StarMade v0.199.654 - Exploit fixes

[schema]

Greetings citizens,

Last week, we learned of several exploits and how to reproduce them. To prevent further harm to servers, we've made a hotfix to address them. As a general security measure, we are also not going to list them here.

If you have any more information about other exploits, or that were only partially addressed, please report it here. Note that reported bugs are always private from the start and only a few Schine members are able to see them.

As mentioned in the last dev post, the power update is coming along swiftly, and will result in a dev build in about 2-3 weeks.


Thanks for playing StarMade,

~ the Schine Team

 

[Equilibrium21]

Nice, thank you for the quick response!

 

[Az14el]

thank you schema!

 

[kulbolen]

you guys knew about this for years. regardless, good work.

 

[Edymnion]

(Quote removed. Thingie~)
Just because they know about a bug or an exploit doesn't make it a priority to close until it gets found out and abused.

WoW was infamous for saying back in Wrath that they were actively tracking over 1 million active bugs. Doesn't mean they were doing nothing about it, just that they had limited resources and had to choose where those resources were spent wisely. An exploit that either no one knows about or so few people know about as for it to not be a big deal isn't really that big of a deal. When it becomes a big deal, it moves up the priority list.

Its just the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

 

[Bagatur]

Thank you for fixing bugs.

No more spam from Edymnion and kulbolen please.

Look forward to power update.

 

[Peashooter26]

oh my God THANK YOU. The admins on Brierie had to make some unpleasant config changes because *someone* (you know who you are) was using exploits to get free ships.

 

[Lancake]

Clarification: We didn't know about these exploits until recently (reported on 13th august), a way to reproduce was provided too which allowed us to fix the issue. Any exploits we know off get fixed in the next release, provided we can reproduce them.
It would have been the same situation here if the exploits weren't shared with many other players.

 

[JinM]

Now look at that. There is the fix. And I thought there were many known exploits in Starmade, that are known to the devs, but don't get fixed because they are not know to many people. Seems like important ones are getting so.

 

[Sachys]

HOORAY!

Some ugly things are no longer possible!!!

 

[Drakkart]

I think people should recall what alpha and beta stage is for. Keeping exploits to them selfes instead of reporting them just to have an advantage now does in the long term only harm the game. It usually works like, a few share the exploits, suddenly friends part and both keep sharing, up until a certain percentage of the community knows about it and the likelyhood of it getting reported reaches a high probability, then it gets fixed and the people which were not playing normally get hit the hardest by the fixes for they never were pushed to really learn the game as it should be. If you love the game i suggest reporting stuff early on, if you already know years about it, and make sure stuff does not even reach beta without getting fixed. Meaning those which join the community then, will receive a more solid game and that makes them talk positivly about it to their friends. Where as if stuff happens no one can explain with reason, because of exploits this always leaves a taste and will make the community grow way slower. I am just trying to talk some sense into people which think it is fun to have an extra trick ready, you love the game for what it should be like, exploit free or you just need a penis enlargement now, until it gets fixed? Trust me we can all benefit more from stuff getting fixed asap.
Thank you for reading.

 

[Lecic]

Any exploits we know off get fixed in the next release, provided we can reproduce them.

Do I need to remind you of docked hull exploits?

 

[kulbolen]

Do I need to remind you of docked hull exploits?

we dont agree on much but i think we can both agree lancakes lying with that line =p

 

[ZektorSK]

Does anyone still remember the exploit where you bought a ship from catalog, and then sold it's blocks for a higher price?

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I found the biggest exploit is ALT+F4. It obliterates the whole universe temporarily.... until you realize. ;-)

 

[GDPR 302420]

Its great to hear the exploits Vaygr have been using for so long are finialy patched.

Its a shame to know that rather then playing legitmately after their trademark exploits got patched, Vaygr will find just new exploits and keep them off the bug tracker but its good to hear that at least these ones are fixed regardless.

 

[Coyote27]

Do I need to remind you of docked hull exploits?

Aside from the hull's mass not being counted for ship systems that depend on mass, which is a relatively small gain and probably not very high on the list to fix, as far as I know docked hull works according to intended mechanics.

There may be some critical property of it that I'm unaware of. As far as I know, the main use of it is to stop an ion weapon cold when your ship still has 50% shields, and then when the opponent swaps to a penetrating weapon it slams into those shields after tearing through only the docked hull. There may be some oddness with explosive damage that I haven't been enlightened to, or something.

 

[Lecic]

Aside from the hull's mass not being counted for ship systems that depend on mass, which is a relatively small gain and probably not very high on the list to fix, as far as I know docked hull works according to intended mechanics.

There may be some critical property of it that I'm unaware of. As far as I know, the main use of it is to stop an ion weapon cold when your ship still has 50% shields, and then when the opponent swaps to a penetrating weapon it slams into those shields after tearing through only the docked hull. There may be some oddness with explosive damage that I haven't been enlightened to, or something.

First off, mothership protection goes to 25% now and has for at least a year.

Second, there were a wide variety of docked hull exploits that took ages to fix. I'm not certain which of these have been patched, but you already covered the big one, which is that it makes you effectively immune to ion weapons.
-ignores stop, push, and pull
-EMP could only damage the ship to the max of the hull's power capacity (so usually 50ke)
-strange explosive propagation
-stacking ionized docked hull allowing you to be near invulnerable
-weapons damage would not unjam you
There's probably more I'm forgetting.
And Schine knew all of these. For literal years, some of them! Some still aren't patched and others took repeated demands in suggestions and through PMs with Lancake to FIX BALANCE BREAKING BUGS.

The truth about Schine and bugs is that they don't fix them until there is an absolutely massive uproar about it because someone is abusing it.

 

[Az14el]

"Effectively immune" to very high % or very small group size ion weapons, as they need to be able to overpenetrate that docked hull once shield sharing phase ends. Super useful vs some ships, barely noticeable vs some others. Ion stacking has since been fixed, thankfully, and is just wasting modules & mass these days. Still very "strange" behaviour vs missile explosions (some kind of desynching), still basically ignores any (non sufficiently penetrating) momentum or EMP, including against its unjamming effects.

I don't consider the stuff exploits anymore than happening to have big "turret bases" that block tons of hits is an exploit, but it does have balance issues.

Further note on Ion stacking, fixing the old problem created a newer issue, which is a result of effects on an entity not considering docked mass for their ratios, which is that a single ion module on an tiny interim docker part can provide full ion effect to the entire docked hull and everything downchain from it, usually the stuff is thrown onto the reduced main entity for reliability reasons, but its worth considering

image example of the explosion propagation issue, the missile that struck the top right of my ship and peeled off a huge section of docked hull absolutely should have been capable of overpenetrating and damaging the auxilliary power & shield blocks behind it (these are on the main entity), but instead left it unharmed, only causing cosmetic hull damage. This isn't reliable at all, but it does happen and is obviously advantageous to the docked hull ship when it happens.

 

[Valiant70]

YOU FIXED IT!!!


Thank you, Schema! The shape select is no longer dark and unreadable!
We may still need a contrasting background for the darker blocks, but this itself is huge. My rotation display has been totally dark for two versions and completely wonky for I-don't-know-how-long!