So I don't know if the comment got deleted, or if Im crazy, but I could have sworn someone had asked about my CGOL circuit..
Whatever, here's an update.
So I've actually made some progress with it, I used the tricks I learned in the Vaygr marquee build to greatly reduce the lag generated per grid square. I've made it so each grid square is it's own ship, and communicates with the other cells via wireless blocks. The timing is good, and the grid calculates the next generation correctly, but occasionally a wireless block will get stuck on for some reason.. So for the last few months I've been working off and on on a way around this. It seems Starmade is trying to thwart my extensive and oft forgotten about projects :/ In any case, the circuit works for a couple generations before it gets some crazy errors, which is a step in the right direction I guess, lol. I have half a mind to change back to the old method, just putting everything on the same entity, but that would be ridiculously laggy :/