Missle codes

[Willis]

I just got my floppy disk!  HOW do I use the missle launch codes?


--Who dares, wins--
-Solid Snake

[dgbehrends]

Cracking the Missle code is like playing a game of Mastermind.  You have 20 tries to guess all 5 letters correctly.  I do this by starting out with abcde.  If I don't get a match then I go to fghij, and so on until I get match.  Most likely it won't be an exact match meaning the letter will be correct but not in its right location.  From there I will let you experiment on how to fine tune your search. 
As an example say the secret code is   dgfif  (yes double letters are possible, but rare)
my first attempt would be abcde, and would learn from this that I have matched one letter but its not in the right spot.  The symbols in the brackets tell you whether you have matched or not.  I think a blinking symbol means an exact match and ..... shucks I can't remember exactly what the symbols look like at the moment.  There is a program called prackhack that lets you practice cracking codes outside the game.  I should have the program on my hardrive somewhere.   hold on a minute while I dig it up...
......................................................................................OK found it and I'll type in some of the instructions from it
quoted from Prackhack
"If you are familiar with the old game Mastermind, the "sequence" brackets will use symbols to signify your progress of hacking out the code.  Like Mastermind using the black, white, and no pegs, Overkill uses its own symbols.  If a blank space " " fills a bracket, that character is not present in the launch code.  If a "phi" character appears inside a bracket, this symbolizes that for the guess code that you entered, you guessed a correct character, but that character is out of position.  If a blinking "infinity" is displayed within a bracket, one of the characters you entered was a correct character in the correct position."

A couple of other notes: on the 20th try if don't get the code correct your floppy will be destroyed, so its important to keep track of how many codes you have attempted.  Also there is a chance the missile will blow up in the silo so watch out.  Search for "missile" on this forum and you should find some other useful tidbits.

Good Luck and happy missile launching!

[Willis]

Hey man thanks a bunch! I owe you one. Where do you play? What handle do you use?

[dgbehrends]

I am established in the moderate and difficult games on bbs.operationoverkill.com, other than that I haven't spent much time on any of the other boards.  My IGN is usually BIGD

[Dustin]

HX Willis,

I love hacking missile codes.  I am usually successful 50% of the time before the floppy disk is eaten by the computer.

I use a similar method as BigD.  For me, it's easier to keep track of your progress on a separate sheet of paper while hacking.  Initially, I scan for characters five at a time, like so:

abcde
fghij
klmno
pqrst
uvwxy
z

If the feedback shows I've found a character in a scan, but not in the correct sequence, I will narrow down which letter is correct.  If I get a good hit on "abcde", I will then scan each letter to see which it is:

a....

If 'a' does not show up as a used character, I'll move on to 'b'.

b....

And say 'b' hits with a correct character but wrong location, I'll shift the letter to another location, like so:

.b... (skip this test because 'b' is 2nd in the sequence of 'abcde', so I know it's not in the right spot)
..b..
...b.
....b

Once you get a few characters down, you can use process of elimination and logically guessing to get the proper sequence.

Missile away!

-Dustin

[dgbehrends]

HX Willis,

I love hacking missile codes.  I am usually successful 50% of the time before the floppy disk is eaten by the computer.
....

-Dustin

I do too.  However, unless you are good at cloning yourself (another topic that has been discussed on this forum) floppy disks can be hard to come by.  So I usually make sure I logout before I make the 20th try.  That way when you log back in you get a fresh 20 trys and no chewed up floppy disk.  Good Luck!

[DamFrawd]

  I also love  fireing off the rockets and watching the  terrain change as it hits its target.  Now and then I've played on mapsets where there was no place to put a base because of the landscape. Fireing a missle  was the only way to create one. I use basically the same method as dscribed except I go by the keyboard, left to right.  eg: qwert  yuiop  etc.
 
I usually have at least a 50% launch.. except for one day when I had 6 duds in a row before a successfull launch.  I made sure my target was not in range of AFB's Prison, the oracle, etc..  I've never had 6 duds in a row before. Was frustrateing
 
DF

[dgbehrends]

  I also love  fireing off the rockets and watching the  terrain change as it hits its target.  Now and then I've played on mapsets where there was no place to put a base because of the landscape. Fireing a missle  was the only way to create one. I use basically the same method as dscribed except I go by the keyboard, left to right.  eg: qwert  yuiop  etc.
 
I usually have at least a 50% launch.. except for one day when I had 6 duds in a row before a successfull launch.  I made sure my target was not in range of AFB's Prison, the oracle, etc..  I've never had 6 duds in a row before. Was frustrateing
 
DF

I posted some questions on these forums a while back about missle blast radiuses, and during my practicing I think I had 5 duds in a row.  It does happen and it was EXTREMELY frustrating. 

[Dustin]

  I also love  fireing off the rockets and watching the  terrain change as it hits its target.  Now and then I've played on mapsets where there was no place to put a base because of the landscape. Fireing a missle  was the only way to create one. I use basically the same method as dscribed except I go by the keyboard, left to right.  eg: qwert  yuiop  etc.
 
I usually have at least a 50% launch.. except for one day when I had 6 duds in a row before a successfull launch.  I made sure my target was not in range of AFB's Prison, the oracle, etc..  I've never had 6 duds in a row before. Was frustrateing
 
DF

I posted some questions on these forums a while back about missle blast radiuses, and during my practicing I think I had 5 duds in a row.  It does happen and it was EXTREMELY frustrating. 

Dudley,

Scoping out the code here, and it looks like there's a high chance of a dud.  I do agree these ratios should be modified, with more successful launches.

45% = dud missile
50% = success
 5%  = missile silo explodes

Also, a missile will not explode if the launch X,Y are within 2 sectors of the Complex, Hydrite Prison, or AFBs/Silos on map level 5.

[dgbehrends]

Dudley,

...

Also, a missile will not explode if the launch X,Y are within 2 sectors of the Complex, Hydrite Prison, or AFBs/Silos on map level 5.

This is very intersting and was one of the things I was experimenting with.  Are you sure its only level 5 AFBs that can't be blown up?  According to this link
http://www.operationoverkill.com/forum/index.php?topic=191.0
I wasn't able to land a missle with the AFB even on the radar at different levels of the map.