If you've been playing Warframe for any length of time at all, you've already seen the Corpus hacking minigame. It looks like a bunch of hexagons with lines in them, and you have to rotate the hexagons by clicking on them in order to make all the lines connect. These are especially common on Spy 2.0 missions. (If you don't know what I mean by 2.0, don't worry about it. I just mean Spy missions.)

Most of time this hacking minigame should be laughably easy. This guide is not here to help you with the laughably easy ones. This guide is here to help you with the ones that look like this:



The seven-hexagon minigames typically show up on high-level Corpus missions, such as on Pluto. Based on my personal observations, some otherwise formidable Tenno would rather use a Mire as a toothbrush than have to complete the hacking minigame at this level. But with this guide, and a little practice, you should be able to breeze through this level of hack every time.

What's that? It seems Little Timmy has his hand up. Go ahead, Timmy.

"I know how! I know how! Just make a ton of Ciphers, equip them in your gear, and use one each time! Right?"

Well. Thank you for your input, Little Timmy. Could somebody please do me a favor? Shoot Little Timmy in the face and throw his body out the airlock. Yes, just like that. Good job.

We are not going to waste resources on ciphers. Ciphers are for failures like our dear departed Timmy. We are not failures. I will concede that ciphers are useful for rushing Rescue missions and such, but if I catch you using them on anything else you're following Timmy out the airlock.

You can rotate the hexes counter-clockwise by right-clicking. Practice doing this with lower-level hacks, if you haven't already gotten comfortable with it.

After you've rotated a few hexes, you'll get an "INTRUSION DETECTED" warning. This warning depends on your actions - it does not depend on the passage of time. After the warning appears, the timer will start counting down faster. If you suffer a brain fart near the beginning of the hacking minigame, don't just start clicking crazily and setting off the intrude-o-meter. Stop a second and get your head back together.

What does the center hex look like? It could look like a lot of things. A slice of lemon? A star? One of those stupid desert skates? Who cares? Don't look at it at all. Don't even glance at it. You're going to do the center hex last. Looking at the center hex and trying to figure things out from there will just fill your head with all kinds of possibilities that will confuse the Hek out of you and screw everything up. It's not worth it.



You're looking for a hex, any hex, that looks like either of these:

Every seven-hex Corpus hack will have at least one of these.
The first one looks like a top-down view of some dude opening his arms to give a hug. The second one looks like the same dude, only he's shooting a laser out of his eyes. As far as you're concerned they're effectively the same thing. I call these hug-man hexes. Obviously, you should rotate the dude so that he's trying to hug the center hex. Quickly.
Now at this point Little Timmy (gods rest his soul) would be jumping up excitedly and saying that we should go around the whole ring and turn all the hug-men so they face inwards, first things first, and then do the other hexes. I find this takes too long and is a bad habit, so don't do that. Instead do this next thing.



Now obviously if you run into another hug-man hex, you should just turn it inwards, same as the first. If you're super lucky the entire outer ring will be hug-men. Don't count on being super lucky. You're probably going to run into one of the other two types of hex.

Like this one, the bunny-ears:

Ahhh! Which way should it point? Wait, it's easy! If it's adjacent to a hug-man hex, obviously you need to turn one of the lines so that it points towards the hug-man, to connect to one of the hug-man's arms. This is why you generally go around the circle one hex at a time; when you move from a hug-man to a bunny-ears, it's immediately clear you should turn the ears back towards the way you came from.
The other "ear" needs to point into the center, because otherwise it's going to go off into space. There simply isn't anywhere it can go but inwards.

And of course if you move from a hug-man onto an adjacent lonely-line like this

...then you simply turn the single line back towards the hug-man hex.

The next hex after that will be yet another bunny-ears or lonely-line. Don't panic: just remember that the last hex you looked at is turned to an accurate position, and you can safely use it as a guide. In this case, now the lines need to be turned so they point away from the last hex, since there's a blank space there instead of a line to connect to. The only possible ambiguity is a lonely-line hex--do you point it inwards to the center, or towards the next hex in the circle? In that case you'll have to jump ahead to the next hug-man hex, however far ahead it is, and work backwards from there. Jumping ahead in the circle and working backwards is the most complicated thing you'll ever have to do with this hacking method. Once you've got that down, congratulations, you're a Corpus-hacking genius.

And so on. Just remember:

• Start with a "hug-man"
  
• Move around the outer circle leaving solved hexes in your wake
  
• Use the previous hex in the circle as a guide
  
• Jump ahead to the next "hug-man" and work backwards when necessary (or when you're comfortable doing so)

Repeat 'til the whole outer circle is done.



Once the outer circle is done, click on that center hex. Again! Clickclickclickclick! Faster! You still don't need to look at it. As soon as it's in position, you win instantly. Grats. Now back to the running and shooting bits.

Okay, let's try this one here.


Hey check out that center hex NO DON'T. Always ignore the center hex at the start.

Start with a wide-angle "hug-man" hex on the outer edge. Let's try the one on the far left. Turn it so the angle faces inwards (right-click it twice). ...obviously you're doing this mentally, in this case.

Now move around the circle counterclockwise and do the lower-left one. Another wide-angle. Turn it inwards.

Next hex, going counterclockwise. Oh no, it's not a wide-angle! It's an acute angle! (That means it's narrow.) How I turn angle? Well, you just came from a wide-angle hex, so you know it needs to connect its line up to this one. Turn this acute angle so it faces back to the left, and a bit inwards (since it's impossible for it to face outwards, into empty space). In other words, left-click it twice. With your mind.

Halfway there already. Next hex. It's a single line. Single lines are potentially slightly tricky. How I turn line? Obviously you know it can't go back towards the hex you just came from, but does it go inwards to the center or further around the circle? Hold on to your hat, it's time to jump ahead and look for another wide-angle hex. In this case, the very next hex after the single line. Turn it to face inwards. Now, of course, the answer is clear: you should turn the single-line hex to face up and left, to connect to the wide-angle hex you just jumped to.

The last hex is a wide-angle hex, and you know what to do with that. Now click on the center hex like crazy, and you'll win instantly as soon as it lines up, no need to even look at it. Easy puzzle. Go shoot a toaster-man right in his toaster to celebrate.

• Do the center last
  
• Start with a wide-angle hex
  
• Go around the circle one hex at a time, solving hexes as you go based on the previous hex...
  
• ...until/unless you hit a single-line hex that doesn't connect to the previous hex (and is therefore ambiguous)...
  
• ...in which case you jump to another wide-angle hex and approach the single-line hex from the opposite direction, to eliminate the ambiguity

Well, thanks for reading this guide! If you've had trouble with high-level Corpus puzzles, I hope it helped, and if you didn't need the help, I hope you were entertained. What's that? Somebody near the back has their hand up.
W-why, it's Little Timmy! H-hey, everyone, Timmy is back with us. It's good to see you again, Timmy. I knew all along that you would survive being thrown out into space.
Please put the Ogris down, Timmy.

Okay. Little Timmy and I had a nice talk just now and because we're such great buds, I wanted to pass on a tidbit of advice on his behalf*: press the 'Y' key during a hack, and you'll use any cipher you have instantly. It's much faster than clicking on the button.

(You used ciphers to get here, didn't you, Timmy. Heh, figures. No no no I don't have any problem with that, Timmy, use all the ciphers you like, you're the boss.)

* Credit for this tip actually goes to Mumalot. Thanks!