I joined the competition only today, and I saw I missed a lot of challenges. Is there a point in entering and competing? Is there still a chance for me to get to the top 3?
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Yeah, I was worried about the same thing. Basically, the missions are all split up into individual periods, and votes from one period don’t carry over to the next. These interim periods are just for the small prizes, and Mission periods are for the space tickets. So, since this is the first puzzle of this interim, you have as good a chance as anyone else if you solve both puzzles. Your chances are incredibly small, because of this, as your entries are capped at the max number of points per puzzle period, but it does mean that everyone has the same equally small chance.
you sure that all interim puzzles dont count for space tickets? it dosent make sense.
The vast majority of tasks are at interim period
It does make sense from perspective that it equalizes the chances for people who join later. There are 3 drawings of the space ticket prize, one each month. If you joined e.g. now, you are past the first drawing but will have equal chances as the rest in the next two. If all points were cumulative, people who got the info about the contest early would be very biased towards winning.
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They have the full rules with the mission/interim period schedule and point breakdown here: Hack the Galaxy Full Contest Rules - Hack the Galaxy
It says points only count for the current period unless otherwise specified, and the only place I see mention of interim points carrying over is for the final prize (which is not a space ticket). They do say that interim period puzzle answers might have clues for the metapuzzles which are worth a lot and count towards mission periods (space ticket). I started halfway through the last mission period and had to go back and solve a few puzzles that were expired to figure out the answer to the metapuzzle for that period. Since there are many more interim puzzles before the next mission period, I have a feeling they might be useful for solving the next metapuzzle.
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Yeah, the Interim puzzles should have been included in the Grand Prize draw as well.
I think I am getting a little confused, are you saying that for every interim period, which is pretty much every week, only the two puzzles for that week will enter you into that particular interim prize and then for every mission period only puzzles during that period will enter you into the mission prize of the space trip, but metapuzzles are different where if you solve them during a interim period per say they can still count towards the mission prize?
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So far one metapuzzle appeared - it was released simultaneously with the last puzzle in a mission period (the 20 points one with 1 week duration). That metapuzzle had the same deadline as the last mission puzzle and required solutions from all mission puzzles from that mission period - and only mission puzzles, no interims. So that metapuzzle was strictly tied to that same mission period it appeared in. I’d wager next metapuzzles are gonna be in a similar fashion, though that’s a speculation.
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Yeah but what about interim and mission puzzles work? Im still confused on those. Was my understanding correct?
Yes, I think you are basically correct. These interim period weeks just have two puzzles that only count for that week’s prize.
Related question: is there a way to verify how many points one has gotten so far, or see a list of which problems one has solved so far?
I have received confirmation emails after submitting correct solutions for puzzles 12 and 13, but no email for the previous puzzles that I had submitted a correct solution to.
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I received confirmation only for Puzzle 13, and I have been solving the puzzles since Interim Period 1. So, there is no way to see your total points for this competition. I wish it was like what this website called gleam.io does with their draw-based competitions.
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By any chance did previous mission puzzle answers somehow made a clue together?
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Yes, for Meta 1 puzzle. There were 8 mission puzzles, and the answers to all of them were used as clues for the Meta 1 puzzle. That was a tough one to crack.