Return of Dr Sloth [Split 7]

[Siniri]

Anyone else noticed that sometimes when you put in the exact combination, for example 13 . 16 . 5 it gives you different answers everytime you put those 3 in. Does this happen to anyone else? I just can't seem to get any of the 3 mod codes...

Hidinger, are you trying to do one of the 7-symbol 3-mod ones? If it says incomplete data, you need to decode one of the "easier" 3-mod ones first.

Ugh. So does that mean the message I want to continue is one of those harder ones?

Yes. They have separate keys, but both are available on the petpage links. I think you only need to do 1, maybe 2 of the "easier" ones. Then you can move on to the harder ones. You only need to solve the hard ones until you get the Commander Garoo message about transport shuttles. Then you can refresh and get the TBC message and knock out some guards.

[c5ac5b9]

Just a word of help for those working on the 2 and 3 mod deciphering (part 2 of the plot). Once you have finished a 2 mod, look to see if the "incomplete data" warning is gone from the 3 MOD puzzles. After you have the 3 MOD puzzles missing the "incomplete data" writing under the Key, MOD, Target, etc. then go directly to the solving of the puzzles with the 10 item lines in 3 MOD.

The section that you want to find that has the "now famous caption from Garoo" is in the 10 symbol part of the 3 MOD. Solving more of the 7 symbol MODS, after the getting rid of the "incomplete data" writing on the other puzzles, is a waste of time, IMO.




Who ever manages this site, should put up a statement on what needs to be accomplished on the 3 MOD section of part 2 of the plot, so that those still trying to do part 2 do not do all of the puzzles in part 2.

[tippey]

hey, why won't step2 finish? I completed the Garoo Message but I still can't access the bay/escape gaurds game. What's wrong? Someone please answer.

Edit: here's the text [img=http://img31.picoodle.com/img/img31/4/2/9/t_untitledm_1b8882e.gif]

You need to finish all 20 messages, if you have finished all 20 and still can't get in to the shuttle bay maze I don't know what to do.

No, as long as you do the Garoo Message you're done, thing was, that isn't the Garoo Message needed, but foretunately I did that too.

We didn't need to get all 20!!!. I got the Garoo Message with at least three to go, I spent more than an hour on those messages and didn't need too.

[freddyflinstone]

wow the solving the 3 mod puzzles takes FOREVER
I have 14 of the 20 solved now. Still no garoo message
i have 3 with the O symbol left and 3 of the 3-mod ones left
Grrrrrr

[c5ac5b9]

wow the solving the 3 mod puzzles takes FOREVER
I have 14 of the 20 solved now. Still no garoo message
i have 3 with the O symbol left and 3 of the 3-mod ones left
Grrrrrr

do the three with the "O" in them, at least that was where my Garoo message was at.

[arogance1]

I've officially given up, i've spent a lot of hours, and still haven't done any 3 mod'd.
I'm bored of it now, wanna try something else

[Arka]

Deevil, you haven't posted in a while, and I just got back and read your message. When the hourglass does that, try moving other codes to the mod boxes. Other than that I'd suggest refreshing or going back to the inbox and coming back to the puzzle. If you keep a record of about where you got, you won't have to repeat those steps.

[TDG]

Right, I've finally caught up on reading through all the threads and have updated the front page with a (hopefully) far better guide to steps 2 and 3.

I've added a bunch of links to other guides, but I know I've missed some out that had been posted here. If you know of any other guides, could you please repost them?

[Alex]

Ugh. I'm still determined to do this but I haven't made any progress (and I really really need to do work and assignments for uni. Oh well, useful tool of procrastination).

However, I am too tired and too hungover to deal with this, so this shall be interesting........

[May]

I didn't get a chance to start the decryption puzzles until yesterday afternoon. The one and two mod ones weren't that bad. But those three mod ones...ugh. I spent four hours on just one message this morning. Luckily, it was the Garoo message that I needed. Now I'm all caught up, but I hope that steps from now on are fun and not busy work.

[Skynetmain]

Finally done with everything. Another 3 hr of pounding away finished the dang second part of the plot. That was only a 3+ day affair.

At least the third part was easy. I can finally focus on what is happening, not how I'm doing. That being said, Ylana is pretty cool so far. She's going to cause a lot of trouble.

[Twizzler0171]

Finally finished escaping the guards. @_@ omg, the second to last one was really tricky and took all day, but I finished the last one in a few minutes, haha.

[AySz88]

Don't use this post, it's very confusing. I rewrote it - look at the one on the next page.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 for another symbol. Once you have your possible modifier combinations written out, compare them to the ones from another symbol and write down the ones that are common to both. For instance, if 5-8-18 works for your first symbol and works for your second, write it down. However, if it doesn't work for one of your symbols, cross it off.

I think I have a faster way to do something similar (it can be done in your head, with a few handmade reference tables). Mine works best with as few Mod1 and Mod2 changes as possible. Unfortunately, I'm in a rush , so I'm posting this in the hopes that someone might polish this off: [edit] I tried to polish this up, but I don't know yet how comprehensible it is...

Stuff like "Mod3[1]" means "modifier 3, column 1"
"mod n" means modulo, the remainder when you divide by n.

Currently*, the symbols have these values:
X = 1 mod n
V = 2 mod n
C = 3 mod n
8 = 4 mod n
P = 5 mod n (this symbol is also known as mushroom)
Z = 6 mod n (if necessary)
O = 7 mod n (if necessary)
...where n is the number of symbols (5 with 2-mod 5-symbol, 6 without O, or 7 with O).

Write the above key somewhere handy. Mine for 3-mod without O looked like this:

Code:

...-6  -5  -4  -3  -2  -1   0   1   2   3   4   5   6 ...
... Z   P   8   C   V   X   Z   P   8   C   V   X   Z ...

Actual procedure:

Before starting brute force:
Make a table with each combination of two symbols (XX, XV, XC...) and write down all the modifiers that begin with each of the two symbols. I suggest something like this:

Code:

XX: 26    |VX: 2     |CX:
XV:       |VV:16,18  |CV:
XC:1, 29  |VC:       |CC:    ....
X8:8, 12  |V8:       |C8:
XP: 23    |VP: 28    |CP:
XZ:       |VZ: 21    |CZ:

Convert the second symbol of your target into its number, and do the same for your key. Subtract the key from the target, modulo n (this means: if you get a negative number, add n to it - don't drop the negative sign). Write this number down, which will be called T below.

T = (Target[symbol 2] - Key[symbol 2]) mod n.

During brute-force: For each combination of three first-column symbols, place down *two* out of the three modifiers. Remember what symbol you'll need for the first column of your last modifier.

Look at the second column, and find what your last modifier's *second* symbol should be, based on T and the other two modifiers:
For 3-mod, this is equivalent to solving Key[column 2] + Mod1[2] + Mod2[2] + Mod3[2] = Target[2] mod n
For 3-mod: Mod3[2] = T - Mod1[2] - Mod2[2] mod n
For 2-mod: Mod2[2] = T - Mod1[2] mod n

Now you can choose your last modifier based off its first *two* symbols. Look it up in your table (made before). This should narrow your choices down for your last modifier to just one or two (or sometimes none - you've already ruled them all out). If you can do this math quickly, it should be much much faster than trying all the possibilities based off just the first symbol (six or so each).

(It is indeed possible to match on the last three symbols, instead of just the last two. But with two symbols, you'll already encounter situations where you have no matches - with three symbols, it becomes so rare to match all of them that it's probably faster to just match on two.)

*NOTE if the values change:

I figured these values out by mostly guess-and-check with a reference table on 2-mod, though 1-mod might be easier to start with. The symbols, if you have the correct behind-the-scenes values and not just equivalently-behaving values (see below), retain their (positive) values going up from one type of puzzle to the next. So for 2-mod, P === 5 mod 5 (note: NOT 0 mod 5), which becomes P === 5 mod 6 with 3-modifier puzzles (note: NOT 0 mod 6). If these values change, you'll probably need to figure the values out starting with 2-mod or 1-mod, because I found it very hard to discover the values starting cold with 3-mod (before checking on my everything-retains-their-values hunch).

Note that you could accidentally swap some of the symbol values around and not be able to tell until you moved on to the next type of puzzle. For example, you can solve all the 2-modifier puzzles with everything negative by accident (X === (-1 mod 5) === (4 mod 5) instead of (1 mod 5), V === (-2 mod 5) === (3 mod 5) instead of (2 mod 5), and so on.). This is okay, because modular addition and subtraction behaves the same regardless. But then your values for each symbol will seem to be wrong when you go to the 3-mods -- so you have to negate (mod n) all your values first.

For example, say the 2-modifier symbols don't seem to retain their values when going to mod-3. Then try making all the 2-modifier values their negative.
For example, if you have X === (4 mod 5), do this:
X === (4 mod 5) === (-1 mod 5), so instead, try X === (1 mod 5). (Do the same for V, C, and "8")

Figuring out these properties was the most time-consuming part of the puzzle for me so far, but I hope other people will benefit.

[edit] made faster, added notes about where the above numbers came from, made clearer

Last edited by AySz88 on Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:09 pm, edited 19 times in total.

[Valrigard]

I think this plot is going to be another LDP-like one: it's going to take a VERY long time and prizes will be FANTASTIC. Think about it: the code-cracking is at least as hard as the Temple of 1000 Tombs, and it's only started. Will we get a repository-like puzzle? I have no idea.

[Alex]

Seriously, give me the temple over these blasted codes any day. At least mapping out the temple was relatively logical, and didn't have as many possible solutions as this!

On a brighter note, I've finished my first 3mod and can now move onto the ones with O. I need a drink, lol.

ETA: I've completed 1/5 of the O mods. Annoyingly, it was not the one I wanted. I'm going to be completely brain dead by the end of the day - I'm alternating between this, and my work for 3 subjects (Accounting, Management, and Research). Kids, don't do my uni course. I've got 6 possible combinations left for the one I'm doing currently, but I think I need a break.....

And I still want that drink.