Hoping for a guide on the puzzles

[Tony Tonsils]

I have a caveman brain. I can navigate and fight pretty well, but the moment I look at an electrical puzzle, my brain shuts down. Please help a neanderthal in need.

[Stargoat]

You can play the game on a lower 'puzzles' difficulty. That way you can still experience the rest of the game fully. The electrical puzzles are only a small part of it.

[Phil]

There are two types of puzzles (three if you count chess as a puzzle): The ones with the plugs and the one where you just need to connect the two "dots".

With the plugs there are two important things that might not be obvious: each plug has a different power rating of 1 or 2 (see the lights on the plug). Then look at the target bar, there are two small blue markings that roughly show you (they are not very precise...) how much power you need. Then it is just a matter of routing the power throught the lines to get as much there as required.

The other puzzle type is a basic "create route from A to B" puzzle where you need to connect the two square light thingies. Those can not be rotated so first rotate all lines that are connected to those and are not ambigious. Then there are the round thingies, which also connect two adjacent tiles, check for small lines at the edges. Some tiles have a yellow/golden/bronze background. Those can not be rotated directly (most of the time) but have to be rotated by using adjacent blue circle thingies as those rotate all other adjacent tiles too once they get rotated. That is basically it.

[Zalugar]

The puzzles seem to be randomly generated to an extent as well as change based on difficulty, so there funnily won't be a guide. All you can do is learn how to solve them or, well, skip them an item you can find. Incidentally, this item can also randomly drop from enemies.

A speedrunner's worst nightmare. I like the puzzles so it's just good news for me.

[SuperCoolFool]

some of the puzzles confuse me, specifically the plug one because it seems like ill get a full bar of power but theres no clear indicator that its been solved correctly. just now i did that but got no reaction and accidently wasted a logic probe trying to see if i had to press some button to complete it. maybe im a dumb ass here and theres more to it im missing

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by SuperCoolFool:

some of the puzzles confuse me, specifically the plug one because it seems like ill get a full bar of power but theres no clear indicator that its been solved correctly. just now i did that but got no reaction and accidently wasted a logic probe trying to see if i had to press some button to complete it. maybe im a dumb ass here and theres more to it im missing

You need to get the power bar so that it sits between two indicators rather than full.

[Shadow]

And any time you solve a puzzle correctly it'll immediately close and no longer be interactable (you'll generally get a message about what it did, too).

[Vigil]

Originally posted by SuperCoolFool:

some of the puzzles confuse me, specifically the plug one because it seems like ill get a full bar of power but theres no clear indicator that its been solved correctly. just now i did that but got no reaction and accidently wasted a logic probe trying to see if i had to press some button to complete it. maybe im a dumb ass here and theres more to it im missing

Read Phil's second paragraph in an earlier comment.

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by SuperCoolFool:

some of the puzzles confuse me, specifically the plug one because it seems like ill get a full bar of power but theres no clear indicator that its been solved correctly. just now i did that but got no reaction and accidently wasted a logic probe trying to see if i had to press some button to complete it. maybe im a dumb ass here and theres more to it im missing

There are 2 blue indicator lights on the power bar, you need to get the power level to somewhere between those 2 lights.
Also note that each plug has 1 or 2 lights to indicate their power level.

[Devoras]

It took me awhile to work out how they even worked, in addition to what was said earlier there were a couple of things that confused me for a long while.

On the 'get from a to b' puzzle, the blue tiles actually have links on them too, the same as the white ones, but they're almost impossible to see unless you're specifically looking for them, you have to look REALLY carefully, if you don't know that they are there you probably won't see them. I thought a puzzle was impossible because one of the blue nodes wasn't accepting connections and I had no way to complete it without, but it was just turned the wrong way. It's almost impossible to see where the connections are, you have to look REALLY close at the blue tiles to see them. Oh, and you're supposed to get the connection from the red square to the other red square. I'm not sure what the red circle tiles do, if anything, they glow when you connect to them and put the connection facing away from the incoming connection for some reason but it doesn't seem to continue moving the power beyond it.

On the plug puzzle, I figured out that there was different power levels in the plugs but not how to tell which ones had more or less power, I was just moving them around to test, which was a huge pain because it takes awhile for the power to move through so you can see; I'm not sure I saw the different plug colours. But one other thing that took awhile, on the board you can turn the knobs, but there are also switches on the board you can click to stop power from going through a line, I didn't notice those switches that you can push. Power can also be amplified if you have them go through some of the things, but I don't know how it works, I've just used trial and error. Some of the lines double up if you have power coming in from both sides, if power moves through some of the things the power seems to go up or split, though I don't know why or how it works.

I'm really not liking the puzzles because there's no explanation on them at all, I considered refunding, but they do get a lot better once you have a basic understanding of how they work.

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by Devoras:

I'm really not liking the puzzles because there's no explanation on them at all, I considered refunding, but they do get a lot better once you have a basic understanding of how they work.

There is actually an explanation, in the manual. Which you can find as a pdf in the games main folder.

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by Devoras:

<snip>

Some tips for puzzles:

Rewiring puzzle:

- There are lights on the plugs (1 power unit and 2)
- You can also look at the plugs and other components and the object identifier readout at the top of the screen will tell you what they are
- 'Splitters' (one line into two) take the input power and output that same power on both output lines, effectively doubling the line power
- 'Combiners' (2-3 lines into one) output the sum of the inputs
- 'Dials' redirect power
- 'Switches' turn off power (although some also redirect)

The basic idea is that if you need lots of power, you can, say, split power from a 2 unit plug (giving you 4 total). If you then combine one of the split lines with power from a 1 unit plug, you now have 5 total power.

You can count the required power on the metre and work out what goes where before wiring anything up. The switches and dials are handy for regulating power so you don't overshoot, 1 power unit plugs can be used as 'enable' signals etc.

Logic circuit puzzle

- Orange tiles can only be moved through the blue dials
- Green tiles can be moved either through dials or directly
- Blue tiles either move tiles in the cardinal directions or diagonally
- Blue tiles can (sometimes frustratingly) chain together
- Some blue dials can also 'pass through' power. I found It can be kind of hard to see which ones can do that, but there's a slightly clear 'window' on two sides of ones that can
- I've also found what appear to be red diodes - they'll pass power through in one direction only, and can generally be moved manually
- But I haven't encountered any puzzles that actually use the red diode

The logic circuit puzzle can be brute-forced easier than the rewiring one. The main trick is that they can have red herring paths that *look* like they should work, but one interaction prevents that, so if you're struggling with one, try backtracking.

Also, some of the logic puzzles I found easier to do backwards.

Happy puzzling!

[TheLastLine]

I’m having trouble with the puzzle that goes from one node to the other, I guess it’s the logic circuit, I’m convinced it doesn’t work. I have one node and when I connect a piece it will light up, that piece goes straight to a circuit, but no matter how I position the circuit and surrounding pieces, I can’t get any more to light up.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by TheLastLife:

I’m having trouble with the puzzle that goes from one node to the other, I guess it’s the logic circuit, I’m convinced it doesn’t work. I have one node and when I connect a piece it will light up, that piece goes straight to a circuit, but no matter how I position the circuit and surrounding pieces, I can’t get any more to light up.

The goal is to light up the two nodes that look the same. The larger square lights. Not the smaller rounder ones.

[Hash]

It may be worth mentioning that quite a few of those puzzles only serve as a shortcut. Those that open a door you can reach from the other side or trigger a switch you can just push yourself are not necessary to be solved.

For example: The very first puzzle you find fixes an elevator that you can just normally use if you circle around to the other side. Same goes for the one that unlocks the door to the alpha quadrant on medical.

Some need to be solved, others are just ways you may or may not want to use.

[Gyrano]

Best to mention that there's a PDF manual in the game's files that showcases the junction box puzzles