GOL-014 · technical companion
Second Thought: Radius Two
The forecast widens to every cell in the surrounding 5 × 5 area: sharp contraction can protect a scheduled death, but projected crowding above an absolute 24-cell threshold forces death.
At a glance
- geometry
- Square lattice + projected radius-two population
- neighborhood
- Extended Moore · 24 current and projected cells
- states
- Dead / alive + ordinary transition, protection, and crowding-death evidence
- update
- Synchronous Life proposal + contraction protection + absolute crowding death
- renderer
- Canvas 2D
What to explore
The model should isolate neighborhood scale and precedence without changing the ordinary Life neighborhood. Both contraction protection and crowding death must remain visibly active over long runs, while prediction stays finite, nonrecursive, deterministic, and explainable from one frozen proposal board.
Rules, update order and replay
Pass one computes ordinary configurable Life from the frozen board using only the immediate eight-cell Moore count. Pass two counts current and ordinary- projected occupancy across all 24 noncentral positions in the focal cell's 5 × 5 area: eight first-ring plus sixteen outer-ring positions. If projected population is above the crowding threshold, the focal position must be dead, whether it was an ordinary survivor, birth, or already scheduled death. Otherwise, an ordinary scheduled death is protected only when projected loss is strictly greater than contraction tolerance. Equality is allowed. Projected positions never include their own future protections or charges. Pass three commits synchronously. Replay requires occupancy, ordinary/protection/charge evidence, generation, configuration, topology, profile, and start. Reset/Clear/manual edits clear transient evidence.
Reading the simulation
The renderer distinguishes established life, accepted births, ordinary deaths, contraction-protected deaths, and crowding death charges. Inspection outlines all 24 forecast subjects by projected occupancy and uses dashed outlines for the sixteen-cell outer ring. Written state separately reports the ordinary count, current/projected 24-cell populations, signed delta, crowding status, surviving protection status, and final result. Range labels, legend, telemetry, and inspector text prevent color-only or precedence-ambiguous 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.