Codebusters C

freed2003
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by freed2003 »

Thanks for the help guys. Also, are xenocrypts worth it if you don’t have a native spanish speaker? One of my team mates is pretty good at spanish(he got a 5 on ap and started learning in elementary) but he keeps saying that it’s still too hard for him
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by will0416 »

freed2003 wrote: January 1st, 2021, 1:50 am Thanks for the help guys. Also, are xenocrypts worth it if you don’t have a native spanish speaker? One of my team mates is pretty good at spanish(he got a 5 on ap and started learning in elementary) but he keeps saying that it’s still too hard for him
Xenocrypts should be a piece of cake for him if he's been learning Spanish for that long - it's probably just practice with aristocrats that he needs to be comfortable with them & not the Spanish aspect.
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by Umaroth »

freed2003 wrote: January 1st, 2021, 1:50 am Thanks for the help guys. Also, are xenocrypts worth it if you don’t have a native spanish speaker? One of my team mates is pretty good at spanish(he got a 5 on ap and started learning in elementary) but he keeps saying that it’s still too hard for him
This is a tricky question because high school Spanish curriculum is so bad that even if you got a 5 in AP Spanish Lang that doesn't mean you're able to do xenos efficiently. I'd say they just need more practice. Cuando hago los xenos necesito pensar en español y es como si estuviera hechizado. Es difícil para mí hacerlos cuando no estoy en la mentalidad pero me puedo preparar por escuchar a música española o algo así. I just realized I went into a bit of a Spanish trance and I am posting from my phone so I don't want to go through and delete it but basically when I do xenos I think in Spanish and get into sort of a trance and it's harder for me to do them when I'm not in really in the zone so I usually do stuff like listen to Spanish music to get myself thinking correctly.


EDIT: I got distracted and forgot to mention that fluency in Spanish CAN be substituted for strong aristo skills, it just takes some work.
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by Vortexx2 »

It definitely helps if you have a native Spanish speaker on your team, but it isn't always necessary. I went up to Spanish 4, and I would describe my Spanish as shaky at best. But I would argue that recognizing patterns and memorizing the most common words is a great substitute for being fluent in Spanish. The last xenocrypt I did, I had no clue what it said but I was able to figure it out based on pattern recognition. If you are set on learning xenocrypts, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the top 100 most frequent Spanish words, which letters are most frequent, and simple Spanish grammar such as verb endings (ar,er,ir) and descriptive words (such as lo, la, el, al). Hope this helps!
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by tennis2019 »

Does anyone know how this event works on Scilympiad? Is there a different box for each letter for aristocrats and patristocrats?
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by RasmitDevkota »

tennis2019 wrote: January 9th, 2021, 8:20 am Does anyone know how this event works on Scilympiad? Is there a different box for each letter for aristocrats and patristocrats?
Yeah so the ones like aristocrats, patristocrats, vigenere, and affine (substitution ciphers) have a small box for each letter, but there is no autofill, instead you have to type in the letter for all the boxes where it appears.

For the other ones like baconian and pollux/morbit, you are just given an image of the question and you have to type it into a plain textbox.
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by RasmitDevkota »

Posting this here since a ton of people having been asking about Morse (Pollux and Morbit) ciphers and how to solve them faster in the virtual competition format.

First, let me say that, if you can't solve them fast, they're often not worth the time. How fast? Well, it depends. Time all of your ciphers and record how fast you can solve each one. Then, when you take a test, estimate your Points Per Minute (PPM) for that cipher. For example, if you can solve a 150 point cipher in 2 minutes that's 150/2 = 75 PPM. Obviously the higher the PPM the better. Morse (and Baconians) are usually not worth your time unless you can solve them fast or have nothing else left to do on the test. Usually, the more numbers they give you and the less numbers actually used in the cipher, the easier it is. A cipher with numbers 1-9 (like 129837464388) is typically much harder than one with only 4 numbers (like 37634447634763).

As for how to get faster in general in the online format, I usually type out the first line or so and make replacements while typing it out. The first line is usually enough to solve the cipher, but if it's not, then you can type out more as needed. I also recommend memorizing Morse or practicing the ciphers enough until you memorize at least the most common letters. That will save you a ton of time so that you can start solving while typing down the cipher. Make sure you keep track of what you've typed down and what replacements you've made, it is very easy to get lost and have to waste time trying to figure out where you were (speaking from experience :( ).

For general solving tips, I don't think there's really much besides practice and taking advantage of the way Morse works. Use the fact that there's only 9 possible morbit pairs (.., .-, .x, etc.) that cannot be repeated, or that there's usually only 4 dots or dashes in a row (numbers are the only exception but those are not very common). Also, a cipher should never start with an X, so you can rule that out right away.

I also like looking at longer pieces because there are less valid combinations than possible combinations. For example, if I were to see "X..-1XX" on a Pollux cipher, where 1 is a number I don't know, I would immediately know it is ".". It cannot be "-" since there is no letter corresponding to "..--" but it also cannot be an "X" since you cannot have three X's in a row. This is obviously a very ideal example and won't always happen, but the logic behind it is useful.

One side note: I personally also like using / (instead of X), * (instead of .), and - (same as -) on my number pad along with the number pad number keys since I can type that out very fast, but that's just personal preference. Being able to type things out quickly can save a lot of time, and we all know how valuable time is :D

Good luck and make sure you practice, practice is everything!
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by genahoward »

Does anyone know how the timed question will work in a virtual competition? My team will be competing in New York. I am not sure if it is different by state.
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by Umaroth »

genahoward wrote: January 23rd, 2021, 12:43 pm Does anyone know how the timed question will work in a virtual competition? My team will be competing in New York. I am not sure if it is different by state.
New York has a completely different system than other states, so we might want to call upon Name to give an answer for this one
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Re: Codebusters C

Post by genahoward »

I did find out from our regional director that there will not be a timed question for our regional event in NY. Thanks!
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