A little test

[cicatrix]

A little bit of explanation about what all this is about:

At some point of my KSP experience I grew very excited to find all easter eggs SQUAD has placed here and there on different planets.

Finding them was a great delight and finally, inspired by this thread I started to think about a mod that will add quest elements into the game. The idea is to scatter encrypted messages left by some ancient civilization on different planets which would lead to some prize in the end.

Now, there is a fine point where the process of decryption turns from fun into a headache, so I came up with a little test:

Here's an encrypted phrase in English):

0 10  7  1  15  10  16  -7  1  1  5  7  -5  15  -5  -4  9

It is a relatively easy cipher and there is a hint: the key has something to do with KSP planets.

The questions are:

Was it easy/hard/impossible to decipher?

Should the riddles in the quest be easier/harder than this example?

P.S. I will post the key and the explanation in a few days.

Edited May 7, 2015 by cicatrix
Updated the message, sorry for mistake.

[Borsek]

You forgot the Wut? option in the poll. Seriously, if I wanted to decipher things I'd go play tinfoilhat online - but feel free to make a mod or something, I'm sure some people will love it and figure it out no matter what and how hard it is. The reat will simply google the answers.

[cicatrix]

You forgot the Wut? option in the poll. Seriously, if I wanted to decipher things I'd go play tinfoilhat online - but feel free to make a mod or something, I'm sure some people will love it and figure it out no matter what and how hard it is. The reat will simply google the answers.

I don't think I would like to hardcode the stuff, the messages and locations will be randomized. I gather it IS difficult indeed, so I'll settle for something easier.

So, if anybody cares, here's the answer:

[Freshmeat]

I guessed the system, but could not guess the key - I'd say difficulty should be harder. I do not have the patience for these things, but somebody who put effort into it would be able to solve it rather quickly.

[cicatrix]

I guessed the system, but could not guess the key - I'd say difficulty should be harder. I do not have the patience for these things, but somebody who put effort into it would be able to solve it rather quickly.

I guess I'd have to rethink this. Hardly some ancient civilization used Latin alphabet and decimal notation.

Basically, I want to leave the first hint on Kerbin (somewhere where it can be easily found) - near the UFO crash site, for example and leave a 'message' where the next piece of the puzzle can be found. The information should include a planet (or a moon) + coordinates. That's the hard part - devise a universal coordinate system without using degrees / decimal digits.

Any ideas, by the way?

[Mr. Scruffy]

[EDIT: haha - xpost]

I´d suggest you use pictures and geometry whenever you can, for the riddles. Numbers/math is okay, too, but even using them like ´1´, ´2´, ´3´... takes a bit from the alien-ness (better: |,||,|||, ... for example). Dont do codes like that, please, cause if somebody left the message, it was meant to be understood - intentional codification should not be the obstacle to understanding it, but simply trying to figure what is meant by the forms and pictograms or whatever. Any use of conventional stuff (like the alphabet) should be avoided, imho, and only ´universal truths´ and/or strange glyphs be utilized.

Also, if possible, you could do something like using a certain science instrument (something is supposed to scan actively) close to an ´alien crate´ might open it, with some hints to that depicted on its lid (say a wave next to an open crate), for example. If the player cant figure it out, he might be able to excravate the crate, bring it home (as soil sample, so to say) and get what´s in it after that.

Just throwing idea out there, trying to help... i´d like to play such a mod very much.

- - - Updated - - -

New, post for the last was an xpost:

You could leave the very first hint right at the KSP and THAT ONE could use conventions (Alphabet, numbers) - it´d be something you snatched from the KIA - top secret stuff about something found close to the north pole...

As for giving coordinates: That´s really hard, i guess. Hmmm... Here´s an idea: crop pictures from close to them and use those in your hints. Altitude profiles, maybe. Then you only have to codify the body.

EDIT: For body identification, you could place some sort of rosetta stone early on, which would assign a glyph to each planet (by graphical means, NOT: ´Moho = ß´..., but a pictrogram of the system with the glyphs shown next to the planets, or maybe simply the sequence of glyphs as the planets with smaller glyphs for their moons below each), and use glyphs on the other hints - some people might not find the stone, but figure it anyways.

EDIT2: I guess the distance from the equator of a site could also be universally codified as a pictograms, as the equator is fixed by nature. For the other (i cant ever remember which is long- and which is latitude) you could use the highest elevation of the body as reference and shift default coordinates accordingly for each one. Then you´d have to translate each set of coordinates into some sort of other convention, that is somehow alien, yet accurate enough, in its own logic. Maybe, they should not be given in degrees, but actual distance from that point of reference (y=equator,x=of highest elevation), so the logic behind it is not that obvious and ´20°N´ reads completely differently for two bodies of different sizes.

Which brings us the units - be they degrees or distances. Those have to be universally codified as well and a hint given as to what ´something´ in ´1 something´ means (after you have figured how a ´1´ looks like). As this will probably something of planetary scale (i´d suggest the distance between some moon to its planet - which one is the most circular?), you probably will have to find a way to write something as ´1/x´ as well.

Well, there could be some micro-scale, again to be figured by finding stuff. Say the distance between two peaks on some planet. There be a hint, showing the peaks and a line between them and the glyph for that distance - but you might not figure it, until you maybe accidently, while in orbit, notice those peaks and go ´Ahhh!´.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Mr. Scruffy

[katateochi]

well, I got as far as the sum of all the numbers is 76, 7 * 6 is 42 so having arrived at the answer I was happy to leave it at that!

[moogoob]

While I'm just enough of a crypto geek to figure out one-time pads in high school (merely from reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, of course), decryption has never been my thing. Too abstract for my liking. I much prefer physics puzzles - like getting to Moho without turning your orbit into a flyby.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Rambling on: In addition to that ´rosetta stone´ each body could literally wear its glyph somewhere on its surface.

[monophonic]

You could add a mechanism where a sufficiently skilled scientist could give the player hints or even a partial solution. There could be a science point cost to pay too, maybe dependent on the experience level of the scientist. Maybe even get the full solution if you spend enough. It would be important to get the costs just right though. Too cheap and there isn't much incentive to solve the puzzle, too much and it's a grindfest if you can't solve them.

[cicatrix]

Well, the first hint should be fairly obvious, so it can even be a contract from KSA (Kerbal Security Agency) - investigate the area near the north pole...

There, geometry and glyphs. I think that using some weird numeric system like base 3 or base 7 can fit nicely, the more I think of that the more I understand that I simply can't go without numbers... I can probably get by with fractions of radius/diameter of a planet, but that will not be precise enough... After all, the artifacts are rather small and in order to find them you will have to have a rather narrow search area.

Here, is it obvious enough?

Also, what's best for reward? Science or some technology?

Edited May 7, 2015 by cicatrix

[Borsek]

You will never please everyone, make something and get the people to figure it out, no matter how hard it is, people will do it. For pete's sake people found the magic boulder after all!

[Randazzo]

This is a cool concept, but you're going to have one heck of a time coming up with a balanced (in terms of players capabilities) challenge.

Honestly, I could have stared at those numbers forever and never gotten anything out of it. Having no knowledge of ciphers, it would not have occurred to me that a -key- would be needed.

I imagine the toughest part of the whole thing would be finding a challenge on common enough ground that the majority of players could eventually figure it out.

As an aside, since I am me and Tater is Tater, does S! ring any bells with you?

[Mr. Scruffy]

Yepp, the number system is fine. I had issues figuring it, but that´s fine.

The reward: You know, what would be most desirable would probably not be achievable exactly due to the intended alien-nesses - the best reward would be a story unfolding. Like, i dunno, something that happenend in the system a loong time ago. But how would it be told?

So short of that, i think some technology is preferable to science. What you find there is nothing you could have gotten anywhere else (or maybe be in the mod as an extra tech node, requirint massive amounts of science, allowing you to unlock it without actually doing the ´quest´). So some unique part it would be - what kind of part? I dont know.

Also, if that is possible, some (the monoliths for example) could work as teleporters, where when you get too close, they beam you to their respective counter part, or whatnot. Cheap way of traveling with small craft / individual kerbals, between fixed points. So, maybe (one of) the reward(s) could be that these things become researchable (requiring science, not dishing it out), and then build- (for lots of funds) and deployable in pairs. Or maybe you can just choose at which of the monolith you want to get out at...

Uh, yeah... just throwing things out there...

[Postremus]

the first tasks should give science only, and the later (and harder) tasks should give some technology.

Like, upgrades for engines to make them more efficient.

[cicatrix]

First of all I'm about to write a scenario. Then, well, I know very little about KSP modding I guess it's never late to learn something. Or I could use some help from another willing modder.

What I need is:

Some simple models of artifacts with procedural textures (to render random glyphs, numbers, etc)

Some plugin that will allow me to spawn them around the Kerbol system.

Some prize part - an engine perhaps, or even an alien ship. (maybe even an actually flyable flying saucer lol). I think it will be simply orbiting the sun somewhere... waiting. And it wouldn't open until all the riddles are solved.

[Teutooni]

Honestly, I could have stared at those numbers forever and never gotten anything out of it. Having no knowledge of ciphers, it would not have occurred to me that a -key- would be needed.

Thing with one time pads is if op used a truly random key the same length of the message, it would have been literally impossible to break. I'm talking about theoretically perfect security. You can try all possible keys and all you get is all possible messages and no way of knowing which is the original. To be fair he did give a hint regarding the key which was quite short and we knew the message was in english, should have been fairly easy to crack. Basically you'd have to either guess the key and know how to apply it to decpiher the message, or have some knowledge of attacking one-time pads with weak non-random keys.

As for puzzles in games... I dunno, otp seems overkill. Better just obfuscate the message, like someone posted about geometric shapes and such. If you already have to piece together the key from hints it is imo unnecessary to have the additional step of applying it to the cipher. Just have the message itself splattered across the Kerbol system.

If you want a universal number system, binary. It is the simplest one, all others are fairly arbitrary. There are cases for base 6 and 60 afaik due to being equally divisible by 2, 3 and 6 (and 4, 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 in case of 60). Humans count in decimal because we have 10 fingers.

[Randazzo]

To be fair he did give a hint regarding the key which was quite short and we knew the message was in english, should have been fairly easy to crack.

Which is meaningless unless you

have some knowledge of attacking one-time pads with weak non-random keys.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I like the idea of getting a reward at the end of the quest, like a monolith and that said monolith allowed you to teleport stuff. You would find these monoliths doing quests and then ship them where you want to teleport. Obivously you have a finite number of them and nobody knows how they work. Maybe the quests could reward you with monoliths some times, and other things some other times, so you don't end up with a hundred teleporters all over the place?

Of course I'm thinking in having more than just one quest here, but that's maybe too much, because you have to come up with a ton of riddles.

As for the messages. I'd suggest going with the "they wanted to test if Kerbal kind was smart enough before revealing things" approach. Once you're there, you can specifically challenge the player instead of going with the more logical "but the message was meant to be understood" line. That opens the possibilities for having more varied riddles.

Also, I would keep the type of riddles varied. It's all fine doing some crypto but at some point it might be tedious for some people. Now you throw some math in, some geometry, some crypto... and I can see my slef going through a type of problem I don't like just to get to the next one that I might like.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I love the idea, but pls make it easier.

Decrypting SSTV signals into a jpg is hard enough for most People.

[sj176]

I think I failed the test.

[Octa]

I think I failed the test.

I didn't get the hint with the key, so i wrote a script that assumes that the numbers were offsets from the letter which was assigned the zero. So different texts for

A=0

B=1

..

Z=-1

or

Z=-2

A=-1

B=0

C= -1

Yes, i tired to decipher without the key.

I don't know what i expected....