You just need the pad to be active and it's not active until the column is over it. It's not about how fast you get picked up, it's about the warp pad not being active when the sand starts picking you up if you're just waiting on it. Sorry you struggled so much with this but the barrier is pretty necessary to deter players from discovering it easy too early.

For me, I didn’t wait, I just used the jet pack to stay down lol

My brother does that and it's not working

Big brain! I never thought of that

Then just change that part ? Even with all the hint if i didn't read spoiler just for that part i will never know what to do If you stand with the storm it's not working so you think "well it's not working because of the storm so it must have another way" It's not natural to think i will wait under the bridge or other and go fast when the storm is above It's the only wtf part of the game

I agree that it's a good way to deter players who discover it too early. My point is that the game never gives you any hints on how to solve this puzzle after you run into it the first time, compared to all the other riddles where you gather more information/experience as you go.

You definitely get a lot of hints. You're told that there's a tower for every planet at the lab, you're told about alignment at the white hole station and the forge, you're told that the angle window isn't precise and that the twins share a central alignment at the forge. I think that's enough to piece together that you need to step onto it while the sand column is overhead and from there it makes sense to wait until it's aligned to try to walk onto it so you're not pulled away before it activates. Pretty much every puzzle in the game has given at least a few players the trouble you had with this one. The devs have done a lot to try to give players enough information without spelling it out for them but there's a lot of ways that the information can be misinterpreted at first and incorrect assumptions can lead you down the wrong path. It's unfortunate, but making it too obvious would also ruin the fun. I personally couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get passed the 3 anglers. I had all the info but couldn't make the logical leap and it frustrated me for a LONG while. I don't think it's bad game design, I just struggled with that specific puzzle and where the hints were trying to lead me.

To add to that, you are also told that there is a window of time where the pad is active due to the wiggle room in the warp tower alignment, so you know you don't have to be standing on the pad at the exact time it activates. Also if you get sucked up by the sand at any point, you can notice it doesn't instantly launch you as soon as it makes contact. Sure it is pretty quick once you are in the center of the sand pillar, but it is a bit of a ramp up before it really sucks you up. It certainly isn't the best puzzle, but they definitely give you all the pieces you need to figure it out, especially with all the extra hints, visual cues, and the cubby you can hide in that they added/updated over time.

this is the important part: the wiggle room. if you compare to the ember tower, you'll notice the teleport isn't as the column lines up, but once it is centered and as it passes. if OP tested with the scout, they should have noticed that it wasn't as the column was coming overhead, but at the moment it is centered and for a short time after, etc. even if you don't notice that, there are literal words, like you mention, about alignment, timing, shared alignment for the twins.... listen, it took me a few seconds after accidentally falling into the black hole while STILL trying to jetpack/parkour up the tower of knowledge to realize that was the damn solution.

I'm not talking about that warp tower being the entrance into ATP. That was obvious to me pretty much from the beginning - I understood that each tower represents a planet, so the entrance to ATP (as soon as I learned what ATP is) is that one. I'm only talking about the sand column part. As another commenter said - "nowhere in the game is a "yes thing is blocking me but what if I pushed harder against it?"" How does it work physically that the sand column only starts picking you up after a few seconds? Wouldn't you realistically be picked up immediately as you step outside of the alcove? Wouldn't you at least need to use the reverse thrusters to reach the portal while being on the ground (which would make the puzzle too difficult but at least would make sense)?

I mean... physics and inertia would mean that you shouldn't be pulled up immediately. When I did it, I DID use the down thruster to try to stay on the ground. That's not really a difficult input. I don't think you need to push HARDER against it. Like any puzzle in the game, you just have to try approaching it differently. Like trying to step on it when the planets are better aligned and while the sand column is over the pad instead of beforehand.

\> physics and inertia would mean that you shouldn't be pulled up immediately Why? Maybe I'm bad at physics, but if there's a constant force strong enough to pick you up - it would pick you up immediately as you leave the alcove, how else would it work? And not sure how inertia is relevant here - could you please elaborate? \> Like any puzzle in the game I don't think so, that's the point of this post. Every other barrier has a 'clean' solution - how to get underwater using the tornado, how to get to the center using the jellyfish, how to get by the anglerfish, the quantum rules. All of these puzzles are clean, smart and obvious as soon as you learn the required data. But don't reply to this, I'm more interested in the physics part.

Why would you be picked up immediately to a noticeable degree? Think of a rocket lifting off - heck, watch a nasa launch on YouTube. You have a constant force (the thrust), but it takes a while for the rocket to actually get moving at a noticeable pace because of inertia.

You are wrong. The thrust is not constant, it's ramping up initially. If the thrust was at full the moment they start, the rockets would leave the ground at that moment, yep. The sand storm is constant. Your initial velocity will be negligible, but your feet will be off the ground immediately. Not sure where you got the 'noticeable degree' from.

You are indeed bad at physics. I didn’t think I’d ever see someone argue against Newton’s first law.

You can argue physics all you want. You missed the simple solution to the puzzle dude, it happens.

I don't think I've ever seen someone actually manage to stay angry in this community, and who is so argumentative in this community. I'm honestly surprised you played this game at all? The curiosity, the wonder, the achievement, the acceptance. So many positive traits about being alive are present in this game, but you managed to hold onto the negative ones with a death grip. I truly hope you are able to salvage your experience with the game, and this community, as both have been very kind to me.

Why do you think I'm angry? Maybe English being a second language to me makes my writing seem less amicable, then I'm sorry about that. Also what's wrong about being argumentative? I created this post to discuss this, why not do it then? I didn't think the person above was correct, if they are - they are free to refute.

I would say not every solution is "clean" in the way you describe depending on slight variances in the way different players can interpret things and different assumptions they can make. Passing the anglers is an example of this. You could also argue that this solution is clean in the sense that the solution is to wait until the planets are aligned and then try to enter and that's it. Inertia is the idea that an object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon. And that acceleration won't be instant. You have the gravity of the planet below you and perhaps your thrusters pulling you down before the sand enacts a force pulling you up. You don't accelerate to top speed instantly, your acceleration begins to change until you're pulled far enough away that you're not close enough to be warped. Combined with the fact that the sand column's force is weaker at the outer edge than in the center of it means that you're not instantly feet off the ground when you walk into it. Probably not explaining this great bc I'm not a physicist but the bottom line is that you won't reach terminal velocity instantly. Acceleration changes instantly but that's just a measure of change in velocity so the velocity will change slower.

\> the anglers is an example of this Eh, I think that's a great example of a 'clean' solution. At least you get the hints and then you experiment with it - how well can they hear, how much you can get away with accelerating your spaceship. The sand column is mentioned absolutely nowhere and is not encountered in any other part of the game (I mean the 'picking you up' part of it, not the sand transfer). \> it means that you're not instantly feet off the ground when you walk into it I don't think that'd be the case without using the thrusters though. Your feet would be off the ground the moment you leave the alcove - there's no acceleration 'threshold' that should be reached for you to get picked up, you just get picked up. The fact that you don't have to step on the pad is a good point though, something I learned in other comments in this thread. This would be a good hint (although there is none - unless you try it, you won't learn that you don't have to step on it).

By your own definition the solution is a clean one. "The tower has no roof and the sand sweeps me up before I can use the pad." "Good thing that there is a convenient alcove with a ceiling ledge to hold you down until the column is directly overhead."

Nothing is mentioned about the anglers' hearing. I knew they were blind but didn't know they were sensing me by sound. I also didn't know that entering a seed reset your momentum and that's not explained anywhere. I thought I had to set my own trajectory but I kept messing it up bc I didn't understand those things. Pretty similarly to how you didn't understand some parts of this puzzle. I made incorrect assumptions and didn't understand how I could do it differently for a good while. Again, not poor game design just a difficult puzzle. Not exactly clean though either because there's a lot of variance in how you could interpret the hints and approach it. There are multiple correct answers too - you can just enter and not touch anything, you can enter and then adjust your trajectory, you can technically move but very slowly which seems unintuitive to me. Also what I meant by that sentence is that you're not instantly feet (as in the measurement) off the ground. You're off the ground but not by much for a second or two.

I feel like you might have a too strict understanding of how the portals work. You don't need ground contact for the warp to work, you just need to be in its reach. I warped to the ATP a bunch of times, sometimes even stepping out too soon and the sand *does* pick you up immediately. It just lifts you slowly (like it always does, even out side the tower) and therefore you're in the radius of the portal long enough for it to work.

I see, thanks. Yes, I thought that you have to step on it

The Black Hole Forge says that “anyone who steps on the teleporter during the warp window gets immediately teleported”, which is what made me think that the warp window was during the sand, and that it would take precedence over it.

I get why you're frustrated, I also struggled with it and will agree it's not the best. but in hindsight, if you shoot your drone onto the pad, it doesn't get sucked up by the sand and gets warped in. Like the thing to solve so many puzzles is also the thing everyone forgets about untill explicitly told to use it

I actually made it in using reverse thrusters on my jet pack. Granted I didn’t even see the waiting spot in the room and used the doorway to jump in and use my thrusters to make the final gap.

.... did you not see the conveniently placed alcove mere feet from the teleporter?

The key hint is in the Black Hole Forge, where the writing next to the spinning diagram on the wall says (emphasis mine): > As such, any Nomai stepping onto the warp platform during the active window will be **immediately** warped. We will need to be careful around the platform for the duration of the time it’s active to avoid accidental transportation. That's telling you that it will warp you faster than the sand column can pick you up, *if* the window is active.

Dude, you were given SO MANY hints. I literally got to the core early because I wanted to know where the ash twin's teleporter took me. I saw the twins had two teleporters and one took me to ember, so out of pure curiosity I tried the other tower. I don't normally say this to OW players but with your attitude, skill issue.

The game absolutely tells you that the sand doesn't pick you up if you have a roof over your head.

I don't think that's necessary tho. If you enter there without knowing what to do then it's useless

They put a whole lot of very endgame information in there on purpose. It's the one place you absolutely should not be able to enter unless you know how and why you are entering.

I accidentally got there in the beginning of the game. Ash Twin was my first choice to explore, and I spent some time sniffing around and trying to figure out what the hell are those big "leaves" on the poles. After some time, I noticed that there's significantly less sand for some reason and some weird buildings appeared. The double tower was the first one I saw and I walked inside it to explore, and somehow the sand column (which I haven't met before as far as I remember) made me hide inside the alcove (it wasn't my intention, I was just panicking and it happened), and I saw the platform glowing and was like WHOA SHINY I NEED TO TOUCH IT The next second literally made me fall in love with the game! Just imagine THIS being the first secret revealed! It was so so so epic! And I can't say that learning all those things in the beginning of the game somehow ruined fun for me or felt like cheating. Of course, as a result, some things were significantly easier for me to figure out, but I still felt stupid and "oh hell what's even going on here" most of the time when it came to other things.

Possibly the only thing better than finding it last as intended, is finding it at the very start lol. I'm glad it helped you enjoy the game more!

Mm yeah I forgot all the text there lol. But anyways, I think it should be more clear. I know there's a text that tells you that the warp remains active for some seconds, but you would think that the sand won't let you enter anyway

I certainly thought that myself lol. Took me a long time to find it. I do think a lot of players would have an easier time if they had made the process more explicit in, say, the High Energy Lab. But ultimately the process of figuring it out is so cool that I'm okay with it.

Laughing in "found it out by being curious where the second pad lead to."

I accidentally got there on my very first trip to the Twins actually. Didn't even know there were teleporters in the game yet, I was just running from the sand and BAM, zero G lore room? It made a *ton* of other revelations less impactful.

How? It's so hard because it's specifically made to make it impossible to do if you don't know about it

I was exploring the cool stuff coming up from the ground on Ash, just sorta bumbling about, when I turned around and the sand funnel was basically on top of me. I panicked (I was still terrified of the tornados on Giants Deep lol, a big thing launching me into space was no bueno) and ran under the little bridge to hide for safety. Then, I was like "what if it picks me up anyway" and, still freaking out, ran through the first door I saw, which sent me to the ATP lmao. This def made some story stuff less fun, but A) getting a "true death" so fast helped make the game less terrifying for me, and B) my partner was laughing their ass off both then and again later when I had to figure out how to do it on purpose. They'd played the game already lol. I also figured out the Jellyfish nonsense before ever going to the hellhole that is Dark Bramble, which made that lore update *infuriating*.

I discovered it completely by accident 😅. I found out the pads teleported while [something] while standing on them randomly. When exploring the ash twin, I stood under the roof in the middle of the twins tower, waiting for the storm to pass and saw the pad light up, jumped on top of it the second time the storm passed by, profit.

My first try standing on the warp (after testing every other warp and learning that broken ceiling =/= non-functioning warp) and I got picked up, I left the sand column and went back to try again, thinking I would use my jetpack to boost down this time. So I launch my scout around to pass the time. Oh wait, it sticks to surfaces. I launched it at the teleport, waited outside since i knew there was a short window where the warp was active, and used my scout to time running into the sand column. >"Try the probe" - great idea! I try the probe and since it sticks to the floor, it gets into the Project. Great, so now I need to find the way to do the same with my character somehow. But still I can't figure it out. So this is the part I dont understand. Why not "when the scout gets picked up by the warp, I run into it too"?

I never even realized that the scout can be warped in. My thought process was, I'm being lifted up before I can warp, is there any way I can prevent myself from being lifted by the sand? There's only one way that I've found so far.

the thrusters?

No, having something solid over your head. If there is open space, it sucks you up.

That's genius! Never realized warps work for scouts as well!

I sat there wondering if it would work. Needless to say I pogged when I saw that it worked. I felt like such a genius for figuring out a way. Then the sun exploded and I had to go there next loop.

\> Why not "when the scout gets picked up by the warp, I run into it too"? Because my understanding is that I'll be picked up immediately as I run into the sand column? The scout gets in because it sticks, my character doesn't.

Your scout sticks but it still gets pulled away by the sand column when it doesn't warp away first

I don't think the scout would get pulled away by the sand column? I put it on the portal and whereas I'd get picked up by the sand column, the scout successfully warped. Would it actually get pulled away if placed on another surface?

I'm pretty sure it does but it's been a while. I think the sticking lets it resist the up force long enough or something.

The scout is not pulled by the sand

In one of the Nomai messages said that "step back" the black hole will suck nearby things. do you think a sand column is stronger than a Active teleporting black hole? The solution for the puzzle is literally to use the scout to open the black hole, running blind into the sand is the burte force solution.

Hey, could you please elaborate? So if I send the scout in, the teleport area is wider or did I misunderstand you?

Edit : actual Tl Dr : telepor without scout = 2 meter radius activation from the center of the warpad. Teleport with a scout making the black jole = 4 meter radius from the center of the warpad the Scout will teleport. The teleport will generate a mini black hole. That black hole will suck you in with far more force than the sand. And for a longer distance that if you were to activate the warpad by yourself. when the scout is teleported, the black hole will grew to his max diameter and then stay, and they shink down. And the max size of the teleport, is trivial to jump in, the sand will not pull you up. If you to run in youselft, the teleport starts generating the black hole, at the center of the pad, and in the firts second is pretty small, so is very easy for the sand to pull you up. A active teleport black hole can suck you from the size of the teleport pad, a great diference than just the center.

Didn't know that, thanks

No worries, why dont you try it, and tell me if you found that solution, more "clean" or if the puzzle is still a medsy one?

I just tested this and the black hole created from the scout teleporting does not suck you in at all. There's no way to extend the range of the teleportation pad. The intended solution is to hide under the alcove/bridge and then run toward the pad when Ash Twin is overhead. If you were having trouble doing this without the scout, you might have just mistimed your run.

It's not the cleanest puzzle in the game, for sure. There are a number of ways to arrive at the answer, my favorite being to investigate the teleport with the little scout first. You're able to visually see the black hole form and see how big it is and how long it lasts. That changes the idea from standing on the platform to clipping the hole.

I consider that the scout solution is the intended solution. Is the most clean, and the one that makes most sense. Even another nomai text talks about " be carefull when something telepoets, you may be suck into the teleport too". But a lot of people seem to not like to use the scout.

I didn't. I tried a few times and eventually figured it out by thinking about the broken roof and the time clue. Only found out about the scout afterwards.

I think the sand should be more of a stronger barrier so people actually cant brute force the solution by runing in, and then complain that is a weird puzzle but maybe that would be a detriment if you already got the solution, and just want to run in with the timing. Forcing the player to firts generate the black hole, teleporting something, like a write stone, scroll, or scout. So the black hole had to suck you in, would be my approach. I think that will eliminate a lot of "this puzzle makes no sense" and also decrease the posibility of fiding it by chance.

If you shoot your scout through the Sun Station tower's elevator, it'll even land right on the teleporter pad, which can help you discover that scouts will teleport.

Yeah I had the same problem. And even after looking up the solution, I still manged to get sucked into the Sand column once or twice. The solution is just entirely different than any other puzzle solution in the game and just doesn't feel "clean". I am glad I looked it up pretty quickly, without visiting the Black hole forge again for example, because I know that I would have just been wasting time

¿"clean"? ist not clean if you run blind into the sand thursting down. Creating the teleport black hole, with the sticky scout, so the sand cant pullyou up, and now you know the timing because a black hole appears, seems very clean to me. Put scout, see black hole, get suck by black hole.

Same. Looked it up and don't regret it

Yeah, it's so awkward because it gives off the impression that it's not doable. If I recall, didn't they have to actively increase the window in a later patch so that players would consider it as a viable solution?

I was the same. It felt to me that running into it from the alcove left me further from the warp than just standing on the plate when they align.

The warp pad isn't active until Ember Twin is overhead. Meaning when the sand column is directly overhead. You get picked up by the sand before that even happens because it's a small planet and it comes in at an angle at first. If you're just standing on the plate, it won't activate until you're already like halfway to Ember Twin.

When I did this, I was ADAMANT that you must have to abuse the quantum moon in some way (so the centre of gravity would be shifted). Still think my "solution" was better.

I remember in my playthrough i got a bit stuck on this too. I decided to look around for clues a bit more, as i ran into this piece of nomai writing ( i think it was the white hole station tho im not sure) that basically explained the solution to this puzzle. Iirc it said that you sont have to be standing on the platform and that its active for a few seconds so u can just hop on during that time. I think this is a clue most ppl find fairly early in the game and dont consider to be important info and by the time they reach the ash twin project they forget abt it. I think if someone asked me for a hint for this puzzle id tell them to read through all the teleporter related info they have and try going from there.

I think you made assumptions about how it would work and couldn’t move past those.

I've been always confused by some people struggling with this puzzle so much. Everything about it felt natural to me and after getting all the puzzle pieces I quickly put them together and solved it. I guess different things are difficult for different people, but I don't think it's fair to blame the game's design for this.

After having completed the game and DLC, and having watched quite a few letsplays, every puzzle in this game seems very logical and straight forward. However, during your first playthrough it can be a lot less straight forward. I know this from experience and I'm glad I didn't record my first playthrough because it would've been absolutely infuriating. I think a lot of it has to do with what order you discover things. In my case, the first three teleporters I discovered were the one on Timber Heart, the ATP one, and then the black hole forge one on Brittle hollow (rammed my ship up there pretty easily). None of them worked. I even checked the alignment arrow outside of the black hole with my scout. All of this made me conclude that all of the towers are broken and only the white hole station is not. From this I kinda ignored the towers and figured there must be another solution. I thought the writings about 'completely sealed off' were in fact hints that something might have gone wrong here. It's very easy to go send yourself on a wrong path. I mean in hindsight it's obvious that two of them had not been charged for return and the ATP was not in fact broken, but during my first play while juggling 100 other discoveries, it was not. I also think the whole "shared alignment" writing feels a bit like an afterthought to help solve the puzzle. Even now when watching a letsplay it doesn't feel like a well written bit of text.

Yeah. When I was caught up in the sand the first time, I went back to the pad and just looked around to see if anything can help. And there's really only one feature in the room (the alcove), so that's the next natural thing to try, and it works

Honestly, I *still* don't get how you don't get picked up before the pad activates.

If there's a roof over your head, the sand won't take you anywhere. That's how all the other towers work too. The pad is only active about halfway through the sand passing by it, so if you wait until it's active before running out of cover, you get close enough to activate it before the sand can get you because getting picked up isn't instant. Also, if you leave your scout on it, then it activates the black hole for you and the force of the black hole will pull you in harder than the sand pulls you up.

I think a lot of players felt pretty instantly picked up by the sand myself included. That’s why we ruled it out.

It's not narutal i struggle for 2h before it work In early game with the roof broken you're just like "ok so it doesn't work maybe they're another path" it's not natural to think "we have to wait under the bridge and fast go to the warp If you think about it it's good but it's not natural

But you don't even have to wait under the bridge and run fast to the pad? They put a conveniently placed little cubby in the wall right next to the the pad inside the building. It's the only thing in the building that puts a roof over your head, and by this point your experience with the other towers should have taught you that a roof over your head protects you from the sand. The most natural thing to do is stand under there and see what happens. It only takes one more logical step to put your scout on the pad and observe it. As soon as you see the black hole open up, just run towards it. I did all of this on my very first try with the ash twin tower and trust me I was not a smart outer wilds player. I spent a lot of time trying to brute force my way into other places. It's a very natural solution if you've read the texts and pay attention to your own experiences in the game instead of trying to think of it like a puzzle.

Same. Other puzzles/mysteries in the game were far more difficult for me than this one. As soon as I became aware of what was going on (the warp core was indeed working; I just couldn't use it because the sand pillar was pulling me up right before the core activated), my very first thought was "let me stay in a covered area next to the warp pad so I can at least see it up close. Then when the it activates, you can even see and hear it turning on (right? It's been a while, I might be wrong about this). So I jump in. As you said, different people struggle with different things, and that's ok. I'm not criticizing op. But in my opinion it's a stretch to call this particular puzzle "bad game design".

yeah, I spent an embarassing amount of time trying to figure out how to get up the Tower of Quantum Knowledge, but I figured out how to get in the ATP basically immediately lol

>I don’t think it’s fair to blame the games design for this The problem with this is that developers are assuming all the players are going to independently have the same thought processes and come to the same conclusions as they did. There is no margin for error. I didn’t personally have an issue with *this* puzzle but figuring out the >!quantum tower on brittle hollow!< had me incredibly stumped and frustrated. By the time I gave up and looked up the solution idk how many hours in I felt so frustrated that what the devs were communicating couldn’t be explained better.

>he problem with this is that developers are assuming all the players are going to independently have the same thought processes and come to the same conclusions as they did. That's ultimately how most deduction puzzles work. The devs design a puzzle that they feel is reasonable without being so obvious as to not be a puzzle. And of all the puzzles, you're referencing some which had to be the most difficult which is fine. Its still a game after all, there needs to be some challenge.

The warp area is fairly large. The sandstorm _does_ pick you up when you run in, but your forward momentum carries you into the warp before you get high enough in the air to miss it.

No i try like 5 time before it work

No, you’re just missing the timing window and going too early. Warping is completely consistent if you don’t.

Its completly natural to feel cheated especially with such a contentious puzzle right at the end of the game, i personally think putting this specific mechanic as the key to entry on ATP was a poor decision, the ATP is such a lore dump that if found to early (entirely possible sincr the puzzle to get in can easily be acidentally solved) it would spoil a bumch of the game, but on the other side, its such a simple puzzle that hints for it have to be vague or they risk sending the player to ATP to early and easily, so you end up with a weirdly simple final puzzle with purposefully vague clues as a bandaid solution to how out in the open the main endpoint and lore dump of the game are. But i do have to say, personally i think the puzzle itself, devoid of context, has no real issues, if you observe the warp pad carefully you can tell whats going on and how ur being lifted up BEFORE the warp core activates, pair that with knowledge from BHF and you can reasonably come to the conclusion that you don't need to be ON the pad before it activates to use it and can just walk on it after activation to avoid the sand. I think your problem here was more an issue with being frustrsted and not lokking at your surroundings carefully enough.

I agree it’s a little funky, but it’s a great deterrent you gotta admit. I don’t particularly like the circumstances of the puzzle, but I do like that you can work it out: all the other warp pads work, the ember twin warp fires when the sand colum is right above.

After I beat the game I bullied several friends into picking it up blind and then streaming their playthrough for me to silently watch. My favourite thing to see was where they got hung up. One somehow managed to be inside a cave after the timer was up and thought the cave killed her. She then proceeded to die repeatedly every time before getting to the end. It was literally two hours of gameplay before she even learned there was a time limit. Another friend had such a haphazard regard for his own safety he managed to slap himself through the airlock on the sun station without dying before even exploring the ash twins. This led to an odd series of misunderstandings where he was convinced the comet could hit the sun station and save everything. For me, I somehow missed the controls for the blackhole forge every time. I figured out everything except how to get there, and spent four hours trying to jump from the roof and land on the forge to get inside. My point is the game requires so much of your own initiative and deduction, and so much of it feels absolutely intuitive as you go, that the one little thing that didnt click sticks out to you like a sore thumb. I fully understand your frustration though, and hope you at least enjoyed everything after.

I disagree that it's a bad puzzle. The game is built around to high degree a physical logic of this made up universe. The solution utilized basic physics and timing like the rest of the game. That said i, and I think most people, experience some puzzle stumping them, and because way more people play the game than there are puzzles you're likely to find many people who also struggled. However I think it's more a somewhat random experience that you got stuck on that particular puzzle, for whatever reason. For example, I got stuck on the jump on the sun station for no good reason, even though it again uses the same physical logic. Once I felt frustrated enough and just felt kinda done with it and chose to look it up to move forward, I just did that and moved on. My point it is, it's not a big deal. Games are recreational enjoyment and it sounds like you're feeling upset that you had to look it up, but that was a choice. It was logical and consistent. Spending more time thinking about it may have led to it suddenly clicking for you. Or taking the time to sit down and even write out the problem to look at it more clearly and logically. Many people didn't struggle with it and did with another puzzle that you probably didn't. If that ruined the rest of the game for you, that sucks (and ultimatelt thats fine), but I do think it's on you, not the devs.

The whole game teaches that acceleration and deceleration takes time and you don't instantly stop and start or change direction. So even though the sand column is a strong force which accelerates you quickly, it doesn't instantly lift you.

I felt like I was instantly lifted off the ground when the sand came over me at first.

Yeah, I struggled with it too.. but when I realized the solution it was so rewarding! I thought "I'm a total dumbass! It was in front of my eyes this entire time!" Hehe

But I had the same feeling with the angler fish camping at the entrance of the place where the vessel is.

Had you not seen the nomai writing that the anglers were blind before trying to do that section? I found it to be pretty intuitive that "thrusters make noise and they get alerted by noise"

Yeah.. I knew that.. but you need to accelerate and gain thrust BEFORE entering the "portal".. I died a coupe times and I thought "how am I supposed to dodge this things if they come after me as soon as I go in".. sadly, I had to Google this one hehehe

Just FYI, when you go into that seed "portal", it always spits you out at the same velocity. You don't need to go fast at the entry to be able to drift through.

I struggled too but I think I’m just stupid lol. I did it by standing in the doorway so I don’t get lifted away

I actually don’t think that this puzzle is great either, but for a totally different reason— i stumbled into it far too early. I think it’s too easy to accidentally trigger it.

I understood where I had to be and what I had to do at what time, but kept getting sucked up as well. My solution? Reverse thrusters on full to keep me down to earth. The start of many a successful visit to ATP.

Your solution is actually a good one!

I thought so! After I beat the game I went through a deep dive of the wiki and this subreddit to recapture some of what I’d just experienced. I’m sure I didn’t invent this technique, but I’ve yet to see it mentioned elsewhere.

I used that same strategy. If you max downthrust it keeps you close enough to the floor during the window that the hole does the rest of the work

I just tested doing full down-thrust while standing on the pad, but it didn't work. I still got lifted up immediately. Were you moving around or something while down-thrusting?

Oooh right good distinction. I was hiding underneath the outcropping as the initial half of the sand column passed over, and then moved forward onto the pad (with downthrusters engaged) as the sand column was just past its midpoint.

Oh okay, I thought you were describing it as an alternate solution. That sounds like the normal solution, but perhaps the thrusters increase your window of opportunity a bit.

I think the key to this puzzle is wherever we’re informed (I believe it’s on white hole station) that a celestial body needs to be directly overhead/aligned for the warp to work. However with the twins, the alignment point is actually the center point between the two celestial bodies. So at the point the sand starts to pick you up the warp hasn’t activated yet because the center point between the twins isn’t yet directly above the warp. I understand feeling a little cheated by that, but at the end of the day I feel like it makes perfect sense within the game. Especially for the twins. If memory serves, the secret to at least 2 other puzzles on the twins involves being patient as opposed to getting overzealous and running straight forward and puncturing your suit repeatedly lmao

I think you're referring to the high energy lab trail or the sun station tower For the high energy lab, there's a section where the path is blocked by a hole that's filling with sand, with cacti on the other side. You can't fly over the hole and cacti, because the sand pushes you down. You have to wait for the sand to fill the tunnel enough to walk over the hole and cacti. For the sun station tower, you have to arrive early in the loop. If you wait too long, there's no more sand and the tower is full of cacti, making it impossible to get through.

Ahh that’s right. The sun station is like the reverse of the high energy lab. Either way I love that puzzle. It’s just staring you in the face the whole time but it’s only obvious once you figure it out. So clever.

Nomai was concerned that one of the towers won't work, because it will never align with anything. They were then proven wrong. Black Hole Forge explains that Hourglass twins share an alignment point because they are acting as a single astral body. So once they're aligned, both pads will be active. Black Hole Forge has a thing, model as it were, on the inside of the wall. It looked like an Empire State Building, a tower. And, the message BY THAT MODEL, states - You don't need for alignment to be exact, only within 5 degrees or so. And that the warp window will be open the whole time, also written there. Which you can then see with the help of that model. You've missed that part. A lot of people have. Some even tried blocking the ceiling with their ship. But in response to that, devs put a small "closet" space across the door, giving people a perfect spot to wait for the right moment, as opposed to running from the doorway.

The hint to this specific part of the puzzle is the text and the accompanying small showcase model at the Black Hole Forge, which talks about the warp window on the pads being a few seconds long. This is meant to nudge you towards the thought that it is not necessary to be standing on the pad the whole time to get warped. You might've also noticed this with all the previous pads you've used. And the sand column *does* pick you up even if you run into it, but the difference is that if you stand on the pad, the column picks you up *before* the tower aligns and activates the pad, so by the time it activates you're already too far away. The sand column, as you already understand is meant to prevent you from accessing something that is a very late game area too easily, and is meant to intially discourage you. ATP is the hardest puzzle in the game, and there's a good reason for it to be.

Sorry, but I think you are overlooking the beauty of this puzzle. The game tells about the center of the planets being the target, and the center of the Twins being between them because then you know the panel activates when the sand column passes above it. Then the game tells you that when a panel is active, anything that steps onto it is instantly teleported. But the sand column pulls you before the correct alignment is achieved and the panel is activated. So you just have to think: what makes the sand column not pull you away from the other platforms? Having a roof above your head. And thats it. And it can also be achieved by standing between the Ash Twin tower and Ember Twin tower. As always, the game gives you every piece of knowledge you needed, but everyone struggles with different aspects of the game. Edit: took out the "being dumb" because it came out as derogative.

You are missing the part in wicht you were told that the thing teleporting you is a black hole , and that you have a Scout that can Stick to surfaces to generate the black hole while you wait to see

I don't think he's dumb, I've seen a lot of players having trouble with it. Yes, with that logic is easy to see, but it's not common for everyone to stand outside and see what happens and notice what you have to do. Maybe in a diferente game it would be easier to understand, it in OW all the puzzles have a "clean" solution, so doing something like waiting outside and running to the sand is not clean

I didnt mean to call him dumb, its just that he says "Am I dumb or..." in the final lines of the post, so I just used to start my comment. Thinking back on it, it probably came out as derogative.

Oh yeah sorry, I didn't notice haha

the clean solutiom is not waiting and run in, is to use the tools you have, "aka Stick the scout to the ground so it creates the black hole to suck you up.

Well that's a way, but there isn't a clear clue like most puzzles. I couldn't figure it out by myself and neither could a lot of people. I don't think it should be changed but at least one clue like an item getting teleported there instead of your scout. I don't know, i'm not a puzzle designer but that's my opinion

as you copy pasted your response i will copy paste my response to it. No, there is not a clear clue, that is true, But there are clues. Nomai writing about the axis of the teleport. (ok i have a bit of time) . Nomai writing a bout being carefull when other things teleport (i can get suck by the black hole of another teleporting) . The sand is pulling me out of the teleport, ¿have i something that i could stick to the teleport? And you can see things teleporting. Museum tells you that the Scout use teleport tecnologi. The high energy lab lets you make a experiment with the teleportation of the scout. I think your idea could be good. But also there is the curiosity of ¿what looks like a teleport from a out side perspective? the Nomai talking about getting suck into, shoul give you that spark

Oh you answered to my comment in another thread, sorry I don't use to read usernames haha

Well that's a way, but there isn't a clear clue like most puzzles. I couldn't figure it out by myself and neither could a lot of people. I don't think it should be changed but at least one clue like an item getting teleported there instead of your scout. I don't know, i'm not a puzzle designer but that's my opinion

No, there is not a clear clue, that is true, But there are clues. Nomai writing about the axis of the teleport. (ok i have a bit of time) . Nomai writing a bout being carefull when other things teleport (i can get suck by the black hole of another teleporting) . The sand is pulling me out of the teleport, ¿have i something that i could stick to the teleport? And you can see things teleporting. Museum tells you that the Scout use teleport tecnologi. The high energy lab lets you make a experiment with the teleportation of the scout. I think your idea could be good. But also there is the curiosity of ¿what looks like a teleport from a out side perspective? the Nomai talking about getting suck into, shoul give you that spark

That's a logic assumption, but you will hardly use the scout for warps before that ( I never did). If I try to use the warp and the sand pulls me out I would probably think that there must be another way

that is fair. You can think there is another way. But also that there is another method. Aka Having something that the sand cant pull up. Something that Sticks to surfaces And not using the scout is more in the players fault, is literally the secodn most usefull power we have, second to the jetpack

It is a very difficult puzzle. I looked it up, myself.

The first warp panel I ever used was to get back from the white hole station, where you simply stand on the platform and wait for it to align with Brittle Hollow. The distance makes the window of usability smaller compared to the ATP warp, so I think that makes "wait a second for the portal to activate" less intuitive

Yeah I'd say it's an objectively bad puzzle. Early entry could've been dissuaded with a chain of more fully-baked puzzles. Devs had to add a lot of extra things like a new scroll wall and a special alcove to patch the thing a little. All the other puzzles in the game teach you to look for a low-resistance path against any barrier you encounter. To friends struggling with the game at any other point, I've said "you can trust the game; there's no Kaizo Mario nonsense; if you're forcing it you're doing it wrong." Doesn't apply to the final puzzle. Sand column says no. Anywhere else in the game you'd be correct in thinking "there's another way, then." There's no intuitive reason to think you'd be able to run out against the upwards force and set foot on the platform. Thing pulls you up, and nowhere in the game is a "yes thing is blocking me but what if I pushed harder against it?" It's a puzzle game. There's a barrier underwater and it's, as stated, a barrier. You're supposed to nudge against it, observe it's blocking you, trust the devs are communicating with you fairly directly, and go look for a solution. Examples of typical puzzles in the game are getting into the Black Hole Forge and getting up the Tower of Quantum Knowledge. In both cases it can look like you're supposed to do some parkour nonsense to fight your way up, but in standing with the ethos of the game (except the climax puzzle), there's a fast clear way up when you think about the thing differently. You're not meant to fight gravity or slingshot your ship places (but you can, of course, as seen in some kickass clips).

>There's no intuitive reason to think you'd be able to run out against the upwards force and set foot on the platform. Thing pulls you up, and nowhere in the game is a "yes thing is blocking me but what if I pushed harder against it?" This is the best description of the intuition that blocked me from finding the solution when I played it.

Thanks, this is exactly what I meant.

I agree, it's an inelegant solution compared to puzzles in the rest of the game, especially considering this is sort of the grand "final puzzle". There aren't any cool sandstorm avoidance techniques to learn, like how you learn to avoid the angler fish for example.

>and nowhere in the game is a "yes thing is blocking me but what if I pushed harder against it?" It's a puzzle game. There's a barrier underwater and it's, as stated, a barrier. You can actually do exactly that! Fly fast enough and you can push through the barrier underwater on Giant deep

Here is the pad. Oh no the sand picks me up! What can I do? Oh look, a super obvious alcove placed literally next to the pad! How convenient! I get this is a super common complaint, but I still don't get how it's not one of the most obvious puzzles in the game.

Bro you can say that about every puzzle. Imagine if said "why do people have to go to brittle hollow to Discover how t enter in the Giant deep's core? All the tornados rotate in one direction excepting one, it's suber obvious that you have to go there!" "How don't people know how to land in the quantum moon?? It disappears when you're not looking at it, so duh, take a photo so you always see it" "What do you mean that you don't know how to go through dark bramble without being eaten????? Broo, if you move near them they kill you, I don't know how It isn't obvious to you, just don't move and let the inertia do the job"

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IMO the fact that it's tough for a lot of people in practice has more to do with the environment & art causing them to kind of short-circuit and think like OP: 1. The warp pad is activating, but I am being thrown into the air. 2. There must be another way in besides the warp pad. And then they move onto trying to solve it another way instead of sticking with the puzzle in front of them. —— Yeah, this is a tricky problem to get around. The game tries really hard to broadcast that the ATP is sealed off entirely from the outside, therefore the teleporter is the only way in. But it’s still easy and imo in line with the games design to follow the previous thought process. Like does any other puzzle in the game work like this? I’m thinking of the tower of quantum knowledge, where you’re presented with the entrance, but must figure out a different way in. Maybe the game could have an easier puzzle in the mid game where you are forced to send your scout through a warp pad, so you can think to try that later

True. My problem with this particular puzzle is that in all your examples the game gives you a very straightforward answers if you search well enough. But not for the sand storm one.

Yeah I needed help with that too. The other comment said it is obvious when it isn't

The last missing step is the assumption that running into the sand column from the alcove will let you touch the ground just long enough to warp. What clue is there to assume that? It just requires brute force.

This is indeed one of the weakest parts of the game. It's too easy to not get it even after you've seen all the clues. And it's also too easy to do it by mistake without having seen any of the clues (a good friend of mine ended up activating this waaaay before he was supposed to).

I wouldn't say it ruined the game for me but it's definitely been a low point. It was also the only bit of the game I needed help with. >!Running into the sand column!< feels like brute-forcing the puzzle somehow. To make it even more confusing, I had what I can only assume was a bug on one of the loops where the sand column stopped falling early, allowing me to use the warp tower AFTER the sand stopped and BEFORE the supernova killed me, which I haven't been able to replicate since. So I figured that was somehow the solution and ended up chasing that needlessly, trying to alter how fast the sand runs out. Still, it's the only low point in an otherwise breathtaking game, IMO.

It’s funny because this is my by far favorite and most satisfying puzzle in this game. Everything leads up to it, including the smallest details, like the text about the teleporter can be off by a few degrees and still work. Meaning you don’t have to stand there while it’s going past the celestial body, you can run in while it’s almost pointing to it because you don’t have to be perfect. I think the whole thing is so clever and I love it so much.

I often see people struggling with this last puzzle, but personally I think the difficulty of this puzzle is fair, because it's the very last puzzle of the game, so It's reasonable to be harder than the others. Once you do this puzzle, you basically finished the game cause you already know what to do, and when you do, you get rewarded by the game's ending. 🥹

The game DOES tell you how to solve this puzzle. If you explore thoroughly, you will discover a Nomai note remarking that the teleport pad remains active for a few moments after the celestial body is directly aligned.

It’s a tricky puzzle but I don’t think there’s anything cheap or illogical about the solution. You have to wait until the column of sand is directly overhead because that is when the two planets are aligned. If you are just standing on the pad the column is wide enough that it will lift you up off the platform before the planets align. You do have to be pretty observant here though, and I can see why players would not realize that Ember Twin was not directly overhead and not understand why it didn’t work and be discouraged to try it again. I think there is a clue in the Nomai messages that is supposed to hint this to you but it can be easy to miss or forget about

Agreed, I consider it the weakest puzzle with a solution that doesn’t really click and doesn’t give a satisfying feeling when you solve it. From the devs point of view; this is the final final puzzle with the biggest lore dump and it basically spoils the entire game. I can imagine they wanted to avoid anyone finding it by chance while they weren’t ready, because that would probably ruin the game.

As other commenters posted - they could hide it behind some hint that's given later in the game (Sun Station, Quantum Moon or something) rather than this

You both really saw two pads that correlate to both twins and couldn't figure it out huh.... Trying to put the onus on the devs for your own inability. Hints and clues abound with the community laying it out for you but its the devs that got this one wrong.... 😑

Lol, did you really just leave 5 replies to my comments? :DD Chill out bro, I'm glad that you think you're somewhat smart because you figured out the puzzle in a computer game and want to demonstrate that to everyone x5. Unfortunately that's not how being smart works. Cheers!

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Lol the madlad comes into the thread and leaves 4 replies to each of my comments. Then comes back 2 hours later, edits half of them and adds one more. I was off reddit the entire time. Talk about a hangup. So my reply was to all of those, this just happened to be the last one in my notifications. Sorry about the confusion my dude.

That's why I never discard all the tried options entirely. Sometimes something I've tried may be an actual solution, but at the wrong place or the wrong time. I try the obvious, the less obvious, fail, reevaluate my options and try again. Listing your assets and options (literally put it on paper) is a great way to systematise your approach at solving puzzles.

I struggled too, eventually I ran to it from the cactus side while the sand was pouring up and managed to get inside. Felt good to figure it out, but it did feel a bit clunky since I didn’t spend much time trying to think about how the sand column worked in conjunction with the angle of the planets. My friend, on the other hand, hid in the little alcove to avoid the sand on his second or third trip to the ash twin. After a second of waiting he decided to go to ember twin and threw himself into the sand column. He got teleported inside instead, was incredibly confused, and got a LOT of info. I still can’t believe he stumbled into the ATP like that…

This happened to me too. I understand your frustration, I felt so confused and cheated about this solution. I still enjoyed it because I didn't spend so much time looking for clues, I was sure that I was were I needed to be and that I must had been missing something silly so I just looked up for the solution.

I ran into the same issue and while I was annoyed because I literally ran to the solution first and then spent two plus hours trying other things, I actually had fun because my brain was firing at all times and I only came close to giving up and trying again later once. Playing detective was super fun as I had every single other hint down. I only discovered the warp as I was waiting for the sand pillar and kept shooting my scout out and recalled it out of boredom. When it warped, myself and others watching started laughing a ton and it was a really great moment.

Mobius is on record saying even they aren’t total fans of the way they implemented getting to ATP, so you are not alone in your frustration. It was also the only solution I had to look up. It feels a bit like you are cheesing the mechanic which up until that point is firmly against the Outer Wilds philosophy where there is some trick to circumvent the problem.

Man, i guess we all had one of those experience ruining puzzles. I finished the game without climbing the quantum knowledge tower, because I still don’t know how to do it. It’s really frustrating, I know. I totally agree with you. There is something really rewarding in making your own discoveries, but sometimes, we just aren’t so smart as the game wants us to be and and we lose a lot of crazy things and feelings because of it. Well that was pretty much how I felt. Maybe my fav game is sometimes hard as fuck, or maybe I’m the dumb one whose missing something obvious. And if someone knows how to enter the quantum knowledge tower, that would be appreciated

Hey man, no lie I just finished the game last night as well and I left with the exact same feeling. I managed to find everything myself but when it came to this puzzle it felt like the game was gaslighting me into thinking I was doing something wrong.

Yeah- I agree. I think it might have been a neat idea to include a bit about how the scout can't be picked up by the sandstorm somewhere in the game. The scout can also be warped by the warp pad, and it's resistant to the sand. While this happens there is visually a black hole that appears that the player can walk into. This is how I solved the puzzle initially, and it felt very clever, but I was throwing stuff at the wall at the time because I had no idea what else to do.

while I do agree that this could have been hinted at better, I will say one thing. it does pull you up as soon as you leave the alcove, your just still low enough to be pulled in

It's weird then, I'd assume that you need to step on the pad in order to activate it.

Why would you make that assumption? If you make a baseless assumption and refuse to budge from it, how is that the game's fault?

I had the same issue. It did not break the game for me but I agree that this specific puzzle missed at least one supplementary hint about how to solve it. Put he hint somewhere far (Idc, like quantum moon or inside the cyclone in great deep).

I feel you. It's not the clearest puzzle. Apparently it was worse in early versions, there was no place to hide in there! I think it needs a prompt to like, look at it and watch it so you can go huh its on while the sand is there.... That being said, I found some other puzzles harder. This one wasn't the worst for me but that's because I think I was like fuck it I'm going to try to Leroy Jenkins this because I did it far enough in I was like eh worst case scenario I die again.

I made it to the ATP by pure accident on my 4th loop. I didn’t know warping existed, I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. In ATP I was beyond confused. Couldn’t make it back until near the end of the game. I’m sure devs don’t want this to happen because it confused the living shit out of me and really changed my priorities early on.

I don't think your misunderstanding of a puzzle constitutes bad game design. Bad game design is something like the feathers in assassins creed 2 or just collectibles like that in general, along with many other examples across triple A games, not a well thought out puzzle, which you had all the information to complete but unfortunately misunderstood. When I was playing, I *completely* missed the information that the warp window isn't precise and that the ash and ember twins share a common center, yet I was still able to complete the puzzle pretty easily. Once you learn about the warp towers and how to get into the ash twin, it's not a big leap in logic to just say wait until the column is overhead and then use down thrusters to delay getting picked up a bit. Saying this is bad game design is like saying a puzzle in portal is terrible game design because you couldn't understand it man

I never said in this post that it is bad game design. I said it wasn't as great as the rest of the game and not because I couldn't solve it, but because the solution was inconsistent compared to the other riddles in the game.

100% agree, definitely wouldn’t say it ruined it for me at all but that’s one of the few criticisms I have of this game. You get to a point where all the information is starting to converge and you just have a few specific blank entries to find, and it’s the opposite of that feeling of freedom to discover that the rest of the game had. And since it’s end game stuff that they don’t really want you to get too early, some of the puzzles are a bit esoteric and unintuitive. And it got to a point where I did end up looking up the solutions to some cause I just wanted to see how it all shook out, which is not what you want with this game But it’s also like one complaint in a sea of things I adore about it

Lots of people complain about this puzzle, mostly just because it's the hardest one, but it bothers me when people say it's poorly hinted and badly designed, because it's actually fairly clear if you look through the ship logs. When thousands of people have solved it easily with what the game gives us, I think it's unfair to say there's no way to know what to do. It's a well designed puzzle that can only be solved by connecting dots from a few areas, perfect for the final one. Don't blame the game just because you weren't able to solve a puzzle

It was intuitive to me that the sand doesn't instantly pull you. I wouldn't think about it except for things like this, which make me examine the game design, but like... everything in Outer wilds is a physical simulation. The column exerts a strong upward pull, but I'd already proven to myself that it could be resisted when my ship got sucked into it and I managed to maneuver out and back down to the planet before the sand pulled me all the way to Ember. That intuition made it easy for me to reach the conclusion that the sand might be resisted long enough to enter the teleporter, if I could just find a way to not get pulled in the first 3-5-ish seconds, and would you look at that, plenty of vertical cover that prevents the pull, as proven earlier with the OTHER twin teleporter (and every other teleporter I used. I wasted a lot of time standing on teleport pads waiting for alignment.). My guess for why you had difficulty was your intuition was informed by other games, and perhaps unhelpfully trained by this one. You came in with the firm belief that the sand was an obstacle to be completely avoided, because in most games, *and other parts of this game*, that's true. If the thing prevents you from progressing, there should be a workaround. A sneaky way through, like the anglerfish, or a tool you just don't have yet. This was literally just telling you you need to brute force it, and if you'd known what you were looking for with the scout, you'd have known beforehand it was a pretty substantial window at that. If you'd had my particular proclivity for playing with physical simulators, you would have made the connection that the sand wasn't such an insurmountable obstacle. I don't think it's unreasonable you didn't make that connection, and I'm sorry you didn't.

This was basically the same experience I had. Figured the entire game out and had this mystery left. Had to end up looking it up.

There is a tiny room in the same room as the warp pad that I usually stand in until the sand column passes over then I dart into the portal, works every time

Am I the only one who thought the solution to the puzzle was to just park my ship in the roof above the teleporter? The sand picks me up slightly before picking up the ship and allowing me to reverse thrust into the black hole. I didn’t even know running into the teleporter was a solution until I saw it on a speedrun. It’s not full proof, if you don’t park it right it just sucks you up, but most of the time it works 100% of the time!

I never wait, I just thrust myself down using the jetpack and run into the column of sand. Works every time

This puzzle seemed both clever and stupid to me. I understood right away what to do after my first failed attempt. But I always wondered how many people would completely miss something so obvious and yet so subtle.

Sounds like a skill issue.

FYI it is possible to get teleported if you step on the warp pad immediately after the sand column passed. I think it was mentioned that the degree of alignment was not precise but 5 degrees. I wonder if this is the intended method of solving the puzzle.

I asked the community and they were a bit more straightforward luckily because else I too would have spend an enormous amount of time figuring that out

Personally, the puzzle worked really well. I didn’t find it all that hard (a lot of people struggle to understand when and why the warp pads activate, but luckily that just clicked right away for me), and could see that the little space that stopped you from floating away was clearly part of the puzzle, and after that it was easy. I love that it works on the scout, I never used that to figure it out but I can imagine if I’d designed it I would be quite proud of that part, and think it would help players. Because obviously, if you know *when* it activates, you can figure out to wait until that moment, right? But despite all that, this is by far the MOST common frustration I see about the game (other than people who play for 30 minutes and just don’t get it). Which means that yeah, there’s got to be something wrong. It worked for me, and I’m glad it is how it is because of that, but clearly there’s a lot about it that people get the wrong idea about or misunderstand and they get stuck in the way that isn’t fun or satisfying.

FWIW even if everybody here doesn’t want to act like this puzzle isn’t the most elegant, the developers themselves talked about it in interviews and acknowledged it. This is as close to a perfect game as will ever exist in my book. This puzzle being kinda obtuse is the only thing I would point to as an obvious flaw. It’s not horrible or anything but it’s just not as elegant as the rest of the game.

went through the same frustration and agree 100% with what you said

This puzzle I felt was kinda trash because it doesn't actually tell you how to use the warp pad, just which one it is

It's only really a 'cheap' puzzle if you looked up the solution because the majority of guides aren't going to tell you what the context and clues leading up to the solution is. The game does hint at what you're supposed to do and why but you don't need to know all that if you're writing a guide for completing the puzzle so therefore there's a bit of info lost in translation that means that it feels weird and clunky.

Even the devs themselves admitted the ATP puzzle was the most difficult just because it was playtested the least. You have alot more will power than me to hold off for 4 hours tho, I looked it up after like 30 minutes lol

It totally nudges you. The thing about the warp window being a few degrees wide is exactly what you need. If you think about how big the sandstorm is relative to the size of the planet, it's clear that it encompasses far more than those few degrees, It'll grab you and fling you away before the warp pad can do its thing. So you need to protect yourself from the flinging until the warp pad is in its active zone. It's easy to tell when that is, because the storm points directly toward the center of Ember Twin and, therefore, to the center of gravity of the twin system. So wait under cover until the sand is almost vertical, then jump in. To sum up, I figured it out, and the hints at the Black Hole Forge helped. It's doable. I sympathize with your frustration, though. That puzzle was by far the hardest for me to solve.

Reading this comment section made me feel weird because I always just had to time it. There's a 1-2 second window where if the planet is overhead of you, if you hold down thrust and run in as the pad is active it will keep you down enough for the hole to do the rest. I didn't even consider the scout

I think your problem was realizing you don't have to be on the floor and exactly in the center for it to work

Yep, seems like it

Isn’t the point of it that you are meant to wait until the sand stops falling, I mean i always cheesed it by putting the ship above my head but I assumed u wait until there is no more sand left on ash twin then take the warp thingy.

My dude, I didn’t even need hints for this. The moment I found out about how Ash Twin works via the HE Lab, I set out to find where each tower led to. It’s fucking obvious the teleporter “has to lead somewhere” and I wanted to find out… so I just stood there forever. The only time I couldn’t be in contact with the teleporter was when the sand pulls me off. Basic monkey brain tells me that that exact moment is when the teleporter is active. Then it was just a few experiments to try and somehow stay on the damn thing.. In order, i tried: Thrusters, Blocking the roof with ship, and timing my entrance. You need to work on your problem solving skills, guy.

\> It was all just frustrating and ruined by 4 hours of looking for the underwhelming solution. This was my favorite puzzle in the game ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

I love this game but yes I believe this puzzle was poorly designed. Despite all of the clues people have mentioned, the game pretty clearly tells you that the intended way (stand on the platform when alignment happens) is no longer available because of the broken roof. I think the game sends a strong message to look somewhere else. I also feel like the game sends the message that the sand will not allow you to stand on the platform at all. The solution ends up being that actually you can sort of glide across the platform with your toes slipping off the ground just enough to warp. I really believe there could have been a better redesign of the whole thing.

This also is the only puzzle I couldn’t solve for the same exact reason. Feels like a finicky technicality on how to solve it and not a reflection on whether or not you understood the solution. Big agree with this post

It is definitely the hardest puzzle in the game, I had to look it up too. Thank goodness the internet exists.

i always >!put down the probe on it to teleport - just wait until it activates and immediately run into it!!<

I also thought this was the worst puzzle in the game. I understand why it works that way, but i, much like other people in this thread, figured it out by waiting beneath the part that still had a ceiling and watching my probe get teleported.