GOL-007 · technical companion
Lightning Conductor
Persistent charges spend finite energy crossing a seeded conductive medium, writing sudden paths of life over a slower synchronous cellular field.
At a glance
- geometry
- Toroidal square lattice + conductive material
- neighborhood
- Moore · 8 adjacent cells
- states
- Dead / alive + charge + resistance + chirality
- update
- Synchronous field + deterministic discharge microsteps
- renderer
- Canvas 2D
What to explore
Charges should create visible bolts whose path is locally constrained by resistance, neighboring population, occupancy, and chirality. The event-driven inner motion must remain deterministic and bounded, and simultaneous collisions must stop all claimants rather than reward array order or an arbitrary identity.
Rules, update order and replay
The base square Moore field computes one complete synchronous B4/S0124568 proposal. Persistent charges then receive a 50-point energy budget and propose adjacent moves in synchronous microsteps. Living cells and occupied charge positions block movement; entering material costs its resistance from 1 to 3; neighbor population steers the choice; simultaneous claims on one destination block every claimant. Traversed dead positions force the final field alive. Each charge retains its heading through one bolt and turns once at its terminal position by the material's chirality and configured turn. Bounded edges stop a bolt; toroidal edges continue it. Replay requires occupancy, charges/headings, resistance, chirality, last-discharge evidence, generation, topology, configuration, charge count, and both seeds. Reset rebuilds every layer; world and material seed actions preserve the other layer.
Reading the simulation
Charges remain visible as amber diamonds even on living positions; the last discharge has separate evidence, and optional material view reveals resistance and chirality. Inspection reports the local Life result, material values, charge heading and proposed target, with a target outline. Context distinguishes base generation time from intra-generation discharge, and all material/charge states have written labels rather than color-only meaning.
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.