Advent exploit or tactic? EDIT: Now with Pictures!

I was playing a game on a lan with my friend against 2 hard AI. One was Advent, and when it actaully came time for a real battle against my fleet and theirs, something strange and rather annoying happend. When I first met up with them, I started making quick work of them and finally selected to attack their capital ship once I was in range.

Here is where it gets kind of weird. The capital ship was regenerating it's shield faster than I could hurt it. That isn't the bad part, as I figured it was just some annoying ability that would turn off in about a minute or so, but I was wrong. The shield continued to just rise and rise, way past it's max shield value to around 7000. At this point, I changed targets to a normal frigate, and it did the same thing. I kept this up trying to kill possibly whatever was doing this, but just couldn't find anything that I could actually do damage to. I ended up with about 3 of there ships destroyed with my fleet in ruins.

After they wiped me out, and when they finally came for me on my home world, my friend and me both went to defend it to have the same thing happen....but even worse. This time, some of their ships where reaching the 20k's and one drone host had over 45k in shield strength. Basically, they were invulnerable. Finally at 15 min. into the battle, they began to lose shield but it was still up in the many thousands from before. So, we had to work guys down from insanely high shield values, which in the end killed us.

Here is my question, is this a valid tactic? Are they stacking some strange effects that I don't know about or is it just an exploit/glitch? I would think that going over the max shield value would be a little too powerful if this is a real tactic.

Also, I did read about how you shouldn't post glitches or strange exploits, but as my question states, I'm not sure if this classifies as one.

 

EDIT: I waited about 3 hours for my replay to finally catch up and I got some pictures from the game including the fabled 45K+ Drone Host!

Sins Shield Stack

I Hate ScythiaSins Stack 2

52,310 views 29 replies
Reply #1 Top

There is a sneaky buff stacking bug that snuck in with the new patch, that sounds like what happened to you. IC has fixed this in their builds, but if you've got a save of it happening it won't hurt to send it to support@ironcladgames.com to make sure that's the cause and not something else.

Getting 7k shields isn't normal, much less 20-45k ;)

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Reply #2 Top

Thanks for the quick reply. I never play online, so I was unsure if it was a new tactic or not. I sure hope they get that sorted out, as winning the game was nearly impossible. I do have some saves from the game that I will promptly send to them to scrutinize. In all retrospect, it was a very entertaining battle.

Reply #3 Top

I'll admit I've not heard of a case *this* bad, though. The worst are things like stacking the Advent Guardian's Shield Projection, which sometimes gave 66% damage share instead of the proper 33% and Phase Jump Inhibitors that slowed charge-up time by 1400%+ instead of the regular 700%.

To get a ship to 45,000 shields.. interesting :) Regardless, if what happened in your case was somehow a result of this bug, it's not anything that can be willingly exploited, it just happens due to the buff application code. There's nothing special for the player to do to trigger it or guarantee it happening, as is my understanding.

Reply #4 Top

We had actually wondered if it was the guardians doing it or not. At first, we thought maybe it was possible that if they go past 99%, that maybe all fire to the ship actually heals it in a sort of funky move or bug. Then after the game, we scoured online to find a solution and read up that they are not stackable, which brought me here with my only theory crushed.

Actually, are the guardians the one with the annoying sphere move that takes up the entire battle field? That sucker was being used probobly about 1 time every 3 seconds in the battle both times [bringing my poor laptap down to about a frame a second when zoomed into the mess]. Maybe it has something to do with that move? I wouldn't know myself as I never play advent.

One thing that was pretty funny was our shield damage done stat at the end of the game. The spike in the graph during the time of the battles was hilarious. Although our hull damage done stat was pathetic.

Reply #5 Top

Actually, are the guardians the one with the annoying sphere move that takes up the entire battle field?

Yep, that's their Shield Projection :P It gets bad with a lot of those suckers around. I rarely build more than 10 for my fleets. It's not really enough for the really big battles, though I'd rather lose some extra ships but be able to see the battle.

They shouldn't be the cause of it though, the ability doesn't increase shields at all.. it only transfers a portion of damage any ship inside the bubble takes to the Guardian.

Reply #6 Top

Okay, thanks for the clearification on the guardians. My friend does the same as you. He extremes it a little more though as he builds none due to the debilitating drop in frames per second when they all fire off the effect [another fix I hope for in the future]. BTW, is there any way to +rep on here?

 

Reply #7 Top

BTW, is there any way to +rep on here?

The little thumbs up button to the left of "report" below the post. It basically assigns karma to a specific post, rather than just the poster.

And you're welcome :P I can only imagine the looks on IC's faces when they see a ship with 45,000 shields!

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Reply #8 Top

Annatar is right, there is a stacking cheat and it's been fixed.

Reply #9 Top

Thanks for the help all, I appreciate it.

Reply #10 Top

No problem.

yours truly,

Satan}:)   and his two pet demons, Annatar 'Adramelech' and Blair 'Blair Witch' Fraser.

P.S. I have your soul! You're mine now, mortal.

Reply #11 Top

^ ahah wtf

Reply #12 Top

sometimes there is weird stuff on the boards, guess its to be expected though with so many people. Interesting post on the stacking shields.  :)

 

 

Reply #13 Top

For those interested I decided to add some pictures to the main post from the replay of the game. :D  

Reply #14 Top

Woo thanks for the screenshots, those are awesome. :)

Reply #15 Top

WTF? Is that any way to adress the Devil?

I should call up REPO to have your house emptied.

Courtesies, Beezlebub.

Reply #17 Top

We were screaming cheaters for the whole battle, but they didn't listen. XO

I guess my question now is: So is this going to be fixed in another patch reletively soon? As it stands now, the Advent on hard/insane are pretty much a broken race for the AI.

Reply #18 Top

Psh, be Vasari. Advent can shield cheat all they want, it wont save them

Reply #19 Top

The advent are my favs, and others can like who they want, but i still will take the illuminators and mothership/guardians and the psi capitals anytime.  :)  I realize the Vasari are more aggressive and usually win, but when i can pull out a win from them its a wonderful day!!  :)

Can we somehow bribe Blair to leave it in?  :)  Just kidding, but it is a nice thought!! 

-Teal

 

Reply #20 Top

Quoting Timber72, reply 17
We were screaming cheaters for the whole battle, but they didn't listen.

I guess my question now is: So is this going to be fixed in another patch reletively soon? As it stands now, the Advent on hard/insane are pretty much a broken race for the AI.

I know Blair said for Entrenchment they re-wrote how buffs are handled so this bug does not exist there, but I don't know if vanilla Sins will get a patch for it.

I'm guessing another Sins patch (besides the upcoming 1.12 sync fix) is pretty unlikely, they appear to be shifting to beefing up Entrenchment. But, I don't know :P

Reply #21 Top

Well, for those of us getting Entrenchment [including me] thats good news. Hopefully those who don't know about Entrenchment or don't plan on getting it get a patch some time.

Keeping with the discussion, it seems the Vasari have their own counter to this now [besides the phase missiles]. Apparently in my last game, they used some sort of hull healing move to bring their capital ships hull above the max hull points. It wasn't nearly as bad as the advents evil however. This was on normal though, so I have no idea if they would spam it like the advent did on hard.

I guess in some ways it's kind of cool though, especially for those of you out there who are amazing at this game. It gives a new challenge to fight against when they do it.

@ Cataclysm: I did play as Vasari every time after the game came out, but now I got kind of bored of them and are trying the TEC out. I like the style of the TEC a little more I think. Then again, maybe it's just because they are different.

Reply #22 Top

Apparently in my last game, they used some sort of hull healing move to bring their capital ships hull above the max hull points. It wasn't nearly as bad as the advents evil however. This was on normal though, so I have no idea if they would spam it like the advent did on hard.

That's actually the normal use of the ability ;) The Overseer support cruisers have it. It's basically a straight up hull hp injection and it can bring hull hp above max.

Reply #23 Top

Oh, well then it's all good. After reading some posts here it made me remember how much I used to like the Vasari.

Reply #24 Top

There is one thing about the advent thats not cheating and gets powerful and fast weapons is building alot of Halcyon carriers and maximizing Amplify Energy Aura and you might get a couple of capital ships at 150% Energy Weapon Cooldown wich means weapons are blazing real fast

edit: I have just seen it at over 200%

Reply #25 Top

*Schemes maliciously*

The TEC are best. They have a large Logistics capacity, meaning more cash, itself meaning even more ships than the advent later in the game.

Right, that's all I can think of up to now.

Happy soul hunting!

*Goes back to scheming maliciously*