Adjustable spaceship

An adjustable spaceship is a spaceship whose direction, speed, or both can be adjusted through trivial means. Such patterns tend to rely strongly on universal constructor technologies, and consist of tens of thousands to millions of cells.

Gemini

Gemini, the first spaceship to be found in Life which travelled in a direction neither orthogonal or diagonal, runs off of an instruction tape. Variations of Gemini have been built that travel on different slopes.[1][2]

Demonoids and Orthogonoids

By applying similar technologies to orthogonal and diagonal spaceships, it is possible to create adjustable-speed orthogonal and diagonal spaceships. A Demonoid's speed can be decreased by simply moving the two halves away from each other correctly.

Caterloopillars

The caterloopillar concept can be used to create high-period yet considerably fast spaceships. Different speeds can be created by running the Caterloopillar-generating script again.

In other rules

Adjustable-speed rules

Multiple isotropic non-totalistic rules have been devised which allow for tiny elementary adjustable spaceships to exist, which travel at the true period. The following rules were the first two known to have this property:

B2c3ae4ai5iy6c/S2-kn3iyjr4ict

This rule allows for all speeds of c/n below c/3, where n is even. The rule was originally discovered by Luka Okanishi on July 4, 2017 as B2c3ae4ai56c/S2-kn3-enq4.[3]

B2c3aj4nrt5i6c7e/S1c2-en3enr4aet5cey6c7e

This rule allows for all speeds of c/n below c/4, where n is odd. The rule was originally discovered by Aidan F. Pierce on July 29, 2017 as B2c3aj4nrt5i6c78/S1c23enr4aet5-iq67.[4]

These two rules were collectively voted OCA Discovery of the Year 2017 on the ConwayLife.com forums.[5]

Adjustable-slope rules

The first known rule containing small spaceships with adjustable slope was discovered by AforAmpere on July 23, 2018 as B2ce3cen4eknt5kn6-ce7c8/S01c2-ck4ciknr5aknq6k7e8.[6] The rule was subsequently voted OCA Discovery of the Year 2018.[7]

gollark: Indeed.
gollark: You still need to access them half the time, and they clutter up home directories.
gollark: Hidden files were a mistake.
gollark: That's your shell's fault for being an apioid.
gollark: If you use `.` or something and not `*`.

References
  1. Dave Greene (June 13, 2010). Re: Shrinking Gemini: Four Ideas (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  2. Dave Greene (June 14, 2010). Re: Shrinking Gemini: Four Ideas (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  3. Luka Okanishi (July 4, 2017). Re: Miscellaneous Discoveries in Other Cellular Automata (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  4. Aidan F. Pierce (July 28, 2017). Re: Miscellaneous Discoveries in Other Cellular Automata (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  5. Rhombic (February 16, 2018). Re: OCA Discovery of the Year 2017 - Results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  6. AforAmpere (July 23, 2018). Re: Rules with small adjustable spaceships (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  7. 77topaz (February 19, 2019). Re: OCA Discovery of the Year 2018 competition: Voting (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
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