Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

The facts as they are:

3 weeks ago we noticed that scanning gives subsequent more score then if one would buy ships. This has been hardcoded into the game, part of the game for 2 rounds now.
A scanner has won round 10, based on these exact facts.
Scanning is part of the game, Although its intention is to reward planets that scan, mass scanning on itself cannot be seen as a bug. Since its a simple feature in the game. You are allowed to launch fleets 100x, click on overview 100x , do cov-ops 100x and able to scan 100x.
I do not think anyone can dispute these facts. Scanning has been part of this game, how you use this feature is up to the player.

I myself have tested scanning to see how the server would handle this. It took it fine. I've did a couple tests where I did around 200-500 scans within minutes (no more then 2-5 scans a second, i myself never exceeded 2-3 scans/second).
On a side note: We did this without using any scripts what so ever. Anyone claiming scripts has been used by playmates galaxy is simply Wrong. There are several ways to do scan a lot, one would be to simply copy the shortcut from overview, put it in your URL box, and hit the GO button repeatly.
I stress out again: WE DID NOT USE SCRIPTS.
Anyone claiming otherwise is misinformed, jealous, lame or simply stupid.

As we did not want to alert other people of our knowledge, we decided to stockpile our resources. I myself have grown to 780,000,000 total resources.

We decided to start doing scans this weekend, apparantly other people had found out as well, as according to Spinner 20 people were doing mass scanning at the same time.
Apparantly the database and server could not handle this.
So Spinner and PA-team then suddenly after 2 rounds, decided that the quick way to deal with this problem was to simply change the feature of scanning and completely reduce the XP gain you can get from it. Changing a game value just like that.
Their reason for:
I would agree that a large load created by an individual could be deemed as abuse of the servers. But as my tests and that of my galmates has proven that each time we scanned, the servers were fine.
As EULA's go by exact wording, none of each of us did imposed an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on Planetarions infrastructure.
It was only when multiple people at the same time did this that the server had a problem coping.

These are all the facts.

3 weeks ago I saw my chance of #1 and i grabbed it. I started stockpiling, and i would be unbeatable. Since you cannot expect a game feature to be changed in game, as again it is not a bug, but a feature of PA (to gain score from scanning)... I became slightly inactive, did not bother to attack. We were sure this was a valid strategy, anyone could do it. It seemed to be a 100% success.
But then they decided it was abuse, removed the value you can from scans. And then, which is the worst part: Removed our XP gained from earlier scans. We used a valid tactic, not knowing that it caused harm, pa-team then decide to remove this tactic at the last minute with no more then 2 days left, basicly 'screwing us over twice', if you can forgive me the expression... As they then decided they needed to remove the resources and XP from planets involved as well.


So now PA has changed the value gained from score and took away my winning move... :(
Oh well, I guess after 8 rounds I should accept and realise that PA is not a fair game.
I can no longer accept these annoyances from PA and this is thus my last round.

-Yogibear

Retiring...

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Ah just fck offf. The game went offline several times due yoru galaxy's actions. If it were up to me you'd be punished even harder.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

We never scanned with more then 1 person at the same time (perhaps rarely with 2). Cases that the server went down must have been due to other people scanning as well.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

How can you possibly say that you didn't create a load on Planetarion's servers, when the game was clearly affected by your (and other people's) actions and was even inaccessible at some times.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Try it... 500 scans, hit the go button a bunch of times, it has no affect what so ever. Not as an individual anyway.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

[Here you are wrong.....don't think bleen will like it that you call him a scanner]

All in all your really a sad.
go ahead delete your planet like the rest of the kids who get a slap on the fingers.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Looks like the "cbk" thing... I was main scanner in LCH during the starts of the round. I noticed I gained 100 places a day(I started out almost as last) at the moment I was doing 30/40 jumpgate's a day. This suprised me. I never abused it, just like I didn't abuse the gal fund limit.

I fully support you in the case it is unfair that you lost loads of score because of this, but just like CBK's actions, I don't think anything will be done to refund the losses :(

P.S. The thing I still don't get, why would anyone want to win planetarion with a feature like gaining massive score from scanning, or abusing the gal fund feature?? In my eyes a valid tactic(so I support you in the unfairness of it) but so sad that people are seeking ways around winning in a normal way....

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

ahum, r10 wasnt won by a scanner, and i shud know, i scanned for him a lot because he was too lazy to build amps himself :P

bleen won by skill, not by scanning.

f00l

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

It is a disproportionate load becuase otherwise say 20 people doing it wouldn;t have broken the game...

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

1) Not that I would, but you cannot delete, button has been removed.
2) Yea, so what if its sad, it remains a valid strategy, and I'm quite sure by far most people would greedily accept it, if it was offered to them.
PA is in the end, a strategy game. The best strategist wins.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Perhaps I'm mistaken, a scanner got #2?
It was something like that...

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

can i point out that the fastest continous scna rate on a 100Mbit conneciton is 2.3s/sec - (based on repeat clicking under timed conditions) so manging 5/sec sounds liek script use to me

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Wrong. what you probably mean is the covopper who ended up 8th or something like that, with just 3 roids. But that's covp, got nothing to do with this.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Nonsense. You don't wait for the page to load, you just keep sending requests.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

A strategy game? lmao. It might have been in the early days, but nowadays its a bashing game :-). I can see your point that you dont like the setback in score, its a bit harsh, but tbh, i think there is more honor (is there any left in pa?) in winning #1 by waging war, not by scanning yourself into a fit. Any1 can scan, if you wanna win by scanning, build a PA clone with only a scan page and go ahead.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

This game is a war game....aka attack and defend...

Gaining score by scanning is the same as gaining score (and res) by cooping.
I still say cooping should be removed from the game since its a chicken way of attacking someone.
It's fast, sneaky and without the option of loosing ships in that way of attacking.
Only good thing this round is you can protect yourself against cooping.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

oh, just stop your silly comments...
If you were offered an easy way to gain 10mil score, if it was a valid strategy and not cheating in any way. You would happily accept it. And since you got such a huge score in your pocket, you would not stay as active attacking wise. As anyone who can look up the pilkara records could see we were roiding like mad untill we found out the scanning tactic.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

The game ALWAYS goes down 2-3mins before ticks, and i find it hard to belive that it is because of scanning it goes down around ticker.. but even if it is, those scanning couldn't know, since the server works perfect at the moment the scanning is done.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

you don't wait for the scanpage to load after one clock.. You can do 2k clicks before you choose to let it load page.. so with good connection, you can do as many scans/second as you can click your mouse/second.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

...

Are you serious?
The game has the features, thus the players can choose to use them at their leisure.
PA is not just a war game if you can do more then just Attack and Defend.
If you can do more then waging war, it is NOT just a war game. Its a strategy game.
This is a ridiculious argument to be having...

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

If that the way you wanna win go ahead m8.
I don't see any honour in that way of winning.

But then again, thats my opinion.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

So what are you trying to say here, are you defending or attacking the scanning ?
As far as "20" people, get a quote from Spinner to be sure.
And just quietly, it was tested quite thoroughly before we scanned.

In addition, the playmates gal barely even did any scanning, since our scanning day was not until tomorrow, only one person started to go through his scans. And we did not plan on having multiple people do it at the same time.

We never took the server down in our tests, there was no evidence to show it had a detrimental effect on the server. Quite the contrary, we had evidence to show that it *didn't* affect the server.
If 19 other people in the universe co-incidentally scanned at the same time, then that is not our problem.

In addition, why would we want our scans to take the servers down. The idea was to be #1, hence scan, un-noticed. Not to crash the game and get an investigation happening.

Cordially,
Sonny.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

wot he said

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

I think you're rather missing the point. If 20 click attack at the same time the server doesn't fall on it's arse. If, as you suggest is the case, 20 people do the scan thing at the same time the server dies. *That* is a disproportionate load.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

No, more correctly, you are fabricating a point.

Launching a fleet creates server load, we don't how much (as players), but we can only tell that when 10,000 people do it, and the server dies, that somewhere, there is server load.
If we scan through 500 scans in 1 minute, and there is not even a slight bit of lag on a server. How are we supposed to tell the level of stress we put on the server ?

1 person from our galaxy scanned at the time the server went down.
The previously mentioned ~20 people, were not of our knowledge. As individuals we certainly did not produce a noticable load.
And we had done a *lot* more scanning than that in our testing, never a problem.

When the 10,000 people launch and bring down the server, do we delete all their fleets they had
launched ?

It was co-incidence, not conspiracy.

Cordially,
Sonny.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

i'd like to add that a certain planet has 7-8k launches in launch-page, so i'm sure admins have checked him out, and found out that he has done alot of scanning as well, it's not weird that some planets thought this wasnt a problem, since this planet has done it for almost the whole round, without anyone taking action?

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Again you are twisting things to make your point. The point is that during normal use neither scanning nor launching have caused issues with the server. Thus proving that (irrespective of how many people were doing it and irrespective of how you are trying to justify it) the load on the server was abnormal and caused connections problems with the PA database. This, is turn, proves beyond reasonable doubt that the use of the PA game was unnatural at those points proven by the database problems.

You can dress it up however you like or you can come back with as many witty and well written retorts or varations on the "get a clue" line as you cant hink of. You simply cannot get away from the fact that these actions caused the game to cease functioning in a normal manner and therefore conclusively show that at those points there was an unnatural load on the game.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

This was another red tape solution again.
Fact is pa wasnt prepared for someone abusing the pointsystem and it looks like they didnt bother to think about it before or they didnt accept advice. However removing this "faulty" possibility to get score is wroong. PPL organised their strategy around it, may it be right or wrong is irrelevant. You cant remove BS or CR in the game shortly before the end because they are overpowered, this will damage certain players and hinder them aswell. All in all a game should be ready when launched and only bugs should be fixed in the game, not the stats or the scoring system because this will ALWAYS generate unfairness towards ppl who played by the rules but found a good way of scoring.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

any dickhead can press the scan button 5000000 times and get a high score and try to win the round. But wtf is that...
________
ACETONA cam

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

any dickhead can farm too in this game

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Would this be your point of view based upon the stack of evidence you have built up against him or simply because you're jumping on the bandwagon?

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Is that the same bandwagon you jumped on when accusing us (the 'scanners') of using scripts?

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

But only a few 'dickheads' are dumb enough to quit their alliance and lame enough to be a sore loser who deletes their planet

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

No - I based that upon my own personal view which in turn was based upon the information I had at the time. Since then I have deferred my point of view upon that subject until I see conclusive (albeit I thought I had originally and admittedly I may have been wrong) evidence supporting either theory.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

This proves the point that the user itself did not create any load whatsover that even comes close to bringing down the game. Ie he is not breaking the EULA in any way. IE, if any other feature in PA would be used by all players right at the same time I am quite sure the servers would just die as well.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Because people are talking about scripts I'll just explain the most easy way of repeatedly scanning.

- First off you need Internet Explorer
- Second you do any kind of scan you wish, your page is then updated with the scan in it
- Hold down (not just repeatedly press it, just HOLD DOWN) F5
- Release after 10 seconds or so and you will see a massive resource drop

Your IE browser has, in these 10 seconds, sent about 5-6 GET requests per second (so 50-60 in those 10 seconds only and thats just from a slow connection!) to the Planetarion webserver to do scans, and these requests are then stored into the database, resources subtracted, and points added.

This is your 'script' people..

I've just tested this by doing Planet scans for 10 seconds, and I lost about 55k of every resource.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

But would that constiture normal use? I doubt every single player int he game owuld laucnh at the same time. And in addition to this is the heaviest load on the server not when people are initiating roids/starting research/cosntruction at the beginning of the round? I don't remember the server crashing at this point. I see this as evidence that the server was not providing services for nromal use and a large portion of this abnormal load was caused by the scaning/scripting (whichever it turns out to be).

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

You and me both know that servers died constantly in past rounds just before tick time, when manual launching was required and thousands of people accessed the fleet pages at the same time, causing overload on the database! at that time this was normal use of the features, but the servers (and esp. database) couldnt handle the stress.

This is probably one of the main reasons why prelaunch was implemented..

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Well last few days the servers ALSO died on xx:05, xx:10, xx:15 etc.... Not just before tick tick

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

I've seen little or no evidence of it in the past 3 rounds if you can draw attention to instances that occured with such regularity then I'd be happy to agree. Past rounds (even rnd10) had a greater playerbase to click on stuff at the same time, we are now talking about a 2k player universe. Pre-launch was supposed to make the game more "non uber active" friendly not, as you seem to think, to stop load issues before the tick.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Like everyone can win with cheating/farming, sod off ffs.

Imho they used a valid tactic, a VERY LAME but valid one. A change mid round is ok... Like it was ok doing it with the gal fund. But PUNISHING people finding feature's there are unbalanced is crap!

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

i wans;lt waiting for it to laod, just clicking as fast as i can

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

it was removed becuase it broke the server - they have knwon about it being a way to get high score for a long time and it was due to be changed for round 11.

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

its okey that they remove it, but what about the res people spent on it?

and i really dont understand why u made these sick stats in the first plays :)

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

i'm sure f the XP formulae were publsihed in the manual then this would ahve been found in the round 10 beta. hence we have seen that hiding formulae is bad.

well you can view their lost res as a payment for upseeting other people with down time :p

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

I see score boosts again? Yogi? You guys spend resources or get the scanmoney back? Or xp points? cba to scan ya :)

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

resources been spent, 22:8:8 jumped 42 places. going to be a close finish :)

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

Now if we could just those in charge of the game and manual to pay for their mistakes. ;)

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

I still had 750mil resources left... Since Spinner is dead set on keeping the XP gain the same, I had no choice but to spend...

Other then that we are still hoping for a re-inburstment of the lost resources that were taken from us... However unlikely...

Re: Massive scanning - rank #1 point of view
 

You should be glad they didnt reset the XP more than 48 hours, stfu whiner