Cheaters?
 

Are these the reasons for that many players stop playing planetarion?

Re: Cheaters?
 

No.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Good question... I suspect there are other reasons that contribute more to the downturn in the playerbase like neglecting the game developement, but I would agree that the MH/cheating issue is at least a minor one.

A few ways to look at it.
When I tuned into #planetarion for the EoRC ....
Finding the likes of Eksero accusing someone else of cheating.
I am confident I wasn't the only one having a good old Chuckle, judging by the nick changes during the EoRC.

Does anyone know of Whoops having any previous history in the field of cheating?
I've been asking around the grapevine and haven't came up with anything?
(I can't say the same for the other podium finish players this round)

What happens when there is a lack of consequence in enforcing a rule/law when the individual is morally bankrupt?

They cheat....Because they can without consequence and it gives an advantage I.E. a motive to do so

What happens when There is 2 to several players/alliances who are playing to win when one of them knowingly get an advantage through *ahem* questionable means?

In PA It usually results in ....
The other(s) then get into a Keeping up with the Joneses mentality
Then justifying that since the competition is doing it, it is ok for me to do with it. Very Much What I suspect Has happened this round.

Classic example I can think of is the R15 Vsh (The Xan fi class anti frig that round that had a higher init then the frig class anti fi) "support planets" that 1up and Exil were using.

The main difference between then and now is IMO the quality of MHing, both in terms in personnel and process discreptancies.

Fast forward 15-20 rounds....
When folk could no longer receive out of tag defence whilst in a tag, due to ingame mechanics being changed I'm sure that there would have been some loss of accounts signing up I.E. Rendered Redundant. These "support planets" were diluting the quality / artifically proping up the numbers of the playerbase anyway. It was annoying in having to exile these types of planets as alot of them were inactive to the galaxies they were in..... I was only too happy to see them go.

However there are still other ways round this, namely being salvage donations (landing an attack that isn't viable to land / to crash fleet to give resources via salvage hence value hence score to the planet win contenders) and pod / ship donations for etd/zik planets.
Some of the planets / accounts are at best questionable (suspected multis) whilst some others are regular PA players who will crash their fleet on their friends planet or the rival planet win contender of the player subject of their E-Hate.

I am convinced that this practice is done through because there is a lack of consequence.
I would welcome a responce from the MHs / Ace in their plans to address this issue.

Re: Cheaters?
 

i hate to defend any MHs , even if it is indirectly, but what can be done about it?

close the planets that are crashing? no, cos they wont care.

close the planet being crashed on? no, because then rivals would get someone to crash on each other to get the other person closed.

recall obvious crashers? no, because some of these are genuinely people who have lost interest in the round and just wanna go out with a bang.

maybe people should offer some solutions? personally, i cannot think of any.

Re: Cheaters?
 

In defense of the MH team and ACE, I can add that I got my planet closed at the start of havoc for crashing my fleet deliberately, with the intend of giving that person my value, as I don´t care for playing havoc.

So behold paisley they actually do close a planet here and there...i think the right question prolly would be, why are CERTAIN planets allowed to do it unhindered ?

Re: Cheaters?
 

They just close the planet, as explained above - despite the fact that you want to go out with a bang ;) - and i guess roll back any salvage gained.

My guess is that the resources applied to actually checking fleets/compositions, etc. are too few, compared to the amount needed to actually do something about it. That´s atleast the best guess I can think of.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Whatever you do about it, one of two things will happen


1) Players will come up with new creative ways of 'cheating'
2) Multihunters will give certain groups special permissions to apply previously banned methods

Discussion's done and dead.


ps. I've defended against crashed fleets too, not only on my planet, and won a round ages ago. Sue me.

Re: Cheaters?
 

did that victory not feel a bit hollow having cheated tie?

Re: Cheaters?
 

My suggestion would be is to defuse the motive/gain for the questionable attack.

I have seen this being done by MHs like deduct the difference in salvage / value / ships to null the gains of the crash as if it never took place But not consistently applied. So there is still some incentive to try your luck and see if you get away with it.

I understand MHs being relunctant to make public their procedures (as I am sure this would mean alliances not only having HCs DCs BCs but XXXXing QCs whos job it is to exploit any loopholes in being sanctioned from MHs)
Again with the lack of clarity would also have some sort of balance / procedure change from the status quo.

I think seeking "planning permission" as I would call it from MH to launch an attack on the top planets without it being recalled is too draconian.
Also it would leave things open like 1 person in the wave for the attack *ahem* forgetting to recall.

I don't doubt they do but as you put it....

One of the definitions I had in mind.

Edit-quote fix
Why procedures are required to be updated to address this.
Another one I had in mind.

Re: Cheaters?
 

11 5 had about 30 fleets crash on it last week of the round... 3:3... maybe 5 or 6. And they have the nerve to cry about it... hell, one of THEIR planets crashed the last tick...

Re: Cheaters?
 

That was actually your alliance trying to roid us, not people crashing deliberately. Except for 1 crash (where our gains was removed)

Re: Cheaters?
 

I presume that was the time when your co-ords went down around 1.5 mill in value and then back up again? or was that a seperate incident?

Re: Cheaters?
 

It wasn't related to my planet

Also, pretty sure that wasn't even in the last week

Re: Cheaters?
 

I crashed on Whoops in hope he would beat agar3s - i wont lie about it.

Almost worked too :D

But i wasnt asked by ND or Whoops to send my fleet there so really its not his fault - its only his fault if he coordinates the crashes - if agar3s hate was so big that people decided to freely crash on him to try and get him the win what can he do?

Maybe agar3s shouldnt be so hated and then it wouldnt happen ;)

Re: Cheaters?
 

Am i the only one that noticed that Agar3s fat roid gain and #1 take over came at same time Apprime was "emo kicking" ppl from tag ? That to me looks like more serious cheat.
Maybe timeings are just accident but it defo looked like App was securing him safe lands. And since he did acualy win it sertenly would should be more looked at then #2 and #3 , no1 remembers them after a good sleep :) .

Re: Cheaters?
 

XXXX this for a game of soldiers

I need a few techies and I'll start up a PA page called Wikicheats.
See if blatent name and shame get any better results.

Re: Cheaters?
 

eksero, wasnt kenny's crash taken away from you? wasnt that in the last week?

Re: Cheaters?
 

and in regards to saying that whoops was cheating- why would they launch 5 waves at once? it wasnt a solo cover, gal members had to cover it, so what then?

Re: Cheaters?
 

and eksero, did ND have a random 500k/1m score members crashing their puny fleets into you so you could bolster your cath co?

i would think members with score that low would have a very negative effect on their average score.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Cos Apprime are the only ones who roid people they kick out..

That was 9 days before round end

The crash I had removed wasn't a selfcover either.

Why would it? They had 79 members, so 29 of them didn't count

Re: Cheaters?
 

Well, I am sure Abort/Whoops could confirm that fact. Are you telling me that it was an ND planet that did that?

Re: Cheaters?
 

Hilarious! :salute:

Re: Cheaters?
 

Pretty sure it was

Re: Cheaters?
 

So ND brought 500k/1m value/score planets into their alliance so they could crash on you and improve your fleet? Riiiiiight.

Re: Cheaters?
 

I'd guess he lost the rest of his fleet at some point earlier....

Re: Cheaters?
 

No. nqp

I'm impressed Apocco is still around fiddling with this game. You should spend less time on PA and more time on the link in my sig, Apocco - haven't seen you there for a buttload of time :) Last post is half a year ago!

Re: Cheaters?
 

Ok then I clearly must be mistaken, it was definitely all ND feets that crashed into 11.5, nothing suspicious at all.

What was I thinking?! Man, I feel terrible right now. Accusing the members of 11.5 of trying to cheat their way to a win?

Man, I must have been hit in the head or something. I mean, why on earth would I think that? What reason would there be for me to assume such outstanding and honest members of the PA community would stoop so low as to try and cheat?

Really, I should have my mental health checked for even assuming that. Surely you agree with me on that.

I was way off base, of course you would never even CONSIDER cheating just to win at a spread sheet space wars game. Not to mention the other members of your galaxy. They must feel like they are covered in filth for being accused of that.

Its just plain shameful.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Wheres all this bitterness coming from?

I never said it was all nd fleets that crashed on us, i just said those were the ones where our gains wasn't removed

Re: Cheaters?
 

Didn't you read my last post oh great, fair, non cheating Planetarion player?

I am SHAMED for accusing you and the other members of 11.5 for trying to cheat to win. S H A M E D. How dare I.

And please have mercy, oh great, fair, non cheating Planetarion player, but I have to point out that you DID in fact say that it was ALL ND fleets that crashed on you when you said this to Abort, who is in ND and also (obviously shamefully oh great, fair, non cheating ********** player), accused 11.5 of having 30 fleets crash into it:

So please have mercy, oh great, fair, non cheating Planetarion player, for pointing this out. For obviously what you say is true, or how else could I take you at your word?

Re: Cheaters?
 

If you read that post, i said all except 1

Re: Cheaters?
 

I wonder how roiding a planet that gets kicked from tag is cheating, also having a 600+ roidlead for 3 weeks resulted in a 22k scorelead..
I had attackers recalled from my planet cause I reported them, Whoops did not. Still doesnt change that MH give different rules to different players and thats the sad story.
In any case each crash that a planet needs no defence for should just be removed as its way obvious.

Re: Cheaters?
 

I hardly qualify as a PA-expert anymore, as I don't even know the current salvage-implementation, but if salvage gained could be capped at just below the lost-ships-resource-value, noone would gain value from such crashing...Or did I miss the point entirely? If not, I'm sure the implementation would take a whole 5 minutes?

- Spinner, Formerly influential

Re: Cheaters?
 

seems like a viable solution.

Re: Cheaters?
 

there ya go take out the profit take away the motive
(only thing it doesn't prevent is Pod farming etc)

Re: Cheaters?
 

What he said

Re: Cheaters?
 

:up:

Re: Cheaters?
 

Who would ever pod farm Paisley?

Re: Cheaters?
 

Zik or etd (from previous rounds stats) who wanted say FI or CO class pods hence the desired roiding fleet

Re: Cheaters?
 

i agree pod farming is bad but i wouldnt consider it a major problem. i am against all cheating but value gaining crashes can have a significant effect on the round.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Idd, Pod farming is minor compared to 20% of value leaps in the last week of the round.

Re: Cheaters?
 

No, not really, as it was all under multihunter supervision and none of it was cheating. Miraculously enough, the biggest crashes weren't even on my planet.

I mean, you're being really, really naive aren't you.

Good luck finding competent unbiased MH staff to work this out.

You then probably also understand that this is already at least the past of the game.

And to achieve it permissions to 'use support planets that are not really support planets' and other such bollocks have been acquired from the MH staff.

I can't believe this shit debate still goes on, but I can believe the official answer is going to be the same as ever.

Re: Cheaters?
 

People still debate if god created man or not, despite of the fact that its proven countless times that god didn´t. - Get used to it - such is human nature.

Re: Cheaters?
 

In case the old combat-script is still being used...

You have all you need in the sub-routine called handle_salvage.
Add a little for-loop that goes through the shiptypes:
my $max_m_salvage=0; my $max_c_salvage=0; my $max_e_salvage=0;
for (my $i=0;$i<=$#combat_tbl ;$i++) {
$max_m_salvage+=$combat_tbl[$i]{defenders_lost}*$combat_tbl[$i]{metal};
$max_c_salvage+=$combat_tbl[$i]{defenders_lost}*$combat_tbl[$i]{crystal};
$max_e_salvage+=$combat_tbl[$i]{defenders_lost}*$combat_tbl[$i]{eonium};
}

Then after the calculation of $metal_value_of_destroyed_ships and its crystal and eonium equivalents, just force those values to be a max of the max-salvage variables.
Done deal.

OR:
Calculate the salvage from only destroyed defending ships.

Voila...

Re: Cheaters?
 

Keiz, remember, most of the people around nowadays weren't around in the 1up days (me included). Perhaps you could take the opportunity to tell that story. Again. :)

Re: Cheaters?
 

You know, MH can't monitor EVERY single fleet launched and say "hmmm i wondering if this is a crash." There are many reason to launch a fleet, to keep someones home, a retal because there fleet is out, to make a planet recall there fleet from attack or def. And MH can't figure that out. Sooo.... by asking MH to remove every fleet that looks like a crash is stupid considering how many fleets launch every day. Only one member of the PA staff is getting paid as far as i know so why would that put in hundreds of hours of work....

Crashing happens and its part of this game. The thing that should be focused on is finding the vnc planets, and permantly banning them. That would help solve this problem.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Not possible. VNC (if done properly) is completely undetectable to a browser game like PA.

The real problem is MH needs to move away from IPs, or atleast start checking browser user agents, intervals between logging in, duration of log-in. Many things to be honest (they may already be doing this but it just doesn't like it).

I say this not because I want cheats gone (which I do just not a top priority for me) but more because I want a better system than the exception system because in student housing, families with multiple players or at schools/colleges (where you might not even know someone else is playing!) there will be unnecessary bans happening and putting people off the game. The exception system is more broke than anything (IMO) because people whom are "real life" friends who really want to play together and should be allowed to - but can't.

As an example, I have at least 2 friends who'd play PA if I wasn't already using at least 2 IPs the same as them. Making it impossible for us to work together (the restrictions on exceptions are stupid for an online game). The only way for us to do this would be for us all to setup external SSH tunnels at different IPs just to be able to play PA together (Then probably get banned for multi-ing knowing MH).

Re: Cheaters?
 

TGV had 3 'pairs' of ppl on the exception system last round. None of em got closed. This means you clearly CAN play together when on exceptions. You just have to be a little more sensible about it.

Re: Cheaters?
 

Whoa. Too much effort. Get it under 1 minute and we might get a nibble on the line...

Re: Cheaters?
 

They won't get used to it, because in this case, certain people are such egotistic morons that they actually enjoy people bitching, thus allowing them to further enhance their e-penis.

It's happened nearly every round 'til now and it will continue to happen. People crash and change the round. At this point, why bother crying about it? It's not going to change.

Re: Cheaters?
 

I have a suggestion for r42 round name.

Planetarion, round 42: And he who findeth the best crashers, may win