Copperhead

Copperhead
b2o2b2o$3b2o$3b2o$obo2bobo$o6bo2$o6bo$b2o2b2o$2b4o2$3b2o$3b2o! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ AUTOSTART ]]
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Pattern type	Spaceship
Number of cells	28
Bounding box	6 × 12
Direction	Orthogonal
Period	10 (mod: Unknown)
Speed	c/10 | Unknown
Heat	27.8
Kinetic symmetry	Unspecified
Discovered by	zdr
Year of discovery	2016
Rules Outer-totalistic rules B3/S23 – B38/S0238 # of rules 23 = 8
Glider synthesis Fewest gliders 22† Uploaded synthesis RLE copperhead_synth.rle †Can be constructed with 15 gliders using the reverse caber tosser universal constructor.
Pattern files RLE copperhead.rle

Copperhead is a c/10 orthogonal spaceship discovered by 'zdr' on March 5, 2016.

Reactions

The ship hauls a block behind it, which makes for interesting reactions involving other ships. Dean Hickerson built a sawtooth that uses copperhead's ability to turn a heavyweight spaceship into a loaf. It can also eat gliders and middleweight spaceships cleanly from behind, and lightweight spaceships from the side of the block. Its front end can cleanly burn through blinkers, creating a c/10 blinker fuse.

Simon Ekström found a tagalong with a large spark on March 20, 2016. Tanner Jacobi noticed that it can be attached to two other identical tagalongs, thus allowing for ships of arbitrary size. Nico Brown built a puffer and a rake using copperheads with tagalongs to make a signal loop.

Synthesis

The first synthesis was proposed by Aidan F. Pierce on the day of discovery. An alternative synthesis utilising fumarole as a predecessor, presented by Tanner Jacobi an hour later, was much more efficient. After optimizations by Mark Niemiec and Chris Cain the total synthesis cost made 22 gliders. A copperhead gun was then completed by Alexey Nigin on March 6, 2016. A faster gun was constructed one day later.

The first copperhead to emerge from the ash of a soup appeared on April 4, 2016 in a D2_+2 haul submitted to Catagolue by Apple Bottom.

Gallery

A simple copperhead eater found by Simon Ekström. View animated image

File:Goldenhead.jpeg

The goldenhead

In other rules

In the cellular automaton DryLife, an extremely similar spaceship (dubbed the goldenhead) also travels at c/10 orthogonal. It differs from the normal copperhead by 2 cells in one phase. A normal copperhead at this phase will turn into a goldenhead in DryLife, and conversely this phase will return to a copperhead in normal Life.

See also

• Loafer

References

External links

• Copperhead at Adam P. Goucher's Catagolue
• Alexey Nigin: New Spaceship Speed in Conway’s Game of Life