# Rule of 8 finer details question

**URL:** <https://forums.eveonline.com/t/rule-of-8-finer-details-question/513768>\
**Category:** Known Space\
**Created:** [June 22, 2026, 7:35pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/rule-of-8-finer-details-question/513768 "2026-06-22T19:35:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![Gerard\_Amatin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/gerard_amatin/32/481361_2.png) [@Gerard\_Amatin](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Gerard_Amatin)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 7:40am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/rule-of-8-finer-details-question/513768/5 "2026-06-23T07:40:12Z")

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Talking about wastes of time, I’ve been building a [hacking simulator](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/eve-hacking-simulator/513203) where I try to totally recreate the rules of the original hacking minigame.

So yes, I do wish to spend time thinking where the node can be, as I’m trying to get perfect understanding of this minigame.

And generally the core is 8 steps away, unless the start point is somewhere in the middle and thus closer than 8 steps to the majority of nodes.

What I do not know yet is at exactly which moment the game switches from using the rule of 8 to random placement.

So far my theory is that it happens when the amount of valid candidates is ‘too low’ where ‘too low’ is at least 2, but could be more.

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