GalaxyLife

[Yoel]

A 2-color symmetrical stable rule that augments Conway's Game of Life with stable glider emitting "cores" that allow small patterns to live for millions of generations. The rules:

1. A cell of a certain color is born, if surrounded by 3 cells or that color or 5 cells of of the same color and 1 cell of the other color, in which cases the newborn cell takes the majority color (e.g. 5 red cells and 1 blue cell give birth to a red cell; 5 blue cells and 1 red cell give birth to a blue cell).

2. A cell survives, if surrounded by 2 or 3 live cells of any color.

3. A cell survives, if surrounded by 4,5,6,7 or 8 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).

Here is an example of a 20x20 soup that lives for 3,878,271 generations:

Code: Select all

x = 20, y = 20, rule = GalaxyLife
B.B7.A3.A$BA.AB.A.B6.A2.B$2.B2.B3.A5.B3.B$B3.2A.A2.A.A.A2.BAB$.ABAB2.
2BA2BA3.BA$.2A2.B7.A.2B2.A$B.BAB4.A2.B6.B$2A2.B6.A.ABA2.2A$.BAB.2B5.A
2.2BA$.A2.A2.A4.2BA2.A.A$.B2.B.BA3.B.2ABA$B4.B2.B3.AB3.2A$2B3A.A.A.B
4.A$2B.B8.B3.B2A$AB11.B3.A$4.A4.A.B2A.A$.A2.2B.3B5.BA.A$.A10.A2.B3.A$
.A7.2BA5.A$6.B.B.A.A2.B2.2A!

Judging by Symbiosis, a wonderful rule by wwei23 I've discovered for myself just yesterday, this new rule should also have many interesting patterns. Some of Symbiosis oscillators work in GalaxyLife as well (with very different periods though):

P210:

Code: Select all

x = 31, y = 29, rule = GalaxyLife
$13.B.A.B$12.B.3A.B$11.B.5A.B$10.B.A2.A2.A.B$9.B.A.5A.A.B$8.B.A2.A3.A
2.A.B$7.B.A2.A5.A2.A.B$6.B.A.A9.A.A.B$5.B.A15.A.B$4.B.A2.A3.2A.2A3.A
2.A.B$3.B.A.2A3.A.A.A.A3.2A.A.B$4.2A.A4.2A3.2A4.A.2A$3.5A15.5A$4.2A.A
4.2A3.2A4.A.2A$3.B.A.2A3.A.A.A.A3.2A.A.B$4.B.A2.A3.2A.2A3.A2.A.B$5.B.
A15.A.B$6.B.A.A9.A.A.B$7.B.A2.A5.A2.A.B$8.B.A2.A3.A2.A.B$9.B.A.5A.A.B
$10.B.A2.A2.A.B$11.B.5A.B$12.B.3A.B$13.B.A.B!

Still lifes as stators:

Code: Select all

x = 82, y = 23, rule = GalaxyLife
6$53.2B$9.B42.4B$9.2A17.2A21.B4.B$8.A.A18.AB19.B.4B.B7.2B2.2B$9.2AB
15.A.A10.2A7.B.B.2A.B.B6.6B$11.B2A13.A3.A8.A7.2B.BA2.AB.2B6.B2AB$12.A
11.B2.2A.B.A8.2A5.2B.BA2.AB.2B6.B2AB$9.2A.2A9.5A3.A9.B2A5.B.B.2A.B.B
6.6B$8.A.2A12.2BA23.B.4B.B7.2B2.2B$8.A2BA14.2A23.B4.B$7.A44.4B$53.2B!

EDIT:

A small glider gun:

Code: Select all

x = 11, y = 21, rule = GalaxyLife
5$4.2A.B.2A$4.A.4A$5.B.AB2A$4.B.BABA$5.B.3A$4.A.3A$5.B3.A$10.A$5.2A$
5.B.B$6.A!

[bprentice]

1. A cell of a certain color is born, if surrounded by 3 cells or that color or 5 cells of of the same color and 1 cell of the other color, in which cases the newborn cell takes the majority color (e.g. 5 red cells and 1 blue cell give birth to a red cell; 5 blue cells and 1 red cell give birth to a blue cell).

2. A cell survives, if surrounded by 2 or 3 live cells of any color.

3. A cell survives, if surrounded by 4,5,6,7 or 8 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).

I hope you continue to provide clear and concise rule definitions like this. This allows me to write some simple Java code and have your rules running in Square Cell in just a few minutes.

I've been reading your discussion with lemon41625 on the Symbiosis thread. It is troubling to see the forum continue to use ever more complex rule string definitions which are difficult to understand, remember and experiment with. A better alternative is to use pictorial dialogs to display and modify rule parameters.

Brian Prentice

[bubblegum]

1. A cell of a certain color is born, if surrounded by 3 cells or that color or 5 cells of of the same color and 1 cell of the other color, in which cases the newborn cell takes the majority color (e.g. 5 red cells and 1 blue cell give birth to a red cell; 5 blue cells and 1 red cell give birth to a blue cell).

2. A cell survives, if surrounded by 2 or 3 live cells of any color.

3. A cell survives, if surrounded by 4,5,6,7 or 8 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).

I hope you continue to provide clear and concise rule definitions like this. This allows me to write some simple Java code and have your rules running in Square Cell in just a few minutes.

I've been reading your discussion with lemon41625 on the Symbiosis thread. It is troubling to see the forum continue to use ever more complex rule string definitions which are difficult to understand, remember and experiment with. A better alternative is to use pictorial dialogs to display and modify rule parameters.

Brian Prentice

I really hope we don't have to face the choice of A) having to insert images every time we want to share a rule (which is not good, in case you were wondering), or B) doing this:

Hey I found a cool new rule! Here's the rulestring:

Code: Select all

R5,N0,1,1,1,1,2,0,1,0,2,1,3,222,3,1,2,0,1,0,2,0,1,1,1,1,C12,G0,1,3,6,7,642,8,21,4,3,67,222221,T0,<<<Server notice from fermat.yahoo.com:
11.9MB nonstandard text removed from message
Please notify sender of potential virus threat>>>

(obviously this is a massive exaggeration, and I did not bother to do any kind of check on this, and yes this is an IceNine reference, just to compound on the unreasonability)
just so someone can feel a bit easier on their mission to unknowingly complicate things.

Okay, I do agree with you that there are about a trillion impossible-to-decode rulestrings floating around the forums,

...but it's probably too late already.

[lemon41625]

I've been reading your discussion with lemon41625 on the Symbiosis thread. It is troubling to see the forum continue to use ever more complex rule string definitions which are difficult to understand, remember and experiment with. A better alternative is to use pictorial dialogs to display and modify rule parameters.

Brian Prentice

Although I do agree that rulestrings can be cryptic, the same can be said of your pictorial diagrams (excluding diagrams of neighbourhoods). The pictures that you post are usually in the form of SQCell ruletables. These ruletables can be cryptic to anyone who don't understand the ruletables. In addition, there is a lack of good documentation of how these ruletables work. I had to spent at least an hour to understand the notation and pictures that you posted. Is it even possible to develop a picture or a notation that is immediately obvious to anyone even without reading the accompanying explanation of the rulestring format / picture?

Secondly, rulestrings are not hard to understand and remember if you put in the effort to read the accompanying explanation. In my opinion, rulestrings are also easier to experiement with.

Thirdly, it is much harder to implement pictorial dialogs in CA simulators than rulestrings. How will you convince someone to spend the non-trivial amount of time to implement pictorial diagrams in a simulator when rulestrings are much easier? Rulestrings are also more compact and are more easily transferred. For example, rulestrings are found at the top of every RLE file which makes transferring and loading patterns easier.

[Yoel]

1. A cell of a certain color is born, if surrounded by 3 cells or that color or 5 cells of of the same color and 1 cell of the other color, in which cases the newborn cell takes the majority color (e.g. 5 red cells and 1 blue cell give birth to a red cell; 5 blue cells and 1 red cell give birth to a blue cell).

2. A cell survives, if surrounded by 2 or 3 live cells of any color.

3. A cell survives, if surrounded by 4,5,6,7 or 8 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).

I hope you continue to provide clear and concise rule definitions like this. This allows me to write some simple Java code and have your rules running in Square Cell in just a few minutes.

I've been reading your discussion with lemon41625 on the Symbiosis thread. It is troubling to see the forum continue to use ever more complex rule string definitions which are difficult to understand, remember and experiment with. A better alternative is to use pictorial dialogs to display and modify rule parameters.

Brian Prentice

It's also easy to write a generator of humanly-readable rule descriptions. But without some grouping algorithm or a clever AI thingy it will look annoying like:

,,,
10. A cell survives, if surrounded by 4 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).
11. A cell survives, if surrounded by 5 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).
12. A cell survives, if surrounded by 6 cells of any color, unless all its neighbors have the same color (not necessarily the same as the surviving cell).
...