Station footprint hunting

posted on July 24th, 2010, 3:06 pm

If a ship is cloaked, one can use a constructor to find where a cloaked ships is.

select a build item to get the footprint, then if it is over a cloaked ship the footprint will be red.

this footprint will apper anywhere on the map that you have removed the black fog, so it can tell if a cloaked fleet is there, even if you dont have ships nearby for visuals.

i dont see a way of fixing this though.

and it sounds like cheating to me.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 3:20 pm

Sounds like  some could abuse  the ability. However the counter I feel is to decloak and clobber the constructor.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 3:21 pm

Sounds like  some could abuse  the ability. However the counter I feel is to decloak and clobber the constructor.

the problem with that is the footprint appears everywhere on the map, meaning u can sit your con ship next to your starbase and hover the footprint ANYWHERE that u have explored.

all for free, as the money is deducted when building starts.

whats worse is the enemy has no idea you are doing it.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 3:48 pm

The Poor Man's Intel Report! (and 50 supply is really expensive) This is not only something that can be abused to find cloaks, but sometimes a player with a cloaked scout will send it to a portion of the base where a player wants to build. This can cause several seconds delay as you have to tell the enemy to move their cloaked scout and could be potentially abused by the cloaks if they spammed cloaked ships to areas you want to build.
It would probably be best if scouts could move out of the way slightly. Maybe for cloaked fleets if trying to build on them showed a green footprint, but still blocked construction once the constructor tried to build. Cloaked fleets moving out of the way for a building to be made would cause some problems due to the ships possibly moving into range of a cloak detection ping.

Another problem of the game's collision system is that you can tell there are cloaked ships if your fleet bump into and move around something invisible. Maybe if cloaked ships moved out of the way of oncoming ships, altho this still might have problems if two cloaked fleets meet.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 3:54 pm

Wow.  That's a novel one!

I reckon that's cheating by exploiting a game function...

posted on July 24th, 2010, 4:27 pm

Thanks for alerting the general public to this Myles  . Exploits like this are unfixable pretty much and are best kept unknown so nobody abuses them. As you said, they are undetectable, and you can bet somebody out there will use this and argue that it's ok because "it's in the game"

posted on July 24th, 2010, 4:42 pm

I think it's better to tell people outright that it's an exploit and cheating, that way we don't have people figuring it out on their own and thinking it's okay (remember the C-11 on HSA in awesome screenie thread, he obviously didn't know it was an exploit.) If they do hear it's an exploit and say that it's okay because it's in the game, then you can just not play against them.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 4:47 pm

hey i'm not too bright, and i figured this out. so its probable that loads of other people have too.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 4:52 pm

(remember the C-11 on HSA in awesome screenie thread, he obviously didn't know it was an exploit.)

actually c11 with hsa was never really an exploit, as it added so little energy that you needed several of them, or some ranked ones, and who ever ranks a c11? and building many of them will mean less normal ships to defend the hsa and it will die before next shots.

norway with hsa i admitted was definitely bad as norway gives 60.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:06 pm

C-11 with HSA was considered an exploit. You can't talk about things from an outside perspective like this, it was definitively considered an exploit for the entirety of the stay which is why it was finally remedied in 31.3.

I think if you were wise it would be good to shut down this thread or ... I don't know. The cat's out of the bag now, and the damage will continue to be done as long as this stays open and available information. I'm sure loads of people have figured this out - it's the ones that haven't I am concerned about, as some people make use of any situation in order to cheat. Cloak follow bug anyone?

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:08 pm

I think if you were wise it would be good to shut down this thread or ... I don't know.

even if i was wise, which i'm not, i can't shut down this thread. only mods can shut down this thread. but if i could figure it out, i bet loads of others have, and dont do it, as it is dishonourable to cheat so badly.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:17 pm

You are the only one who is directly mentioning the exploit, and I'm sure Nebula can be contacted too - simply solution is delete posts, change title of the thread to "delete me" or something of that sort if you so desire.

It may be dishonorable to cheat so badly - but we have witnessed tons of 'honorable' people cheating by using the cloak follow, replaceweapon bug (back when there was no cooldown), Qaw'Duj, firing HSA over asteroid belts, EM Scout Cube self target, etc. It's just one more way that somebody learns about it. At this rate I may have to put it on the guide because there is no way to enforce it.

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:23 pm

Keeping people ignorant of ways to cheat will never stop cheating, but if the players those cheaters face know that it is cheating, they can recognize it and refuse to play with those cheaters.

[Anonymous]

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:24 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 24th, 2010, 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i happen to agree with nebula that exploits should be public, so that everyone knows that it is wrong to do these things. rather than have some people know about exploits and others dont. then a clever newby discovers an exploit and doesnt know its bad and uses it to change the outcome of a game.

imo a guide mention of this would be appropriate.

of course some exploits are obvious such as 3.1.2 qawduj of death was. but others like em scube forcefire might not have been too obvious to everyone.

on a separate note, i have had hsa fired at my from behind asteroids, and i never considered it an exploit as this weapon fires its shot through hyperspace (whatever that is) and presumably the asteroids dont extend into hyperspace

i consider it strategic placing. i got to the hsas before they shot again and killed them both anyway.

EDIT: fixed a typo

posted on July 24th, 2010, 5:28 pm

There are certain maps which make certain abilities exploits - which is why it is difficult to craft any rules. Some exploits are up to common sense, which it seems is quite rare.