I am not sure how coding works, but how about sending a message of timeout that involves writing down the phrase given, with the correct spaces, giving only three minutes to do so:

Please write the following phrase correctly or you will timeout in three minutes:

TherewasaboyfromDaruchithatgavehiswakabiasmoochy

I`m not sure if coding could detect words from that, or even solve it. If it can, how about a phrase to unscramble.

Daranric - A Race alixhafl - a city

Problem is that there won't be an infinite number of them, so eventually a person can collect and trigger them all if they really want to.

And in the first place, CAPTCHAs are annoying enough. Imagine if you were in the middle of a raid/Knowledge Seal contest/something else important, and that CAPTCHA pops up.

Why would you be locked into an aethership while in a raid or a Knowledge Seal contest? O_O

Because he would be doing it right.

You could make that much harder to trigger by assembling a list of a few thousand words and then stringing together random series of four of them. It'd take a little work to make the list of words such that any random combination didn't cause any ambiguity in solution (or make the code able to recognize the multiple correct solutions), but not insurmountable. If the list is long enough, and every so often you throw a few more in, it'd be pretty hard to trigger. You could even come up with an IC excuse for it -- something where you're entering a failsafe code to prevent the module from failing, or something. I think this is one of those most workable captcha-like solutions to aetherspace idling I've seen suggested.

The problem with aetherhunts is that there's a lot going on. A captcha that's a single line is probably easilly lost in the shooting, healing, being hit, etc. Especially for empaths and pilots that also have the map output and module list.

EDIT: Also, I definitely don't want to have to type in a phrase when I'm running from ten or so beasts.

Well, my suggestion was just limited to aetherhunting.





haha, i really like that IC excuse for it, very creative. Totally agree with the 1000+ word bank with different combinations. I`m sure it wouldnt be that much of a problem every once in a while for the Gods to switch the wordbank. That failsafe code reminded me of 4, 8, 14, 15, 23, 42. haha LOST anyone? we could basically use the same concept. For those that dont know, in LOST, the characters had to input every hour that code into a computer that would prevent the end of the world.




This can easily be solved by placing the captcha below the ship`s prompt(hull, power, etc) after every command sent, thus also revealing the amount of time you have left before the captcha gets you, say -120 seconds. So if you are a pilot or empath, you`ll realize you have 2 minutes to finish killing the monsters in the area, tell the ship to stop siphoning, and put in the code.

It's still easily solved through coding. You don't need a bank of problems, just a bank of solutions. You'd have to assume that each problem had a unique solution (you wouldn't want STPO to be a problem, because you can get STOP, POTS, SPOT, TOPS, etc.).

Then you just play a "matching game" in the code. First letter in the problem is 'S'. That means that out of the bank of solutions, all solutions that have 'S' in them are viable. Next you have 'T'. So only the words with 'S' and 'T' are used....

You get the point. Sure, that's a bit of coding, but it's only (at most) an n^2 problem (when you use the slow approach). With 1000 solutions, the problem, in the worst case scenario, is solved in 1000000 x t seconds, where t is the time it takes to do one check. That may result for a 1 to 2 second run time on a slow computer.

EDIT: Oh yeah. You don't need even need to compile a list of solutions. Just use a dictionary! If they use Lusternian-only words, they risk questions that only a few could answer. What is rtbeardob (a very easy one)?

I can't tell if that is a joke or not, because I have no idea.

traderbob, I'd assume.

He's positing a solution to a different problem than the one being proposed. But the analysis is about the same: as long as you are using a list that includes the same words, you should be able to do it with enough work. His (scrambling words) has the disadvantage that it's hard for the human to solve, where Damel's and mine (random words with the spaces removed) is easy for a human to solve. Either one could be solved in code with enough effort if you also had the same word list -- which is really the key, because you wouldn't. And because the phrase-without-spaces approach would be messed up by having too big a word list; you'd find the wrong solutions.

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

Anagram solver, please solve my anagrams for me!

Interestingly, its first solution for your jumbled word is Barbed Rot. Heh. A bit of the ways down on the list, though is... Trader Bob.

Heh. It's not totally unique for Lusternia, but other things would be. But 'barbed rot' raises a problem. That's a legitimate answer, but would the system accept it as such?

Random letters missing is actually faster to code if you have the word bank. It'd be a pseudo binary search (n lg n run time). Assuming you didn't have the binary search, there's only so many things that can be put into the empty space, of which you can compare the possibilities to a dictionary before submitting the answer.

Are you going to punish for wrong answers? If so, how?

My point is, no matter what solution you come up with that involves coding, others can code a response.

Do want.