Thread for basic questions

[Wyirm]

This is a specific request, but is there a salvo of gliders which moves the block diagonally forward 7 cells?

Code: Select all

x = 9, y = 9, rule = LifeSuper
2.2D$2.2D3$B$.B5.2D$2.B.B2.2D$3.2B$2.3B!

Sure, lots of them! Do you want the salvo to be a slow salvo, a synchronized salvo, or a single-channel salvo?

For slow salvos, here's the one that slsparse suggests, if you don't give it any other constraints:

Code: Select all

x = 112, y = 108, rule = LifeSuper
M.M$.2M$.M8$20.M.M$21.2M$21.M12$46.M$47.M$45.3M19$64.M$65.M$63.3M17$
81.M$79.M.M$80.2M16$82.M$83.M$81.3M8$102.M$100.M.M$101.2M12$110.2G$
110.2G!

Thanks, the given works great!

[Wyirm]

Sorry for double posting, but since when did this beauty exist?

Code: Select all

x = 31, y = 34, rule = LifeHistory
15.B$14.3D$14.BDB$13.3D2B$13.5B$12.6B$12.6B$13.5B$13.6B$12.6B$12.7B$
13.6B$13.6B$4.2A7.2B2AB7.A$3.A.A2.2A2.3B2AB5.3A$2.A2.A.A.A2.7B3.A$2.
2ABA.AB3.6B4.2A4.2A$5.AB2A2.7B.5B4.A$2.2A.A3B3.10B3.BA.A$A2.ABAB.4B.
11B.B2A$2A2.AB.2B2A15B$6.2BA2BA.10B2AB$2A2.AB.2B2A11BA2BA$A2.ABAB.4B.
9BABAB$2.2A.A3B4.10BA2B$5.AB2A4.3BE10B$2.2ABA.AB5.2B2EB4.4B2.2A$2.A2.
A.A.A5.EBE6.2ABA2.A$3.A.A2.2A13.ABAB3A$4.2A17.A.A$21.3A.5A$20.A3.A4.A
$20.2A2.A.A$25.2A!

[wirehead]

Sorry for double posting, but since when did this beauty exist?

Code: Select all

x = 31, y = 34, rule = LifeHistory
15.B$14.3D$14.BDB$13.3D2B$13.5B$12.6B$12.6B$13.5B$13.6B$12.6B$12.7B$
13.6B$13.6B$4.2A7.2B2AB7.A$3.A.A2.2A2.3B2AB5.3A$2.A2.A.A.A2.7B3.A$2.
2ABA.AB3.6B4.2A4.2A$5.AB2A2.7B.5B4.A$2.2A.A3B3.10B3.BA.A$A2.ABAB.4B.
11B.B2A$2A2.AB.2B2A15B$6.2BA2BA.10B2AB$2A2.AB.2B2A11BA2BA$A2.ABAB.4B.
9BABAB$2.2A.A3B4.10BA2B$5.AB2A4.3BE10B$2.2ABA.AB5.2B2EB4.4B2.2A$2.A2.
A.A.A5.EBE6.2ABA2.A$3.A.A2.2A13.ABAB3A$4.2A17.A.A$21.3A.5A$20.A3.A4.A
$20.2A2.A.A$25.2A!

Um... that's just a variant of the speed tunnel, which according to the wiki was discovered July 24 of this year.

[confocaloid]

Sorry for asking multiple questions -
(1) Was 40x31 (forum post) the bounding box of the previous guntrue_24? Or if not, what it was?
(2) For a given NNN, is there a way to recover/retrieve the sequence of gun patterns previously available on Catagolue as guntrue_NNN / gun_NNN?

[hotdogPi]

Sorry for asking multiple questions -
(1) Was 40x31 (forum post) the bounding box of the previous guntrue_24? Or if not, what it was?
(2) For a given NNN, is there a way to recover/retrieve the sequence of gun patterns previously available on Catagolue as guntrue_NNN / gun_NNN?

I seem to remember the textcensus is archived every 10 days on days ending in 5, but I'm not sure of the exact URL. When I checked, it went back a year, but I don't know if it only saves a year or if it was a coincidence.

[confocaloid]

Sorry for asking multiple questions -
(1) Was 40x31 (forum post) the bounding box of the previous guntrue_24? Or if not, what it was?
(2) For a given NNN, is there a way to recover/retrieve the sequence of gun patterns previously available on Catagolue as guntrue_NNN / gun_NNN?

I seem to remember the textcensus is archived every 10 days on days ending in 5, but I'm not sure of the exact URL. When I checked, it went back a year, but I don't know if it only saves a year or if it was a coincidence.

Thanks! It seems guntrue_24 was 1178 cells on 25 September 2022, so it must be 38x31, and this forum post matches that.

[AlbertArmStain]

I remember seeing a collection of slow salvo block moves but I can't find it

[dvgrn]

I remember seeing a collection of slow salvo block moves but I can't find it

Here's the oldest source (P1 intermediate targets only) and a newer source (P2 intermediate targets allowed).

However, these days your best bet is to clone the slmake repository, or just look in the slmake/data/longmove/xs4_33 folder -- if you're interested in tub moves or beehive moves as well, then check the longmove/xs4_252 and longmove/xs6_696 folders, respectively.

[AlbertArmStain]

I remember seeing a collection of slow salvo block moves but I can't find it

Here's the oldest source (P1 intermediate targets only) and a newer source (P2 intermediate targets allowed).

However, these days your best bet is to clone the slmake repository, or just look in the slmake/data/longmove/xs4_33 folder -- if you're interested in tub moves or beehive moves as well, then check the longmove/xs4_252 and longmove/xs6_696 folders, respectively.

How do you translate them?
Ex:
(-1, 1)O : -9E -3E -9E -3O 1E : even

[dvgrn]

I remember seeing a collection of slow salvo block moves but I can't find it

Here's the oldest source (P1 intermediate targets only) and a newer source (P2 intermediate targets allowed).

However, these days your best bet is to clone the slmake repository, or just look in the slmake/data/longmove/xs4_33 folder -- if you're interested in tub moves or beehive moves as well, then check the longmove/xs4_252 and longmove/xs6_696 folders, respectively.

How do you translate them?
Ex:
(-1, 1)O : -9E -3E -9E -3O 1E : even

Start with a block at (0,0). The block is on Quarter-Diagonal Lane 0.

Gliders can't travel on even-numbered lanes, because their line of symmetry doesn't go through the center of a cell. Quarter-Diagonal Lane -1 is the closest that a glider can come to hitting the block head-on, while being a little bit to the left; Quarter-Diagonal Lane +1 is a glider with mirror-image position, just a little bit to the right side of the block.

Quarter-Diagonal Lane -3 is one cell left of the Lane -1 position -- two quarter-diagonals to the left. Quarter-Diagonal Lane -9 is four cells, 8qd, left of the Lane -1 position.

So the string "-9E -3E -9E -3O 1E" corresponds to

Code: Select all

x = 48, y = 47, rule = LifeSuper
.2G$.2G3$3M$M$.M8$13.3M$13.M$14.M8$20.3M$20.M$21.M7$34.M$33.2M$33.M.M
9$45.3M$45.M$46.M!

-- "E" means an even phase for that glider, and "O" means an odd phase.

EDIT after reading follow-up question: I'm going to pass on that one -- don't really see the point of adding "-9", "-3", "-9", "-3", and "1" to the five gliders, and if something different from that is wanted, it's not clear from the question.

[AlbertArmStain]

Here's the oldest source (P1 intermediate targets only) and a newer source (P2 intermediate targets allowed).

However, these days your best bet is to clone the slmake repository, or just look in the slmake/data/longmove/xs4_33 folder -- if you're interested in tub moves or beehive moves as well, then check the longmove/xs4_252 and longmove/xs6_696 folders, respectively.

How do you translate them?
Ex:
(-1, 1)O : -9E -3E -9E -3O 1E : even

Start with a block at (0,0). The block is on Quarter-Diagonal Lane 0.

Gliders can't travel on even-numbered lanes, because their line of symmetry doesn't go through the center of a cell. Quarter-Diagonal Lane -1 is the closest that a glider can come to hitting the block head-on, while being a little bit to the left; Quarter-Diagonal Lane +1 is a glider with mirror-image position, just a little bit to the right side of the block.

Quarter-Diagonal Lane -3 is one cell left of the Lane -1 position -- two quarter-diagonals to the left. Quarter-Diagonal Lane -9 is four cells, 8qd, left of the Lane -1 position.

So the string "-9E -3E -9E -3O 1E" corresponds to

Code: Select all

x = 48, y = 47, rule = LifeSuper
.2G$.2G3$3M$M$.M8$13.3M$13.M$14.M8$20.3M$20.M$21.M7$34.M$33.2M$33.M.M
9$45.3M$45.M$46.M!

-- "E" means an even phase for that glider, and "O" means an odd phase.

Could you label the lanes?
Also, that doesn’t really answer the question completely, I still don’t understand lanes, why aren’t there even numbers?

[dvgrn]

Also, that doesn’t really answer the question completely, I still don’t understand lanes, why aren’t there even numbers?

The quarter-diagonal lane-numbering method was started by Paul Chapman for his "Glue" project. It has the fairly large advantage that taking the mirror image of a recipe is just a matter of negating all of the lane numbers.

If you measure lane numbers in half-diagonals instead of quarter-diagonals and have both even and odd numbers as lane labels, you lose the handy recognizability of the lane numbers.

Take "-9" and "9", for example: "-9" is the NW-traveling glider that hits the south side of a block at (0,0) to make a honeyfarm, and "9" is the glider that makes a honeyfarm by hitting the east side of the block instead. With half-diagonal numbering those would be lanes -5 and 4, or lanes -4 and 5, but you don't know which unless you've memorized an arbitrarily chosen detail. (Or you could call them "-4.5" and "4.5", I suppose, but that would recover symmetry at the expense of not having integer lane numbers at all.)

[mniemiec]

Is someone messing with LifeViewer? Today, every single pattern I bring up displays an overlay that says, "If there are no cells displayed, click on Help". It wasn't doing this yesterday.

Also, is there a forum thread dealing specifically with LifeViewer?

[pipsqueek]

what are some patterns with a large ratio between its starting population and its final population? (like a pattern that grows to n times its original size)

[Book]

Is someone messing with LifeViewer? Today, every single pattern I bring up displays an overlay that says, "If there are no cells displayed, click on Help". It wasn't doing this yesterday.

Also, is there a forum thread dealing specifically with LifeViewer?

1. I think this is temporary until this bug is fixed in Chrome viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4742&p=151576#p151576

2. See viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1622&p=151764#p151764

[Book]

what are some patterns with a large ratio between its starting population and its final population? (like a pattern that grows to n times its original size)

You want large or infinite? See Infinite_growth and Methuselah to get started.

[wirehead]

what are some patterns with a large ratio between its starting population and its final population? (like a pattern that grows to n times its original size)

You want large or infinite? See Infinite_growth and Methuselah to get started.

Also of note: Saka's FIG seeds: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3211&p=54746. These are patterns that grow by a ridiculous amount, but eventually do stop growing. Like a methuselah on steroids.

[confocaloid]

Is it "correct" to refer to an oscillator as an X hassler if it consists of nothing but two or more copies of X interacting with each other? For example, could Gabriel's p138 be said to be a hassler, or that would be too much of a stretch of the idea of hassling?

Code: Select all

x = 21, y = 21, rule = B3/S23
11bo$10b3o$10bob2o$13bo4$2b2o4b2o$b2o10bo$2o11bo$b2o15b2o$7bo11b2o$7b
o10b2o$11b2o4b2o4$7bo$7b2obo$8b3o$9bo!

According to LifeWiki:

To hassle an object is to repeatedly move or change it in a periodic way.

In this sentence, the "move" part means that the object or active region is translated to another location, the "change" part means that the evolutionary sequence of the object is changed, and "in a periodic way" ensures that the object reappears sometime later in its original configuration, either at its original location or a different one.

In this scenario where active regions support each other, they change their own original evolutionary sequences, such that the whole configuration reappears sometime later. Standalone, a single copy of the involved evolutionary sequences doesn't reappear. Also, in the definition, it doesn't mention any need for catalysts or sparkers. That's why I think it's suitable for them to be called hasslers. Instead of saying something like "two eaters hassling two active regions", you will identify it as something like "four active regions hassling each other".

Maybe it's only my own (mis)understanding - this seems to me too generalized to be useful. I think when an oscillator is described as a hassler, at the same time it is assumed that there is some active reaction, and there are some recognizable catalysts/sparkers which hassle the active reaction. If an oscillator consists of nothing but an active reaction (e.g. consisting in some phases of several active regions [X] placed symmetrically), I would probably describe it as "several interacting [X]", rather than "several [X] hassling each other".

Similarly it does not feel "right" to me to describe the spark coil as a hassler. Even though it is composed of two houses and the house is generation 3 of the pi-heptomino, I would not say anything is "hassled" in this oscillator. It is an oscillator, but it is not a hassler.

I guess I think there is something wrong with generalizing ideas to the point where they lose themselves. If every other oscillator can possibly be described as a hassler, would it make sense to extend this to still lifes? Does this H-to-2G contain any hasslers?

Code: Select all

x = 41, y = 51, rule = LifeHistory
.3D2.D3.D7.5D.5D2.3D3.3D$D3.D.D3.D11.D3.D3.D3.D.D3.D$D5.D3.D10.D4.D7.
D.D3.D$.3D2.D.D.D.5D3.D5.D5.2D3.3D$4.D.D.D.D8.D6.D7.D.D3.D$D3.D.2D.2D
7.D7.D3.D3.D.D3.D$.3D2.D3.D7.D7.D4.3D3.3D4$.3D2.D3.D8.3D2.5D2.3D4.D$D
3.D.D3.D7.D3.D3.D3.D3.D2.2D$D5.D3.D11.D3.D7.D3.D$.3D2.D.D.D.5D4.D4.D
6.D4.D$4.D.D.D.D9.D5.D5.D5.D$D3.D.2D.2D8.D6.D4.D6.D$.3D2.D3.D7.5D3.D
3.5D2.3D12$12.A$12.3A$15.A$14.2A4.B$14.8B$16.8B5.2A$15.9B6.A$14.12B.
3A$13.14BA$12.15B$11.15B$10.5BC11B$9.6BCBC10B$8.4B.2B3C4B.B2AB2A$7.4B
.5BC4B2.A3.A$6.4B.10B4.3A$5.4B.4B$4.4B.4B12.3A$4.3B.4B12.A3.A$4.2B.4B
13.2A.2A$4.B.4B$5.4B$5.3B!

[get_Snacked]

Q:
do these methuselahs have names, or more specifically, smaller predecessors so they can become more relevant?
from left to right:
1. 1318 generations (this is probably pretty easy to form, so that's why I put an 8-cell 1-kGen methuselah)
2. 3606 generations (this one is especially what i want to have a smaller predecessor because it would probably be the second longest-lasting methuselah bar acorn predecessors)
3. 2600 generations (forms from a glider hitting a blinker as shown in the list of long-lived methuselahs, but has not been talked about)
4. 4317 generations

Code: Select all

x = 57, y = 7, rule = B3/S23
17bo$18bo$18b2o16bo17b2o$b2o32bo18bo$2obo15bo14bo2bo13bo3b2o$3b2o12bo
bo14bob2o13b2o$3bo14bo14b2o16bo!

(run them on your own to see how long they take)

[Wyirm]

I don't remember where I saw this, but I remember an edgeshooting h-to-g using a beehive and eater. This looks very similar to the hotcrystal0 reaction but I'm not sure if I'm making things up.

[dvgrn]

I don't remember where I saw this, but I remember an edgeshooting h-to-g using a beehive and eater. This looks very similar to the hotcrystal0 reaction but I'm not sure if I'm making things up.

Yeah, the transparent-beehive-and-eater catalyst has a long history, starting with RNE-19T84 from way back in 1997 (not that it was called that back then).

[hotdogPi]

Take the oscillator 101. Can anything from outside interact with the spark at all? I think I can prove it impossible without touching the stator at all, but given that the stator looks like an eater 1 form, it may be possible for an outside region to hit the spark without destroying the 101 oscillator by having it recover.

If the answer is "no", we can remove it from the "strong sparker" category, which was a bit ridiculous to begin with.

[Book]

This is about the definition of true-period (which I believe means the same thing as true period).

A wiki "Did you know" reads "... that while multiple c/12 diagonal spaceships are known, none are true period?"

The wiki defines well true-period for guns, as does the Book. Both are silent about the definition otherwise. My question is, what do we mean by "true-period" other than for guns? And should the term be defined in the wiki?

[hotdogPi]

This is about the definition of true-period (which I believe means the same thing as true period).

A wiki "Did you know" reads "... that while multiple c/12 diagonal spaceships are known, none are true period?"

The wiki defines well true-period for guns, as does the Book. Both are silent about the definition otherwise. My question is, what do we mean by "true-period" other than for guns? And should the term be defined in the wiki?

It means it repeats itself in the number of generations specified, which is a definition that applies to both guns and spaceships. In this case, stabilized switch engines don't repeat after only 12 generations, so they're not true-period 12.

[confocaloid]

What could be a way to encode a conduit (i.e. not just timing/lanes/displacements, but the specific conduit itself, including arrangement of catalysts and description of input/output), which is reasonably convenient to use, and hopefully is reasonably compact (ideally short enough to fit on a single line)?

For stable X-to-glider(s), it should be sufficient to provide the two-state RLE with the input given in the preferred canonical form; since all outputs are escaping gliders, it is in principle possible to derive everything else automatically. Example:

Code: Select all

x = 24, y = 27, rule = B3/S23
17bo$15b3o$14bo$14b2o$22b2o$22bo$20bobo$14bo5b2o$14bobo$14b3o$16bo8$
22bo$21bobo$22bo$17b2o$16bo2bo$2b2o13b2o$bobo$bo$2o!

I think this approach can be made to work for stable or periodic X-to-(any number of spaceships and nothing else), as well as factories/keepers/period multipliers that produce stationary objects. But non-spaceship outputs may damage the conduit if nothing is connected to them, so some other ideas are needed.