Kazyan wrote:dvgrn posted a p160 edge shooter...
A lot more than one, actually -- the p160 dart gun needed
a lot of options depending on how surrounding edge-shooting guns are arranged.
For other periods, yes, just start with the appropriate gun from
chris_c's collection, and attach a
syringe followed by the edge-shooting Herschel-to-glider converter of your choice.
Edge-shooting converters are not terribly well organized at the moment -- maybe this thread would be a good place to post and update a stamp collection. Pretty much all of the known ones can be found pretty easily by inspecting the
H-to-G converter collection. The latest greatest up-to-datest edge-shooting converter is
SE39T12 -- it doesn't throw any sparks at all beyond the insertion lane, which is a new thing in the B3/S23 edge-shooter department.
So far I think there are no big guns built with SE39T12. It would break some new ground to figure out what can be done with it that couldn't be done before (besides highway robber tricks that turned out not to be needed)...! It would be interesting to see what spaceship construction salvos can be built in a different and less annoying order. A careful look at the dart gun shows the limitations of the various edge shooter/inserters that were used there, pre-SE39T12.
I'm tempted to say things like, "Can the p160 dart gun finally be reduced below 500x500?" But of course it can -- it's just a matter of somebody putting in a horrible amount of time to try hundreds of ways of fitting all the possible different pieces together. I don't necessarily want to encourage anyone to get started down that optimization path; it can be entertaining for a while, but also incredibly time-consuming -- needs an unreasonable amount of patience.
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Thinking along the same general lines: in the
previous thread the question came up of what might be really useful or important. Sometimes a chain of increasingly complex technology establishes a "use": a syringe can be used in an edge-shooter, which can be used in a complex spaceship gun... but then that's pretty much the end of the line, unless someone can figure out how to build the spaceship gun into a larger pattern that actually does something new and interesting.
All these chains come to an end sometime, of course, so maybe in one sense really none of this exploration is really useful! But there seem to be quite a few people for whom a well-designed large pattern is aesthetically appealing -- or at least lots of fun to watch. Maybe the best ones rise to the level of Super-Nerdy Works of Art, where a lot of people will look at it in amazement and say, "
How on earth did someone figure out how to do that?"
-- Of course a lot
more people will just be vaguely puzzled and say "
Why on earth would someone bother to figure out how to do that?". That's just the way it goes, I guess; takes all kinds to make a world. I still think that Life pattern-making is a more sensible leisure activity than, say, doing crossword puzzles, where someone else already knows the answer and is just going to tell you next week anyway...
For me, looking at the jslife interactions folder for the first time was a continual series of the first reaction you listed, and it made me want to get involved. I like that these things exist, and are not going anywhere or decaying once built. Engineering something new in Life is rewarding!