Stars Reach Puzzle Solver: Open Adalos Loot Caches

Which puzzle have you got?

Identify the type before you touch anything, because each one punishes a different mistake. Look at three things: what the tiles show, whether clicking a tile changes its neighbours, and what the riddle line under the grid says.

Clear all images: the tap-and-flip puzzle

One player on the Steam forums put it this way: "the other you must remove all the images … be aware if you do a corner it's 3, if you do an outer middle side it's 4 and in the middle it's 5." That pattern is the classic Lights Out puzzle. Pressing a tile toggles that tile plus the tiles directly above, below, left and right of it. A corner tile only has two neighbours, so a corner press flips 3 tiles; an edge press flips 4; a middle press flips 5.

Two facts about this puzzle save you moves. First, order doesn't matter: pressing A then B gives the same board as B then A. Second, pressing the same tile twice undoes itself. Every solution is therefore just a set of tiles, each pressed once. The solver works the set out with a little linear algebra. When several sets would clear the board, it picks the one with the fewest presses, because these puzzles count your moves.

To use it, choose the number of rows and columns to match your grid, then tap each tile that still shows an image. Press Solve and the tiles to press in the game get an orange ring. If you'd like to check before spending real moves, switch on Test mode: taps then behave exactly like the game, and you can play the solution on the tool's board first.

Not every layout can be cleared. On a 5×5 grid, for example, a single lit corner on its own can never be cleared by any combination of presses. If the solver says 'no sequence clears this layout', you've almost certainly mis-copied a tile or picked the wrong grid size. A puzzle generated by the game will have a solution.

1. Match the grid size (rows × columns).
2. Tap every tile that still shows an image in your game.
3. Press Solve and note the ringed tiles.
4. In the game, press each ringed tile exactly once, in any order.
5. If something looks off, close and reopen the cache to reset it (player report) and re-copy the grid.

No repeats: the symbol-grid puzzle

The second type, in the same player's words: "you must have 3 different images on each line but must not line up up & down and side to side." In other words, every row and every column must contain each symbol exactly once. Puzzle fans call this a Latin square; a 3×3 version with three symbols is the smallest case.

You can't type alien glyphs, so the tool uses letters. Decide that the first glyph is A, the second B, the third C, and tap each tile in the tool until it shows the right letter. Some tiles may refuse to change when you click them in the game. Turn on Lock mode and tap those tiles in the tool so the solver keeps them fixed.

One setting matters: whether a click in the game steps the tile to the next symbol in a fixed cycle (A to B to C to A). If it does, leave 'A click steps a tile to the next symbol' on. The solver then picks the valid arrangement that needs the fewest clicks in total and shows a click count on each tile. If your puzzle lets you pick a symbol directly, switch the option off; the solver then just minimises how many tiles change. The tool handles grids from 3×3 to 5×5.

Remove duplicates: the on/off grid

A player who opened a legendary cache described a third version on Reddit: "for the legendary puzzle that is just on off for the lines, you need to get rid of the dupe in each row, left to right, up and down." The tiles show symbols. Some appear twice in the same row or column, and you switch tiles off until no row or column has a repeat.

This resembles a Japanese logic puzzle called Hitori. In standard Hitori there are two extra rules: shaded tiles can't touch side by side, and the remaining tiles must stay connected. We don't know whether Stars Reach enforces them. So the solver has a Strict rules switch. Try it off first, which finds the fewest tiles to switch off. If the game refuses that answer, turn Strict on and solve again.

Enter the grid the same way as the symbol puzzle: one letter per distinct glyph, tapping each tile until it matches. Set the number of different symbols first, so a tap cycles through only the letters you need. The counter under the grid shows how many tiles currently share a symbol with another tile in their row or column. If it reads zero, you're already done.

The colour-gradient puzzle (no solver yet)

The only in-game screenshot we could find of a legendary lock, posted to r/StarsReach, shows a different design altogether. The window is titled "A mysterious Adalos puzzle". The display reads "Moves left: 44" and "Pristine condition". The riddle under the grid reads: "Color survives many ruins. We trusted gradients where names would fail."

The grid itself is a 4×4 block of tiles, each a different shade from near-black to near-white, carrying small alien glyphs. Around it sits a ring of button tiles: one at each end of every row, one at each end of every column, and one in each corner. The riddle and the shades together suggest the goal is to arrange the 16 tiles into a smooth light-to-dark gradient. The edge buttons look like they slide a whole row or column one step. That is our reading of a single screenshot, though, not a confirmed rule. The player who posted it asked the obvious question themselves: which corner should be darkest?

We haven't built a solver for this one. We would have to guess what each edge button does, what the corner buttons do and which direction the gradient runs. A wrong guess would cost you moves you can't get back. If you've opened one of these, tell us through the contact page what the buttons do, and we'll add a solver.

• Before spending moves, sort the 16 shades in your head from darkest to lightest and note where the darkest and lightest tiles sit. They tell you which corner the gradient most likely starts from.
• Test one edge button and watch exactly which tiles move and in which direction, then write it down.
• Fix the row or column that is closest to correct first, and avoid buttons that would scramble it again.
• If the condition indicator starts dropping, stop and reassess (see the next section).

Moves, condition and what happens if you fail

The screenshot shows two meters: moves left, and the cache's condition ('Pristine'). Neither is documented officially, so what follows is what players report, not confirmed behaviour.

On resetting: a Steam player says you can reset a puzzle by closing and reopening it. That's useful if you've wasted moves exploring, but don't count on it for every cache type, because it's one report.

On failure: replies in the Reddit thread talk about damaging the cache or 'blowing yourself and it up', and about repairing and reassessing between attempts. We couldn't verify any of this from an official source, which is exactly why the solver asks you to enter the grid first and act second.

Are puzzle caches worth opening?

Usually yes, if the cost is a few minutes, and Playable Worlds has been tuning them to be worth the effort. The Ground Control update (8.5.0, early September 2026) changed loot caches across the board: 'The odds of a loot cache dropping something immediately useful are going up (usually food/meds at lower tiers and tools/clothing at higher tiers).' The same notes said 'we will also make the high end puzzle caches feel more worthwhile' and that caches would drop less often overall.

Players add two practical points. Some resources, coffee beans for example, have only been reported from loot caches, so a cache can be the only source of an ingredient you need. And if a legendary puzzle defeats you, selling or trading the unopened cache is a common suggestion in the threads. These are player observations, not official drop tables, which the studio doesn't publish.

Why there is no answer list

Some players expect a page of answers, the way older games had. Stars Reach is built to prevent that. Game director Raph Koster has said he wants the game to be "as wiki-resistant as possible", to keep the magic alive (PCGamesN interview, republished on starsreach.com in June 2026). Players confirm the puzzles follow suit: one Redditor who has opened several epic boxes says the puzzle 'was different each time'.

A solver is the honest answer to that design. It doesn't spoil a fixed secret, because there isn't one. It does the bookkeeping that makes the puzzles tedious once you understand the rules. If you'd rather enjoy the puzzle yourself, read the rules sections above and leave the tool alone, or use Test mode to check an idea without spending real moves.