[Multiplatform] Fallout 3 - Guns with Oblivion

I don't quite understand the issue with the hacking game where people have so many problems.

I'm going to go find a terminal in the game right now and hack it.

Okay, I found a Very Easy terminal, but the principles still apply.

These are the words I see:

CASES FARMS GAMES TASKS TWIGS TANDY TRIES
THUGS JAMES TOMES CARES TEAMS CAGES THREE PARTS

The first word overall doesn't matter terribly. The game is good at choosing a group of words that, no matter which one you choose, share letters with most of the others. Let's take TWIGS and go from there.

Lucked out and got 3/5 correct there. Let's see what that eliminates...

CASES FARMS GAMES TASKS TWIGS TANDY TRIES
THUGS JAMES TOMES CARES TEAMS CAGES THREE PARTS

Well, damn, this actually worked really well. We have two possible words and three guesses left. For the sake of completeness, let's choose TRIES...

DING!

Now that the answer has been established, let's assume we didn't make such a good word choice. Like FARMS. That would've matched 1 letter. Eliminate all the words that share any number other than 1 letter with FARMS.

CASES FARMS GAMES TASKS TWIGS TANDY TRIES
THUGS JAMES TOMES CARES TEAMS CAGES THREE PARTS

This is where looking ahead comes in. If we were to choose TANDY, we'd have to get lucky and hope that's the password. If it isn't, it gives us no information because all the words remaining begin with T, and none of them share anything else with TANDY. We'd get another 1, and the only word eliminated would be... TANDY.

I'd personally choose one of the words that fits in T _ _ _ S. Choosing THUGS at this point leaves us with TRIES and THREE, and 2 guesses left. Another guaranteed win. Choosing TWIGS leaves TRIES, and choosing TOMES also leaves just TRIES.

Be warned, though. The seven-letter and eight-letter words later on throw a lot of monkey wrenches into this, and you have to be extra careful. The upside is that with more letters comes more opportunities for the words to differ from each other; I've had more trouble with 5-letter terminals than 7-letter.

I will admit that there is some luck in the opening choices that factors into this. As you saw, I randomly picked TWIGS and it guaranteed my win. Picking blindly, or worse, picking based only on your most recent guess can doom you.

Maybe I'm just too much of a word geek, but I find this hacking game to be quite fun.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Oh sorry, I glossed over the link because it said GameFAQs.

Still leaving mine up.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by SCHNEE-4

It's not as unfair as you make it out to be.

The biggest complaint I keep hearing (from Skills lol) is that luck factors into it, and to a certain extent it does. The right initial word choice can guarantee victory, and the wrong initial word choice can make it a lot harder.

You can still minimize the effects of luck by looking ahead and using strategy, but I guess some people just want to mash A real quick.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by GELB-1

Did you listen to my problems with the thing or not? I had issues with many more aspects of it than just "luck lol".

I know you dislike the lack of effect that the stat has on the game. I was trying to focus on the game itself.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well, I think you guys are forgetting that Oblivion got one major expansion pack and not much else. Knights of the Nine was the closest equivalent to the Fallout DLC packs in terms of length and price, and all the other things were one building and an associated quest. The amount of content released by the end of these 5 packs is probably going to be about the same as was in Shivering Isles, just released in bite-sized pieces. I can live with that.

And also BZ hitting level 30 on Broken Steel isn't hard at all, the fuck are you talking about. By the end of the main quest you're almost level 27, and the sidequests bring you up at least one level, and I had maybe 2 quests to do from the original main game that brought me to about 28 and change. After that you just explore a few buildings and kill some super mutants, once you have the Tesla Cannon you shouldn't be having trouble killing ANYTHING in one or two shots aside from behemoths, albino radscorpions, and whatever those new non-behemoth super mutants are.

And RR, since your post appears to have been made before they announced this, they are releasing two retail packs of DLC.

The first one's out now, and it runs $20 for Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt.
The second one will (I'm assuming) be $30, come out in August (?) and have Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?