[Tyrian]

[Cheesy Reality TV Style Intro]

A group of Terran and Vasudan scientists have made an astonishing discovery!  A code, left by the Ancients has been found in Altair!  However, shortly after the code was transmitted to GTVI, the science vessel carrying the team mysteriously vanished...  It is up to you to break the code and discover the secret of the Ancients!

[End Cheesy Reality TV Style Intro]

Ahhh...Always wanted to do that... 

This is a little puzzle I thought up yesterday while I was bored.  It's a riddle / cypher that I think should be quite tough to solve...  The winner is the first person to crack the code. 

The riddle:  Spanish Matthew retails coneffess 00110010...Me read already, springs to mind.

The code:  2-2-4, 1-1-11, 2-5-3, 1-1-2, 2-4-3, 1-1-9, 2-2-10, 1-1-3, 2-3-2, 2-2-1, 2-1-36, 2-1-3, 2-2-3, 2-1-10, 1-1-5, 2-5-4, 1-1-1, 2-1-2, 2-3-4, 2-1-13, 1-1-8, 2-2-5, 2-1-5, 2-3-6, 2-5-8 !

You must solve the riddle first, in order to crack the code.  Oh yes, don't try any fancy code-breaking software either.  I incorporated an anti-brute-force codebreaking measure in the code itself.   

Good luck! 

EDIT:  Raising this thread from the dead is encouraged.  I want to see if anyone can break this code.

[Sandwich]

*whistles for CP*

[Herra Tohtori]

Is the exclamation mark in the end part of the code?

As in,

8 ! = 1*2*3*4*5*6*7*8 = 40320

 

[Sandwich]

...coneffess... 

Is that spelled like that on purpose?

[Tyrian]

@Herra -- The exclamation point just notes the end of the code.  Nothing special about it, it's just punctuation.  (Goob would be proud, punctuation on the Internet    )

@Sandwich -- Yes, "coneffess" is spelled like that on purpose.  It's part of the riddle.  I proofread the whole thing after I posted it.  Twice.  Everything is as it should be.  And who or what is CP?

Forgot to mention, everything you need to solve it, you already have...as long as you have the FS2 CD's or Shivan_Sps's packed FS2 download.  Doesn't matter which you have. 

[Black Wolf]

The binary translates to 2 apparently, according to thi\s
:

http://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php.

[Flipside]

The swapping the 'n' for the 'f' suggests you invert the number, which makes it Binary 11001101, which is 205. So maybe Matthew 20:5 is something to do with it?

[Black Wolf]

I kinda doubt it

20:5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.

I suspect it's an anagram, but the anagram generator gives me thousands upon thousands of hits and I'm nowhere near interested enough to go through them all.

[ZylonBane]

I declare this puzzle:

TOO DIFFICULT AND TOO BORING TO BOTHER WITH

[karajorma]

Well Spanish Matthew could be Mateo since that's the translation of the saints name.

No idea how to fit that in with anything else on the thread though

[Tyrian]

@Black Wolf -- Correct, that's one part to the riddle's answer.

@Flipside -- No Biblical references here.

@Zylon -- Just take it apart piece by piece...It's not too tough if you do it in little pieces.

@Kara -- Actually Kara, that's closer than you might think...But it's not Mateo, it's something else...  The translation I got might not be 100% accurate though.  If it's not, I'll at least post what "Spanish Matthew" is,  I'll give you all that much. 

So far the riddle has been translated into:

Spanish Matthew retails con effess 2, Me Read already, springs to mind.

[Goober5000]

Well, you gave part of it away with that space there. FS2, right in the middle.

EDIT: And "con" is Spanish for "with", if that makes a differnce.

[karajorma]

@Kara -- Actually Kara, that's closer than you might think...But it's not Mateo, it's something else...  The translation I got might not be 100% accurate though.  If it's not, I'll at least post what "Spanish Matthew" is,  I'll give you all that much. 

Well the apostles translate to

Mateo   Matthew
Marcos   Mark
Lucas   Luke
Juan     John

No luck finding Christ's other disciples so far as I can't read spanish well enough to read a Bible.


Oh and Springs to Mind is likely a reference to the Mindspring folder that FS2 installs right?

[Tyrian]

Kara gets a cookie for the Mindspring folder reference!

And it appears that the site I used for "Spanish Matthew"  was not accurate at all...

"Spanish Matthew" is supposed to mean "Manuel."

And Goob gets a cookie for the "con" = "with" and the phonetic spelling of FS2.  That space slipped in there...D'oh...

The riddle now stands translated to:

Manuel retails with FS2, Me Read already, Mindspring.

---------------------------------------

That's the only freebie you're getting.   

[MechMantis]

...


www.freespace2.com?


That's all I've got. 


Though, with the riddle... you've already read the manual that comes with retail FS2?

[Tyrian]

Mech gets the Manuel = Manual connection.

But a manual isn't always the instruction book for the game.  Look for other forms of documentation in relation to the rest of the riddle, specifically the second part of the riddle.

Only one more part of the riddle remains to be deciphered!  The riddle is the key to decrypting the code.  It tells you where to look for...something important...

The riddle now stands:

Manual retails with FS2, Me Read already, Mindspring.

-------------------------------------------------

The last part should be easy, given the rest of the riddle...

[Sandwich]

Something to do with the readme.txt in the FS2\Mindspring folder?

If not, with the commas you added, we have potentially 3 sources of information - manual, readme, and mindspring (?) - from which to figure out each part of the 3-part code sequence.

[MechMantis]

If that's the case, then maybe the code is the first letter of the line/page mentioned for each section of the code? It has manual, readme, mindspring, so the construction would probably be (manual page-readme line-mindpring line), each code section equalling a total of three letters.


Could anyone try that? I don't have my manual handy. And I don't have the FS2 readme handy. And I don't have the mindspring readme handy. Come to think of it, I don't have ANY FS2 info handy.

[pecenipicek]

i dont know where my manual ended up... *shrug*

[Tyrian]

Sandwich is correct!

The key to deciphering the riddle is the ReadMe.txt in the Mindspring folder.

The complete riddle translation:

Manual retails with FS2, ReadMe.txt, Mindspring.

That gives a hint to decipher the code.  At least half of it...

The code is:

2-2-4, 1-1-11, 2-5-3, 1-1-2, 2-4-3, 1-1-9, 2-2-10, 1-1-3, 2-3-2, 2-2-1, 2-1-36, 2-1-3, 2-2-3, 2-1-10, 1-1-5, 2-5-4, 1-1-1, 2-1-2, 2-3-4, 2-1-13, 1-1-8, 2-2-5, 2-1-5, 2-3-6, 2-5-8 !

EDIT:  Mech, that's fairly close to the code, except it's not the FS2 manual...  The riddle tells which piece of documentation to go to...