Consensus on Cheating?

[Enigma]

Bustamike- Wrong

Use drop transports. It will give you the same probability of getting an artifact as if you were using a transport on the sea, and then it will allow you to carry that artifact back. If you agreed to no drops from outside of airbase or base bring a former with the transport and make an airbase.

[Helium Pond]

Okay, you sold me. I'm adding the drop-from-anywhere thing.

[BustaMike]

OOPS!!!

Ok, I checked it out. Airdropping does let you get pods in SMAC, but still I couldn't help thinking I'd seen pods disappear from dropping before. So I loaded up Civ2. If you paradrop onto a hut in Civ2 the hut does disappear, so I'm not totally mad. I just mixed up my games.

[Chowlett]

They are definitely not 'chutes. Look at the ability graphic, and the pic that comes up when you perform a drop. Quite how powerful the thrusters are, I would say the look only cushiong-good to me.

Korn: I didn't say that multiple air drops is okay by me. I said that a single airdrop per turn, from any location, is okay by me. I do not think it is right to use the bug to drop the same unit over and over again. I just think that it should not be a requirement that you have to start in a base/airbase.

Incidentally, I've always envisioned the pods as thrusters that launch the unit into the air, and then cushion the landing. This may have something to do with how I feel about their usage. If I was thinking of them as some kind of parachute, or thrusters only strong enough to cushion a landing, I might feel differently.

Gotta love how perception can affect the rules of a game

------------------
Yours Truly

[Famyn]

I'm not sure if everyone would consider this 'cheating.'

To be blunt, I suck. I can't get past thinker level (I'm always getting my butt kicked). To make things more fair for me, I turn on 'flexible starting locations.'

When I start, I start out with no city, just a pod or two and a scout.

Here's the cheat: you can simply self destruct your units and start over. The game considers you 'destroyed' and respawns you someplace else. However, when you get respawned, you also get a terraformer unit to go with your pods/scout. You can keep doing this again and again, at the cost of one turn a 'jump.'

You can also do this in normal mode as well. Simple let something like a mind worm or enemy unit destroy your first city, preferably within the first 5-10 turns. You'll respawn somewhere else, with a terraformer and at least one defensive unit (the best you could have made up to that point). If the computer respawns you in a bad location, then self destruct all your units and start 'jumping' like described above.

I will use this 'cheat' sometimes, but only if I find myself with only a single pod in the middle of a large mostly arid area. Once I respawn, I self destruct the former because I should'nt have had it anyway. The way I figure it, I could just simply quit that game and start a new one, so respawning out of a horrible starting location isn't 'cheating.'

[Helium Pond]

I don't think that's cheating, but please remember that this is a thread directed towards defining cheating in multiplayer games.

[Famyn]

If 'do or die' isn't enabled, I bet somebody could pull this off in a multiplayer game. Wouldn't the presence of a former really help someone early game if flexible starting locations was turned on?

[Helium Pond]

I see your point. However, would anyone consider that cheating? It's not something for nothing, after all; you're losing turn advantage, and against a master builder, that's everything.

[Sikander]

Well, you lose a turn, and gain a former and a new location. Quite a bit of advantage for both builders and momentum players. Builders can leave the fungus infested area of the largest continent. Momentum players can try for a more centrally located, larger continent, especially if the local terrain is somewhat foreboding.

[Helium Pond]

Let me put it this way: if you were starting a multiplayer game, would you ask that other players not do this?

[korn469]

i wouldn't consider this cheating because i always insist do or die is on

try it under those settings and see what happens

[Famyn]

In the multiplayer games I have been playing lately with flexible starting locations, my home city started at a 3, I already had a former plus a recon rover and a scout patrol. If I would have pulled this trick, then I actually would have lost some stuff. Is there an option that you just get a single pod and your city starts at 1? Or do all multiplayer games do this? (I'm a newbie when it comes to multiplayer)

[Helium Pond]

I just found out about another cheat, and a nasty one: trying to bribe another human player during council results in the bribe being evaluated by the AI, not the other player. I've added this to the list.

[Ned]

HP, I think this cheat was No. 14, on your original list.

BTW, that list taught me for the first time about the upgraded crawler and the infinite airdrop "cheats." I now find I use them both all the time. It is hard not to. I can only wish that Firaxis will fix at least two cheats.

This reminds me of my favorite cheat in Civ II - starting out with Fundamentalism. Those 4-4 Fanatic units were both extremely cheap and powerful compared to the early-game military units of the competiton. Loved it.

Ned

[Velociryx]

Good thread! And btw, I'd have to consider the "re-start" thing a cheat, for one specific reason (and I found this out by accident but GAWD it was cool! LOL).

If you restart with Morgan, you get your two colony pods back, your scout becomes synthmetal, you get a former, and you get an extra 100 credits...OUCH! Well worth sacrifcing a single turn for....(and, if you do it again the following turn, you net yourself another hundred credits!)

-=Vel=-
[This message has been edited by Velociryx (edited May 26, 2000).]

[Basil]

Happens to me in SP (SMACX 2). Remember it only happens when you're building facilities, not when you're building units.

[Helium Pond]

I realize that the bug only happens with non-units; units don't switch to "Stockpile Energy" when you're done building them. I started a game as Morgan, went into the scenario editor and gave him the tech for Rec Commons, and had him buy the whole thing. Stockpile energy at this point would generate 1 economy credit per turn. Otherwise, I was making 2 economy credits a turn. I had sixty minerals left as pushed "Turn Complete." At the start of the next turn, I had 62 credits. I did not recieve a "free" dose of stockpiled energy. Am I misunderstanding the bug?

[Helium Pond]

Okay Vel, you've convinced me, I'll add it.

Ned: as it says in the original list, I update that list everytime I learn of a new cheat. That's why it may seem that people are pointing out things already on the list. I added my own message last time because I wasn't sure if editing the original message was enough to make the thread bump to the top again.

I've done a little bit of looking into this "stockpile Energy" bug--does it only happen in multiplayer? I can't get it to happen in single player.


[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited May 26, 2000).]

no, thats exactly how it works.
You did indeed receive 3 income, but spent 1 as upkeep for the new rec common immediately.

[JAMiAM]

The Stockpile Bug can be extended to units, by putting "stockpile energy" into the build queue, after a unit.

Unfortunately, due to the trouble involved in negating this particular behavior in the game (see my threads on this, in both this forum and the Strategy forum) and policing within a multiplayer game, the fix is worse than the bug.

It is better to inform all the players, and let everyone take equal advantage of its effect.

[Helium Pond]

Meister Flo, thanks for setting me straight. How obvious. Me not so smurt. JAMiAM, I agree with you. That's why I kind of feel ambivalent about adding this one to the list. Because, really, what's anyone going to do about it? What do people think (at least, the people who still check up on this thread)? Should it be on the list, or, since it's really impossible to address, should I leave it off? After all, I'm not trying to compile a bug-list, just a list of things that people should agree about before playing MP.

[Misotu]

Regarding the stockpile energy thing. I only found out about this a couple of days ago. The trouble with trying to deal with this is that players have perfectly legitimate reasons for using stockpile energy in the list after a unit. If you don't, the AI will simply build another unit of the same type. It would be easy to miss the fact that you're building too many of them, so I personally like to use the stockpile energy command after a unit and I'd be extremely unwilling to discontinue.

The facilities one ... well. It would just be too easy for people to make an honest mistake and forget.

I agree with JAMiAM. The best thing is to let everyone know that this is how it works.

[MidKnight Lament]

After reading two thirds of this thread I'm surprised that so many people think of exploiting these bugs (and that's what most of them are) as not cheating.

The question is, "Is this in the spirit of the game? Is this what the designers intended?". And in most cases (without going back to look at them too hard) I'd say "no" to both questions.

I'm surprised there's not more people crying foul. Not to call judgement or anything.

- MKL

[JAMiAM]

MKL,

The problem is that sometimes, many competing factors are involved in the decision regarding whether or not a particular "exploitable" feature should be considered a "cheat".

Design intent, fairness, consistency, enforceability in MP...is certainly not an exclusive list of the variables which must be balanced in this decision making process.

For example, consider the stockpile energy bug. For each turn that you complete a facility, special project, or orbital with nothing in the queue, you gain extra energy in the amount that you would have gained if you had the base set to stockpile energy. Thus, on the turn that you complete the production, you gain the use of your mineral resources TWICE. Once for the production, once for the conversion to energy (2:1, min:ec).

Everyone who does not use the build queues does already take advantage of this effect. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of players do NOT use queues. It has certainly been my experience over the course of more than two dozen pbem games that players generally do not use them. Therefore, it is safe to say that most players style of play, and habits, have evolved around the extra energy being available to them, over the course of the many games played.

This effect can easily be extended to unit production, by including stockpile energy in the queue for a base working on a unit. Some have complained about this tactic, yet it is a consistent extension of the default behavior of the game, when making facilities, to the production involved in units. Though it may seem to violate a design intent, it is nonetheless, a coded, default feature, intended or not.

Those who have argued against allowing one to take advantage of this windfall usually do so on the grounds that it is unreasonable that resources should be used "doubly" on the turn of completion, when they are not so available the balance of the turns of production. This is certainly a reasonable argument, from a "realistic" or even aesthetic point of view. However, from a practical point of view, arguing against using the stockpile energy feature is akin to tilting at windmills.

It is tedious bordering on the ridiculous to attempt to deny the use of the effect, even if it does defy the design intent. One must place an item (not necessarily something that you will really want to produce) in the queue for every base. This grants to those who have infiltrator status, information on your future production plans. It also negatively affects the playability and fun of the game to be locked into a unnecessarily tedious ritual designed to bring all players down to the lowest common denominator, that of the player who habitually, and consistently, uses the queues. (Though this sounds insulting, it is not meant so. Only a statement reflecting the range of benefits involved in varying degrees of the use, or denial, of the stockpile energy feature.)

Finally, before players have infiltration status on each other, this feature would be impossible to detect in a pbem game, barring a CMN checking every turn, of every player. Thus, from an enforceability standpoint, it is not an optimal choice to make, to deny the "exploitation" of this feature.

You see? It is not always so cut and dried. Sometimes equal exploitation through the education of the involved players is preferable to declaring the use of an undocumented feature, or even a bug, a "cheat".

JAMiAM
[This message has been edited by JAMiAM (edited June 05, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

I knew this wasn't going to be cut and dried, and was expecting that I was entering murky waters.

Your example is a valid one, and I can see that it's not at all an easy one to fix. However, I can't help but think that there's other examples among those listed above which would be harder to justify. (Not that I'm trying to make enemies here - just stating an opinion. )

Comments like this one seem a little crazy to me though...

quote: Originally posted by kaz on 03-30-2000 09:20 PM If the computer allows it, it's not cheating. That's my opinion on all the so called "cheats."

- MKL

[Q_tip1976]

Usually I'm against the use of most bugs to a players advantage but in the case of the stockpile energy bug I have to say it's simpley best to let it go (At least until it gets patched.) Mostly because of the resons mentioned before. Also the ability to stockpile energy deffinately WAS intended and is a big part of mt stratagy when playing economically deficient (i.e. Hive) factions.

Dissallowing this unfortunate "feature" would also dissallow an important concept and ability in the game. Sometimes you really want to Stockpile Energy after completing your unit or facility!

[Q_tip1976]

Sorry Double Post
[This message has been edited by Q_tip1976 (edited June 05, 2000).]

[Helium Pond]

The Stockpile bug also has a major Pain-In-The-A** factor. Usually I try to play within what I guess to be the designers' intent. But having to watch aevery one of my queues all the time, to be sure I'm not taking advantage of this bug, is just plain tedious. No fun. You have to go out of your way to make most of the other bugs happen; this one you have to go out of your way to make NOT happen.

I agree, though; "if you can do it, it's not cheating" is a silly thing to say. There's nothing stopping you from stealing money in Monopoly, is there?

[Ned]

Since the AI does not use Queues, do they get the benefit of the stockpile energy bug?