The biggest goal of this iteration of the server is to get players to work together (or by themselves, if they prefer) to build big, good-looking structures, towns, impressive machines, and functional, attractive infrastructure. The Cemetech (MC 1.7) PvP server had an emphasis on clever strategies and politics; a reaction against that was actually why Bosaik's server was forked off of our userbase in the first place, to fill the gap of players who wanted a non-PvP survival server. As of MC 1.8, we removed the PvP features to encourage more cooperation and less hiding inside sealed boxes, and we're looking to build on that momentum with MC 1.9. We've had a huge amount of activity so far; tifreak8x's video shows well some of the new builds that have been created in the past twelve days:

Happy Easter! We're happy to announce the official launch of the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 server (mc.cemetech.net). After about three months of hard work from dedicated members preparing the server, its spawn, its rules, and its plugins, not to mention a week-long soft launch in which we ironed out the bugs and started building a lot of activity on the server, we're proud to welcome you to the server. Way back in August 2012, after several of us had played Minecraft on Evocat.us for several years, we launched our own Minecraft 1.5 server here on Cemetech, whitelisted and restricted to a few core members. New Year's 2014 saw the launch of a brand-new, open-to-all PvP server in Cemetech's Minecraft 1.7 server. With a goal of encouraging cool machines, impressive defenses, beautiful builds, and crafty, political PvP, it was a resounding success, with a peak of about 12 active towns containing hundreds of members and dozens of active players. After players became increasingly divided on the intrigue and heartbreak of PvP and sanctioned theft, we switched to Intellectual Survival with Minecraft 1.8, retaining the philosophy of big, impressive builds and clever machines, but removing involuntary PvP and theft. Finally, the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 server builds on the Intellectual Survival successes, encouraging players to work together to get started, then use their skills and imagination to build towns, cities, railroads, machines, and more.

Like Cemetech itself, our Minecraft server challenges players, asking them to think beyond cobble boxes, dirt houses, and straight-line railroads. The gameplay is semi-vanilla, and encourages players to explore the map to get Lapis Lazuli ore, used to buy towns, to work together with other players to build up those towns, to create ChestShops to trade with other players, to create auto-farming mechanisms, and in some cases to compete. As first introduced on the Minecraft 1.8 server, we hold frequent server-wide events, including Abba Caving matches, scavenger hunts for treasure, and more. I could tell you more, but the best way to experience the Cemetech Minecraft 1.9: Intellectual Survival server is to hop on and join us. You'll start in our huge, custom-built spawn, centered on a sky-scraping Mother Tree surrounded by jungles, paths, and the core stations of a railroad that will span the world. Take a look at the builds that are already underway, and if you want to play too, just ask a moderator to whitelist you for building.

I hope we'll see you on the server soon! Join mc.cemetech.net to start playing, and also check out the map, statistics, and videos below. If you've already tried the Minecraft 1.9 server and had fun, feel free to share your experiences in the attached topic. For today's launch, the border has been expanded an additional 250 blocks, so even if you haven't played during the soft-launch period, there will be a brand-new, untouched area for you to explore at the map's edges.

Media and More Information
Server address: mc.cemetech.net
Play @ Cemetech: Minecraft and Unreal Tournament 2004
Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 map
Cemetech Minecraft 1.9 game statistics
Kerm Martian's Let's Play of server's soft launch: Part 1, Part 2
TIFreak8x's Let's Play of server's soft launch: ,

At least one person has solved all five challenges, and only for one challenge did it take more than 24 hours for the first entry to be received.

Challenge #5, Hint #2 time: the object described is an Etch-a-Sketch, which lets you generate an image by using knobs to move a cursor.

Challenge #5, Hint #1 time! Knobs and a red rectangle.

*bump* hint time #2: Not every member of a group has equal value, and numbers that come around, wrap around.

Edit:
The fifth and final challenge of Cemetech Contest #15 is here, which means you have just over one week to submit all five solutions for the contest. Like Challenge 4, this challenge is related to images, so we suggest you think long and hard about possible ways to interpret the number (numbers?) below. When you figure out the cipher and create your solution program, make sure that as in the first three challenges, it takes a string as input via Ans or stdin. It's hopefully enough of a clue to tell you that the output for this challenge should be an image either on the graphscreen, in a picture variable, or for computer programs, as a PNG or GIF image. As with the previous two challenges, we may publish a clue on Friday afternoon at 5pm ET, but we encourage you to try to solve it before Friday to earn maximum points, and we will decide whether to post a clue based on how many entrants have figured out the cipher. Good luck!

Challenge 5: 1111144444444433333333333211112223321122223333333444444444322222222233444
3222334444444443333333321111122233321112222333333333333334111144444444333
3333333333321111112223332111222233333333333333341111114444444433333333322
2222222344443332222344444444444441111111111111111111111111111111111111111
1444444444444444444444434333333333332322222222222222222222211111111111444
4433333333344141211412114121144434323343233432334441412114121141211444343
2334323343233344414121141211412114
Note: line breaks are for clarity, NOT part of the clue

*bump* Hint time: The encoding scheme used in this challenge can encode no more than 63 characters.

DJ_O: As noted at the beginning of the thread, solving the challenges closer to the announcement of the ciphertext gives you up to 5 extra points.

The second-to-last challenge is here, and I think it's one that you guys will have fun with. Instead of providing a ciphertext for Challenge 4, we are providing a 95x63-pixel monochrome image (of an Enigma machine!) in three formats: .8xi, .8ci, and .png. Solutions must take at least one of those formats and produce a plaintext (not image) output from the image. Programmers working on the color calculators can assume that any .8ci passed to the program will also only have black and white pixels in the top-left 95x63 pixels of the image, and those writing computer programs should only look at the top 95x63 pixels of any image passed to the program. As with the previous challenge, we will publish a clue on Friday afternoon at 5pm ET, but we encourage you to try to solve it before Friday to earn maximum points.

Challenge 4:

Download:
Contest #15, Challenge 4 input image (PNG)
Contest #15, Challenge 4 input image (8xi)
Contest #15, Challenge 4 input image (8ci)

*bump* Noting how much people are struggling with Challenge 3 and with jonbush's agreement, we have decided to release one additional hint at this time: Challenges 1 to 3 have all used ciphers that can be found in the "Classical Cryptography" template on Wikipedia. A special congratulations to the >=2 contestants who solved the challenge before this hint!

*bump* Contest #15, Challenge #3 hint time:
You wouldn't put calculators on your salad

c4ooo: Please try to avoid posting hints about the cipher. Note that the rules posted for the last challenge specify that things like constants should be changeable in the source.

For the past two Tuesdays, we have announced increasingly difficult challenges as part of Cemetech Contest #15: Crypto Golfing. This five-part contest tasks programmers with solving cryptography puzzles, then creating programs that can decode messages in the cipher used for each challenge. We received an overwhelming number of entries written in many different calculator and computer languages for Challenges 1 and 2, although the field has started to thin. Since another Tuesday is upon us, Challenge 3 of Cemetech Contest #15 is here! If you haven't started entering the contest yet or if you haven't completed one of the existing challenges, you still have time, and the only thing you'll lose is the (up to) 5 bonus points you get by submitting your solutions quickly. Challenge 3 is the last pure-text cipher, and if you're still stuck with it on Friday, we'll be publishing an extra hint on Friday afternoon at 5pm, Eastern Time.

Challenge 3: OEEJCYKL WK AU LTMY L WXOJWN

Good luck! To repeat the incentive, besides prestige and glory: a TI-Nspire CX and a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition await the top two contestants.

Quote from: jonbushIf you haven't figured out Challenge 2 yet, here's a hint:

%26

I'm Kerm Martian and I approve of this message. Good luck, everyone. I notice we haven't quite gotten as many entries as for the first challenge, so I hope everyone who is stuck on this one (or forgot to enter so far this week) will redouble their efforts.

The earlier you send them, the higher your score, but you can send all of the solutions together on the very last day of the contest if you so desire.

I'm happy to announce that another Tuesday is upon us, so Challenge 2 of Cemetech Contest #15 is also here! If you haven't completed Challenge 1 yet, you still have time, and the only thing you'll lose is the (up to) 5 bonus points you get by submitting your solutions quickly. Challenge 2 adds a few additional rules that we learned from seeing how people worked with Challenge 1:

• For Challenges 2 and 3, TI-BASIC, Axe, and Assembly programs should take the ciphertext in Ans and return the decoded plaintext in Ans as well.
  
• For Challenges 2 and 3, computer programs should take input from stdin and return output to stdout.
  
• If there are any constants or keys that affect how a particular cipher works (for example, the offset in a Caesar cipher), these should be defined in a modifiable way in the source, so that someone with the source code could change those constants without needing to modify anything else in the program.

Challenge 2: VPUOUGHUVYUOOSIUWOPSTTEPMRWNSEOBHMYGUYUVUGP

Good luck!

Good luck to all! And thanks for front-paging this.

Quote from: Juju on December 16, 2015, 02:23:26 AM
Hmm, by decoding, I assume it's a symetrical algorithm and you don't have to crack any keys? Also, I assume the result of the challenge is something meaningful in English?

Correct on both counts.

Quote from: Juju on December 16, 2015, 02:23:26 AM

Quote from: KermMartian on December 16, 2015, 12:14:39 AM
Submit entries by emailing them, in a zip file, to contest at this domain name.

Sending your entries at this actual domain name is probably not a good idea (I know, you meant Cemetech's domain name )

Good catch.