Exploit Reporting

[MacThule]

So of course there is a way to report bugs. Schine does very well responding to those.

There should be a way to report exploits, suspected exploits, and even just generally weird tricks.

Most of these are rooted in bugs, of course. What happens to players who witness a suspected exploit and do not know how to re-create the feat and therefore cannot properly report the problem? Would it be helpful if there were an Exploits forum (or something similar) where players could post reports and screenshots along with their best idea of what happened? Experienced community members could then use such informal reports to investigate and discuss known exploits, hopefully discovering the bugs or problems at their root and finally give Schine proper bug reports that will kill these exploits or very clear, well-grounded suggestions here for changes to eliminate non-bug exploits.

Yes... this would also put all the information about using exploits in one public place as well. The alternative is to continue not to have a clear route to communicate these to Schine, letting them (and the bugs that make them possible) linger for very long periods. Also, at least if all community members are equally informed about all the known exploits, they are all equally armed, which may improve fairness among the playerbase in a weird way - a minor exploit becomes far less effective if everyone knows it because 1) they can prepare for it, 2) they can compensate for it, and 3) they can equally reproduce it to eliminate value for players who collect exploits to use against others. If most exploits are known, server owners and other players will be prepared in various ways.

 

[BDLS]

I think it's better to keep them private with Schine. Most of the time exploits deal with gathering massive amounts of resources or making OP ships. If an item dupe is released to everyone, then basically every server is going to be tainted. I know it's alpha, but it's nice for people playing to feel like everyone isn't cheating.

 

[MacThule]

I think it's better to keep them private with Schine. Most of the time exploits deal with gathering massive amounts of resources or making OP ships. If an item dupe is released to everyone, then basically every server is going to be tainted. I know it's alpha, but it's nice for people playing to feel like everyone isn't cheating.

I thought that all the item dupe / economy exploits were closed. Those are totally a different story. But they also need to be resolved immediately. So yeah - if there are still item dupe exploits in play it wouldn't do to publicize them... unless it meant quicker closure.

Considering OP ships, my comments stand. It doesn't benefit a server or player base for only a small Cadre of old players to know the ship exploits. It also hurts the newer players - they all quickly understand they are being outclassed by cheats, and that just drives them off. Keeping it private merely limits combat exploits to players with years of play... that is imbalance. The only damage from publicizing combat exploits is to players who rely on them to abuse noobs, and I think that probably hurts player base more than the alternative.

 

[Mortiferum]

Between "exploit" and "pushing the boundary" for ship building, how would you differentiate between the two?

 

[Nocturna]

Also, at least if all community members are equally informed about all the known exploits, they are all equally armed, which may improve fairness among the playerbase

Yeah, this thing. Let Schema decide what is this - "exploit" or "pushing the boundary" for ship building.

 

[Groovrider]

Between "exploit" and "pushing the boundary" for ship building, how would you differentiate between the two?

Best tell Schine everything and let him decide?

 

[Dire Venom]

From my experience, just post it under bugs on the forums. If the devs consider it a dangerous exploit they censor the post and thank you for bringing it to their attention.

 

[Az14el]

Don't publically post anything that you really dont want used against you tbh, whether its a report or not

 

[nightrune]

All bug tickets in phabricator (Phabricator) start as private until reviewed by Lancake or Andy. If these are deemed an exploit they are not made public.

All other tickets are made public.

For a reporting tool, use phabricator.

 

[MacThule]

All bug tickets in phabricator (Phabricator) start as private until reviewed by Lancake or Andy. If these are deemed an exploit they are not made public.

All other tickets are made public.

For a reporting tool, use phabricator.

I do use phabricator. The team is very responsive on that front and phabricator is easy to use. The only "TASK TYPE" it allows is "bug." It only mentions bugs. I did not understand this to include exploits that may or may not be bugs.

Also a prominent field is "STEPS TO REPRODUCE" which has in the past discouraged me, at least, from reporting bugs I could not reliably reproduce or understand or only saw affecting someone else and did not understand how to reproduce. Had someone with better knowledge in a certain area seen my experience, they probably could have easily isolated a bug from it.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently discovered a 'bug' that all effect damage that passes through shields unjams/uncloaks entities. I wasn't even sure this was a bug, but it certainly seemed like an interesting feature. It didn't occur to me to report it as a bug until I discussed it in forum and discovered that not only is it a bug, but it's been around for a long time and many members of the community knew about it and some had actively exploited it in-game. In fact, it's one of the bugs contributing to the docked armor plague because the bug only affects the mother ship, but isn't passed up through docked entities, so total docked armor wraps protect ships from the bug.

But my first thought was not "this is a bug!"

My thought was "oh crap, how did i not know that these effects also unjam ships??"

It seemed like it might have actually been intended until I learned more about it through discussion in forum.