For example, if you choose to show 3 digits, your wearer will see something like *3**44** when they next get a permission. If you then change this field to 4 digits, then on his next permission, he might see something like 5**2*42*. Note the repeat from the first time and also note that the digits previously found are NOT shown. Your wearer must keep track of the revealed digits and their places "by hand" in order to find the whole combination.

Wearer's with a Model 50 safe have told us that once they have 6 or 7 digits, they can try out 10 or 100 combinations very easily and get the safe open long before the Star game is over. With the Model 50, there is no way for the holder to know the safe has been opened early. Therefore, in order to prevent the wearer from cheating in this way the system slightly modifies the true combination by subtracting an adjustment factor from the actual combination for all the safes. It is the digits to this modified combination that are revealed to your wearer as described above.

Since there are repeats, it takes longer than you might guess to get all the numbers in an 8 digit combination. Experience gained during testing shows that 2 digits at a time generally give a good extended game. Revealing only one digit at a time really tortures your wearer, especially when there are only a few digits left. This is especially painful for wearers with a Model 200 since any guesses he makes by punching into the safe's keypad will show up in his History file. You would generally uses 4 - 7 digits when you either want a fairly brief game or your wearer just isn't getting it and you want to bring the game to a close pretty quickly.

We have run the Star game a number of times using each of the possible options for Digits to Reveal. Our simulation results are as follows and should give you a rough guide as to how many found windows it will take to reveal the full combination: