harassment

[labrat_wr]

I did run these two puzzles through the solver and it came back with
UNIQUE SOLUTION on each. I do not know what the changes were from the original so I don’t know how this site would have handled a puzzle with multiple solutions.

I love sudokus so while I do have the solve coords, I will likely do the puzzles on my own for kicks.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[HeliDood]

Here’s the original if you want to see it.
I, too, tested them using solvers and found unique solutions.
The one on the left is the one with multiple solves, apparently. (I still don’t see it)

[Lostby7]

😕

[HeliDood]

No, I changed them both.

[Lostby7]

well they seem to be on the up and up at this point in any case…not sure why there were reports of multiple results….maybe the reports alone got the note poster to think it NEEDED a checker.

[-cheeto-]

Nothing will stop a person who wants to share a puzzle solve with others. Nothing will stop the others from finding a puzzle cache they didn’t solve. Owning a puzzle cache means you have to live with that fact.

On the posting a note thing, just keep deleting the notes and ignoring. If you don’t want to add a geochecker you don’t have to. It’s your cache.

As an owner of many puzzle caches in the past, I can say that having a geochecker on there will please many. If your goal is for your cache to be found (isn’t that the goal of placing a geocache) then perhaps you would consider placing a geochcker on there so that the not-so-social types can verify their solve without emailing you.

[gotta run]

Just let the logs go. There’s a famous team in the area here that logs excactly the same thing on every one of their finds: “Easy cache for our team to find.” Doesn’t matter if it takes them a hour to find it, doesn’t matter if it’s a D1 or a D5, and they don’t realize or don’t care that this might be just a bit insulting. Just consider the source and let the logs speak for themselves.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[sandlanders]

@sandlanders wrote:

Ummm… I just started working on these new sudokus for our next trip to the Rapids. I keep forgetting that this is a puzzle cache until I see the coords in the receiver and go “DUH!” Don’t touch it in the next couple of days!

OK. We found this one today. Do with it what you will. 😉

We didn’t need a geochecker on this one. Took the puzzles with us and did them while we were in town. Might have been nice to have one, especially before the updated puzzles, but not necessary. On sudokus, you either have a solution or you don’t. If you don’t, you know it!

Good solid cache. No problems. HeliDood, just ignore the naysayers.

[sandlanders]

oops… double post

[labrat_wr]

In the second original puzzle, I did have two options for the x (DD MM.SXS) but yeah, if there was a beacon nearby, it may draw you to it.

Anyway, the new puzzles seem to be fine.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[CodeJunkie]

If it’s a sudoku then by the rules of sudoku it must have one and only one solution. That’s why most online solvers don’t provide alternate solutions (because there aren’t any).

Obviously for anyone that’s familiar with the Land of Sellzup and the Zoes Coup series there’s obviously way to make it harder to use a “solver”. Sudoku’s are really becoming a dime a dozen due to the online solvers making pretty quick work of standard puzzles. I have seen a number of unique twists with the classic puzzle though.

Second – Solves will be shared and tours will continue with or without a checker. That’s just part of the game and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just like people sharing the secret on hard / unique hides.

Third – As a recent puzzle adopter in the Fox Valley area, I’ve got a quick schooling in how people treat puzzles once a final is known. It becomes nothing more than another traditional with a TFTC. Personally this bugs me but again there are no rules to address it. I find this more insulting to a CO than the annoying posts that you’ve described. You can easily delete yours because they’re just notes. Deleting a tour “Found It” log is almost impossible to do even if you’re 100% certain the finder had nothing to do with the puzzle.

[CodeJunkie]

I forgot to mention that 2 possible solutions 90′ apart would be far more acceptable to me as a puzzle cacher than a puzzle with many multiple solutions spanning a 4 mile radius around a cache and at least 4000 possibilities. Or caches where I can justify a solution, but yet it’s not valid and there are no hints to tell me what data I should be using instead.

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

Just ran through your puz twice and got the same solution both times. Should be fine.

[Johnny Cache]

Original question – Ignore

Current puzzle cache – Both Sudoku’s have unique solves. Good to go.

Original Sudoku’s above – Left puzzle has unique solve. Right puzzle has 5 solves. x and y are variables for DD xM.MyM. Based on permissible distance from posted coordinates, x can be assumed from the 2 possible choices. The difference for y has an 80-90 ft difference, so with a beacon, it should be found.

Sorry to deviate from the topic, but labrat’s post reminded me of some incorrect uses I see on cache descriptions and logs. It is not seconds. It is fractional/decimal minutes. 20 seconds is about a 1/4 mile, whereas .020 minutes is 80-90feet. So if a puzzle CO has a correction to the solve telling you to adjust +8 secs north and -7 secs west, do you do simple math or convert the seconds to minutes and then do the math? Is that part of the puzzle? What if there’s no checker? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

[CodeJunkie]

@Johnny Cache wrote:

Original Sudoku’s above – Left puzzle has unique solve. Right puzzle has 5 solves.

I conquer with JC on this. I also have 5 unique solves for the right hand side. I would also reiterate that a correctly constructed true Sudoku has only one correct answer. I still enjoy a good Sudoku cache, but have found some in the Fox Valley area that don’t have unique solves.

As a programmer it’s easy to see why “solvers” generate a consistent single solution. A program will always follow the same logic path (unless some radomization is built in) meaning it will always generate the same result. This is normally a good thing, because in most scenarios a consistent set of inputs should produce a predictable set of outcomes.

The only way to test for unique solve combinations is via brute force and trying all possible combinations of numbers (easy for a program to do). Doing this by hand would be a very time consuming task. Also keep in mind that a computer generated valid solve, may be valid, but could be next to impossible to get via manual methods because they wouldn’t seem logical from the way we approach the problem.

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