NW31
NW31 is the standard name for one of the most common stable edge shooters. This Herschel-to-glider converter suppresses the junk ordinarily left behind by an evolving Herschel while allowing both the first natural glider and second natural glider to escape on transparent lanes:
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2o$bo$bobo$2b2o4$23b2o$23b2o2$2bo$2bobo$2b3o$4bo8$11b2o$12bo$9b3o$9bo!
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#C [[ THUMBNAIL THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GPS 60 LOOP 250 ZOOM 10 Y -6 PAUSE 2 AUTOSTART HEIGHT 540 ]]<html></code></div></div><canvas width="200" height="300" style="margin-left:1px;"><noscript></html> Please enable Javascript to view this LifeViewer. <html></noscript></canvas></div></html> |
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The edge shooter output at the top has no additional clearance, so its use in creating convoys is limited: it can only add gliders on the outermost lanes of an existing glider salvo. Like the beehive version of SW-2, either output can be used to build logical OR gates, where multiple input signal paths are merged onto the same output path.
The complete name for this converter is "NW31T120", where 31 is the output glider lane number. In the above orientation, lane numbers get bigger toward the upper right and smaller toward the lower left (and may easily be negative).
The T120 timing measurement means that a canonical NW
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glider placed on lane 31 at time T=120, at (+31, +0) relative to the input Herschel, would in theory reach the exact same spacetime locations as the converter's output glider does.
Most converters are not edge shooters and their output lanes are not transparent, so they usually have catalysts that would interfere with this theoretically equivalent glider. This is the case for the optional third glider output, SE7T14, created by the lower eater 1 catalyst. The upper eater 1 overlaps its lane, so that output is not transparent. For the alternate block catalyst suppressing this glider output, see the transparent lane article.