[Isamu]

I believe this one is a deliberate construction, they knew the evolution of the pieces and gradually put it together.

There’s search programs too, for smaller patterns. This construction is just too big and with such a long period. The search space would be enormous.

I got involved in this stuff years ago when I modified a search program for Life to search any CA rule. That’s how we found the HighLife rule and others like Day and Night.