codeholic wrote:I'd say it's different. Switching from the design, that required slow-elbow construction and that would eventually require a more complicated algorithm for an assembly script, was a qualitative leap. That's something we should really take care of before the assembly.
On the other hand, building 27 or only 4 *WSS salvos with the same slow salvo techniques is just about quantity. (Actually, following the bleeding-edge optimised design for the 31c/240 spaceship would require even a more complicated assembly script, because it involves different types of rakes.)
Yes, it's a tricky balancing act deciding what's really worth the effort. For 31c/240, it has been "trivial" for quite a while to produce a complete spaceship using
codeholic's perfectly good 27-*WSS front end.
That would end up being about two orders of magnitude longer than a more recent design, which would build fewer *WSSes with lower-cost recipes using more efficient rakes on a narrower set of trails. But in many ways the 27-*WSS design is more elegant -- it manages to close the construction cycle with a smaller set of components.
Based on my experiment with the
31c/240 HWSS forward rake, which is built with a similarly minimal toolkit, I guessed that a full 27-*WSS implementation wouldn't run too well in Golly -- maybe about the same as the original Caterpillar.
Now, I definitely prefer
A) patterns that Golly can run very quickly,
B) patterns that don't just look like a boring straight line when you're zoomed out, and
C) patterns that showcase new Life technology that may come in handy again elsewhere.
I think oblique's 'sscs' slow-salvo search utility is shaping up to be a decent replacement for Glue, so that's one good result of continuing the 31c/240 project. We're pretty close to being able to use slow-salvo *WSS recipes to cut down the original Caterpillar by an order of magnitude or two, as well, if anyone decides that that's worth reconstructing! I'd love to see 17c/45 and 31c/240 caterpillars that Golly can really run away with... but unfortunately my spare time is somewhat limited these days.
Luckily the script-generated HBKs satisfy A, B, and C very nicely already. Probably that means I'll put further HBK improvements on the back burner for a while. I
am tempted to build a period-2124679 HBK, since that's within easy reach -- the current semibake script doesn't pack nonshoots together quite as tightly as it could -- and 2124679 is very slightly famous (the biggest known Wolstonholme prime).
But the various optimizations mentioned above could probably cut down the minimum HBK period to something under a million, at which point 2124679 becomes irrelevantly large... So for now I'll stop after my own bit of pointless
corollary-sniping. Attached is the lowest-period HBK that anyone has bothered to build so far:
In case anyone is curious, the script can build HBKs of period 2167621+8N with very minor adjustments (just move the initial eight gliders 10K southwest), and any number strictly above 2242020 should work fine, with the same 10K adjustment in a few cases.
In general I try not to worry about whether pattern optimizations are worthwhile -- I just work on them if they continue to look like interesting unsolved puzzles. Some time ago I officially renounced cryptic crosswords, on the grounds that somebody else already knew the answers to those, and took up Life research instead as a vaguely equivalent form of mental exercise. That's good enough for my purposes... and if anyone else takes an interest the results of these questionably useful investigations, so much the better.