the OCA page needs expanding, and that the link in the top right corner should be bolded)

That page is editable by non-moderators, so changes should be very easy to implement (just add the link and a note or two explaining the importance of keeping the link untouched). Maybe I should move the OCA:Current News template from my userspace to LifeWiki (or even Template, although I think only moderators can do that) space first.

While I'm here, I don't think there is any better place to ask for permissions... yesterday, I noted on the Discord that the "Editor" user right was only granted to two accounts, for which one is redundant and the other is inactive. Could I fill in this hole, so as to gain permissions such as page deletion and the like without being subject to other moderatorial duties?

Posted: **June 6th, 2026, 7:18 pm**

One more edit suggestion, related to the existence of the OCA page (Also to suggest again bolding that link in the NE corner of the wiki)

I think it would be a good idea to include more OCA did-you-knows and maybe split them from the main wiki list.

ConwayLife.com

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