goldenocean

Join Date 03/2006

Game-breaking exploit

Take one cargo hull, add one weapon, and as many sensors and engines as will fit. Proceed to run roughshod all over the enemy by destroying EVERY SINGLE colony ship, constructor, unarmed base, scout, or other unarmed ships they make. Meanwhile run circles around any poky combat ships the AI laughably tries sending after you.

You've hardly tied up any resources and are still expanding at the normal rate, meanwhile this tactic completely cripples the AI, even at high difficulties... and quite frankly has made the game boring. Giving the same tactics to the AI would be making things even worse, but as a fix, cargo hulls really shouldn't be allowed to mount weapons. Either that or just give one weapon to everything (and make one weapon not count in your target choosing formula...this is probably the best solution actually), with your one hitpoint I don't think anyone would bother using this tactic then.

Please fix this Stardock, very cool game otherwise (except for that almost complete lack of tool tips when starting up... I thought I was playing with them off and went into the options to turn them on - to my surprise, they already were on, hehe

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

You are aware that it is a single player game right? I.e. You don't have to do that.

I'll certainly mention it to the team, but how is this really any worse than the people who reload saved games 100 times? Or people who edit the XML or any other cheat/exploit?

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I could also try to win without building anything other than small hulls, that would make the game harder too.

I'm not into artificially adjusting my difficulty level by changing my play style... I play to the limits of the game - best tactics possible under the system. Otherwise what's the point of having good tactics if you're not going to be using them just to keep things difficult? Have you ever thrown a competitive game against a friend who didn't play very well? Did you enjoy it? That's what you're suggesting.

That's the whole appeal of strategy games for me, pushing myself to my limits.

My 2 cents.

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i have used this tactic once or twice (but not with cargo hulls, just tiny hulls) when i'm up againt a militarily superior AI - it's called guerilla warfare and is I think is legitimate tactic to draw out a war in hope of peace (because you can't win it of course), but would like the AI to employ too in similar circumstances

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Well, goldenocean, you have told the developers about a potential exploit. The developers have acknowledged it and have said that they will give it its due attention. However, it's certainly not getting fixed tomorrow, and they may not fix it ever.

You explored the game, and you found a button that allows you to distract the AI until you win. That's all well and good. Indeed, your style of play tends to find that sort of thing.

At this point, you really only have 3 choices:

1: Don't use exploits. This one or any others.
2: Stop playing the game until the developers fix said exploit.
3: Stop playing the game, period.

If you feel that you can't play a game with exploits in it, then stop playing it. In the grand scheme of things, this kind of exploit is pretty negligable.

Though I do think that it would be a good idea for cargo ships not to be able to mount weapons. Then again, the idea of a late-game freighter being able to defend itself from preditors is also important. So I don't know...

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Voqar

Join Date 03/2003

+21

Avoiding the use of silly exploits is hardly adjusting your difficulty level. You found a way to cheese the AI. Congrats. It's not a normal or intuitive approach to the early game so just don't do it and get over it.

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This is Caused by the lack of ship/fleet tactics and ship agility, which makes ship combat so boring

! Like I've mentioned before, NEED to implement some of these, o.w. unarmed ships always gets killed when tagged by any fighter, even the crappiest ones! Take a leaf from Stars! here, and at least let ships have a "chicken" tactic (run on any troubles) to at the very least survive any contact even if partially damaged! and add movement modifiers too.

You are aware that it is a single player game right? I.e. You don't have to do that.

Isn't it Very Pointless then, if we have to Dumb Ourselves down in order to play a "normal" game!?!?!?

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OK, enough with bashing the guy. Wars are not fought according to Marquis of Queensberry rules. I'm sure no nation has EVER armed a freighter as bait for their enemy's warships, or smuggled commandos behind enemy lines using civilian buses, or any of a hundred sneaky dishonorable things. [\sarcasm]
What goldenocean has found is the GC2 implementation of the time-tested, proven method by which a weaker naval power confronts a stronger one: privateering, aka granting letters of marque. This is a realistic, viable , even historical tactic, not an exploit at all, and it's a tactic I expect to see the AI adopt and use eventually, either because Stardock adopts it on its own merits or because the Metaverse makes it an obvious member of the group "common successful human tactics to be adopted / countered."
History is full of nations that lost wars because their opponents didn't fight fair.

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So, what you're saying is if the game of chess worked in such a way that you won every time when you use your queen, the solution is to get everyone to stop using their queens? All I'm saying is that people should be able to use everything the game lets you do and still have a fairly even match, I don't think that's a comment deserving a "get over it".

And obviously it was a pretty normal and intuitive approach for me.

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You are aware that it is a single player game right? I.e. You don't have to do that.

The "um, don't do that" approach is kinda weak. Most gamers will take the path of least resistance when playing a game, even if it takes fun out of the experience.

how is this really any worse than the people who reload saved games 100 times? Or people who edit the XML or any other cheat/exploit?

Its part of a designers/ QA's job to prevent gamers from finding ways to ruin their experience when playing within the understood confines of the game world. Cheating, saving - loading, and editing xml files is well beyond that. To be clear, an exploit is within the system. Your examples are not.

Besides, what about metaverse? Couldn't an exploit like this threaten it's integrity?

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And once the AI starts escorting it's colony ships? All it takes is 1 shot for your most likely rather expensive Cargo Ship of Doom to be vaporized. A small addition to the AI to protect it's vulnerable shiptype during wartime is all that's needed to severely reduce the effectiveness of this "exploit".

cargo hulls really shouldn't be allowed to mount weapons

There is actually a law that can be brought up by the senate requiring troop transports to have a minimum amount of weaponry.

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On larger galaxies with more opponents this tactic wouldn't work very well. Chances are you won't be able to travel the distance required, and also keep all your opponents at bay.

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