Unknown Artefact (or artifact) Community Thread - The Canonn

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Kulin

Kulin
Dommarraa said:
Unless the purrs can be shown to repeat at any one location, they are not a lot if use.

If they do not repeat, then they are either meaningless, or contain variable data such as the time, which is itself not particularly relevant.

If they do repeat, then we need the whole message from a location (probably more than 1 location) to decode the message.

That means that any ua hero would need to return to a location allready recorded, and do some more until we either piece the whole message sequence together, or they feel that purrs are a dead end. The ua hero's have first and last call on that
Click to expand...

We already did that test: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=162998&p=2513216&viewfull=1#post2513216

Specifically here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=141038&page=620&p=2477602&viewfull=1#post2477602

Conclusion: The Purrs are always different, even when you have 2 artifacts in one instance of the same star system, released at exactly the same time, with only 1000m space between them.

However: Would be nice if someone could check if this high-pitched "inbetween" purrs are also different in the linked videos by Wishblend and Ratking. Did not have the time on the weekend to follow that theory.
 
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rizal72

rizal72
UNKNOWN ARTEFACT MISTERY SOLVED! FINALLY!
What I did:
I opened voice comm, and whistled the five tones of Close Encounters into my microphone: di da di di daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The UA "head" opened right in front of me, revealing...

... another UA, smaller, but identical to the first one: MATRIOSKA!
The smaller UA chittered some nice morse code to me, saying: "Nice try! The UA mistery, will never end..."
 
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Kulin

Kulin
rizal72 said:
UNKNOWN ARTEFACT MISTERY SOLVED! FINALLY!
What I did:
I opened voice comm, and whistled the five tones of Close Encounters into my microphone: di da di di daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The UA "head" opened right in front of me, revealing...

... another UA, smaller, but identical to the first one: MATRIOSKA!
The smaller UA chittered some nice morse code to me, saying: "Nice try! The UA mistery, will never end..."
Click to expand...

Finally. Now we can go to bed without thinking all the time about that damn, f-ing UA.
 

Zenith

Zenith
Zion Ravescene said:
The store needs to sell stuffed toy Unknown Artefact plushies. When you hug them, they start to purr.
Click to expand...

+rep for making me laugh this morning. :)

I'm not going to get too drawn into the audio analysis side because:
a) the "new generation" of players managed to decode more than the "old" generation a couple of months ago (and I include myself in that group).
b) aside from the chittering being morse code, the purrs sound like a 2-state signal but currently elude analysis or are in fact random noise.

My only constructive thing to add is that it is Monday.
As far as I can tell, the UAs we've seen dropped on Monday afternoons (UK time).
I'm not expecting miracles, but it's worth bearing in mind while entering the nth SSS in Timocani today... :S
 

rizal72

rizal72
I was just giving a look to the original thread, to find where I read about someone selling the UA because he didn't know what it was, and I came across a post that someone made just to joke about the UA mistery:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=141038&page=5&p=2161600&viewfull=1#post2161600

Ah! He got the morse illumination! ;D
Aaaaaaaaaand it took just 10.000 posts to find that he was correct on that...

QorbeQ said:
*cough* "old generation"?
Click to expand...
QorbeQ said:
I've been in with the UA investigation from the start :D
Click to expand...


Me too ;)
My first post about the UA, completely useless, is in the second page of the thread... replying to Michael Brookes hint about listening to it...
 
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bitstorm

bitstorm
Just to repost this in case it was missed. The honk/wails change too....


There seems to be two types of honk/wail.

Type (1) goes low, high, low. In morse it sounds like -.- Listen here => https://www.dropbox.com/s/0x9pco57my42b2v/HONK_LHL.wav?dl=0

Type (2) is a bit less clear, it seems to be high, low, high or perhaps high, low, medium. Morse again is not clear, possible --- or - -- Listen => https://www.dropbox.com/s/gu7z0gkm4coa7re/HONK_HLH.wav?dl=0

Can anyone with a better ear for notes than me pick out, is it HLM HLH?

Also what are the actual notes? For curiosities sake I'm wondering what the *frequencies* of the honk/wail notes are.

Anyway, as far as I can see these always alternate across the cycles, so LHL then next is HLH/M then LHL and so on...

  1. Wail [LHL]
  2. [morse location block]
  3. Purrs
  4. Wail [HLH/M]?
  5. [morse location block]
  6. Purrs
  7. GOTO 1 =p

It's hard to suggest any meaning, not likely to be start/end markers, but I suppose they do at least suggest that one complete cycle actually consists of two mini-cycles.

Perhaps it's some sort of decode format for the enclosing purrs, a key in that a LHL=>HL(HM) section is to be decoded slightly differently to the HL(HM) => LHL section?
 
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rizal72

rizal72
bitstorm said:
Just to repost this in case it was missed. The honk/wails change too....


There seems to be two types of honk/wail.

Type (1) goes low, high, low. In morse it sounds like -.- Listen here => https://www.dropbox.com/s/0x9pco57my42b2v/HONK_LHL.wav?dl=0

Type (2) is a bit less clear, it seems to be high, low, high or perhaps high, low, medium. Morse again is not clear, possible --- or - -- Listen => https://www.dropbox.com/s/gu7z0gkm4coa7re/HONK_HLH.wav?dl=0

Can anyone with a better ear for notes than me pick out, is it HLM HLH?

As far as I can see these always alternate in across the cycles, so LHL then next is HLH/M then LHL and so on...

  1. Wail [LHL]
  2. [morse location block]
  3. Purrs
  4. Wail [HLH/M]?
  5. [morse location block]
  6. Purrs
  7. GOTO 1 =p

It's hart to suggest any meaning, not likely to be start/end markers, but I suppose they to at least suggest that one complete cycle consists of two mini-cycles.

Perhaps it's some sort of decode format for the enclosing purrs, a key in that a LHL=>HL(HM) section is to be decoded slightly differently to the HL(HM) => LHL section?
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting: perhaps the morse code is in two parts? For example, system the UA is in, and System to transmit the data to?
Did someone try to decode two consequent morse chitterings of the same UA? I mean, perhaps the second one is "different"?
 

bartmoss

B
Zenith said:
b) aside from the chittering being morse code, the purrs sound like a 2-state signal but currently elude analysis or are in fact random noise.
Click to expand...

Definitely not purely random.

- no triples or longer consecutive bit sequences in purr "groups"

- no equal distribution among "groups"



The data above includes 111 symbols/purr-groups. (I really need to start calling them bits and bytes, since that terminology is easiest, even if these are not actual "computer bytes"). I did sort it by percentage, this may cause some bias in perception. However, if this were simply random generated bit noise, it wouldn't look like this.

I think we are looking at letter frequency, i.e. a substitution cipher. 01001 is pretty spot on for "E" and 10110 could be "T". Some caution must be applied, because the encoded text could be non-English. Station or planet names, perhaps.

(Or it could be something else, but let's be scientific about this and test that hypothesis.)
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
bartmoss said:
Definitely not purely random.

- no triples or longer consecutive bit sequences in purr "groups"

- no equal distribution among "groups"
Click to expand...

Aye this is why we've been calling it pseudo-random.

On the randomness, we have no idea how it's generated. ED uses procedural generation for lots of things, it's quite possible the purrs are generated from an algorithm which gives the *illusion of a pattern*. Much like how the star forge generates random stars which cluster into types and similar.

Elite is *the* procedurally generated game, I suspect the vast majority of it is procedurally generated, from ships available at stations, to marked prices to ambient sound effects. I am no procedural expert but it would not surprise me if at a coding level they have a bunch of different pseudo-random number pools built from algorithms and use those. So for example, they need to generate purrs, just key into the ambient sounds pseudo-random pool.

So anyway what I'm saying is that because it isn't random doesn't mean it isn't "random". True-random vs pseudo-random as it were.

EDIT: Caveat - not trying to put people off, my gut tells me there's something in the purrs!
 
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bartmoss

B
bitstorm said:
So for example, they need to generate purrs, just key into the ambient sounds pseudo-random pool.
(snip)

EDIT: Caveat - not trying to put people off, my gut tells me there's something in the purrs!
Click to expand...

Right, we know that it's a deliberate puzzle, so either we can rule random noise out purely because of that, or the hint we need is in another aspect of the UA. That would leave the colored flashes [I can't contribute to that, being colorblind].

Without judging the colored flashes, I think we can fairly safely assume that the purrs are a code.
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
bartmoss said:
Right, we know that it's a deliberate puzzle, so either we can rule random noise out purely because of that, or the hint we need is in another aspect of the UA. That would leave the colored flashes [I can't contribute to that, being colorblind].

Without judging the colored flashes, I think we can fairly safely assume that the purrs are a code.
Click to expand...

Do we know it's a deliberate puzzle? Frontier's statements have been quite vague on the matter. And if it isn't a puzzle I think FD are in a position where it's not in their interests to explicitly say so.

It's quite possible it's just a plot building device that sets the scene for what's to come later, ie the unfolding of a story. More a mystery than a puzzle.

I certainly think the attention the UA has got has caught FD completely by surprise in that this isn't quite what they intended from the outset.

Saying that, I hope more of this comes, this for me is infinitely more interesting and engaging than Powerplay and the like. Trying to solving galactic mysteries > making some random dude more powerful.
 
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digitalscream

Banned
D
Just to throw something out there - has anything changed since they were first discovered?

The reason I ask is that DB mentioned in an interview that they were quite taken by surprise by the community effort that sprang up around them, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a sneaky/subtle change to the behaviour to give them a point.

Is it worth comparing recent recordings to the originals we had, to see if there's any marked difference in regularity? That might point us in the direction of where to look.
 

Eolan

E
1. We need more U.As. How are people storing them when they eat through the ship?
2. Have we tried recreating the presidents jump? Same fighters, same ships, same jump attempt? With a u.a on board and a sap 8?

3. Ke rash said on that podcast stream that we (you awesome guys) were overthinking it, he said (paraphrasing) "I mean come on your so close, it's so obvious we can't actually give u any clues. But come on! The new stuff I'm 1.3 included Sap8 containers and diamondback, an EXPLORATION VEHICLE, it's right there"

So far no one seems to mention that part of the "statement" from him. I'll try to dig it up and be more accurate with the quote at lunch.

....

Here's another idea, what does a UA do to the sap 8 containers in the hold? On a long enough journey would they "eat" the container causing something to happen?

I wonder when he said are u sure it's morse, he meant it. The thing might have morse that accurately gives out info but, THAT STILL CAN BE DECORATION! :) it would suck if your chasing an angle when all it is is very detailed sound decoration/texturing :)
 

bartmoss

B
bitstorm said:
Do we know it's a deliberate puzzle? Frontier's statements have been quite vague on the matter. And if it isn't a puzzle I think FD are in a position where it's not in their interests to explicitly say so.

It's quite possible it's just a plot building device that sets the scene for what's to come later, ie the unfolding of a story. More a mystery than a puzzle.

I certainly think the attention the UA has got has caught FD completely by surprise in that this isn't quite what they intended from the outset.

Saying that, I hope more of this comes, this for me is infinitely more interesting and engaging than Powerplay and the like. Trying to solving galactic mysteries > making some random dude more powerful.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we know.

From someone who went to LaveCon: "The UA thing isn't a wild goose chase, we are apparently 'close' and there is more awaiting us as and when we work it out." -> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=165775&p=2529743&viewfull=1#post2529743

- - - Updated - - -

Eolan said:
3. Ke rash said on that podcast stream that we (you awesome guys) were overthinking it, he said (paraphrasing) "I mean come on your so close, it's so obvious we can't actually give u any clues. But come on! The new stuff I'm 1.3 included Sap8 containers and diamondback, an EXPLORATION VEHICLE, it's right there"
Click to expand...

Interesting. Gives more credence to Wishblend's attempts.

Speaking of which, I now own an ASP. If anybody wants me to check out some systems somewhere... I got time to spare. I just don't have any of that fancy shmancy stuff to take with me, and my equipment is still a bit sub-par... but still, any help I can offer...
 

Ryder35

R
bartmoss said:
Yeah, we know.

From someone who went to LaveCon: "The UA thing isn't a wild goose chase, we are apparently 'close' and there is more awaiting us as and when we work it out." -> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=165775&p=2529743&viewfull=1#post2529743

- - - Updated - - -



Interesting. Gives more credence to Wishblend's attempts.

Speaking of which, I now own an ASP. If anybody wants me to check out some systems somewhere... I got time to spare. I just don't have any of that fancy shmancy stuff to take with me, and my equipment is still a bit sub-par... but still, any help I can offer...
Click to expand...

Is there any indication of where the SAP8 containers have come from?
 
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