Answering where the optimal answer is 'follow this link'

Question

I came upon a question that I feel I could provide a real high quality answer to; but the format of this site doesn't allow it.

You see, the user is asking for help with an achievement, and what they are asking has a simple answer.

They need help beating an AI at a minigame. The minigame is that of a very primitive, but ancient, game. Think like chess. The game is always solvable - if you always make the ideal move, your guaranteed a win. The difficulty comes down to the AI being incredibly good at the game. There's little room for error.

The achievement is notoriously hard, because it's a tricky game. The best solution is a round about way of having another computer play for you.

The solution is 'play the same game via this link. Have the AI play second, and place the moves the AI makes in the original game. In the original game, take the actions that the AI naturally takes in the second game your playing on the side. You will always win.'

By forcing the AI to play another AI, you guarantee beating the game in one go. Otherwise, it notoriously takes players hours of great effort to beat.

I can't just link to the secondary site, that's a link only answer.

I could write an AI via a web based program to help you beat it.. but how would I go about truly hosting it on here to ensure it was always accessible?

What's the best way to answer a question like this? I could write paragraphs of tips, but nothing would beat providing that program.

Answer 1

You have provided a very good answer right here:

The achievement is notoriously hard, because it's a tricky game. The best solution is a round about way of having another computer play for you.

The solution is 'play the same game via this link. Have the AI play second, and place the moves the AI makes in the original game. In the original game, take the actions that the AI naturally takes in the second game your playing on the side. You will always win.'

By forcing the AI to play another AI, you guarantee beating the game in one go. Otherwise, it notoriously takes players hours of great effort to beat.

Sometimes, and especially when these are the only proper solutions to the problems posed, it's completely fine to refer to external sources.
For example, this isn't any different from answering certain Minecraft questions with 'use NBTExplorer'.
Linking to it - while helpful - is not even strictly necessary as people can search the internet themselves when given sufficient information. Just note down the name of the program and maybe its author.

In short: provide a link, explain why there is a link, and other users will know whether or not the link is a necessary element of your answer.

Answer 2

I think the best way to approach this would be to answer as well as you can with information to help the human player succeed at the minigame, and also link to the program that will play for you.

If a user is asking how to do something, just linking to a program that will do all of the work for them isn't really an answer. It's equivalent to answering strategy questions for an FPS with a link to an aimbot, or chess strategy questions with a link to Stockfish. From a gameplay experience perspective it's not much different from recommending that they use console commands to skip the content, or Steam Achievement Editor to just give themselves the achievement, in that in all cases, the player isn't meaningfully interacting with the gameplay.