Message #3162

From: alvin5553one@yahoo.com
Subject: MagicCube5D Solved!!! (Thoughts on the Solve)
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:31:16 -0700

After solving the 120Cell, I didn’t want to waste the rest of my summer. I originally intended to take like a few months to solve the 5D Cube, but seems like it only took 8 days. From July the 22 to July the 31, I managed to figure out a way to solve up to 5-color pieces.

One of the most important aspects of my solve is macros. Macros, they seem cheap and I normally don’t use them in MagicCube4D, but this time I got no choice, I have to use it. They are the culprit of my huge move count (30085 moves), I originally intended to solve it in sub-10000 moves. Unlike in MagicCube4D, you can’t undo the entire macro as a macro, if you can understand that. I mean, if you try to undo a macro, you would have to undo every single move, while in MC4D you can just undo the whole macro with one press of Ctrl+Z.
During this solve, my U+ and - cells are mostly invisible, and constant, meaning that, for me at least, my U+ cell is always Pink and U- cell is always orange. Because of this, I’ve learned the lesson, through the difficult way, that I need to complete pieces in the U cells before the others. When I was doing the 2c pieces, I had to destroy some of my solved pieces so I can complete the U cell pieces, and then I had to go back to solving the original pieces. Thankfully, this happened during the 2c solving phase of my solve so I didn’t had to redo too much.

During my 3c solve, it was when I started to use macros, my algs were nothing special, it was the set of Three-Color Series that was used in Roice’s "Ultimate Solution to the 3x3x3x3", and this is one reason why you should try to complete the 3^4 before the 3^5, which most people already do. The main reason I use macros is because only 2c turns are allowed. Honestly, the Three-Color Series, I could just do them manually, if I put more effort into it, but I was just too lazy. But in the 4c solving phase, I just had to use them or I would of failed my algs 90% of the time. I originally thought I need special algs to solve the 3c piece that belong to U cells, but seems like it doesn’t, I just need to bring those 3c pieces into the path that the macro will affect.

Onto 4c pieces, again I used the Four-Color Series from "Ultimate Solution to a 3x3x3x3", except that I needed to create a 2-sticker flip in addition to my algs. During this time, I had problems with macros missing, and I had to re-record my macros (had to refresh my memory on the 2 sticker flip alg), but after the upgrade to Windows 10 (it just so happens that Win10 came out around this period) and the problem seemed to not happend again, my macros magically came back after being missing again after I re-recorded it. Using the same technique I had on 3c pieces, I solved the 4c pieces that being to the U cell. I noticed that my move count was going high, like 10000+, and I just couldn’t care about it anymore, since….well actually I did try to conserve moves by trying to not use as much macros, and do turns on the V- cell in order to orient the pieces(I was kinda spamming macros). And one more thing, instead of permuting the pieces, and then orienting them, I did it the opposite way, orienting first, when the pieces arrive at the U territory of the U cell, it would be tricky to orient by then. So I memorized exactly where each sticker would go after an alg. Occasionally I would miscalculate the orientation, and then have to undo all the moves of my macros, and sometimes if I saved beforehand I would just exit and reopen, but sometimes thats not the case.

Alright, 5c pieces, it took me a while (like a day) to figure out algs, I tried to use the 4c series and turn them into 5c. I for my permutation alg, I had to orient a fourth piece so my alg would just cycle 3 pieces around, at the cost of moves. Originally the alg would cycle 3 pieces and misorient a 4th piece. I made two sets of 5c algs for my convenience, one for the U+ and one for U- cell. Something interesting, I was messing/testing with my macros, and the macro solved the cube (since it was a cycle and I was messing it with a solved state of the cube) and then all of a sudden a "congratulation" window appeared, it was definitely not suppose to happen, that I know, so it must be a glitch, I closed the window and continued my solve. At the final 5c piece, I noticed that all my algs would affect 2 pieces, so the last one was tricky. If I try to solve one, it would mess up another. So I had to set the two pieces up so that it would solve both pieces, and that I probably waste a few hundred moves. I really wished I had noticed this issue during my second to last piece. And so, the move count entered the 30000 zone.

So, thats basically it, 8 days of work explained! Here’s a video for the end of my solve, as usual: https://youtu.be/TOw9jRIrWoI ,and this puzzle, unlike the 120Cell, I actually plan to do more solves on. But first I think I will attempt 7D cube, which even Ray Zhao hasn’t solved yet, so it’s gonna be challenging. I still don’t understand 7D fully like I do 5D (tbh I had no idea how to solve 5c pieces when I started), but turning certain color pieces off makes the turns more understandable. What I want to know now is how to solve the cross for the cells that are "directed to secondary dimensions" since the 1c piece for those are invisible, I’m not sure how to permute those pieces.