The B268/S04567 cellular automaton
Yesterday, I investigated the life-like cellular automaton B268/S04567. This is an automaton in which most patterns explode, although a few still-lifes and oscillators exist. A random soup will, after a large number of generations, produce a black (stationary) pattern of small, irregular cells with common boundaries that fill the entire space. Some of these cells oscillate. This rule also supports a simple four-cell period-1 orthogonal spaceship travelling at the speed of light. Below two such ships collide, creating an explosion:
Somewhere at generation 2500, a periodic state, as described above, is reached. This state has period 1260, and looks roughly like this: