Hex Automata: "Twisted Symmetry". Rule 354 + Seed 36.602

A hexagonally-shaped field of cells has 3 pairs of opposing edges. When a ship disappears over an edge, it reappears at the opposite edge, headed in the same direction. When we screen-wrap this field, we get a closed continuous surface equivalent to the 2-d surface of a 3-d torus. But this torus contains a 180 degree twist, which is needed to attain closure. This twist is subtle, but its effect on the growing form seems to accumulate over time, becoming noticeable towards the end of the run.
2-Dimensional cellular automata, hexagonal array,
Color-coding of cells age/life-status:
All colored cells are alive except blue-colored cells.
yellow = just born (state = 1),
red = alive 2 or more time-steps (state = 1),
blue = fading "ghost" of cell that died (state = 0),
black = empty space (state = 0),
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General Procedure:
STEP 1). Make a 2-dimensional grid (array) of "cells" which can each have a value of 0 (off/dead) or 1 (on/alive). Conway's famous "Game of Life" cellular automaton uses a square grid, but here we use a hexagonal grid (chicken-wire or honeycomb). Initialize the grid by filling it with all zeros. This is the "main grid".
STEP 2). Add a starting "seed" pattern to the main grid by changing some of the cell values to "1" (on/alive). Sometimes specific compact seeds are used, alternatively sometimes they are a random unstructured spread of ones that II call "primordial soup".
STEP 3). The program then looks at every cell in the entire main grid, one-by-one. When examining each cell, the total number of live neighbor cells is counted among its 6 immediately adjacent neighbor cells (if using "totalistic" rules). The program then consults the rule-set to decide if the central cell will be alive (1, on) or dead (0, off) in the next time-step. In order to not disturb the cell pattern that is being updating, all of these new values are accumulated on a separate "temporary grid".
STEP 4). After every cell is updated on the temporary grid, the main grid is re-initialized to all zeros, and then the temporary grid is copied to the main grid
STEP 5). Repeat Steps 3 & 4 for hundreds or thousands of iterations. The result of each iteration serves as the input for the next iteration. The grid is finite, so the live cell pattern will eventually go repeat or go extinct, although this could take thousands of time-steps.
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Note: this "Hexagon-Multiverse" (HMCA) cellular automaton is similar to Conway's famous "Game of Life" in the sense that both are 2-dimensional, have binary cell states, and are synchronous and deterministic. But the Game of Life uses a square grid, while the HMCA uses a more natural (common in nature) and more symmetrical hexagonal grid. Additionally, the HMCA achieves interesting results using a variety of rule-sets, whereas the Game of Life is limited to a single rule-set.
Hexagonally-shaped hexagonal grid of cells: size remains constant with a radius of 32 cells from the center, along each of 6 directions.
Periodic boundary conditions: 3 pairs of opposite edges wrap to give a topology equivalent to the 2-dimensional surface of a 3-dimensional torus (doughnut) containing a 180 degree twist. .
Neighborhood: semi-totalistic (details to be published at a future date),
Rule-set 354 full designation: 75400 - 4356 - 6608 - 162028,
This rule-set was found by random search.
Time: 294 steps (display rate 5 fps). The first & final frames are shown for 1 & 2 seconds, respectively.
Live cell population: starts at 36, reaches a maximum of 846 on time-step 264, and ends with 618 on the final time-step 294.
Resolution: 2578 screen pixels per cell,
Program: "Hexagon-Multiverse 1.0" (unpublished), PHP language.
Platform: MacBook Pro (M1), Sonoma 14.1.1 OS, Safari 17.1 browser.

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