Forums » Bugs

Editing your ships mass?

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Sep 04, 2014 Serious.Person link
This is more a question than a bug report. On my journey of reading old threads I#ve stumbled upon a thread in the bug report section that made me wonder. So here's the story:

An Android user coicidentally found out that he was able to edit his mass with a simple program on his smartphone so that he was much more agile and could even outrun pirates in his Behemoth XC. After testing this he reported the bug to the devs personally aswell as informing everyone on the Forums about it.
Ever since this happened I heard people say the bug was not fixed entirely. It is now impossible to set yourself a minus mass but that means nothing else than that you can still lower your ships'smass in a bit. A HUGE Advantage in PvP. In addition I've heard numerous pilots who I think to be experienced players complain more or less silently about "odd happenings" they had when encountering enemies in PvP that were extremely agile in their ships or seemed to jump around very quickly and smoothly in a very non-laggy but unusual way.

So... Can anyone who is more into this topic comment on this? I'm really curious and afraid at the same time. If some Android user can edit his mass on his phone then it is quite surely possible to let this happen on a PC aswell...
Sep 07, 2014 Rallen Bosessen link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csOHQfBGprA&list=UUu9D4JG2yl6INFBBDN4wgow
Just for fun :D This is how I did it. You can see my acceleration and stopping speed in an XC moth. I asked Sieger btw, to try to shoot me, he was unable to hit me because of the lag this bug was generating. Also, in the end it was possible to stop and jump out, but I pressed the wrong button accidentally. This video was sent to ray only, but now it is public to you all.
Qoute from a convo with me and Ray:

"Ok, I released an update that should mitigate the exploit. For some reason the quantity value could go negative which doesn't make sense logically.
I mean it is very hard to prevent RAM modifications from being possible other than having multiple copies of the data in different places that are compared against each other.
You can still set your cargo quantity to 1 but not any lower at this time.

Thanks again."

Now when you mention it, I think it is still possible to lower your mass a bit. This needs to be looked at again.

*CALL IN THE SPACE GLUE, RAY!*

EDIT: I invested some of my precious time thinking about this, and think about it: Why would you want to lower your cargo variable to 1, when you can not carry any cargo at all? The exploit I used was setting the cargo variable below 0. That's patched, meaning, there should't be any more exploits with the cargo variable. As I understand, ray changed the cargo variable to a positive only, meaning there just can't be any exploits, at all.
Sep 07, 2014 Pizzasgood link
"I invested some of my precious time thinking about this, and think about it: Why would you want to lower your cargo variable to 1, when you can not carry any cargo at all? The exploit I used was setting the cargo variable below 0. That's patched, meaning, there should't be any more exploits with the cargo variable. As I understand, ray changed the cargo variable to a positive only, meaning there just can't be any exploits, at all."

Wrong. Obviously it would be beneficial to fully load a moth, then set its cargo to 1 so that it flies as though it were empty. Your video demonstrated that changing the cargo to 10 lowered your mass from 37 tons to 33 tons. That would have been a much larger change if you'd been filled with 120 units of Gauss Cannon MkIII, for example, which weigh one ton each. A 150 ton behemoth makes an empty one look like a ballerina, and that isn't even the heaviest load I've flown.
Sep 08, 2014 Inevitable link
Oh lawday this is still around
Sep 08, 2014 abortretryfail link
lol, so basically Game Genie for Android.
Sep 09, 2014 greenwall link
So there's an advantage to playing mobile now?
Sep 09, 2014 abortretryfail link
No, you can (and always could) do that on a PC too.
Sep 10, 2014 Serious.Person link
It took a bit but just as I thought many remembered this. So it looks as though the bug is still exploitable, yes?
Please fix this then.
Sep 10, 2014 abortretryfail link
It is, but not to the degree that it used to be. Now the best somebody can do is reduce the mass of their ship to what it is carrying no cargo at all. Before, you could make it much lighter.
Sep 11, 2014 Serious.Person link
Very interesting. Does that include weapons? So people can make their tri flare Valks weigh as much as empty Valks and just spin around while spamming rockets?
Sep 13, 2014 Rallen Bosessen link
Could. Now can't.
Sep 13, 2014 Rallen Bosessen link
Oh, and by the way, ray has made, let's name it an "easter egg", for all who try to repeat negative mass proccess. I wouldn't recommend doing it on your main character. Do it on a new one, IF YOU DARE! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Sep 16, 2014 raybondo link
We are working on this issue.
Oct 29, 2014 smittens link
It is the opinion of some players that this bug is either partially or completely NOT fixed. I've requested these players chime in with more detail since they have more experience with it.

Devs; Could we get the briefest of updates about this issue? I know you're busy, and typically keeping us up-to-date on every bug would be a nightmare, but this is one of those bugs that severely damages the integrity of PvP just by existing, and gives losers an easy excuse after they explode. It would be awesome if you could give us any type of progress indicator for how squished this bug is!
Oct 29, 2014 greenwall link
Ask THE PREACHER.
Oct 29, 2014 raybondo link
We have been recording the server's predicted mass and the mass that the client reports to compare the two values. If someone thinks that someone is faking their mass, we can verify it if you give a sector, character name, and time via the support ticket system.
Oct 29, 2014 smittens link
Thanks Ray!

Greenwall/others, could you please post their sighted incidents here too? That way we can all stay on top of the progress of this bug

I feel like it's important with issues like this one, those that could potentially be used by defeated players to call shenanigans on the whole PvP system, should be kept in the public light until they are resolved
Oct 30, 2014 greenwall link
Well I did put in a support ticket with multiple follow ups. I haven't been online much recently so I can't speak to events in the last week, but certainly up until then THE PREACHER has been clearly and verifiably editing his mass nearly every time I've seen him. Others have seen it too, and I know they have also put in support tickets.

The only thing I can surmise from all this is that A) the devs can't detect it or B) the devs can't fix it.

The good news is that it seems only THE PREACHER has been doing it... and thankfully he's not an ace pilot so he can't maximize on the hack like someone with better skills could.
Oct 30, 2014 Savet link
"We have been recording the server's predicted mass and the mass that the client reports to compare the two values. If someone thinks that someone is faking their mass, we can verify it if you give a sector, character name, and time via the support ticket system."

In what scenario could the expected mass and reported mass differ? It seems a solution would be to disconnect the client if this occurs. Make the log out time like 20 second without a warning so they can limp back to station or set their mass correctly, but can't fight or flee effectively.
Oct 30, 2014 abortretryfail link
It's possible programming errors or network packet loss could make something like jettisoned cargo not happen, which would make your mass wrong. Differences like this aren't always from malicious intent.