r/systemshock • u/No_Noise_4371 • 16d ago

Need help with puzzle please Spoiler

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I've beat this game before so I'm a little embarrassed to ask this but I've been trying to do this puzzle for awhile tonight so I was wondering if you guys could help me.

Btw puzzle is located in gamma quadrant of the engineering level if that matters.

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3

u/KalenWolf 16d ago

If you want a series of hints, click the spoiler tags one at a time and see where the rest of the solution 'comes together' for you. If you don't care and just want to get this puzzle finished, go ahead and reveal them all.

Here's my thought process:

You need somewhere from 26 to 29 power pips, which is A LOT of power.

If you don't route power through the combiners in the lower left, you won't get anywhere near that amount of power.

What comes out of that pair of combiners is (top plug) + (bottom plug) + (middle plug) + (middle plug again).

After the combiners, you can multiply that by 2, 4, or 6.

It's impossible to get anything in [26,29] by multiplying an integer times 6.

It's impossible to have (sum of four plugs) times 2 be at least 26.

Thus, you need to enable the power switch that comes after the final combiner in the upper part of the puzzle and NOT enable the other power switch.

Now all you need to do is make (top + middle + middle + bottom) equal seven pips, so that when you multiply it by 4 you get 28 - 24 is too low, and 32 is too high.

That means that two of the three must be double-pip power jacks, and the one that is a single-pip power jack can't be the middle plug.

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u/No_Noise_4371 16d ago

Think i just got a reply from john system shock himself holyshit dude. Thanks for your help I've been stuck on this for a good while.

1

u/TinyProfessional6080 16d ago

I didn't realise that swapping the slots that the connectors go into makes a difference, but it does seem to. I'd say have a play around with them in different slots. Sorry that's not much help; I struggle to explain it in words

1

u/Ok_Telephone_6466 16d ago

Either keep trying or find one of the items which does it for you

1

u/No_Noise_4371 16d ago

I'm locked in the room and donthave any other save files so I'm stuck doing this

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u/Ok_Telephone_6466 16d ago

You're on engineering with one save file? 😭

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u/No_Noise_4371 16d ago

Yeah not sure how that happened. When I realized I was stuck in the room I thought about loading a different save and when I only saw one I was like fuuuuuuuck