Rene's Puzzles

[jf]

For the Vault, I had to bribe some guards to get to the gold: vadihoc.

Is it possible to bring the gold bars out one at a time?

Smart move, Blofelt! But try it without bribes this time:

The Vault II: jefalug

yes

As I was going to St Ives, I met seven cat burglars: gytysyl for Vault II jefalug.

[Bucky]

I don't bother with bribes and stuff.  I just tamper with the automatic lock.
Vault 2(jefalug):gakicax

I haven't done a solution for a while, and it shows;  It's extremely sloppy due to the excessive use of drop timers.

[Rene]

Here is my attempt to crack the vault.

For The Vault II (jefalug): besased

NEW PUZZLE

Due to the recent burglaries, the management of the bank has reviewed the safety measures surrounding the vault. In the security audit they have discovered that the security grid was installed the wrong way around. Instead of preventing getting gold out of the vault, it was preventing bringing gold into the vault. So now they have updated the vault, and re-installed the safety grid.

Vault III: kipyzah

[Rene]

NEW PUZZLE

Recently, I was browsing through some of the old puzzles and their solutions. When I looked at Glass Floor Vengeance (nubusix), and both solutions (JF's and mine), I came up with some ideas how to improve the solutions. As a result, there is now a new installment of the Glass Floor series. The original Glass Floor Vengeance had 11 glass tiles and was extremely hard. But 11 glass tiles is luxury compared to 8 tiles :

Glass Floor Ultimate: kifabab

Some warnings upfront:

• if you are a Rubicon beginner, do not even think about trying to solve this one. I do not want you to loose the fun in Rubicon because this puzzle is frustratingly difficult. There are plenty of fun puzzle out there in various degrees of difficulty that you can try first.
  
• If you are an expert: try to solve the other Glass Floor puzzles first (especially Glass Floor Vengeance)
  
• If you are called JF: have fun! 
  

As usual, I will post my solution in a couple of weeks. If you want to try your hand at kifabab, but want to be helped a little bit, I have prepared a series of hints:

1) In order to solve the puzzle, you will need some pre-placed barrel(s) on the left side of the floor. Depending on the movement of these barrels, you will need to calculate new barrel(s) and drop those on the glass floor to the right, in order to further test the hidden value. That is not too hard, there are various ways in which that can be done. What makes the puzzle difficult is that you need to do that fast. Typically you have only 2 or 3 ticks to detect the movement, calculate the new barrel(s) and drop them on the floor. Experiment with different ways of doing this.
2) Analyse JF's solution to Glass Floor Vengeance (midyroc), and try to improve that approach. There is some dead wood that can be chopped.
3) Notice that JF's solution uses 7 pre-placed barrels on the left, and 1 dynamically generated barrel on the right. The 7 pre-placed barrels subdivide the 16 possible values into 8 groups of 2 values each. The dynamic barrel then tests between the 2 values. Let's call this the 7-1 approach. JF has 3 open spaces between the pre-placed barrels and the dynamic barrel, which effectively means he has 3 ticks to calculate and place the dynamic barrel.
4) The 7-1 approach is not the only approach you can take. Note that my solution to Glass Floor Vengeance (pamifux) could be called a 1-1-1-1 approach. The pre-placed '8' barrel subdivides the values into 0-7 and 8-F. Each subsequent barrel subdivides the result groups further. I used a short-cut for the 4-7 group, which explains the leading 4 barrel, and most of the stuff on top.
5) One other obvious approach is 3-3. Three preplaced barrels subdivide the 16 possible values into 4 groups of 4 values each. You then need to calculate 3 new barrels to distinguish between the 4 remaining values. The 3-3 approach on a glass floor with 8 tiles leaves 2 ticks to calculate and place the barrels. Experiment some with this approach. Concentrate on bringing down the time you need to calculate the barrels.
6) Note that only the first dynamic barrel needs to be calculated in 2 ticks. Each subsequent one can use an additional tick to be calculated. Something similar is true for the pre-placed barrels. With an 8 tile glass floor, there are 7 ticks between movement of the left-most pre-placed barrel, and the placement of the right-most calculated barrel. Use that time.
7) It might be possible with 3-3, but in my solution to Glass Floor Ultimate, I use a 4-2 approach. The 4 preplaced barrels subdivide into 5 groups of 3 values each, which leaves one special case. The special case is handled by an extra barrel on the remaining two glass floor tiles.
That's it, no more tips; you're on your own now  . If you really give up, then check the solution that I will post in a couple of weeks.

[jf]

I've been looking at Glass Floor Ultimate... hmmm, this isn't going to be easy, is it?

For The Vault III (kipyzah): toxuhan. I took advantage of the rain.

PS. I really like Bucky's lock tampering in gakicax (for The Vault II).

[Rene]

I've been looking at Glass Floor Ultimate... hmmm, this isn't going to be easy, is it?

Just a walk in the park for you, JF  ....or, should I say, a stroll on the floor....   

Here is my opening of the vault:

For Vault III (kipyzah): pexudof

[jf]

Well Rene, that was an extremely tough one, but I've managed to solve it. I've just read your spoilers for Glass Floor Ultimate, and that's a good breakdown of the possibilities.

For Glass Floor Ultimate (kifabab): jacidun

I have to agree with your first hint: You have to be fast! The greatest difficulty in this puzzle is in the speed, not the number of glass tiles.

It will be interesting to see your solution, because I can tell from your spoilers that once again we've used different designs. 

On Rene's hints:
I considered a 4-x approach, and a 3-3 approach. After much experimentation, on and off, since the puzzle was posted, I finally settled on the 3-3 approach, which is to split the possible values into four groups to start, and then drop three more barrels to the right. There are some huge obstacles to overcome, though. The biggest is that there are only 3 ticks to choose the first right-side barrel and get it into place, from the time the crate glides under the rightmost of the first three barrels to the time that it will slide under this leftmost of the second group. That gives you only one single tick to work with, to create a value, since you'll need one tick to position it above the spot vertically, and another tick to drop it into place. I just could not find a way to position and drop *three* new values, so I eventually abandoned the 3-3 approach.

My approach:
I use what you could call a 3-1-1 approach, which is to divide first into four groups, and then for each group, drop two values to detect one of four possible solutions. It is amazingly difficult to drop those two values down in that short space of time, and not leave a big mess to deal with at the end. But having done that, it's pretty straightforward to then read the scattered barrels and come up with the solution value. I actually do run out of time in some cases, but enough information is left on the floor that even for those special cases I can calculate the solution.

Excellent puzzle!

[Rene]

Welll done, JF, well done.
I based my solution on your midyroc, but I can see that you made a combination between your and my solutions.
You managed to find another way than me for the "it does not move" barrel to be dropped in the same tick as the last "it does move" barrel. As you know, that is key to getting it fast enough. I also like the way you handled the F special case.


Most of the credit for this one goes to you. When I made Vengeance, I was convinced that 11 tiles would be the minimum possible. Your solution made me think it could be done with less. I was just surprised that it can go down to as few as 8.

Here is my solution:

For Glass Floor Ultimate (kifabab): pikahic

[Timbo]

By copying Renes 4-2 solution I made folowing 3-3 solution for For Glass Floor Ultimate (kifabab): logaxol

[Rene]

By copying Renes 4-2 solution I made folowing 3-3 solution for For Glass Floor Ultimate (kifabab): logaxol

Good solution, Timbo. That's a neat trick to keep the middle barrel on top of the pipe; I could not get that to work when I tried a 3-3 solution.

[jf]

There are a lot of subtleties in those solutions. For example, the second tier of glass not only shifts the timing left, but also allows a dozer to pass underneath -- I used winches to give the dozer a path through. This puzzle really pushes the Rubicon envelope. Great puzzle.

[Rene]

NEW PUZZLE

I feel the need...

The Need For Speed: pixisop

[Werbad]

For The Need For Speed (pixisop): gyzaxut

[jf]

For The Need For Speed (pixisop): gyxodef -- in 44 ticks

I would guess that you took the time to polish this puzzle so that every last bit counts -- even one open section in the upwards pipe slows down the crates too much to solve.

[Timbo]

For The Need For Speed (pixisop): notigug

Not every bit counts if you speed up a little bit. I even got 3 open section in the upwards pipe