Ships Fit Together
Fit repeated ships of one size—or the few biggest ships—together; every compatible joint arrangement agrees on this cell.
How it works
- 1Say the two ships still missing are both 3 long. Rather than place one at a time, fit both at once and keep whatever every joint fit agrees on.
- 2The two highlighted water cells cut the second row and the outer columns too short for a 3-ship, leaving three whole rows and the two middle columns.
- 3A 3-ship standing in either middle column overlaps or touches every spot the OTHER 3-ship has left, so neither ship ever stands up — both lie in rows.
- 4The third and bottom rows are neighbours and can't both be used, so one ship always takes the top row, and both of its spots there cover the top row's middle pair.
- 5Those two cells are ship; the second row's two open cells belong to no joint fit at all, so they're water.
- Ship segment
- Water
- Cells that establish the pattern
- Where the conclusion lands