Half-baked knightship

Half-baked knightship
Half-baked knightship image
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Pattern type	Spaceship
Number of cells	1049395
Bounding box	450801 × 461227
Direction	slope 2
Period	2621440 (mod: Unknown)
Speed	(6,3)c/2621440 | Unknown
Heat	Unknown
Kinetic symmetry	Unspecified
Discovered by	Adam P. Goucher
Year of discovery	2014
Rules Outer-totalistic rules B3/S23 only # of rules 20 = 1

Half-baked knightship is a class of knightships based on the well-known half-bakery reaction with a glider. As of 2014, representatives of this class are the smallest known oblique spaceships in Conway's Game of Life both in terms of the bounding box and minimum population. The Gemini and its derivatives, the only formerly known oblique spaceships, step farther in each period in spite of their larger size and population, so they travel much faster than half-bakery knightships.

In May 2014 Ivan Fomichev found the key reactions, which allow long chains of half-bakeries to regenerate themselves at (6, 3), and also to regenerate seed constellations at one end of the ship. When triggered, the seeds produce the small glider salvos that mediate the (6, 3) offset reaction. Components and slow salvo syntheses for the ship were found by the combined efforts of Chris Cain, Ivan Fomichev and Dave Greene.

Adam P. Goucher proposed the base design for the ship, and in July 2014 wrote a Golly script that assembled the components into an unoptimised but working half-baked knightship of any sufficiently large period.

Several days later, Chris Cain wrote an alternative assembly script that built a parallel HBK an order of magnitude smaller, using a more sophisticated design with the most efficient known components.

Half-baked knightships are the first family of patterns to demonstrate universal construction capability using monochromatic slow salvos -- all gliders the same color. They are also the first known spaceship family with adjustable period but fixed slope.

See also

• Parallel HBK
• Caterpillar
• Gemini
• Slow salvo