Guide

Strategy for every round

Moonshot asks for three different skills. Hive Mind rewards thinking like everyone else, Lone Star rewards thinking like no one else, and Target Orbit rewards knowing exactly how rare an answer is. The tips below come from the scoring rules and from what players actually answered on past days in the answers archive. If you haven't read it yet, how rarity works explains the orbits these tips refer to.

Hive Mind: say it first, say it fast

In Hive Mind an answer pays by how close it is to the No. 1 answer, and the payout falls away quickly. Here is what the top answers paid on October 22 for Name a language, before speed and boosts:

Three things follow from the rules behind that table.

• The top three are worth more than their points. Any answer ranked in the top 3 boosts your next answer by ×1.3. English, Spanish and Mandarin, typed quickly, score 100 + 114 + 60 = 274. Swap Mandarin for French and the total drops to 248, and French earns no boost for whatever comes next.
• Speed counts. You get full points for answering within 6 seconds. After that the points slide down to 60% at the 20-second buzzer. The obvious answer is usually the right one, so don't spend time second-guessing it.
• Think of the typical member, not your favourite. In Name a tool on October 20, 96% of players said Hammer. Wide categories spread out more: in Name a Disney movie the No. 1 answer, Cinderella, came from only 47% of players. The wider the category, the more it helps to name the oldest, most famous example rather than the newest one.

You can't use the same answer twice in one category, so lead with your strongest guess for No. 1 and work down.

Lone Star: real, rare and quick

In Lone Star the orbit sets the points:

• Beware the "second obvious" answer. Some answers feel rare but come to many people at once. On October 22, 330 players gave Swahili and 220 gave Haitian Creole, so both ended in High Orbit and paid 25. On October 20, 131 players gave Jackhammer for Name a tool, which we had in Uncharted; it finished in High Orbit too. If an answer jumps out at you as the clever one, it probably jumps out at others.
• Think in sub-groups. The answers that reach Uncharted usually come from a corner of the category: a region, an era, a trade or a technical name. The rarest languages players found on October 22 included Sorbian, Kabyle and Niuean, each given by a single player. In cocktails it was Chilcano, Canelazo and Hotel Nacional.
• Have a fallback. An answer only scores if it is on our list, and wrong answers cost nothing but time. Try your deep cut first; if the game doesn't recognise it, step one level safer rather than going straight back to the obvious.
• Mind the clock. Full points last 10 seconds, then slide to 60% at 35 seconds. An Uncharted answer found after 25 seconds pays about 65, the same as an Outer Rim answer typed straight away. A good rare answer now beats a perfect one later.
• Hunt the Supernova answers. Each category hides five, worth 110 each however many people find them, and an Uncharted or Supernova answer boosts your next answer by ×1.3. Past Supernova answers are listed on every archive day, which shows the kind of answer we pick: Basque and Ainu for languages, the Bijou and the Brandy Crusta for cocktails.

Target Orbit: aim, don't reach

Target Orbit gives you 4 calls. Each time, mission control names an orbit and you answer with something that sits in it. Dead on pays 100, one orbit off pays 50 and two off pays 20. Your calls are your own, and the same orbit never comes twice in a row.

• The outer orbits are the easy ones. For Low Orbit, say the No. 1 answer. For Uncharted, give the deepest real answer you know; a Supernova answer counts as Uncharted too.
• The middle needs calibration. High Orbit means roughly 10% to 30% as popular as the No. 1 answer: the second wave of answers, the ones that come to mind after the obvious few. Deep Space is 3.5% to 10%: answers most people know but few think of first.
• Aim for the middle of an orbit. Being one orbit off still pays 50, so a safe answer near the centre of the called orbit beats a risky one at its edge.

The archive's Target Orbit sections show a few answers from each orbit, which is the best way to calibrate. For Name a cocktail on October 22 they were:

Notice how famous some of the far answers are. The Mai Tai and the Sidecar are classics, but few players reached for them when asked to name a cocktail. Target Orbit measures what people say, not what they know.

Practise between days

The daily flights come once a day, but Unlimited deals a fresh category every time, free and as often as you like. It is the quickest way to get a feel for how wide each kind of category runs. Reading a few archive days helps too: the top answers, the rarest finds and the answers that moved orbit show how the crowd really thinks. The full rules are in how to play.

Play today's flights