i anticipate a fair number of solves will share this approach: sort the atoms into fire and not-fire, then guess how much water there is with output conditionals. this caps the rate, and thus the cycles, of this solve, but the expense of separating the water from the salt proved too great every time i tried (and believe me, i tried). honestly I'm a little upset, i wish output conditionals weren't allowed. i submitted my solve that doesn't use them as showcase. other than that, this was a fun computation puzzle. i'm looking forward to seeing all the better approaches people find!