Bonus Cache

[+thebruce0]

6 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

to a certain type of person

 I can agree with that.

 

2 hours ago, lee737 said:

I'd be inclined to go the other way a touch - ie, allow a find if one was missing.....

Yep, some COs would do that and it's certainly an option.

 

We have many options, eh?

 

2 hours ago, lee737 said:

I suppose it depends on what you are after....

Exactly. No strategy is wrong or bad, just depends what experience you as the CO want to provide.

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by thebruce0

[+niraD]

7 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

That would depend on the CO of course, but another benefit of xor is that it's not a math problem you need to do in your head, or figure out algorithmically. As mentioned, if the tool is provided, it's as simple as "find all the values, pipe them through the tool, get the answer" and you don't have to understand how or why it works, just that it does.

The same applies to the addition example. I didn't do the math in my head or on paper. I just fed it to my browser and Google provided the sum.

 

6 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

I can understand why xor would appeal to a certain type of person   but honestly I would just use a 3rd party checker at that point.

Yeah, it's easy enough to set up a Certitude keyword checker. Tell them to run all the keywords together in alphabetical order, and enter the result into the checker. So you end up with something like this:

 

Words: SHOP, BARK, MUG, WIND, DROP, DAY, SUIT, JACK, DUCK

Keyword: BARKDAYDROPDUCKJACKMUGSHOPSUITWIND

[+thebruce0]

I'll add that in my latest series related to the GIFF films, I hid each cache behind a puzzle with geochecker and each container provided a keyword for the series bonus.

In the primary bonus cache (you have to find every cache) you string together the first letters of all the keywords from the containers and enter it into the geochecker. That meant a final solution anything from 17x A's to 17x Z's are a possible solution. (the full keywords were used for a bingo card contest at my GIFF event)

For the second bonus bonus, you only have to solve each of the puzzles, and do the same with the first letters of each of those solutions.

 

Two bonuses? At first I had both bonuses using the keywords from each container (one solution was letters alphabetically, the other in reverse). But, you can only have one bonus cache requiring the finding of other caches in a series. So technically the second bonus is just a puzzle using elements of other cache listings, with no need to find the other caches to solve the puzzle and find it.

 

Anyway, point being, as the CO you can be however creative you want in how you 'obfuscate' the solution for a bonus cache.  And making it harder to find the bonus before completing the series is an option - it doesn't have to be complicated, and it doesn't have to be simplistic. It'll depend on your community. Around here, we have many geocachers who really couldn't care less about doing the intended work and just either uber puzzles or pass around coordinates; it frustrates some COs, while others just shrug and don't care. It shouldn't be a stigma either way; but as a CO you just need to figure out what expectation you want to place on geocachers, what experience you want to provide them, and how much effort you want to put in to ensuring it

[+Ninemm]

I want to thank everyone for their input. 
You’ve given me so many ideas, for this series and for the future. 
I’m just now getting ready to finalize the series (was awaiting some permissions for some of the hides), and as it was brought up, this is more for people as an intro into puzzle caches, so I’ll most likely go with a simpler solution. 
 

First time I can remember ever posting to this forum. 
The hive mind produces such a wealth of information.

[+dprovan]

On 4/22/2022 at 6:36 AM, thebruce0 said:

I'll add that in my latest series related to the GIFF films, I hid each cache behind a puzzle with geochecker and each container provided a keyword for the series bonus.

In the primary bonus cache (you have to find every cache) you string together the first letters of all the keywords from the containers and enter it into the geochecker. That meant a final solution anything from 17x A's to 17x Z's are a possible solution.

That reminds me of a technique I've seen to make the bonus less susceptible to caches going missing in the series: the check was a keyword made up of the first letters, but once I had most of the letters, it was obvious the keyword was an actual word that I could guess without filling in the other letters. Of course that let's people outright cheat, but for the rest of us, it's a nice way to give us a chance when we can't find all the caches in the series.

[+mtekla]

Could caches A, B and C have clues as to where to find bonus cache X and bonus cache Y?

[+arisoft]

28 minutes ago, mtekla said:

Could caches A, B and C have clues as to where to find bonus cache X and bonus cache Y?

 

No problems. This is not a chain.

[+mtekla]

23 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

No problems. This is not a chain.

Is this confirmed from HQ?

[+Ice and Wind]

 

16 minutes ago, mtekla said:

40 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

No problems. This is not a chain.

Is this confirmed from HQ?

While it may not be a chain I don't believe it would allowed. Here is a link to the Help Center article on Bonus caches.

Quoting from the article: No geocache can have more than one cache dependent on it.

Looking at the diagram if any one of the traditional caches goes missing both bonus caches, in theory, become unfindable. Put more simply a single traditional cache can have one bonus cache dependent on it but not two.

[+mtekla]

12 minutes ago, Ice and Wind said:

 

While it may not be a chain I don't believe it would allowed. Here is a link to the Help Center article on Bonus caches.

Quoting from the article: No geocache can have more than one cache dependent on it.

Looking at the diagram if any one of the traditional caches goes missing both bonus caches, in theory, become unfindable. Put more simply a single traditional cache can have one bonus cache dependent on it but not two.

If all the base caches have the same clue to X and Y, then there can be no problem right?

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, mtekla said:

If all the base caches have the same clue to X and Y, then there can be no problem right?

The question isn't whether A, B, or C has multiple clues in it.

 

The question is whether A, B, or C has "more than one cache dependent on it."

[Johannis10]

1 hour ago, mtekla said:

If all the base caches have the same clue to X and Y, then there can be no problem right?

Use one of the basic designs allowed by GS. If you then independently add other possible solutions, it is allowed.

Example:
Allowed design:
X is the bonus cache of A
Y is the bonus cache of B and C
Basic requirement:
 A found => X solvable
B + C found => Y solvable
Additional solutions:

B + C found => X solvable (advantage, if A is missing X is still findable)

A + C found => Y solvable (advantage, if B is missing Y is still findable)

A + B found => Y solvable (advantage, if C is missing Y is still findable)

With this suggestion both bonus caches are findable as long as only one of the caches A, B or C is missing.

Wish you much success with your project.

Greetings Johannis10

 

[Johannis10]

1 hour ago, mtekla said:

If all the base caches have the same clue to X and Y, then there can be no problem right?

If you meant the following, this would of course also work:

Only A found => X and Y solvable

Only B found => X and Y solvable

Only C found => X and Y solvable

Advantage: Even if two caches are missing, you can still find the others

[+mtekla]

5 minutes ago, Johannis10 said:

If you meant the following, this would of course also work:

Only A found => X and Y solvable

Only B found => X and Y solvable

Only C found => X and Y solvable

Advantage: Even if two caches are missing, you can still find the others

Yes, that's it right

[+arisoft]

On 9/17/2023 at 9:16 PM, Ice and Wind said:

While it may not be a chain I don't believe it would allowed. Here is a link to the Help Center article on Bonus caches.

Quoting from the article: No geocache can have more than one cache dependent on it.

 

HQ is known for ambiguous guidelines. Here the image explains only chaining but the text rules something else. Chaining was nice idea used in some early days mystery chains where every additional stage was depending on earlier caches published in the chain. For me it is clear that this guideline was set to prevent this kind of "daisy chaining". I haven't seen any geocaches with multiple bonus caches and never tried to make one. After you pointed out this guideline, I must admit that this may be not allowed.