Forum - Space Odyssey MMORPG - a massive free online space game

e(#1)
2006-11-07 23:06:33
Exploit

Hello,

I have made an investigation and found out you were using a bug that allowed the completion of missions, using a very small number of ships. This bug was trying to get the system to not spawn any fleets for a battle, in a particalar high difficulty mission, ending the mission on success, having not faced any fleets, or very few fleets, exploiting the cost calculator to lower the enemy fleet spawns.
The logs show you used a very small number of fleets, in order to determine the cost calculator to reduce the number of enemy fleets, that determined some missions to end up having no enemies at all to fight, and receiving the reward for those high difficulty missions.

Using this bug, I have estimated a total of 250 billion credits were gained, from the moment of the exploit, that have been deducted from your commander.

I have recommisioned your fleets and marines, and left your 12 bil credits and 3 bil workers to recover.

Please reply with your explanation of this issue, in order to avoid further action.

I am asking if this commander is indeed Lammalord, or has he left someone else in chanrge of this account?
I am also sorry to inform you that your forum moderator rights have been suspended until this issue is resolved.

Thank you,

Sir Emi


humm ouch? welp if i got punished i hope the many others useing the bug do aswell, i know im not the only one for i got intrudused to it by a member of my alliance, who i think got it from somone else.. and i have seen about 20+ people useing this explit.. i hope i wont get framed for it, just beacuse i happened to be the most well known player useing it... (didnt even know its a bug.. oh well...)

Holy moley areoly, you play with bugs?   :lol_sign: 250 billion - gimme sum a dat

wasnt really a bug i saw tons of people doing it, all you did really is reserve your ships (when i got 0red by midnight i had no need to bother with that) and then use 10 fleets and attack 200+% missions.. it worked fine, and it really didnt seem like it was anything bad liike emi put it out to be.. it was simply just useing 10 fleets at a real real low power to do missions, but oh well.. like fighting over anything with emi works...

and really i think it started out when one of my allaince members sent ten fleets of powerships into a 200% mission and won.. (at least the  mission part of it.. people were doing it in the galaxy from day one of the game...)

Well, I'm surprised your whole alliance didn't get busted Lamma.  :21:

Perhaps you should supply Emi with a list of those people you know or suspect has used the bug, so we can move on with a clean game.

all I say is who in the world can you think it was not a bug, when the EXACT same thing happened before and E had to change things around???  in fact, this looked so much like the last one, that I thought this was just like a couple months late being put up.

remember?
people would do encounters by sending a 1 space ship by itself, and win very high encounters simply because no fleets would show up?

in fact... weren't you one of those people who found that one as well???  :21:

my member said it orginated out of AL2 actally, were davey boy and other AL2 members figured out how to do it in the galaxy (galaxy contracts) and win them for easy start up cash... and that was then told to soppe and charmz, when then told my member.. then my member tried it on mission contracts, and oddly it worked.. still didnt think sending swarm style ships into high % mission contracts would actally be considered as a bug.. but oh well....

So who is that member you keep referring to?
Seems to me you are not doing him any favours by witholding his identity, you only make it so that Emi has to work harder to discover it.
Better to show your willingness to get this mess cleared up by fully disclosing all you know.

At the very least I think the entire top ten should be investigated and share lamma's punishment if evidence of cheating is found.
I for one dont want people to think I am where I am, because i cheated.

Neither do I, I have nothing to hide :) highest mission I'm diong is 25% so.. :sweat and every1 can see that I've always been using like 4 - 7 ships... so.. you can't really accuse me if I even did high missions :)) or is it possible with big ones aswell? ah, I don't know and I don't think I wanna know either :sweat

Greetz, ABI :12:

oh lol that explains the whole thing about why i was told that i should use that setup... it didnt work very good for me though cause i didnt win once so i gave it up pretty fast, and if some1 had told me it was a bug (which i cant remember any1 did), i wouldnt have done it at all, but im not very good at deciding whats a bug n whats not and i thought missions were as they should be neways, after all this time =S

i really dont see how oyu cna consider this to not be a bug lamma... paying less for fleets and getting bigger rewards easily... :21:

hell, he didn't pay less for fleets, he just used small enough fleets where missions weren't sending any fleets to encounter his, so he'd win huge rewards.

Lamma, there is no doubt that this was a bug. Since when do missions never send fleets to encounter you, no matter how small of power a fleet(s) you send? As a moderator you should have reported this immediately. Just because others were doing it doesn't mean you should, you definantly shouldn't, seeing as you are a part of the staff.

I'm afraid I have to side with Sir Emi here, you exploited this bug, you deserve the consequences.

He didnt said he didnt deserve them he only said he hope those who deserve it to get their consequences aswell.

monkey if you read everyhing (witch sadly you never do) you would of seen that it said i always encountered fleets, and that their were super had to win (possible) but hard.. an avarage mission would take me 4-5 trys to win, and the only reason i would win was beacsue i would go against a low hit, high attack fleet, i bet this exact same stragey would work on any cost of ships, say 20 mil a ship, you would lsoe 4/5 missions (with loseing most your ships) but you would win adventally..

i mean there was once were i wasted over 200 turns on a mission to win.. with the hard to win rate, i would say its excally like the me doing the 35-25% missions, but without the crowd, so i can actally completle them, people wouldnt have even surched to try and find a easirier way to do missions like this if there was an abundent supply of the 35-25% missions, instead of making everyone wait 10 min for 3-4 missions at a time...

First off i would like you to know that lamma was nowhere near responcible for the creation of this exploit, and that i take full responcibility for the creation of the high % mission discovery.

i would like to inform you that this so called "exploit" is not recent and that several commanders since the begginning of the round have used it to gain several credits from what i can tell, it seems that this "exploit" originated in al2 by davey boy at the very beginning of the round. He used this setup to do galaxy contracts, he told charms and tinkerbell then theborg and overtime this idea spread to skums dump mainly me and lamma. i then expaned on the galaxy contract idea, and tried mothership contracts. thus began a new era of this "exploit" in the above letter you claim that we used few fleets to complete these missions but actually we used more than the common amount (we used 10 while most pp. used 3 or 4) and you claim that we used this "exploit" to encounter NO enemies while in fact we always did encounter enemies and never at any point did we encounter 0 enemies creating an automatic win or try to encounter 0 fleets causing a win. i can supply several reasons proving that this "exploit" is in fact is not an "exploit", but a strategy.
1. only a certain style of ships can complete the missions successfully and they must be built a certain way and only a few commander have the ability to create such ships.
2. as many other strategies there is a downside, money for low xp
3. like many other strategies, your ships go against other ships with an equal win: loss ratio as normal strategies
4. it requires turns to make money, and was not very efficient strategy
5. the main purpose of this strategy was to increase profit and decrease ships loss
6. it became easier to accomplish higher missions when you added commander lvl based mission contract

there are several more reasoons but i feel that from reading yor posts on this topic lamma posted they wont be of much use.

Deepest Apologizes,

TheMerchant

I will say this, when this round first started - before Sir Emi lowered the fleet power galaxy contracts - I found out by desperation that if I sent 10 fleets of powerships/swarmers into battle that I would win a majority of the battles, maybe 7 out of 10 average over the long run. I didnt win every single battle.

This is my first start round as i have only started playing SO the last 2 months of the last round. When the round started I built ships (that I could afford) sent them into battle and always lost so out of desperation, as powerships/swarmers are the cheapest ships to build from my limited knowledge of this game, I decided on my own to see what would happen if I sent 10 fleets of those ships into battle.

I dont know how other people did it or where it started but I can say that no one told me how to do it, I found out on my own, when I found out that it actually worked most of the time I told my alliance. I dont know if anyone used what I told them or not but I will not make any accusations as to who did what, who said what.

As for the mission contracts I never thought about doing them with those ships(stupid 0o me) so I cannot comment on those happenings.

What I do know is that while I used this strategy in doing galaxy contracts it wasnt easy. I did not win each and every mission, there always were fleets to fight against and often I didnt win sometimes five in a row due to all my fleets being wiped out. Yes the reward was greater than the $ lost, but so is it when you do a 50 mil fleet gold transport with a fleet of ships over 50 mil fleet power each ship and dont lose a single ship.

I didnt think there was anything wrong with doing things this way. By doing it the way I was, I ALWAYS lost ships win or lose. When i made enough credits to pay for my bigger mission ships I stopped using that strategy to make credits.

Like I said, it wasnt easy, I found it irritating to always lose ships / always having to resupply my fleets. It was after that Sir Emi lowered the fleet power, if the fleet power was lowered when the round started maybe I would have done things differently.

If Sir Emi wants to penalize me, whatever, he's the creator he can do what he wants. How am I supposed to recognize what a "bug" is in a game, I am not a software engineer or a computer technician, as I am sure 99% of the players in SO arent either. From now on are we supposed to report anything that seems too easy? If anyone knows of a way to spot these "bugs" please tell me so I will know.

So it originated out of AL2 huh? Well, I like how "The Merchant's" reaction to this is to point the finger at someone else(AL2)... But hey, thanks for keeping me updated Merchant. It's awfully convenient for you to point the finger at the alliance you are at war with... :))

If you think ANY AL members are guilty of using this bug then please have emi investigate us. I don't want cheaters in my alliance anyways. This will help filter them out for me. So, by all means if you feel that an AL member is cheating let emi know. I will be more than happy to see him satisfy your curiosity. I suggest that you guys quit while you are ahead and be thankful you don't get banned for this. Also, it would be wise to send emi a list of suspected players because the punishment could be more severe if they get caught later down the road.

he never said it orginiated there, in your allaince just that Davey boy (who happened to be in al2) was one of the people to find it.. he then showed it others and it adventaly came to my allaince, but i think the only reason i got penelized so bad was i had a real high command level when i started, and therefore i would gain more than most people, i still think that when tons and tons of people, mabey even a majority of people are doing this "exploit" im the only one to get in troble for it... i could see if he busted everyone, but just screw over one player wtf?

Well, send him a list man. If you don't wanna be the only one to get busted, then tell emi who else you think is using it.  :)

i msged emi to tell him about that, and merchant confessed to.. he could simply examen everyones account, but no he singled out me only i mean he didnt even BOTHER to look at any other accounts, just mine.. thats the only reason im even considering to make peace with you midnight.. so dont go off bitching to wolfy on how "your soo good and thats what lamma gets for fighting me" i lost everything due to a stragey i used that apperently was a "exploit" of the game.. or something like that.. but still if you have to be so arrogent about me even considering peace so be it, the war will wage on.. you know your allaince has by far lost the most, i mean look at it already half your members left beacuse of it.. you call that winning?

Sorry I have not been online, starting in two days I will be back full time...and ill start cleaning out the forums, and merging old posts with important info into an 'Archive' post.  Please PM me if you would like to report a post of something like that.

I will be back in 2 days,
SnipeDragon

... why dont you post a topic about that? not in the first topic you see...

oh, and if you havnent noticed, i was temperaly well you can say "banneded" from being a moderator SnipeDragon, beacuse of something i did in the game (didnt really know it was cheating but oh well, i got reset for it).. sure hope i get my mod powers back...

Yes, Lamma....that is why I posted in here, its not off topic due to the fact that you lost your mod powers, and im the only mod on most forums.  I was just informing people that I will be back full time tommorrow.  I didnt post in the first topic I see, I posted in this topic becuase its not really off topic.

I'm not gonna say you lost Lamma. I think we have all had enough war. You did your fair share of damage as did we. I think we all had losses, and we all gained a little knowledge. Don't worry about me breakin' a truce. Light will hang me.   :sweat

ummm... excuse me for asking... but if lamma is the only one reset...  when clearly he wasn't the only one doing it... wouldn't that mean sir E is picking sides???  either it is true, or you are accusing him of it...
and don't blame me, I am just pointing out this obvious fact.

anyway, as far as 'anything easy' being a bug...  it depends on how easy it is, from what you were saying, silverthorne, it sounded legit, you had greater rewards, but it came at the chance of losing everything if not careful.  but if you go through and complete 100 trillion credit missions without a single loss, and all you sent was a small 2 power ship...  ya, then it's defenitely a bug.

it's basically the same as real life: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is

Thats why I didnt even think about it being a bug, I dont know how anyone else did it but here is how I did it:

I used 10 fleets of powerships with no armor only weapons. Even with armor, usually the opposing fleets had more than enough firepower so armor was a waste anyway. I had anywhere from 1 to 11 ships in each fleet at all times. Without armor ships always got destroyed, sometimes all my fleets got destroyed, most of the time it was more frustrating having to resupply all fleets 5 times in a row because of running into huge ships but it was the only way I could afford to at the beginning of the round.

I dunno if I am using a bug or "exploit" or whatever, but I'm just using my 7 big ships, and I wanted every1 to know that it's not just that way you can do it, since I was doing mission contract over 100%...

News
A^Bloody^Idiot(#8752) completed a 183% difficulty contract.

That's the highest I could do, I lost a ship trying that 1...
But the others went all normal, I didn't lose anything just gained alot, I reported it to Emi and I talked about it with a few ppl, some of you might have seen me doing mission contracts in the news well now I'm telling you guys here fair and square that I'm not known of doing anything wrong, I'm not using swarmers or sumthing, every1 can see that I had and still just have 7 ships...

So I don't know if this is another bug or whatever or just some error, but I want Emi to look at it...

Greetz, ABI hi
(p.s. I thought since this was about doing high missions I thought this was the appropriate topic to post it in, if not by all means move this post and accept my appalogies for it :)
Thx, ABI )

im pretty sure this isnt what emi si tlaking about, using swarmers to do missions, and htat it is a bug accociated with the cost calculator, form what i understand... far as i can tell lamma used a few ships with very low power and did high percent missions, but turned on the cost calculator so he wouldnt face many ships in the high percent missions, but would still get teh rewards... and monkey my other comment wasnt saying he got ships for less it was sayin he used less ships for more money ;)

all this was before the new calculator update and if you try it with it it no longer works :) ive tried

good.

and if you are wondering why I said 'good' that you tried it already, the reason is this:

SpaceO is still 'beta' which basically means the same thing as when you go into the test server.  it isn't really supposed to be about winning or losing at the moment, but instead making sure everything works fine.  and you can't make sure everything works fine if you don't tell E the problems.  but the bugs will also still be there if someone doesn't go oiut of bounds and tries the crazy stuff, lol.

anyway, ya, the basic thing is that they would do missions with ships that should not have survived it in any way shape or form, but won due to almost non existant enemy forces arriving.  the problem was they would get most/all reward from doing almost nothing.

so really, this problem has, as Sir E stated, already fixed.  just, why would only one person be punished? I'm sorry, but I like to think I know Sir E better then that, he won't just take sides and only punish one person when more then one is guilty... I'm guessing lamma is just the only one he made an example of, or lamma was teh only one who came out and posted in the forum.  all the others probably didn't notice as much  :14:

that or lamma was just the only punished as he would be the one he saw who should know better, lol.

actually it is very reasonable that the ships with alotta attack and no hp could survive. hi. they killed all the ships or be all be killed thats  why you needed 10 fleets.........the firts post i posted was what i mailed to emi , maybe more detailed ikr, and im still waiting for a reply

Uhh... No I did it after the calculator.. 0o
I've tried it too, and you probably know the big hit I just got which I posted, well, I'm stubborn I never learn my lesson, I'm already doing 50%'s as I post this :P :))

Greetz, ABI

     Thank you ARS, I told lamma probably the only reason why he was the one who got punished was because he had moderator powers at the time, has set examples in the past for other players. And very well knows missions that easy for that high of credits are non-existent. And also has probably been around longer then most of the people who abused this bug. So they weren't for sure if that was a part of the game or a bug.

    Cause they haven't been around long enough to know. And lammalord you knew very well that something like that does not exsist. I'm surprised you of all people should have known not to to that. I don't feel sorry one bit for you losing your moderator powers. Maybe Emi will find a different person who will not abuse the system and report any and all problems to him.

  Of course you probably got passed your little set back, but I doubt it was all on your own. Maybe a little outside help?

i asked emi and told him that there was more than one person doing this matter of fact probaly about half the people in the ranks 20-100 were doing it.. well something like that... but (if i reamber right) he told me he only punished me beacuse i was the one to gain the most off of it...

and i dont know what i lost my mod powers due to it.. geese i didnt know useing 10 fleets of swarm ships with alot of attack in a misison was against the rules...

im talking about the 10 fleets "exploit" not using regular ships, i was online when emi made the adjustment and was the 1st to notice it no longer worked.

So whats going to happen about this exploitation of a game bug??? and whats happening to the players and alliances that are using it??? or are they just going to get a smacked wrist and be allowed to get on to the next bug?

Constant use of these bugs is ruining the game as most of you would agree, well except for the people who cant play the game and have to use them but honestly there should be a more severe consiquence than just the loss of a few bill, not reporting a bug is cheating, and its funny how these people seem to be the ones complaining the most about donations lmao ( i guess its ok for them to use bugs instead ) I personally dont see the point in playing a game if your going to exploit loopholes, still i think more severe punishment should be handed out especially seeing as there are people who enjoy playing without cheating, but seeing someone post sir emis in game mail and using it as some type of trophy is just a joke

i dont think lamma thinks its a joke from what i can see as long as money is based on lvl and not power there will always be a way around it.but for now the problem has been solved im pretty sure at least

ya, wait there was a problem? my problem is that i was the only one punished, i think that everyone useing the bug should be punished, not just me... or people will think they can get away with it, and just find some other way to use a bug...

Well, you insist on saying that other people are using this bug Lamma. If you "know" they are, then turn them in... :confused:

Lamma execpt the fact your the only one who got punished no one else will ever be punished unless they have found a bug and abuse it again.  You were the chosen one to get the smacked in the face no one else was, you were the example to show what happens when you abuse the system. I suggest you stop complaining man and if you know people who are abusing the system turn them in, don't say the same ole' poop over and over again I really don't think any of us care.  When you say "other people should be punished" They haven't get over it.

 And who cares if 80% of the people used that bug you got punished. End of story.  ANd you sure did take advantage of that bug quite a bit as well. *tisk tisk* That's why you're losing respect. Child games like this. 

i never had much respect, becides the point that i attack alot..

ya well the only other person i knew was doing it for sure already confessed and sent a msg to emi, and so far he has gotten no reply and was completly ignored..

not like a care anymore its really been to long to do anything...

Yeah, Maybe Emi, doesn't wanna deal with it anymore, what's done is done, nothing changes. 

Well, one thing I have learned while playing this game is that if you want ANYTHING done you gotta be persistent & consistent. If you message emi on a consistent basis, he has no choice but to answer you.  :19:

When I ignore people sure the hell works good :)

Emi just never reacts.

And the moral of this saga is DONT CHEAT then there's no need for posts like this and emi having to run round trying to slap naughty people on the wrist. In my view Lamma did get off lightly n no doubt probably wont be the last time either. Having a mod abusing a loophole dosnt exactly look good for one, and why on earth do u need to cheat when there's so many ways to rise in the rankings without the aid of a bug/cheat/loophole.

(steps off soapbox)

Chicpea

 :)

ok, lamma, fist, i read all the posts, and it was mentioned several times that the exploit was encountering 0 ships. Wither that is true or not doesn't matter. As for getting your mod powers back, it might be a while, Sir Emi said he'd give me mine back once he wrote a guidline for moderator behavior or something like that. I'd assume if you get yours back, it'll be afetr that.

As for this bug, I looked into it, asked some people who used it, and it isn't a bug at all. It's always been there. There were several people using it LAST round, so I have no clue what the big deal is, but Sir Emi must know what he is doing, so maybe it's something to do with the strategy, who knows.

oh like i really new i was useing a bug?