Not a serious bug, but kind of an exploit.

from Sins Forums

Alright, I'm posting this because there's an issue with Returning Armada/Dark Armada that people should know about. It's not incredibly serious, but it definitely gives an edge to a power that's already pretty unbalanced. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot since I play Vasari, but then again I feel guilty for using it. My apologies if this has already been posted.

So basically the exploit involves going WAY over your unit cap wih free units from the RA. Here's how it's done. Most people don't know you can create a control group out of Phase Stabilizers. You can. If you select each one when it's built and add it to a control group (Ctrl+1, for example) and then right click the Returning Armada power, you can disable its use for all Stabs in the group.

Now, a fully upgraded RA sends 50 supply worth of units. So if you have 50 cap free and, let's say, 8 Stabs, then you just wait until the power is ready to use at all your Stabs (enough antimatter, cooldown expired.) Now you just pull up your control group, and instead of tabbing through and clicking on each RA to summon ships (which would only get you 50 supply worth,) you can just right click to autocast the summon on all of them. The Stabs will see that there's 50 supply and automatically bring in  group of RA. The supply cost isn't calculated for a second, so most or all of them will bring in units, leaving you at around -200 supply usually. That way you can sail past your unit limit without having to upgrade the cap.

This is an exploit specifically because of the ability to bypass the cap. The money not spent on upkeep can then be applied to research, colonization, infrastructure, etc. If your fleet gets wiped, you can always auto-summon another fleet.

One aspect of this bug to note is that it only works on the Stabs within the same solar system. If you have a control group spanning two systems, the Stabs in the first system will summon ships, while the Stabs in the second will not. I'm guessing this is because Auto-Casting only affects the units within a system when you activate it on a control group.

Hopefully this can get fixed in the next patch, although I'm sure plenty of Vasari players will curse me.

-zenchronus

p.s.-A quick fix to this would be to change code so that right-clicking autocast on a power only enables/disables it for the unit highlighted, rather than for every unit of that type in the control group. This would be a good fix for another reason. Sometimes if there are 2 cap ships of the same type in a control group and I want to, let's say, enable Jam Weapons on one but not the other, I can't do so while both are selected. If I auto-cast on one, it will autocast on the other, overlapping and wasting the power.

11,503 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
p.s.-A quick fix to this would be to change code so that right-clicking autocast on a power only enables/disables it for the unit highlighted, rather than for every unit of that type in the control group. This would be a good fix for another reason. Sometimes if there are 2 cap ships of the same type in a control group and I want to, let's say, enable Jam Weapons on one but not the other, I can't do so while both are selected. If I auto-cast on one, it will autocast on the other, overlapping and wasting the power.
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No thank you. Please don't do that.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Well regardless of how they fix it, it needs to be fixed. People get so riled up about suggestions. Head over to the WoW suggestions forum sometime. Everyone acts as if each suggestion is a command to the developers. Lighten up, people!

-zenchronus
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Well regardless of how they fix it, it needs to be fixed.
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Agreed!

Everyone acts as if each suggestion is a command to the developers. Lighten up, people!
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In this case, I was just stating a counter-opinion. I kind thought the reason that disabling the ability to turn on / off an entire set of autocasts was obvious, or I would have stated it. Specifically, people use that feature -- its invaluable in large group management.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for posting this so every knobtard can abuse it now. Like every stupid noob didn't already rush to RA...
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
It's probably more of a technical limitation than an oversight/exploit, we've (IC included) have known about it since November when the Vasari were added :P
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Well, to expand on this bug, a very much related problem exists that is a major annoyance. As every vasari player no doubt knows, RA can take you over the unit cap(without using the exploit) eg, you have 7 supply and ra auto summons a transporter, leaving you with -1 supply. Now, suppose you have 200+ supply of ships in queue. The queue is locked till you scuttle ships or un-queue some ships to take the fleet pop to positive again, which is EXTREMELY annoying.
Note: i know this isn't much concern for those relying on RA,(except if you have caps queued) but many of us play SP and like to use RA simply as a support/backup power instead of a replacement for production, so it IS a major annoyance
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I checked out the sticky. The issue is that while suggesting that I'm not interested in downloading IRC, and they didn't actually provide an e-mail for the devs. Also, that sticky was aimed at game-breaking exploits. This was more of a minor issue... which I tried to emphasize.

As for the use of autocasting in large groups, I think you might have misunderstood me. Autocast is GREAT. It's essential. I'm just irritated by the fact that if I have 2 cap ships of the same type in a control group they'll both be set to autocast with a single click. Even more frustrating, if I have a group of 20 LRM's in my fleet and I want to set "Charged Missile" to autocast, if I click it on one ship it will enable it on all. Maybe some sort of toggle to allow group autocast or single? But that's beside the point. That's more of a suggestions for interface, the original point was a minor exploit. :)

-zenchronus
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I checked out the sticky. The issue is that while suggesting that I'm not interested in downloading IRC, and they didn't actually provide an e-mail for the devs. Also, that sticky was aimed at game-breaking exploits. This was more of a minor issue... which I tried to emphasize.As for the use of autocasting in large groups, I think you might have misunderstood me. Autocast is GREAT. It's essential. I'm just irritated by the fact that if I have 2 cap ships of the same type in a control group they'll both be set to autocast with a single click. Even more frustrating, if I have a group of 20 LRM's in my fleet and I want to set "Charged Missile" to autocast, if I click it on one ship it will enable it on all. Maybe some sort of toggle to allow group autocast or single? But that's beside the point. That's more of a suggestions for interface, the original point was a minor exploit. -zenchronus
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support@stardock.com
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
No, support@ironcladgames.com :P

Stardock support is for SDC/Stardock account issues. ICO issues/game related stuff goes to Ironclad support.