includes only interactions of NP3 with NP1 and NP2, and not those between NP1 and NP2. To compute 𝑊 % A , we devised a strategy to sample non-degenerate configurations of the NPs by taking advantage of their indistinguishability and the cylindrical symmetry of the potential (Fig. ). This involved placing NP1 and NP2 on the x-axis symmetrically about the origin. For each fixed value of distance 𝑑 4! between the two NPs, the position of NP3 was varied across a 2D grid in the first quadrant of the x-y axes, thereby sampling distances 𝑑 4% and 𝑑 !% of NP3 relative to NP1 and NP2.