Solving Geocache Puzzles

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GeoQO contains some special help for solving geocaching Unknown puzzles.





Selecting the Puzzles to Solve






Auto-Equation Support



Sorting by Distance



Solving Puzzles


Aside: Types of Puzzles

There are really two types of Unknown Caches:

Caches to do ahead of time
Solve-in-the-field caches

Viewing the cache

If you click on the show button it will open firefox (my recommendation), another web browser you have configured, or the internal viewer.


Marking caches as infield

Caches that fall into the Solve-in-the-field type should be marked as such using the infield checkbox button:


Entering Puzzle Answer Coordinates

GeoQo uses (expects by default) two attributes called puzn and puzw to hold the solution to puzzle caches. (You can also place the next stage of a multi-cache into the same attribute if you want).

The puzzle solving screen creates these attribute boxes for you after the word "Or:"


Here you can put in the solution you want geoqo to remember (example: "N38 32.001" and "W121 41.456").

You can also put in special field values:

Automatic Value Substitution

If the cache you're solving a puzzle for had an equation in it like:

 The final solution is at N38 32.ABC and W121 41.XYZ

Then you can have geoqo automatically replace the letters with values you select and put into the attribute boxes. You need to surround each letter replacement with ()s and put the special word "replace:" in front of the whole thing. As an example, if you fill in the North answer with:

 replace:N38 32.(A)(B)(C)

Then geoqo will automatically try and use the A, B, and C attributes to finish the solution. Of course, it means you need to create the A, B and C attributes and that's exactly what the attribute boxes let you do. Not only that, but if you had the auto-equation button checked, geoqo may have actually filled in the equation for you and created blank attributes for you to fill in.


Here's an example cache in my area that is an excellent looking cache but has a bunch of fill-in numbers. The auto-equation system already filled in the north and west fields with the proper equation (I checked, they're right. You should check too!!!). And it created a bunch of blank spots for me to fill in:


Automatic Math Calculations

GeoQO can even do tricky (or not so tricky) math for you. If you use "math:" instead of "replace:" in front of the string, it will try and evaluate the results to get the answer you need:


Substitutes of Math of Substitutes

Yes Virginia, you can do silly things like:

 puzn:  replace:N38 32.(A)(B)(A)
 A:     math:(C)-(D)
 C:     replace:(X)(Y)
 X:     4
 Y:     2
 D:     41

And geoqo will magically do everything required.

Heading Out

Ok, now you've solved all the puzzles you want to solve. You're ready to export your data to your device and head out. But what gets exported with respect to solved puzzles?

The answer is that you need to click on a few buttons:

Only including caches that have solutions or are in field

The first, which is off by default, but I recommend turning it on if you're going to use this system is the export searching buttons that let you filter out unknown caches that don't have a solution or the infield tag:


Then make sure the Use Solved Puzzle Cordinates checkbox is also selected:


That's it!!! GeoQO will now:

  • only export unknown caches that either:
    • have been given a (complete) puzn/puzw solution attribute set (including any needed math and replacements)
    • have been tagged as infield
  • Replace the original coordinates with the solution coordinates before exporting the cache


Future GeoQO Work

Wouldn't automatic evince verification be cool? Coming soon, if I can find the time. Or you can if you want to help ;-)

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