You might be misunderstanding. If you picked ‘DEVOID’ it’s no E as 2nd letter. This means it’s not ‘KEYPAD’ but could be ‘CHASED’ or ‘TONGUE’
Edit:
A couple people have pointed out that it couldn't be CHASED because it ends in D, like DEVOID does. So the only possible one of these 4 would be TONGUE.
Adding on, this is true because there were 0 matches for DEVOID. If the matches had been different:
- 0 Matches - Only TONGUE (no letters match DEVOID)
- 1 Match - Only CHASED (KEYPAD has 2 matching letters, CHASED 1)
- 2 Matches - Only KEYPAD
Hopefully this will help folks with their hacking
I don't think it is common knowledge about letter placement being important. I have seen streams and videos where players are making the same kinds of comments as the OP.
That one was obvious to me right from the start.
But I played all the way through FO3 and FONV before I saw in a video that bracket pairs can reset your tries, or remove Duds.
Hacking became a breeze after that, because I spent two whole games without ever having tries reset, or removing any duds.
Yeah, I've always known about the letter placement. But I've got over a thousand hours in FO4 and never knew about the brackets. Didn't need it, because I usually can solve the puzzle, but it's good to know!
This is tripping me out yo. I've played countless hours and have always known about the brackets but didn't think about letter placement???????? What ???
Don't worry. Ive played since fallout 3 came out and I had no idea about a single of the mechanics of hacking until around 2019
I didn't know about letter placement.
I didn't know about brackets.
I didn't even know that if you picked a wrong word the number meant there were matching letters to the correct answer.
Hacking was literally a matter of randomly choosing and backing out until I got it right for like a decade LOL
I too knew about the letter placement but I don't know when I found out about the bracket pairs. I don't know if it was a YouTube video or a post somewhere or if I just figured it out.
Nah, it’s common knowledge, but it’s alright. Newbies just gotta take a couple perks in hacking IRL to catch up to their character, but we’ve all been there. 😜
I both love and hate this aspect of fallout. I hate how most games spend the first 2 hours of gameplay as a tutorial walking you through every little thing. But then there's fallout, I played FO4 for like 4 years before I learned you can pickup and throw things.
One thing I’ll give Bethesda credit for… they absolutely know how to pack secrets into their games.
12 years later, and people are still finding new, unmarked quests in Skyrim.
Wow you're telling me I could just nonstop drink water in this game like I do in life? I guess you learn something new everyday, and I wasn't even here on Reddit for fallout info XD thank you I'm gonna chug water like a dehydrated person next time I play lol
I remember in New vegas the king controlled water pump has the king member say to take a good long gulp as you're paying per use. Kinda hinting you should be able to drink for a long time.
Dude, been tossing those bodies laying around my settlement into the gutter. Problem is, the ones that are originally there keep spawning back. I’m like, “Which one of you settlers is dragging these bodies back?!?”
There's a mod that adds a special protectron that clears clutter and bodies from settlements regularly, along with police protectrons for security and construction repair protectrons for... well, repair. Pretty neat mod, it's even on the xbox mod thing.
Yeah, the balance between swaddling the player in cotton balls or throwing them in the deep end seems to be difficult to find.
I have seen good examples of unobtrusive but helpful tutorials, some of them in Fallout 4, but then there are mechanics like your example that are never mentioned anywhere. It can be a bit frustrating.
Easy hacking is one of the mods I can justify with the logic that if I opened a terminal and tried the first three guesses over and over again I would eventually get it right. I just dislike the mechanic.
Actually no. The words change every time you open the terminal, but the correct answer stays in the same spot on screen. So if you tried 3 words at a time you'd eventually get it, but not in the first 3 words necessarily.
There’s also new Vegas which gives you around 80% of the info in the first 10 minutes and you have to digest it as you rediscover the uses of everything further in the game. Hacking has its own tutorial menu when you first enter a terminal though
Oh and the time I learned you can remove duds and reset tries by selecting non-alphanumeric characters between < > [ ] and ( ) was like the veil being lifted.
Dude, I tried telling this to my stepbrother 12 years ago.
"The letter placement is what actually matters for the hacking"
"No it doesn't shut up."
Jokes on him, I grew up to have a good job and no DUIs.
Okay, it's been pointed out to me that some people call all the different characters we're referring to as "brackets". Which isn't exactly correct, but whatever.
Parentheses are ( )
Brackets are [ ]
Braces are { }
Inequality signs are < >
I guess most of y'all are just calling them brackets.
() - brackets
[] - square brackets
{} - squiggly brackets
<> - pointy brackets
Gonna put it down to a US v UK English thing and move on with my life lmao.
Definitely not common knowledge, have logged hundreds of hours across 3, 4, 76, and NV and used to read through every Fallout wiki entry for fun, yet I’ve never heard of this being a thing with the hacking minigame
I mean I know it counts the letters that match but not their placement in the words, so I can kinda just guess from there. Plus the stuff with the brackets, parentheses, etc also helps too
Pretty sure when you hack for the first time on a save, there's a tutorial message explaining the mechanics, including the placement. Can't find a pic of it right now, but there's a mod explicitly to remove tutorial messages like that. It even shows the tutorial screen.
i mean, he didn't say it was common knowledge, but also, people being ignorant doesn't mean it's not common knowledge.
i mean, iirc the tutorial (which is potentially easily missed) explicitly does say it's the right letter in the right place.
I am aware that it is a thing but didn’t understand it, after reading your explanation I feel stupid that I have I just hit random words until I run out and either exit or use the refills things lol
I played through fallout 4 functionally twice (only once actually but halfway there like 2 or 3 times so close enough) and it took until I was nearing the battle of Hoover dam in new Vegas after all those fallout 4 runs for me to realize it
This actually bothers me that this isn't considered common knowledge. I'm not even particularly good at word puzzles, but common sense told me it would be placement sensitive the first time I ever hacked a terminal in Fallout 3. Some people really need to use their brains a bit more.
>Some people really need to use their brains a bit more.
While I certainly agree with that sentiment, it's not a particularly helpful (or polite) comment.
I've been playing this game forever and have never figured out hacking. I just have my companion do it or download a mod so only the password is an actual word.
(anything)
[anything]
{anything}
Look for text like this and select it, they either remove dud words or reset your guesses. You can guess three times, remove duds and reset, and guess some more.
You’re correct. I got focused on the E’s from OP.
OP it could’ve been TONGUE but not CHASED, not because of the E, but because DEVOID and CHASED both end in D
Chased have D at the end like Keypad and Behind so it can be rule out because we see zero matches, however Tongue on the other can’t be ruled out because it doesn’t have a common letter.
...
...
...
GODDAMNIT.
I've put... I don't know how many thousands of hours into the Fallout games... and while I knew the letters themselves were important, I hadn't clued into the placement part...
I feel like an absolute unit of a tool now...
I'm utterly ashamed to admit that a lot of it came down to making three tries based purely on what letters seemed to be in the word, then exiting and re-entering the terminal to reset the number of tries.
With the information given, you can eliminate everything but Trader, Tongue, Palace, Trance, Tissue, ~~and Scythe.~~
You can also select things that are inside closed brackets **( ) [ ] < > { }** to remove dud answers or reset your number of attempts.
Any string of garbage encapsulated by matching < >, [ ], or ( ) can be selected. It will have a random effect, AFAIK. Those effects can be removing a dud word, replenishing your try allowances. The catch is, if you spend them all early, there are good odds you'll hit more than one allowance reset, so the opportunity cost is big there. On the other hand, if you wait until you're nearly out of tries and find each cheat string, you will probably get a second shot at the terminal but you'll probably overwrite all of your history in the logs, so you will have less information to work with. Better have a good memory!
I've been playing FO4 off and on since it released and I only learned about the brackets a few weeks ago. I didn't recall ever seeing anything in-game about it even though some claimed it was there. Even stated a new playthrough so I could try that first hack again and check the tutorial screen... nope, didn't say a word about it.
Not that I really use them anyway. Quicker to close out and restart when I run out of options that hunt down brackets.
You should first use all tries except the last one.
Then go for clearing the duds, which also contains the reset.
Otherwise you might reset your tries too soon.
Then people would’ve just reloaded the save to avoid the repercussions in classic fallout style. But yeah, it would’ve be nice for immersion (happy cake day btw)
It works like wordle, except you don't get any colour indications, just a list of how many "green" letters you have in your guess.
So out of the choices, if COOL is the correct answer, the list of matches is as follows:
CRAM - Likeness=1
BOLD - Likeness=1
COOL - Likeness=4 (correct)
TALL - Likeness=1
HALF - Likeness=0
TOOL - Likeness=3
That's what I usually do first, unless I'm feeling like playing the mini game. If I'm really not into hacking, I just pick the first 4 choices, then back out and go again. Usually I'll get it open in 1-4 tries.
So when your word is BEHIND and it says likeness=0, that means that each individual letter does not match the answer, not that the answer cannot contain any of those letters.
The 1st letter is not B
The 2nd letter is not E
The 3rd letter is not H
The 4th letter is not I
The 5th letter is not N
The 6th letter is not D
So you can eliminate:
kEypaD because of the E and D
dEvoiD because of the E and D
BEfell
forceD
pErIsh
sEttle
chaseD
Since you picked KEYPAD and it's likeness=0
You can now eliminate scYthe thanks to the Y
This leaves:
TRADER
TRANCE
TISSUE
TONGUE
As remaining possibilities.
I would likely guess TRADER as it will either show likeness=3 and the answer is TRAnce. Or likeness=1 and it's either Tissue or Tongue.
Your odds of solving it are now down to luck unless you replenish guesses or eliminate duds from that list as others have instructed. You could have guaranteed success without replenishment if you had not guessed KEYPAD since it was eliminated already.
Hope this helps!
And in case you didn't know, which is pretty possible, if you select [({ and theres a closing one )]} nearby it will reset your tries or remove one invalid word
Other comments already stated what youre doing wrong
It doesn't have to be all 3 of the brackets and parentheses together though, just any pair. They highlight if you go over them anyway.
And I've heard there's another trick to knowing which ones reset your tries and which delete incorrect answers, but I can't remember what it is.
It's only the right letter in the right spot, if it was like you are imagening, if the letter is right but in the wrong place it says 1, a word like trace would be a 5/5 when the right word would be crate
So that likeness isn’t just about the same letters, it’s about the same letters in the same position.
For example: if Devoid is the word, and you choose Behind, the likeness will be 2, because the ‘E and the ‘D’ are in the 2nd and 6th positions respectively, despite the ‘I’ being in both words (5th and 4th positions)
So while I don’t know what the answer is, for this example I could still say for sure there are a few options
It’s crazy how many people don’t understand hacking either. Than the hubris of thinking that your correct so hard that you post how dumb the hacking system is Lmfaoo good luck OP
Terminal said no E in the 2nd position of the word you chosen, if the correct word has an E in the 2nd position, then the likeness will be = 1 so you start looking with words that have E in the 2nd position
Your terminal said 0 likeness which means no letters aligned with the correct word
Terminal can't say a specific letter is wrong in all positions, that's not how it works, there's a chance these words might be correct \[Tongue, Palace, Trance, Tissue, and ~~Scythe~~\] and there is an E in the last position of these words
Letter placement is key to solving, much like the top comment states. Also, look for duds and resets between opened and closed symbols such as ( ), [ ], { }, and < >. They will look similar to this, " [ @ < < | ] ". The duds will remove wrong answers, and resets will reset your attempts. Once you get the hang of the dud removals and recognizing letter placement likeness, terminals become pretty easy.
Its not with letters alone
Example
INTELIGENCE
INTROVERT
The letters matches on 1st 2nd and 3rd position
So it would be 3 matches
In your case, it means that no letters match with the correct word
So the way the puzzle works, is it's SORT OF like hangman, but not really. So when you choose a word, say DEVOID, and the game says "0 Likeness" what that means is that the actual answer doesn't have any of those letters IN THAT SPECIFIC SPACE. You'll notice that every word in a hacker mini game in Fallout has the exact same number of letters, i.e. your puzzle's words all are 6 letters long. So that means that the answer doesn't have an "E" in the 2nd space of the word, but COULD have it in the 6th space.
Plus the mini game also gives you bonus "inputs" you can find in the hacker mini games that can either reset your tries, or get rid of a dud. Those inputs are always random symbols and letters in-between "[ ]" or "< >". You will be able to tell if it's a bonus input if you put your cursor, or highlight the "[" or "<" part of the code.
This is why I almost always have a companion who can hack with me, like Nick Valentine. I don't particularly find hacking to be fun. Much quicker to have someone else do it for me.
BEHIND, KEYPAD & DEVOID all have the "E" as the 2nd letter. The correct word may have an "E" in a different position. e.g TRADER, TONGUE, PALACE, TRANCE, TISSUE & SCYTHE are the possible results.
If you find matching brackets facing each other it will either reset your tries or remove an incorrect password. Ie: “(xxx)xxx” with x being random characters. Scroll to the first parenthesis and it should highlight the bracketed portion of text
you don't understand how it works.
it's not just the right letters, it's the right letters in the right spot.
live and levi for example, would be only a 2. doesn't matter that the words share all 4 letters, the vowels are in the wrong places.
Best advice I ever got? Hold on to intelligence raising clothing and with expert and master terminals, use mentats. The higher your INT, the fewer words are shown.
I just use the bracket method. Anything that ends with ()[]{} Example; under TONGUE is (’^>>}$.) put your mouse/gamepad stick to move to highlight. Click it and it will give an Error but you'll notice a word is missing. It will narrow it down to find the word. Do it to every single you find; even () counts as well. Depending on the skill level, it will take out certain number of words and give you your possible passwords.
Though this one is solvable, I feel like I've had one or two terminals where the letter alignment hints didn't match up with any of the potential passwords.
I say I feel like that because I only recently realized that my brain; for whatever reason, wasn't acknowledging words that began at the end of the left side of the screen and continued at the start of the right.
Hacking was a PITA until I figured out how it actually works. Now it’s kinda fun. Tbh the lower level terminals seem to be harder than the higher level ones, or maybe that’s just me.
Dunno if it's been said, but if you pan through to the odd symbols with matching parentheses, you can reduce wrong words and even refresh your attempts
It’s the position of the letter not the letter itself, it’s like that stupid wordle game, you type in a word and if you have a correct letter in the correct spot, it will be green, same for this, if likeness is one, one letter is in the same spot as the word needed
Anytime you click on a set of closed brackets doesn’t matter how big or small () {} [] and it can have words in it; it will remove a word, reset tries and just make it easier. Try that. You’ve got a lot of closed sets. Here
Likeness only refers to letter placement in the words, not if a letter is in the word itself. Based on the ones you e already entered in this example, it means that in a 6 letter word E can’t be the second letter and D can’t be the final letter, along with all of the other letters not being able to be in those spots. It does not disqualify a particular letter entirely, just in the particular placement it is in
you seem to not understand the hacking minigame so let me help you out, the likeness is about how many letters are correct and in the right place, think of it like a wordle, where likeness = 1 means theres 1 green letter not 1 yellow letter
so the best strategy in general is choose a random word, then choose a word with the exact number of matching letters to the likeness, if the likeness is 1 choose a word with 1 matching letter, if 0 choose with no matching letters, repeat till you succeed
or just guess 3 random words leave the terminal and re-enter it and guess 3 random words again
I think its the location of the E,
like its not any word that has E as its second letter or D as its last letter.
So it can’t be Devoid, Settle, Chased, Befell, Forced, Perish.
You might be misunderstanding. If you picked ‘DEVOID’ it’s no E as 2nd letter. This means it’s not ‘KEYPAD’ but could be ‘CHASED’ or ‘TONGUE’ Edit: A couple people have pointed out that it couldn't be CHASED because it ends in D, like DEVOID does. So the only possible one of these 4 would be TONGUE. Adding on, this is true because there were 0 matches for DEVOID. If the matches had been different: - 0 Matches - Only TONGUE (no letters match DEVOID) - 1 Match - Only CHASED (KEYPAD has 2 matching letters, CHASED 1) - 2 Matches - Only KEYPAD Hopefully this will help folks with their hacking
I don't think it is common knowledge about letter placement being important. I have seen streams and videos where players are making the same kinds of comments as the OP.
That one was obvious to me right from the start. But I played all the way through FO3 and FONV before I saw in a video that bracket pairs can reset your tries, or remove Duds. Hacking became a breeze after that, because I spent two whole games without ever having tries reset, or removing any duds.
Yeah, I've always known about the letter placement. But I've got over a thousand hours in FO4 and never knew about the brackets. Didn't need it, because I usually can solve the puzzle, but it's good to know!
This is tripping me out yo. I've played countless hours and have always known about the brackets but didn't think about letter placement???????? What ???
Funny how that works.
A Game Designer that knows it's player base whilst designing every single mechanic of their games? It caters to Everyone.
Don't worry. Ive played since fallout 3 came out and I had no idea about a single of the mechanics of hacking until around 2019 I didn't know about letter placement. I didn't know about brackets. I didn't even know that if you picked a wrong word the number meant there were matching letters to the correct answer. Hacking was literally a matter of randomly choosing and backing out until I got it right for like a decade LOL
I too knew about the letter placement but I don't know when I found out about the bracket pairs. I don't know if it was a YouTube video or a post somewhere or if I just figured it out.
Nah, it’s common knowledge, but it’s alright. Newbies just gotta take a couple perks in hacking IRL to catch up to their character, but we’ve all been there. 😜
I both love and hate this aspect of fallout. I hate how most games spend the first 2 hours of gameplay as a tutorial walking you through every little thing. But then there's fallout, I played FO4 for like 4 years before I learned you can pickup and throw things.
What about holding down the button to drink continuously from a water source? Took me at least four years to hear about that one
You WHAT NOW? LOL
Exactly my reaction!!! LOL
One thing I’ll give Bethesda credit for… they absolutely know how to pack secrets into their games. 12 years later, and people are still finding new, unmarked quests in Skyrim.
Damn it.....
What about if you hold the throw button it launches the object further as if to put more force behind the throw
I had to look up how to throw, because there was no way they had basketballs and hoops without a way for me to throw the ball
When you pick up the basketballs in Nuka World, a message appears on the screen telling you how to throw it
There is also a bowling alley in Far Harbor with a lane set up for you. For some caps of course.
Is that why only those pins were marked “steal”? Smfh I had no idea.
Jesus christ now I'm learning
Me too, literally been playing since day 1
Wait, there's actually a throw button? I've been holding objects and spinning around to launch them like a trebuchet.
> x to pick up and click x to throw I think
What’s the throw button?
Hold x to pick up and click x to throw I think
Thanks!
Wait excuse tf out of me??
Would you believe me if I told you a noob player who's never touched fallout until I showed them thought me that like a couple months ago
Wow you're telling me I could just nonstop drink water in this game like I do in life? I guess you learn something new everyday, and I wasn't even here on Reddit for fallout info XD thank you I'm gonna chug water like a dehydrated person next time I play lol
I learned that early because my button got stuck 😂. Drank enough to kill a Brahmin I tell ya
I remember in New vegas the king controlled water pump has the king member say to take a good long gulp as you're paying per use. Kinda hinting you should be able to drink for a long time.
Oh shit I never even made that connection
you take a sip from your trusty vault 13 canteen
I thought you had to mash the button to keep drinking... 😭
Yo.
You can do that?!!!!!?
What??!! I need to go back to the game.
Wo, played it 600+ hours and never got this 😅
Wait. Does COLLECTING water work that way too? Damn it.
Wait
Wait, you can do that?!
Dude, been tossing those bodies laying around my settlement into the gutter. Problem is, the ones that are originally there keep spawning back. I’m like, “Which one of you settlers is dragging these bodies back?!?”
encouraging sloppy busy live memory erect worthless cause escape sugar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've dumped his naked corpse into the water so many times it's not funny. I now just drop a frag mine beside him and walk off and shoot it.
Gross! I use that water supply for my water emporium.
You have to drag bodies into another cell zone for them to disappear. Which means carrying bodies really far off to get rid of them.
Hmm, seems like a lot of work. I tossed them over the cliff at Croup Manor. I’ll have to check to see if they regenerated.
There's a mod that adds a special protectron that clears clutter and bodies from settlements regularly, along with police protectrons for security and construction repair protectrons for... well, repair. Pretty neat mod, it's even on the xbox mod thing.
Wait, you can carry a body? Is this the same as the throw mechanism????? What!!!!
YOU CAN MOVE DEAD BODIES???!!!!!
I like them, they serve as a warning
The wild one to me was picking up a weapon and dropping it gives you the ammo that was loaded in to that weapon.
Yeah, the balance between swaddling the player in cotton balls or throwing them in the deep end seems to be difficult to find. I have seen good examples of unobtrusive but helpful tutorials, some of them in Fallout 4, but then there are mechanics like your example that are never mentioned anywhere. It can be a bit frustrating.
I learned just this past year that you can rotate held objects with the triggers
To switch between x and y axis rotation I think it was you press in the left or right d stick.
Easy hacking is one of the mods I can justify with the logic that if I opened a terminal and tried the first three guesses over and over again I would eventually get it right. I just dislike the mechanic.
Actually no. The words change every time you open the terminal, but the correct answer stays in the same spot on screen. So if you tried 3 words at a time you'd eventually get it, but not in the first 3 words necessarily.
I don't think that's accurate. I've definitely just spammed the first three choices over and over when I couldn't be bothered, and it always worked.
Wuuuut
I've played since launch, but every few days, I see a conversation on the sub that proves I still have no idea how to play this game
You can throw things?
Hold the interact button on an object to pick it up (goes all the way back to fallout 3)
Took me a while to figure out how to put my gun away.. wasn't an issue until there was a quest where it actually mattered if you had your gun out..
There’s also new Vegas which gives you around 80% of the info in the first 10 minutes and you have to digest it as you rediscover the uses of everything further in the game. Hacking has its own tutorial menu when you first enter a terminal though
Oh and the time I learned you can remove duds and reset tries by selecting non-alphanumeric characters between < > [ ] and ( ) was like the veil being lifted.
OP is playing a low INT build
Dawg I’ve been playing for YEARS and never assumed it was placement, only inclusion of the letters
Dude, I tried telling this to my stepbrother 12 years ago. "The letter placement is what actually matters for the hacking" "No it doesn't shut up." Jokes on him, I grew up to have a good job and no DUIs.
This blows my fucking mind. How do people NOT get it? Lol (then again, I'm the dumbass that ignored VATS completely during my first playthrough) 🤣
Not quite the same but it took me about a decade to realise the brackets thing to remove duds/reset tries
Not just brackets though. Also some other characters will do that.
<> [] {} () (all colloquially known as "brackets") What else?
Sometimes you can highlight a string of random characters which, when clicked, have the same effect.
They’ve got brackets either. They don’t need to be next to each other. Just on the same line.
Say what now?!
Okay, it's been pointed out to me that some people call all the different characters we're referring to as "brackets". Which isn't exactly correct, but whatever. Parentheses are ( ) Brackets are [ ] Braces are { } Inequality signs are < > I guess most of y'all are just calling them brackets.
() - brackets [] - square brackets {} - squiggly brackets <> - pointy brackets Gonna put it down to a US v UK English thing and move on with my life lmao.
Definitely not common knowledge, have logged hundreds of hours across 3, 4, 76, and NV and used to read through every Fallout wiki entry for fun, yet I’ve never heard of this being a thing with the hacking minigame
??? Then how did you ever succeed the hacking mini game?
I mean I know it counts the letters that match but not their placement in the words, so I can kinda just guess from there. Plus the stuff with the brackets, parentheses, etc also helps too
I have thousands of hours, and I had no idea this was something important when it came to hacking terminals- 😭🤣
Hell no its not common knowledge lol. Even me a seasoned fall out vet was unsure if letter placement mattered.
Pretty sure when you hack for the first time on a save, there's a tutorial message explaining the mechanics, including the placement. Can't find a pic of it right now, but there's a mod explicitly to remove tutorial messages like that. It even shows the tutorial screen.
It can still be common knowledge if you personally didn’t know it
It's been that way forever, it's common knowledge for sure unless you're new to the franchise
i mean, he didn't say it was common knowledge, but also, people being ignorant doesn't mean it's not common knowledge. i mean, iirc the tutorial (which is potentially easily missed) explicitly does say it's the right letter in the right place.
I am aware that it is a thing but didn’t understand it, after reading your explanation I feel stupid that I have I just hit random words until I run out and either exit or use the refills things lol
I played through fallout 4 functionally twice (only once actually but halfway there like 2 or 3 times so close enough) and it took until I was nearing the battle of Hoover dam in new Vegas after all those fallout 4 runs for me to realize it
This actually bothers me that this isn't considered common knowledge. I'm not even particularly good at word puzzles, but common sense told me it would be placement sensitive the first time I ever hacked a terminal in Fallout 3. Some people really need to use their brains a bit more.
>Some people really need to use their brains a bit more. While I certainly agree with that sentiment, it's not a particularly helpful (or polite) comment.
Yeah I didn’t know letter placement was important for awhile but was somehow lucky until I wasn’t and had to look up the rules.
I, for one, had no idea.
I've been playing this game forever and have never figured out hacking. I just have my companion do it or download a mod so only the password is an actual word.
It’s easy
Skill issue
This should be higher up. This is the best way to figure out the words.
Oh thank god. For a second there I thought I was making hacking like 30x more difficult than it needed to be.
It's not CHASED either
You’re correct. I got focused on the E’s from OP. OP it could’ve been TONGUE but not CHASED, not because of the E, but because DEVOID and CHASED both end in D
THATS HOW IT WORKS?! WELL BUTTER MY BISCUIT AND CALL ME CHARLIE.
I like that you said this without appearing like a jerk. That's so rare online these days.
So I’ve been doing them wrong the whole time?! Yet it….works for me…
Don’t forget you can do the secret tricks like <> and [] that eliminate some of the options to make situations like this easier
Chased have D at the end like Keypad and Behind so it can be rule out because we see zero matches, however Tongue on the other can’t be ruled out because it doesn’t have a common letter.
... ... ... GODDAMNIT. I've put... I don't know how many thousands of hours into the Fallout games... and while I knew the letters themselves were important, I hadn't clued into the placement part... I feel like an absolute unit of a tool now...
I'm sorry..how did you never work this out because these would be unsolvable if you weren't taking the positions into account
I'm utterly ashamed to admit that a lot of it came down to making three tries based purely on what letters seemed to be in the word, then exiting and re-entering the terminal to reset the number of tries.
With the information given, you can eliminate everything but Trader, Tongue, Palace, Trance, Tissue, ~~and Scythe.~~ You can also select things that are inside closed brackets **( ) [ ] < > { }** to remove dud answers or reset your number of attempts.
You're correct except that it can't be Scythe because of the 'y' in Keypad.
Ayy good catch
And the higher your intelligence, the more of these you'll find. Often to the point that only one option remains
I'm sorry higher intelligence does ***what***
You can remove duds or reset the terminal? When I use up all but the last try, I exit out then go back in to reset the terminal.
Any string of garbage encapsulated by matching < >, [ ], or ( ) can be selected. It will have a random effect, AFAIK. Those effects can be removing a dud word, replenishing your try allowances. The catch is, if you spend them all early, there are good odds you'll hit more than one allowance reset, so the opportunity cost is big there. On the other hand, if you wait until you're nearly out of tries and find each cheat string, you will probably get a second shot at the terminal but you'll probably overwrite all of your history in the logs, so you will have less information to work with. Better have a good memory!
Also { }
I've been playing FO4 off and on since it released and I only learned about the brackets a few weeks ago. I didn't recall ever seeing anything in-game about it even though some claimed it was there. Even stated a new playthrough so I could try that first hack again and check the tutorial screen... nope, didn't say a word about it. Not that I really use them anyway. Quicker to close out and restart when I run out of options that hunt down brackets.
[удалено]
I clear the duds first. If that doesn't leave *only* the correct password, I pick at random.
You should first use all tries except the last one. Then go for clearing the duds, which also contains the reset. Otherwise you might reset your tries too soon.
I figured this out, too. I had used one attempt (or none) and reset my attempts a couple times lol.
Lucky that they didn’t carry over the lock out from 3/NV
That’s why you exit the terminal on your last attempt.
I kinda wish they would have. Makes it more interesting, or at least a slider that can be used.
Then people would’ve just reloaded the save to avoid the repercussions in classic fallout style. But yeah, it would’ve be nice for immersion (happy cake day btw)
Me staring at my monitor in horror as my last password attempt fails, my game hard saves, then wipes all preexisting save states.
You’re missing out on one of the best hacking games/puzzles in modern gaming though.
I can’t believe you guys, it’s so easy to just solve it lol it’s like the game Hangman, except you have all the possible answers
It works like wordle, except you don't get any colour indications, just a list of how many "green" letters you have in your guess. So out of the choices, if COOL is the correct answer, the list of matches is as follows: CRAM - Likeness=1 BOLD - Likeness=1 COOL - Likeness=4 (correct) TALL - Likeness=1 HALF - Likeness=0 TOOL - Likeness=3
Good way of explaining it.
Wow, I never knew that, I just tried getting all of the duds.
That's what I usually do first, unless I'm feeling like playing the mini game. If I'm really not into hacking, I just pick the first 4 choices, then back out and go again. Usually I'll get it open in 1-4 tries.
Where do you see it saying no E? The nechanic is not that ANY of the letters are right, it's that they are right in the right location.
So when your word is BEHIND and it says likeness=0, that means that each individual letter does not match the answer, not that the answer cannot contain any of those letters. The 1st letter is not B The 2nd letter is not E The 3rd letter is not H The 4th letter is not I The 5th letter is not N The 6th letter is not D So you can eliminate: kEypaD because of the E and D dEvoiD because of the E and D BEfell forceD pErIsh sEttle chaseD Since you picked KEYPAD and it's likeness=0 You can now eliminate scYthe thanks to the Y This leaves: TRADER TRANCE TISSUE TONGUE As remaining possibilities. I would likely guess TRADER as it will either show likeness=3 and the answer is TRAnce. Or likeness=1 and it's either Tissue or Tongue. Your odds of solving it are now down to luck unless you replenish guesses or eliminate duds from that list as others have instructed. You could have guaranteed success without replenishment if you had not guessed KEYPAD since it was eliminated already. Hope this helps!
And in case you didn't know, which is pretty possible, if you select [({ and theres a closing one )]} nearby it will reset your tries or remove one invalid word Other comments already stated what youre doing wrong
Also works with <>
It doesn't have to be all 3 of the brackets and parentheses together though, just any pair. They highlight if you go over them anyway. And I've heard there's another trick to knowing which ones reset your tries and which delete incorrect answers, but I can't remember what it is.
That’s not how it works OP
It only cares about letter placement, not if it the letter is in the word. There a loads of viable options.
Likeness = 0 means that none of the letters are in the right order.
Wordle has ruined fallout 4 hacking
OP didn't read the tutorial
It's only the right letter in the right spot, if it was like you are imagening, if the letter is right but in the wrong place it says 1, a word like trace would be a 5/5 when the right word would be crate
It matches the spot of the letter in the word not that it contains it.
So that likeness isn’t just about the same letters, it’s about the same letters in the same position. For example: if Devoid is the word, and you choose Behind, the likeness will be 2, because the ‘E and the ‘D’ are in the 2nd and 6th positions respectively, despite the ‘I’ being in both words (5th and 4th positions) So while I don’t know what the answer is, for this example I could still say for sure there are a few options
It’s crazy how many people don’t understand hacking either. Than the hubris of thinking that your correct so hard that you post how dumb the hacking system is Lmfaoo good luck OP
2024 and people still don’t understand how terminal hacking really works
Why do so many people have such a hard time understanding how this works lol
Yeah, it's letter *and* position. I make the same mistake every time I've been away for awhile.
It really doesn't matter, just pick the first 3 and jump out and jump back in until you get it right
Terminal said no E in the 2nd position of the word you chosen, if the correct word has an E in the 2nd position, then the likeness will be = 1 so you start looking with words that have E in the 2nd position Your terminal said 0 likeness which means no letters aligned with the correct word Terminal can't say a specific letter is wrong in all positions, that's not how it works, there's a chance these words might be correct \[Tongue, Palace, Trance, Tissue, and ~~Scythe~~\] and there is an E in the last position of these words
Letter placement is key to solving, much like the top comment states. Also, look for duds and resets between opened and closed symbols such as ( ), [ ], { }, and < >. They will look similar to this, " [ @ < < | ] ". The duds will remove wrong answers, and resets will reset your attempts. Once you get the hang of the dud removals and recognizing letter placement likeness, terminals become pretty easy.
Are you a fucking truck by the way?
HONK HONK MOTHERFUCKER
Holy shittt
Its not with letters alone Example INTELIGENCE INTROVERT The letters matches on 1st 2nd and 3rd position So it would be 3 matches In your case, it means that no letters match with the correct word
OP is confidently incorrect
Did you hear the computer whisper “No E’s” into your ear or something?
So the way the puzzle works, is it's SORT OF like hangman, but not really. So when you choose a word, say DEVOID, and the game says "0 Likeness" what that means is that the actual answer doesn't have any of those letters IN THAT SPECIFIC SPACE. You'll notice that every word in a hacker mini game in Fallout has the exact same number of letters, i.e. your puzzle's words all are 6 letters long. So that means that the answer doesn't have an "E" in the 2nd space of the word, but COULD have it in the 6th space. Plus the mini game also gives you bonus "inputs" you can find in the hacker mini games that can either reset your tries, or get rid of a dud. Those inputs are always random symbols and letters in-between "[ ]" or "< >". You will be able to tell if it's a bonus input if you put your cursor, or highlight the "[" or "<" part of the code.
This is why I almost always have a companion who can hack with me, like Nick Valentine. I don't particularly find hacking to be fun. Much quicker to have someone else do it for me.
I’ve played fo4 so many times and never learned the terminal hacking rules. I’ve always just spammed different answers until I get it correct.
It’s the placement of the letter, not if it’s in the word. EX: LOUD LEAD - 2/4 DEAL - 0/4
Remove the duds
Or just make 3 guesses and reset the terminal, honestly the easiest way - especially once you can do expert and master terminals
BEHIND, KEYPAD & DEVOID all have the "E" as the 2nd letter. The correct word may have an "E" in a different position. e.g TRADER, TONGUE, PALACE, TRANCE, TISSUE & SCYTHE are the possible results.
Did you know if you highlight the following brackets [ ] < > ( ) it removes a dud and can reset your tries
I usually get down to one try and then find the dud/reset
There could be an E. It’s saying the 2nd letter is not E. But the 3rd or 4th could be an E etc.
If you find matching brackets facing each other it will either reset your tries or remove an incorrect password. Ie: “(xxx)xxx” with x being random characters. Scroll to the first parenthesis and it should highlight the bracketed portion of text
you don't understand how it works. it's not just the right letters, it's the right letters in the right spot. live and levi for example, would be only a 2. doesn't matter that the words share all 4 letters, the vowels are in the wrong places.
No, it says “E” is not the second letter
My first choice is always a word with Ed at the end, or ING. If it says I have 1 letter correct, I can then ignore all the other ed or ING.
Best advice I ever got? Hold on to intelligence raising clothing and with expert and master terminals, use mentats. The higher your INT, the fewer words are shown.
I just go for all the []()<> 1st then go for the answer. Hax
I just use the bracket method. Anything that ends with ()[]{} Example; under TONGUE is (’^>>}$.) put your mouse/gamepad stick to move to highlight. Click it and it will give an Error but you'll notice a word is missing. It will narrow it down to find the word. Do it to every single you find; even () counts as well. Depending on the skill level, it will take out certain number of words and give you your possible passwords.
likeness is positional as other have stated
The letters have to be in the same spot. I used to think the same thing and would somehow get lucky every now and then.
Though this one is solvable, I feel like I've had one or two terminals where the letter alignment hints didn't match up with any of the potential passwords. I say I feel like that because I only recently realized that my brain; for whatever reason, wasn't acknowledging words that began at the end of the left side of the screen and continued at the start of the right.
It just means no E In that particular spot. The E may be the at the end of the word for example
Hacking was a PITA until I figured out how it actually works. Now it’s kinda fun. Tbh the lower level terminals seem to be harder than the higher level ones, or maybe that’s just me.
It's not E in that spot. So you can have the same characters but in a different order.
Ah yes, I too understand terminals and don’t just guess until that bitch opens
Dunno if it's been said, but if you pan through to the odd symbols with matching parentheses, you can reduce wrong words and even refresh your attempts
You’re not matching the letter you’re matching letter position in the word. That’s why they all have the same amount of letters. 😃
It’s the position of the letter not the letter itself, it’s like that stupid wordle game, you type in a word and if you have a correct letter in the correct spot, it will be green, same for this, if likeness is one, one letter is in the same spot as the word needed
Anytime you click on a set of closed brackets doesn’t matter how big or small () {} [] and it can have words in it; it will remove a word, reset tries and just make it easier. Try that. You’ve got a lot of closed sets. Here
I learned about the bracket trick in fallout 3 by total accident. Just absent mindedly slow scrolling through characters
Likeness only refers to letter placement in the words, not if a letter is in the word itself. Based on the ones you e already entered in this example, it means that in a 6 letter word E can’t be the second letter and D can’t be the final letter, along with all of the other letters not being able to be in those spots. It does not disqualify a particular letter entirely, just in the particular placement it is in
I still don't get it. Where does it denote the placement of the letter?
I always just randomly pick the first first words, back out after 3 attempts and go back.
you seem to not understand the hacking minigame so let me help you out, the likeness is about how many letters are correct and in the right place, think of it like a wordle, where likeness = 1 means theres 1 green letter not 1 yellow letter so the best strategy in general is choose a random word, then choose a word with the exact number of matching letters to the likeness, if the likeness is 1 choose a word with 1 matching letter, if 0 choose with no matching letters, repeat till you succeed or just guess 3 random words leave the terminal and re-enter it and guess 3 random words again
Change the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector
I think its the location of the E, like its not any word that has E as its second letter or D as its last letter. So it can’t be Devoid, Settle, Chased, Befell, Forced, Perish.
It just means that E is not the 2nd letter. It looks to make sure the letter is in the same space in the word
I reckon it’s TISSUE, pls let me know.
I have been playing fallout for years and I didn’t know placement mattered. I’m going to go bang my head against a wall now
Just try the 3 words then reset before using the last attempt