Number of daily responses
These are the results from a survey conducted by
Gible from March 2010. In all, 35 responses were received.
- Conclusion
- The results slide reasonable smoothly from the generally acknowledged feature (Chaff), through the bugs that are infeasible to ban, those that we would hope to be fixed and finally to the one out-right cheat (Free-pop hack). As expected, the top four bugs are generally allowed, and there is a long tail of generally banned bugs. More interesting are the 3 bugs immediately after the accepted bugs (listed as 5-8) where responses are most evenly divided. Two of the three are (relatively) recently discovered bugs whose impact are acknowledged to be significant but there is no consensus on an effective method to cope with them and the third was fixed over 10yr ago.
- Method
- The survey was titled "Feature, Bug or cheat?" and was introduced with:
- The standard cheats disclaimers reads: "All cheats are banned except chaff and split fleet." Should this be changed? Below are listed all of the known player exploitable bugs. Which ones do you think should be allowed in a normal, vanilla game.
- For each bug/feature the description from Known Bugs was provided and the options of Allow, Ban or Other - where the user was able to suggest any alternative. You can submit a response here.
- Results
- In this result summary, the various cheats/features have been sorted according to the response from most in favour of being allowed to most in favour of being banned along with other responses where given. Not listed are repeated other responses, "fix it", "who cares", "irrelevant" and obscene responses.
Chaff
| Allow:
|
29
|
85%
|
| Ban:
|
3
|
8%
|
| Other:
|
2
|
5%
|
Other responses:
Split Fleet Dodge
| Allow:
|
25
|
71%
|
| Ban:
|
4
|
11%
|
| Other:
|
6
|
17%
|
Other responses:
- Restrict within reason.
- Not a bug
ISB Trumps IT Gate Scanning
| Allow:
|
18
|
60%
|
| Ban:
|
6
|
20%
|
| Other:
|
6
|
20%
|
Other responses:
- bug but not sure you can ban it.
- Enforcing a ban makes USB
- you can't really ban ISB, nor a specific gate when there are reasonable uses for both. if you see obvious abuse, maybe.
- Not a bug. Cloaking.
- Not preventable
Repair After Gating Loophole AKA SFX Merging
| Allow:
|
17
|
58%
|
| Ban:
|
10
|
34%
|
| Other:
|
2
|
6%
|
Other responses:
- Up to the host. Rather hard to police
Exploding Minefield Dodge
| Allow:
|
14
|
46%
|
| Ban:
|
13
|
43%
|
| Other:
|
3
|
10%
|
Other responses:
- Horrible bug. But avoiding it disadvantages the player.... So can't really ban it.
- Not preventable
- I think you have to allow this because I can't think of a reasonable way to ban it.
UR/CE Scrapping
| Allow:
|
13
|
40%
|
| Ban:
|
14
|
43%
|
| Other:
|
5
|
15%
|
Other responses:
- no longer a problem, no minerals generated .7*.7=.49 < .5
Starbase Friendly Fire
| Allow:
|
11
|
36%
|
| Ban:
|
16
|
53%
|
| Other:
|
3
|
10%
|
Other responses:
- mostly not done intentionally and often a reason to regen (only once per game, of course)
- Ban use of "Attack Everyone", allow "Attack (Player#)" only if the player's presented a decent case that they have a legit reason.
- "Attack Everyone" banned, "Attack player#" must be cleared with host first (legit situations exist).
Mine Damage Dodge
| Allow:
|
11
|
35%
|
| Ban:
|
20
|
64%
|
| Other:
|
0
|
0%
|
Target List Overload
| Allow:
|
8
|
25%
|
| Ban:
|
20
|
62%
|
| Other:
|
4
|
12%
|
Other responses:
- If hiding real fleets ban--there are real reasons to havE more than 100...ie. Playing the odds slamming fleets through mine fields so most of your fleet arrives and only some get stopped
- Resrict within reason
- Really annoying... But there is legitimate case (split fleet during crash sweep)
False Public Player Scores
| Allow:
|
8
|
25%
|
| Ban:
|
17
|
54%
|
| Other:
|
6
|
19%
|
Other responses:
- If anyone is fooled by this it serves you right for not scanning diligently.
- Explicitly ban in non PPS games too (resource total not shown)
0.2% Minimum Damage
| Allow:
|
6
|
20%
|
| Ban:
|
24
|
80%
|
| Other:
|
0
|
0%
|
Battle Board Overload
| Allow:
|
4
|
12%
|
| Ban:
|
29
|
87%
|
| Other:
|
0
|
0%
|
Mineral Upload
| Allow:
|
2
|
5%
|
| Ban:
|
27
|
77%
|
| Other:
|
6
|
17%
|
Other responses:
- There are other methods of denying spoils
- I want to say ban, but how do you enforce this? Except where the world is completely stripped, it'd be hard to know it'd happened.
Cheap Starbase
| Allow:
|
2
|
5%
|
| Ban:
|
29
|
82%
|
| Other:
|
4
|
11%
|
Other responses:
Space Dock Armor Slot Buffer Overflow
| Allow:
|
1
|
3%
|
| Ban:
|
30
|
93%
|
| Other:
|
1
|
3%
|
East-West Speed Bump Minefield Immunity
| Allow:
|
0
|
0%
|
| Ban:
|
33
|
97%
|
| Other:
|
1
|
2%
|
North-South Minefield Immunity
| Allow:
|
0
|
0%
|
| Ban:
|
33
|
94%
|
| Other:
|
2
|
5%
|
Other responses:
- Only Ban If you are purpusly going to a planet to attack.
Freepop Hack
| Allow:
|
0
|
0%
|
| Ban:
|
33
|
94%
|
| Other:
|
2
|
5%
|
Other responses:
See Also
