@PrimalMinister
I was going to write post in that thread, but you get into senseless discussion, and downgraded quality of the thread, which resulted in closure.
I wanted to say that what you described in OP, sounded to me like you were talking about what 3D computer programmers call voxels. Voxel is 3 dimensional pixel (VOlume-X-ELement). It's set of properties attached at fixed location, and instead of moving particle from place to place, there is exchange of properties between cells ("voxels").
f.e. voxels are exchanging/splitting momentum to their neighbors voxels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel
Voxels are used to simulate particle interactions. i.e. fluids, clouds, gases etc.
Here is example from YouTube:
Voxels are easy to program, easily computed in parallel, and they are easily scalable (i.e. system administrators can add new machines in the middle of simulation, to make bigger space).
But they're extremely memory hungry in comparison to other methods. e.g. if you have voxels array 1000 cells wide in each 3D axis, there is 1000 ^ 3 = 1000,000,000 voxels total (each with basic properties). But there can be absolute or nearly absolute nothing there (like vacuum between planets or stars).