The Castle Doctrine Forums

I just tried it successfully and suicided at your vault.  When you mentioned that you changed one tile, I knew exactly what it was because it actually didn't make any sense to me so I figured it was not intentional.

The electronics in there is sufficiently complicated that even with everything laid out in front of you in castledraft, it is not entirely obvious what the heck you are supposed to do.  It looks like you have two paradox circuits on the bottom and you change the electronics to switch between them at a particular step.  Looking at it definitely gave me some direction; however, most progress I made simply by re-creating it with no pets and then running around hitting button and looking at the door.  Once I figured out what needed to be done, it was just figuring out how to transition the state from the initial state to the desired state without choosing death.  I literally had a replicated map with light floors and all the pets and everything and had to try it over and over to figure it out.  It involved complex pet mechanics, complex state transitions, and complex electronics all together.  What really made it difficult was just that it was very hard to judge how things appeared initially if you were to break into it and look at it.  Plus- there was a lot to look at.

Figured out the dance.  It was NOT easy to figure out. 

I thought I had it originally based upon piecing everything together but I actually had it wrong and had to go back and continue to try to reverse engineer it.  I'd been completely way off entire time.  The only thing that made it possible was data I've gathered over long periods of time and I tore the bottom and top completely apart the other day.  Literally, I spent a good 40,000$ to get the actual complete picture of the electronics in that house.  Part of what makes it very confusing is it is hard to judge the initial state with the buttons and all the pets and so forth. Very good work!

I've understood for a long time that the electric floor was running a paradox circuit from the bottom and that there must have been one at the top that combined with the bottom to power the cat-door at the end; however, I had no idea what the wiring looked like at all.  I found that just visiting the area was pretty much useless to figuring it out without having the entire picture of the electronics and pet positions.  I had most of the top and the bottom completely documented, but putting together the initial state of it all took some work.  Additionally, there were a few things I had to guess, but I had enough data to narrow down the variables and then just try each of them until I matched the exact behavior.  At that point, it took a bit of experimenting to actually solve it in tiny replica that I created.  I had to actually create several replicas of that entrance over time.  I created a replica a long time ago so that I could try to understand it but it was incomplete because there was too many variables and I didn't know the electronic setup.  More recently, I literally saw'd every single wall and documented every single tile on the lower and upper halfs.  This data was enough to build an identical replica of the enterance.  I eventually thought I had it and then I went to try to test this out for real with my main account.  This did not pan out well because my main character died!  I almost gave up at this point so I went back to screenshots that I took earlier to try to figure out the original pet positions.  I found a few pets that were basically unaccounted for and discovered their original locations because those locations happened to make sense.  At this point, the true dance to get to henson's vault w/o tools was in my grasp.  When I actually went, it really struck me as to how incredibly easy this dance actually is, but it is just something that people normally never think to try.

You really have to admire the design from a security system standpoint.  First, you have a entry way upon which you must follow all the rules.  One pet watches you do make sure you do not travel vertically.  Another to watch that your horizontal movements are according to the dance.  Additionally, you are standing upon an electric floor while you enter in the code that will kill you if you make a mistake, while the electric floor seems calm, it is sending a pulse signal as a way to detect tool use and initiating lockdown.  From what I can tell, the only way in is to brute force with numerous crowbars or to do the dance.

Okay so first of all, just before I died, I robbed cullman, who had robbed me on like the first try with out any tools.  Cullman didn't claim responsibility, but I know it was him because the house he built was the same design he always builds (Just curious right?).  When I robbed cullman I basically knew the entire house because it is a design that has been around forever.  I attempted to rob you by attacking the lower side cat flaw and died with the money that I stole back from cullman.  Secondly, after I died, I came home from work the next day and there were two houses with money.  The first had 12k in and was extremely easy, literally solved with only 2 dog meat.  From what I could tell, somebody else was trying to pump it up so they could rob it later, but I happened to get there first.  The second was another house that held 8k that I am pretty sure was built by cullman on a secondary account because I know several of his designs from playing this in the past.  I can't tell you why it had money but it was a super easy house that pretty much only needed 2 dog meat to solve easily.  The house happened to be broken because it had been robbed previously and solved w/o tools.  The fact is that the only way to solve it was with tools and the easiest way was with 2 dog meat.  I happened to know the design like the back of my hand because it was the SAME designed that was re-used a million times and never really changed.  Again, I'm not one to point the finger as far as cheating because, as we all know, it is pretty much impossible to stop people from doing it.  Unfortunately, its that same talk that pretty much ruined the game.  On the other hand, why would somebody rob me for over 100k on the very first try and then pretend like they had nothing to do with it? After getting these two crap houses I found with ~ 20k in them after returning from work, I turned to henson again because I know there is a flaw with the cat that can be exploited.  I already tried the bottom so it made the most logical sense to exploit the top.

Lets face it.  Here is a game that I really loved that is pretty much laying flat on the table in the emergency room on life support begging to be taken off.  I'm sorry community, I'm just not ready to quit yet, I still have a few more things that I want to do electronically in the game if other people play it or not.  My original mission was to rob henson because it was the de-facto BEST house EVER.  Secondly, once I understand the principle behind the design, I set out to make something that could be competitive with it.  honestly, I just can't improve upon the cat puzzle yet- no idea how it works.  The cat bunker grid is an amazing idea as well, which I've incorporated.  However, after creating similar designs I realized that there was a pretty big flaw with the cat.  The purpose of the grid is to give a 2 dimensional set of cells where the vault could be located.  The house owner counts on the user walking the straight path, causing the cat to go alll the way to the vault.  By trapping the cat, you essentially reduce the search down from a square area to a straight line.

For one thing, I avoid robbing 2k houses.  If you do you can only get 2k from that house before the owner dies and the house will not be visible to you.  The only time I would do that would be if I absolutely needed 2k.  Much smarter to wait for the user to accumulate lots of money and then rob them.  The problem comes when you can't see all the houses on the account because you robbed all the 2k houses and then one or two of them happen to pick up 5-10k.  The other thing is, many time my main will die in bond or something because somebody moved a dog.  Then 2 hours later I come back and collect my massive bounty before anybody else.  The sad fact is there is just not many people playing left and the people who do happen to do a lot of santa runs.

Yeah well they stoled it but I stoled it back.   Changed the dance so lets see if you can guess it again guzman.

Yeah sorry I had moved a few things in castledraft, but that was for all practical purposes what the house was like.  I had a theory I could rob you for a relatively small amount of tools and I turned out to be correct, but I barely just got it.  I rebuilt a basic house with a fix to the flaw that I've been talking about - the same flaw that helped me rob you for only around 10k in tools.  At any rate, the only way to fix the flaw is to use multiple cats.  If you enter my house now there is 3 cats at the end that will travel on 3 different paths.  Ideally, I could have more cats and more paths, but I built this house out just to test the concept.

Yes, it finally dawned upon me that there was a flaw I could exploit by simply killing the puzzle-related pets and the kids- a flaw that is erased from my map; however, my puzzle must be easier to figure out than yours.  I am still not sure if this would have guaranteed victory as I thought.  I ended up making a mistake where I destroyed the electric floor.  The original plan was to kill all the puzzle pets and then save the state.  Then, next time I enter, the cat should never leave through the door.  I accidentally destroyed the electric floor, which ruined my original plan, which I had to rely upon crow-bar the door and leave and come back.  I am lucky that I got it because I would have blown every last penny with nothing to show for it.

"Now to convert my house into a super fortress where I can live out the rest of my days alone thinking about my dead family and plotting revenge."

Yes, we have so much to look forward to now don't we?

You are SO wrong about that.  If I find the time I will prove it with the video.

edit: I found the playback file so i'll have to split it somehow later when I have time.

how drastically are the game mechanics changed??  Do the electronics still work the same way, tool use, etc?

haha I was trying to rob it for 1000$.  the first time I went in it appeared that the electric floor did nothing.  I used a saw and then safely left.  When I came back I brought 4 waters and no saw because it seemed like the floor did NOTHING.  However, this time around the floor lit up and killed me, so that was actually my bounty that pumped up kantor (I think).

After I died I santda runned everybody - except for you because I had already robbed you in a previous life.

Such a bad day for me...

What money?  Sometimes its bounties.  I had like a 3000$ bounty die in my 2nd house this morning and then I somehow died due to trying to self test a broken house.

First design of the new house is ready...

Due to the binary clock and alternating trap door/electric floor, you cannot use tools unless from the doormat.  However, if you use a tool at the doormat, my security system will detect it and initiate lockdown!  This does kind of steal an idea from JWG's map and then I incorporate some more clever electronics into it to detect if the player has used a ladder on the first move. 

Did Jason have this in mind when he created the game?

haha its all very true, but the whole experience has allowed me to come up with a new technique to incorporate into my design.  My pre-emptive attack on henson was a failure, but if I had not done it, I was doomed anyways.  The only hope at complete victory rests on figuring out that damn dance!  But it is true in my reincarnation I have found a new secret.