Alternate Solution to "Hot Hawks" Puzzle
Hey guys,
I think the "Hot Hawks" puzzle should have at least one additional solution.
*SPOILERS*
This is the birds puzzle which has more gnomes than total bird-power, and you are supposed to leave out one of the birds. Rather than leave out a bird, I chose to have some of the birds carry less than their maximum weight. There is no rule saying that each bird must carry its maximum weight, and I feel that my solution is equally valid. In fact, having a bird carry no gnomes means that it is carrying infinitely less than its max weight.
*END SPOILERS*
Here is a link to my solution (http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3348/hothawks.png), which I believe should be added as a possible answer to the puzzle.
What do you guys think?
Koomazaz
I think the "Hot Hawks" puzzle should have at least one additional solution.
*SPOILERS*
This is the birds puzzle which has more gnomes than total bird-power, and you are supposed to leave out one of the birds. Rather than leave out a bird, I chose to have some of the birds carry less than their maximum weight. There is no rule saying that each bird must carry its maximum weight, and I feel that my solution is equally valid. In fact, having a bird carry no gnomes means that it is carrying infinitely less than its max weight.
*END SPOILERS*
Here is a link to my solution (http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3348/hothawks.png), which I believe should be added as a possible answer to the puzzle.
What do you guys think?
Koomazaz
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Comments
Only on the first bird puzzle. This is the third (?) variation of that puzzle, which is optional.
Although... in this puzzle you have to leave out one of the birds... that's not really "Each bird is at maximum capacity" is it...
My guess is that they dropped that rule because of the fact that you have to leave out a bird, but may not have thought of the case when all birds are used but not at full capacity.
I dunno. It would be nice to see this fixed in a future version.
Same. I like how that little bird does nothing though.
I'd also done another one that wasn't accepted.
I wish it would have said (on both puzzles): "the blue bird can carry no more and no less than 1 on each of its legs, the mallard can carry no more and no less than 2 on each of its legs..."
Would have been much more clear.
It just looks like an oversight to me.
I hope it wasn't intentional to keep the rules of the puzzles ambiguous (I would consider that a fundamental design flaw for a game like this), and that it is indeed just a simple oversight.
It's pretty bad all around.
Edit: Mh, of course the owls are allowed to carry 1.5 gnomes per leg, so fractions seem to be allowed after all.
In the actual solution, the owl carried that bag with both legs, and the mallard helps it with one of its legs. If what you said held water then there would be no correct way to carry a five gnome bag, regardless of the combination of birds.
The alternate solution should work if there is no rule stating that each bird must carry their maximum possible load or none at all. As it is, the rules only say that the load on a bird has to be even between both feet and this solution meets that requirement. It feels wrong to me :P, but technically this alternate solution should be correct given the rules.
You phrase all of that like a student (not necessarily a bad thing.) Physically speaking, the tension on the ropes is equal to the force of gravity from the gnomes plus the equalizing lift from the birds, ipso facto, you can lift it so long as the total lift is greater than the total force due to gravity, no need to be even. The angles would even themselves out (though for the puzzle rules to hold true, they would have to be all perpendicular to the ground, not to mention the horizontal forces imposed by flight and... let's just leave the physics out of this one.)
I locked on to the idea that the weight would have to be distributed evenly between each rope and it took a while to wrap my mind around why that wasn't the case. I agree that we should just leave the physics out of this one :P. We can just assume that all factors were taken into account when determining the load that each bird could carry.
So, in the absence of a rule stating that each bird must carry a full load or none at all, I would have to agree that this solution is valid. I didn't think of doing it this way and my gut reaction when first seeing it was that it broke the rules, but that is not the case. This should be added as a correct answer or the rules should be adjusted to make this solution incorrect if it wasn't intended to work this way.
Then you were lucky. If you read this thread, you will see that the issue we're having with this puzzle is that it isn't clear from reading the rules why leaving one bird out is a better solution than having two birds carry less than their maximum load.
Knowing the solution, little phrases like that seem obvious, but a fresh pair of eyes would likely overlook such a detail.
I would phrase it thus:
"No bird will take off without being at maximum capacity.
What must X character[forgot his name] do to make sure all gnomes are delivered?"
I still stuffed this up because I didn't read properly, but the instructions are perfectly clear.