GOL-006 · technical companion

Fire Wings

A compact ignition opens into recurring wing-like fronts as alternating weighted-neighborhood rules meet enforced rest, finite life, and a directional history clock.

Open simulation →Markdown Download example JSON

At a glance

geometry: Toroidal square lattice with fixed directional weights
neighborhood: Moore · 8 adjacent cells + 1 repeated vote
states: Dead / alive + lifecycle counters + 8-bit history
update: Synchronous alternating phases + nine-beat history gate
renderer: Canvas 2D

What to explore

A compact ignition should expand, contract, break into coherent fronts, and remain active for hundreds of generations. The hidden directional weighting, rest counters, finite living duration, and history suppression must remain reproducible and selectively explainable rather than disappearing behind a binary renderer.

Rules, update order and replay

The square Moore lattice alternates B34/S345678 and B234578/S04678. Every cell permanently repeats one seeded Moore direction, producing a weighted count from 0 through 9. Living continuation is limited by a counter; a dead position must complete its minimum rest before birth. Each cell retains eight committed states, and the selected 1111 history signal may force death when aligned with the fixed repeated direction on a nine-beat clock. Count nine deliberately falls through to current state unless the lifecycle limit intervenes. All positions read frozen state and commit synchronously. Replay requires occupancy, directions, living/dead counters, histories, generation/phase, configuration, topology, field, initial mode, and seed/density. Reset reconstructs all layers.

Reading the simulation

The ordinary field remains dead/alive rather than assigning a color to every hidden direction or counter. Inspection outlines the selected position and its repeated neighbor, then reports ordinary and weighted counts, permanent direction, lifecycle counters, eight-bit history, active/next phase, clock slot, and whether history suppression will force death. Written state and legend make the binary palette independent from the causal explanation.

Reproduce an opening

Download the example above, open the simulation, expand the controls, then use Share & reproduce → Import JSON. The example uses authored rules and a fixed seeded starting field; it is independent of the site’s editable default composition. Import starts paused at Step zero.

Share links and JSON reproduce the configured starting conditions, including hidden layers rebuilt by Reset. They do not save an evolved board, hand-painted cells, speed or display preferences. Determinism applies to the same rule version and Step sequence; real-time playback rates vary by device.

Larger fields and more involved rules can reduce playback speed. Read the configuration format and automated-access guide for compatibility details.