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Bioshock Hints
Hacking Tips
1 of 12: Many machines in the game can be hacked, including security devices, vending machines, and safes. It's a good idea to become proficient at the hacking minigame early on so you can hack everything you come across.
2 of 12: When you start a hacking minigame, always click on all the "?" tiles as fast as you can to reveal the entire board. That way, you can see what all pieces are available, and what tiles have to be avoided (ones with alarm and overload symbols) as you build your pipeline.
3 of 12: As soon as all the tiles are revealed, quickly find where the liquid will start (or has started) flowing, and where it needs to flow to.
4 of 12: There's no way to pause a hacking minigame, so you'll need to quickly plan a pipeline path from the flow start to the exit point and get your pipeline going.
5 of 12: The tile where the machine's fluid will start flowing in plus a few tiles next to it will always start out revealed, and are always the same, even if you mess up the hacking minigame and have to try again. However, all of the "?" tile contents are randomized each time.
6 of 12: That means there's no way to give an exact solution to any device's hacking minigame. It also means that if alarm tiles and overload tiles block your planned pipeline, thereby causing you to fail the hack, you can try again with a newly randomized board where the alarm and overload tiles hopefully won't cause you as much trouble.
7 of 12: WARNING: Failing a hack will sometimes cost you health or sound a security alarm. Always quicksave before attempting a hack so you can quickrestore and try again if you mess it up.
8 of 12: Hacking will get harder and harder as the game progresses. The fluid will start flowing sooner, it'll flow faster, there will be more alarm and overload tiles blocking possible pipeline paths, and there will often not be enough pipe pieces of the types needed to build some pipeline paths.
9 of 12: One way to fight the increased difficulty is to freeze a machine with the Winter Blast plasmid or the chemical thrower weapon's liquid nitrogen ammo. That'll make the liquid flow a bit slower.
10 of 12: Also, there are several hacking-related tonics that can help if you have them in active tonic slots. (See the Engineering Tonic List.)
11 of 12: Instead of first revealing all of the tiles and then starting on your pipeline, you can try only revealing a few tiles and then quickly adjusting the ones next to the fluid entry point before the fluid starts to flow. Usually, the pipe pieces that start out there will direct the flow away from the shortest route to the fluid exit point. Fix that first, and then finish revealing the tiles.
12 of 12: Even with all that, hacking can be a real pain late in the game, so you're probably better off using automatic hack tools to do all of your hacking then. They can be made at U-Invent machines, and will require very few components if you have the Clever Inventor engineering tonic and hack the U-Invent machine first. Also, some vending machines sell automatic hack tools after you hack them.
