iDB Community Forum

The 5 level 1 puzzles (1, 2, 4, 8, and 13)are simple:

(anything) + C = (anything)
V + V = X
X + X = V
V + X = C

These appear to hold to the Associative rule I vaguely remember from math, that is A + B = B + A. I started out thinking this was a simple pattern series matching until I get to the level 2 puzzles, with "8" and "P" and two modifiers. I started a spreadsheet, simply enumerating the possible combitions, 888, 88C, 88P, 88V, 88X, 8CC, etc... to XXX. The Associative rule seems to still hold true.

However, this may actually be some math involved as I found that PPP = P and in another matchup PPP = V.

So, no I need to track this deeper, thinking that perhaps it is a number substitution with a base 5 or something. *ACK* Why do they have to hit me with this after 10 hours at work...

The Plot Board on Neo figured it out: It's a number cycle. Each symbol represents a number, and it is addition. But the symbols change numbers between the 1, 2, and 3 modifiers.

For the 3 modifiers, it's:
C = 1
V = 2
X = 3
Z = 4
U = 5
8 = 6

It wouldn't take very long for someone to create a more definitive key to prevent the need to add.

I tried to brute two of my 3s with knowledge of the first symbol, but failed with both. Either I missed one, or clicking finger overlooked one combination while solving, or something. But it shouldn't be more than a week until someone has a script out to solve this. I'd write one myself if I could figure out how to eliminate inaccurate combinations.

I'm tired, and I don't get this at all. Can someone spell out exactly what I'm trying to do here?

Man, do I EVER just want to beat things up in the BD and not bother with all this puzzle crap. It's been way too long.

For the 2-mod with 5 "digits", I mapped (the associative property still holds true):

8 = 88X
8 = 8CV
8 = 8PP
8 = CCC
8 = CPX
8 = PVV
C = 88P
C = 8CX
C = 8VV
C = CCV
C = CPP
C = PVX
C = XXX
P = 88V
P = 8CC
P = 8PX
P = CPV
P = CXX
P = PPP
P = VVX
V = 888
V = 8CP
V = 8VX
V = CCX
V = CVV
V = PPV
V = PXX
X = 88C
X = 8PV
X = 8XX
X = CCP
X = CVX
X = PPX
X = VVV

I just grabbed each key in order and dropped it into the first spot, then did a look up on what the last two digits of the second modifier must be in order for it to sum up. Seemed to work pretty straight forward. Although it appears to work like addition, each column is considered individually with no "carry" -- behaves more like it's affected by a modulo.

Half of the 3 modifier problems appear to be more of the same, only now there is an additional digit to compound things. The other half of the 3 modifier problems (which show *** INCOMPLETE DATA *** presumably until the others are solved) may use multiplication? Might be easier to figure out the numerical digits and base and plug these into a calculator... Or maybe more digits will display as the other problems are solved and they too will just be additive...

I sort of know what's going on now... there were some good neoboard posts. One question, though... for the three-mod ones, are the symbol values the same for everyone?

8 = 0 and it is base 6 with no carry on the addition.

---

Dunno if they are the same values for everyone, although everyone seems to have the same symbols... Shattered Rift and I seem to have come out with the same values.

I'm starting to wonder if I can write a calculator in less time than brute force the addition in my head.

Yeah, I checked around, and the symbol values are the same for everyone:

C = 1
V = 2
X = 3
Z = 4
T = 5
8 = 6 (or 0?)

It is going to take forever to solve these. I hope someone does write a program to do it, because I don't have the patience (at least not tonight).

In base 6, "6" is really "10", so that's why the "8" digit works as either a 0 or 6 because we are summing the columns and throwing away the carry over digit. I built a little calculator in Excel to aid in my brute force attack, but what I really need is a script that I can stuff all of the number strings into an array and have it crunch through the combinations until it finds a match. Presumably, the Neo team was clever enough not to have multiple answers.

Maybe I'll write a little script, although I'm thinking I've fiddled enough for tonight. Meetings in the morning.

Wow. I'm not understanding any of this. o_O

At least the fact that step two is so insanely hard, may mean that we'll get fair prizes.

Every step that is released, another door opens. Maybe we'll get one more puzzle for the last door, then we can have our war?

Hopefully. But if a script ends up being written and everyone on Neo uses it, TNT will dumb down the value of this puzzle.

I might write something tomorrow in PHP to do it. Annoying thing is going to be if we mis-input stuff, especially since we're converting symbols to numbers.

The difficulty curve with this plot has been interesting. Doesn't it normally take halfway through the plot to reach something of this difficulty? Such as potions from ToW, which I skipped over. Though I don't think I got very far in JLI...