Are you referring to the device hacking?
If that's the case it's purely random for what I recall. High hacking skills means higher chances to get a good node.
The only part I was paying attention to were which node to unlock first. I chose them so that if they came out as bad I didn't block two or more lines from potential success
I'm not asking for solutions. I'm asking for what the logic of the puzzle is.
I did all the System Shock remake puzzles without guides or logic probes after looking up one guide for the wire puzzle because how the variables worked wasn't intuitive, so I get what you're saying. But like the wire puzzle, the node puzzles in SS2 aren't obvious how they work.