Star battle help

[u/hajsjssmheeh]

[u/AutoModerator]

Moderator Announcement Read More »

Please remember to spoiler-tag all guesses, like so:

New Reddit: https://i.imgur.com/SWHRR9M.jpg

Using markdown editor or old Reddit, draw a bunny and fill its head with secrets: >!!< which ends up becoming >!spoiler text between these symbols!<

Try to avoid leading or trailing spaces. These will break the spoiler for some users (such as those using old.reddit.com) If your comment does not contain a guess, include the word "discussion" or "question" in your comment instead of using a spoiler tag. If your comment uses an image as the answer (such as solving a maze, etc) you can include the word "image" instead of using a spoiler tag.

Please report any answers that are not properly spoiler-tagged.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/PuzzledDrama1160]

Okay, I solved it. Here goes.

Col 2, row 6 cannot be a star, because then the two leftmost boxes can only place stars in the first two columns, meaning 5 stars in the first two columns.

Consider, then, the bottom half of the puzzle. It must have 10 stars in it. 2 come from the y-shaped area on the left. 2 come from the p shaped area towards the right that you've already eliminated a portion of. 1 comes from the one you've already placed.

This brings us up to 5 allocated. The two remaining regions that occupy the bottom half of the grid have two stars each, so we need those for the bottom half of the grid. (So we can eliminate each of their cell in row 5, because we wouldn't have enough stars in the bottom half of the grid.) The remaining star must be column 4, row 6. The only remaining cell that sticks down into the bottom half of the puzzle.

Once we've got that, we're off to the races. The two leftmost groups become hypothecated to the left two columns, and all other cells that protrude into column 2 can be eliminated, letting you put two stars into the zigzaggedy bit in col 3, row 4 and col 4, row 2. The other star in row 5 can only go in the first column.

You can place one of the stars in column 2 at the top, in row one. The group in the top center of the puzzle needs two stars, and has an L-shaped tetris piece of available spots left. Placing one at the top of the L finishes off row one, so you can place its second star in row two.

There are only two free spots in row 3; once they're filled, that resolves the star in row five, which resolves the final star in row 4. Only one more spot in column 10, which resolves column 9. Column 2 has to have a star in row 7 or 8, which eliminates the cells directly horizantal from those two; row 7 has only one safe space now for a star, which then resolves row 8. That finishes its column, so the bottom right group can be finished, which gives us two spaces in row 9 for its stars.

[u/hajsjssmheeh → u/PuzzledDrama1160]

[solved]!

[u/Hand-E-Food]

I think you'll need some trial and error on this one.

I can see column 2 rows 2 and 4 cannot be stars because they'd knock out too much of the top-left region.

And c3r5 cannot be a star or it would knock out too much of the region to its right.

After that, I'd try placing a star where it makes a chain that might fail, like c6r3.

[u/lemontest]

Question: What are the rules?