Here is a lifeform which has “solved” nanopond, which evolved after running the simulation for 14 hours; I find it unlikely that any new lifeforms can beat this one:
15e83eb5e46b5e91ed58ac0f
Translated, that is:
1
READG
SHARE
WRITEB
INC
SHARE
TURN
READG
SHARE
DEC
WRITEG
TURN
READG
SHARE
LOOP
FWD
SHARE
KILL
READG
WRITEB
REP
XCHG 0
STOP
There are two things that make this species strong: one, it shares almost randomly with cells around it, so it basically can eat energy from 5 cells around it instead of just the one it’s on; two, it rewrites its first nybble with a random(ish) one (one of its neighbors’ first nybbles minus one), so that nothing can evolve to kill its kind. Recall that to kill a cell you have to have the first nybble of that cell’s genome in your register when you do. Constantly changing your first nybble prevents that.
