PLEASE EMAIL ME AT ha.david.125@gmail.com FOR HINTS! There is no penalty for them. I am happy to help with this or any other puzzle! The last time I did a puzzlehunt, I believe I requested > 10 hints. And it was a short hunt.
"Captain, a distress signal is coming in. A Federation ship is requesting our defensive support against an attack by the Klingons." said Uhura.
"Mr. Sulu, can you take a scan of the region?" asked Kirk.
"We're out of range, Captain. I've received the scans from the ship that sent us the distress signal, but it appears that their scanners were damaged and they were unable to scan the entire region." responded Sulu.
"Well, we need to figure out where the enemy ships are so that we can fire on them. Can you do that, Mr. Sulu?"
"Yes Captain, right away."
Each grid that follows represents a section of space in which an enemy fleet is present. The fleets consist of a number of ships, which can consist of battleships (four cells long), cruisers (three cells long), destroyers (two cells long) or frigates (one cell each) The ships may be oriented either horizontally or vertically, and no two ships can occupy adjacent grid cells, not even diagonally. The digits along the grid's perimeter indicate the number of cells in the corresponding rows and columns that are occupied by ships. The partial scans have revealed a few of the cells: a blue cell indicates open space (no ship present), a circle shows a complete frigate, a rounded off square represents the bow or stern of a starship, and a square shows the midsection of a battleship or cruiser that could either go horizontally or vertically.
"Captain, it appears that the ships are attempting to send us a coded message." said Uhura, "But their communications appear to be damaged as well."
"Then how are they contacting us?" asked Kirk.
"The old fashioned way," said Uhura. "Telegraph."