How the Proximity Scanner Works in PROXX

Updated

The proximity scanner in PROXX tells you how close your crew is to black holes without revealing where they are. Each time you open a tile, the scanner reports a number for that tile: the count of black holes in the eight surrounding cells. A blank or zero means no black holes touch that tile, so its neighbors are safe to open. Higher numbers mean more black holes are adjacent, so you should flag the surrounding tiles instead of opening them. This is the core mechanic described on proxx.app: "Help your crew navigate space by marking out the black holes using proxx, your proximity scanner."

What the scanner actually measures

The scanner is a local count, not a direction finder. It looks only at the eight cells around the tile you just opened (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal). It does not tell you which neighbor holds a black hole, only how many of them do.

Scan result What it means What to do next
Blank / 0 No black holes in the 8 surrounding cells Open adjacent tiles freely
1 Exactly one black hole nearby Flag candidates and use other scans to narrow down
2 or more Multiple black holes nearby Avoid opening neighbors until the count is satisfied

The setup screen on proxx.app exposes Difficulty, Width, Height, and Black holes, plus a Start control. The black hole count you choose sets how dense the field is, which directly changes how often high scanner numbers appear.

How to turn scan numbers into black hole locations

The scanner becomes useful when you combine several readings. A single number is ambiguous; overlapping numbers usually are not.

  1. Open a safe starting area. Begin where you have room to read several tiles at once.
  2. Record each number. Treat every revealed tile as a constraint on its eight neighbors.
  3. Find forced placements. If a tile shows 1 and seven of its neighbors are already open or flagged safe, the remaining neighbor must be the black hole. Flag it.
  4. Use the complement rule. If a tile shows 2 and two adjacent black holes are already flagged, every other neighbor is safe to open.
  5. Cross-check shared neighbors. Two tiles that both touch the same unknown cell can confirm or eliminate it. If one shows 1 and the other shows 0, the shared cell is safe.

A concrete example

Suppose you open a tile and the scanner shows 1. You then open the tile directly above it, which also shows 1. The two tiles share three neighbors. If two of those shared cells are already open and safe, the single black hole must sit in the one remaining shared cell, so you flag it and open the rest.

Common sticking points

  • Treating a number as a direction. A 1 does not point at the black hole; it only says one exists among eight cells.
  • Flagging too early. Flagging a guess can block a tile you later need to open. Flag only when the count forces it.
  • Ignoring diagonal neighbors. The scanner counts all eight surrounding cells, so diagonal black holes still raise the number.
  • Forgetting the density setting. A higher Black holes value on the start screen means more high numbers and fewer safe openings, so adjust your caution to the difficulty you picked.

Once every non-black-hole tile is open and all black holes are marked, the round is complete. The scanner is the only information source you get, so reading it carefully, one constraint at a time, is the whole skill of the game.