[Help Thread] Megaminx Discussion

cubingawsumness said:
What's a good beginner's last layer method for megaminx?
Click to expand...

Learn commutators.

Essentially, you can use FURU'R'F' and FRUR'U'F' for the edges (play with them and see how it works, it should be intuitive) to get a top colour star. Then rotate corners using a commutator. If you don't know, this means to find a sequence of moves that rotates a single LL corner anti/clockwise in its position without influencing the rest of the LL (the rest of the puzzle will scramble), then move the top layer to a corner needing the opposite turn and apply the inverse moves. You can find your own moves for it or use this one:

(to turn the target piece at FRU clockwise:) R' D R D' R' D R [AUF to a piece needing an anticlockwise turn] R' D' R D R' D' R

This will solve your OLL, if you like you can also learn to apply sune which is quite common. R U R' U R U2' R' (making sure the U2' is an anticlockwise U2', it's not the same as a clockwise U2)

Then solve edges' permutation. I just AUF until I find a situation where 2 are solved, and they are either adjacent to each other or in a cross shape. I apply my 3x3 J perm for the adjacent case, and my 3x3 T perm for the cross case. Play around with them to see which pieces move where, and work out a strategy for yourself.

Then solve corners with a commutator. This is pretty easy. Take a target unsolved corner in FUR, and apply moves to take it out of the top layer (R' D R). Move its target slot to FUR with an AUF and reverse the moves (R' D R). Move the target slot for the piece that is now out of the top layer to FUR and apply the moves again. Move the new target slot to FUR and reverse the moves, etc etc. Again, play around and find a strategy which you understand for yourself.

Note that the D face in these algs is the one sharing a corner with the F and R faces, it's not the actual bottom face of the puzzle. I don't know if there is a new notation for minx, but this is the notation I was familiar with when I learned to solve my minx.
 
antoineccantin said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0fDK6DU0E

Just 5 algs, all of which you should already know. Also, it's easily expandable to what most fast megaminxers use.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Nice video - good explanation and stuff.

Hypocrism said:
Learn commutators.

Essentially, you can use FURU'R'F' and FRUR'U'F' for the edges (play with them and see how it works, it should be intuitive) to get a top colour star. Then rotate corners using a commutator. If you don't know, this means to find a sequence of moves that rotates a single LL corner anti/clockwise in its position without influencing the rest of the LL (the rest of the puzzle will scramble), then move the top layer to a corner needing the opposite turn and apply the inverse moves. You can find your own moves for it or use this one:

(to turn the target piece at FRU clockwise:) R' D R D' R' D R [AUF to a piece needing an anticlockwise turn] R' D' R D R' D' R

This will solve your OLL, if you like you can also learn to apply sune which is quite common. R U R' U R U2' R' (making sure the U2' is an anticlockwise U2', it's not the same as a clockwise U2)

Then solve edges' permutation. I just AUF until I find a situation where 2 are solved, and they are either adjacent to each other or in a cross shape. I apply my 3x3 J perm for the adjacent case, and my 3x3 T perm for the cross case. Play around with them to see which pieces move where, and work out a strategy for yourself.

Then solve corners with a commutator. This is pretty easy. Take a target unsolved corner in FUR, and apply moves to take it out of the top layer (R' D R). Move its target slot to FUR with an AUF and reverse the moves (R' D R). Move the target slot for the piece that is now out of the top layer to FUR and apply the moves again. Move the new target slot to FUR and reverse the moves, etc etc. Again, play around and find a strategy which you understand for yourself.

Note that the D face in these algs is the one sharing a corner with the F and R faces, it's not the actual bottom face of the puzzle. I don't know if there is a new notation for minx, but this is the notation I was familiar with when I learned to solve my minx.
Click to expand...

The CO method is interesting because it's essentially the same as the last step of the 3x3 beginner's method. It's easier for now because I haven't memorized which case is which sune (sune, antisune, lefty sune, lefty antisune) or other algs for CO. Same thing for CP. Thanks!
 
Carrot said:
Maybe because it's not true?
Click to expand...

But I think it is true. I've counted 152 cases (including solved). How did you count more than 152? My method is very straight forward.

You simply take each unique CPLL case (ignore edges), then count the number of the EPLL cases for each one and find the grand total. So there are 4: Solved, E perm (E2), A perm (A1), other 3 corner cycle (A2). (Names have been taken from https://sites.google.com/site/permuteramera/cases/pure-corners). Bear in mind that every other CPLL which you think may be different is actually the same as the ones I've already listed except a rotation has been applied.

Solved and E2 have the same number of EPLL cases, because both of them have a rotational symmetry of the same order (5). Then we can simply count how many EPLL cases there are for when all corners are solved and double that number. I counted 16 EPLLs and https://sites.google.com/site/permuteramera/cases/pure-edges agrees with my number. So at the moment we have 16 EPLLs * 2 CPLLs = 32 PLLs

Now we apply a similar calculation for A1 and also A2. Any of the 5 edges can sit in a given position on the last layer, then 4 for another position, then 3 for another position. The other positions of the 2 edges have been decided by the first 3. It is not possible to be left with only 2 edges left to permute even if corner permutation is ignored. So for these cases we get (5*4*3) EPLLs * 2 of the remaining CPLLs = 120 PLLs

In total we have 32 + 120 = 152 PLLs.

Please let me know if I've gone wrong somewhere, because I'm not 100% sure on this. Also feel free to correct some of the things I've said. Perhaps I haven't worded some sentences very well...
 
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For a beginner at megaminx (~2:15? average), do you guys think it's more important to turn fast or attempt to lookahead (quite difficult it seems, especially near the beginning of the solve)?
What do you consider to be the equivalent of sub-minute, sub-30, sub-20, and sub-15 on megaminx?
Do you have any general tips for things I should/shouldn't do when starting out?

Thanks in advance :D. Megaminx is fun.
 
Sorry for all the questions but up until now I was doing S2L in two separate steps:
First, I solve the blocks on that make up the bottom point of the "pentagon". For example, if white is on the bottom, I would build a block with purple-orange edge, purple-orange-darkyellow corner, and orange-darkyellow edge. That leaves 7 unsolved pieces on the orange side. Another example would be pink-darkblue edge, pink-red-darkblue corner, and pink-red edge. After finishing all of the bottoms of the sides, I solve the rest of the "slots" turning only the top layer and the immediately adjacent sides. This step is very similar to F2L on a 3x3 imo.
Hopefully that made sense.
Bur recently, I watched some videos and they all formed the entire S2L in one step (more or less). I find looking for pieces using "my" method is easier, and the last part is very fast. However, there are still 2 steps, which might make it slower than the "normal" method. Which one should I use?
On a related note, I've read some stuff about solving in the same color order each time for S2L. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
 
cubingawsumness said:
Sorry for all the questions but up until now I was doing S2L in two separate steps:
First, I solve the blocks on that make up the bottom point of the "pentagon". For example, if white is on the bottom, I would build a block with purple-orange edge, purple-orange-darkyellow corner, and orange-darkyellow edge. That leaves 7 unsolved pieces on the orange side. Another example would be pink-darkblue edge, pink-red-darkblue corner, and pink-red edge. After finishing all of the bottoms of the sides, I solve the rest of the "slots" turning only the top layer and the immediately adjacent sides. This step is very similar to F2L on a 3x3 imo.
Hopefully that made sense.
Bur recently, I watched some videos and they all formed the entire S2L in one step (more or less). I find looking for pieces using "my" method is easier, and the last part is very fast. However, there are still 2 steps, which might make it slower than the "normal" method. Which one should I use?
On a related note, I've read some stuff about solving in the same color order each time for S2L. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
Click to expand...
The S2L method you describe is used most famously by Balint Bodor, the current average WR holder. So obviously, it's possible to get fast using this method! The other common way to do S2L is work clockwise/anti-clockwise round the puzzle. So after F2L, I would place the remaining two edges with purple (orange and light blue), and then make the 3 CE pairs adjacent to them (lightblue/darkgreen, lightblue/orange, orange/darkyellow). Then i would place the last dark yellow edge and the two pairs either side of that. Repeat for the last blue edge, and then solve the last two faces (many strategies for this). Don't worry about the number of steps, and you don't always have to define your steps so strongly on a puzzle like mega which has many degrees of freedom - if whilst making a ECE triplet, you see one of the pairs for the second step 'pre-made', then stick it in!
As for solving the same colour order in S2L, you may miss more efficient solutions if you only solve the same way each time. However, it's much easier to look-ahead if you know which pieces you are looking for at any given point in the solve!
I hope this is useful.

EDIT: to answer an earlier question 'What do you consider to be the equivalent of sub-minute, sub-30, sub-20, and sub-15 on megaminx?' it's hard to put a figure on it because people in general don't practise mega as much as 3x3 so they are not at their full potential but as a guess I'd say 1:00/30/20/15 translates to about 4:00/2:00/1:30/1:10 on mega. (1:00 would be sub-12 and 50 would be sub-10 perhaps)
 
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