Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Sun, 09 November 2003 01:37 |
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Ron | | Commander Forum Administrator Stars! AutoHost Administrator | Messages: 1231
Registered: October 2002 Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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A player in the game asked me to investigate 2 players (one of them is the host) since he couldn't see how they could have the amount of minerals and tech levels they had.
Without going into details, I found that players 2 and 6 in the SUMMER game cheated on the very first turn. They used a modded stars.exe file to create the game. In the modded exe file, they had changed the mineral and tech cost of nubians to zero, then built hundreds of fleets each with a thousand nubians. They then transfered the fleets to each other, and sent me the game files.
When the turn was generated on AutoHost using an unmodified .exe file, they suddenly each had thousands of nubians, on turn 2403! They then scrapped the fleets, giving instant minerals and lots of tech levels.
The two players are Greg Vor (Gregor Vorbarra) of gregorvorbarra@hotmail.com
and Lou Barsony of loubarsony@hotmail.com
I know Greg's is a fake name, and probably Lou's is as well.
Naturally, both have been banned from AutoHost, the their serial numbers will no longer be allowed in uploaded turns. One of the serial numbers has been used by 3 other players, 2 in current games on AutoHost.
Players need to be extremely cautious of any not-well-known game host who generates several turns before sending me the game files to setup on AutoHost.
Either have the game gened by a trusted game host, or trusted 3rd party,
or
create a .def file and send it to me along with the race files so I can gen the game from the command-line using the .def file.
(look in the Stars! help file for info on creating a .def file)
So, spread it far and wide folks, they are CHEATERS.
[Updated on: Sun, 09 November 2003 12:18]
Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHostReport message to a moderator
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Sun, 09 November 2003 13:06 |
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I don't see why you can't FORCE people to go down the def file route.
That'll eliminate this kind of problem totally.
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Sun, 09 November 2003 15:12 |
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dazraz | | Crewman 3rd Class | Messages: 5
Registered: September 2003 Location: London | |
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I was once in an autohost game, run by a certain Greg Vor. Although I was new to the game (the traditional "I can kick the comps arse, but now I want to play humans") I soon realised that I was lagging behind the other 9 players. I caught up and stuck around 4th place - reasonable I thought. However it was a fake position really as I was ahead of some real noobies and behind some actually good players. Anyway to cut a long story short, I was suffering the traditional Ironium shortage when I noticed that Vor's Empire was launching huge packets of Ir at enemy planets destoying them, whilst maintaining a huge fleet production of missile BB's. Assuming it couldn't be cheating I admired the efforts and race design of Greg Vor. The game soon finished as one of the other players found the game to be hacked, we never discovered the culprit of course.
It seems perhaps (and to be fair I have no evidence, just circumstancial stuff) Mr Greg Vor has done this before then. Nice way to be introduced to Star! eh?
If you read this Greg, thanks a lot - I wish I could impress on you how much I despise cheaters, whether in Stars!, AAOP:SF, C&C, etc.
Oh, I can :
Sweet as a nut.Report message to a moderator
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Sun, 09 November 2003 17:39 |
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Sinla | | Warrant Officer | Messages: 132
Registered: February 2003 Location: the Netherlands | |
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Hey!
This looks a game called 'Fall', which ended January this year, hosted by, ofcourse, Greg V. There another player in this game was a cheater (the one and only ally of Greg V.).
The game ended, when somebody hacked the hostutility and set the gens to 1 hour. I wonder who did that . Ron then already thought, that the 2 players where indeed one (as Greg put it:"We work at the same firm". Yeah right!), they used same IP's or something. Still have 8 emails in my inbox about this Ron, If you care to read them again, just send me an email or PM.
If you can't beat me... Run away...Report message to a moderator
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Sun, 09 November 2003 22:07 |
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My condolenses to those players who have been robbed of hours of work by those few who are not willing to play on a level field.
- Kurt
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Mon, 10 November 2003 15:42 |
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mlaub | | Lieutenant | Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003 Location: MN, USA | |
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Luckily one of the others knew to ask Ron to check these guys out (I wasn't aware that Autohost kept backups of all the gamefiles).
Well, I doubt it was that simple.
I'm betting that if this "Greg" hadn't been under suspicion, that Ron may have let it go. Possibly chalking it up to the accusing player's ability, and the accusers misunderstandings of how well races "can" perform. Taking another persons word for what can/cannot be achieved is probably not a good idea, in Ron position, and would make admin a nightmare. Luckily, this wasn't the case, here, and "Greg" was caught dead to rights.
Kudos to Ron!
Thanks for straightening this out.
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Thu, 13 November 2003 12:16 |
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Ron wrote on Thu, 13 November 2003 10:31 | Someone is posting on the RGCS newsgroup pretending to be me, using
'autohost@hotmail.com'
I only use 'autohost@yahoo.com' on the newsgroup, and I don't check it very often due to spam.
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If you go higher in that thread on the newsgroup you'll see that a Summer player put in the last/latest message from the Lou Barsony player. That IP and the one used in the "forged" Ron email are the same, or very similar.
I'll mention that I recommend readers to *NOT* respond to the trolls from these two (or other addresses) on the newsgroup. It's exactly what they want at this point.
- Kurt
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Thu, 13 November 2003 13:24 |
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Ron | | Commander Forum Administrator Stars! AutoHost Administrator | Messages: 1231
Registered: October 2002 Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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Here is the proof for everyone:
http://starsautohost.org/files/summercheating.zip
There is a txt file in the zip.
(edit: updated the url)
[Updated on: Thu, 15 September 2011 14:44]
Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHostReport message to a moderator
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Re: Cheating detected in SUMMER game on AutoHost |
Fri, 14 November 2003 05:30 |
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Sinla | | Warrant Officer | Messages: 132
Registered: February 2003 Location: the Netherlands | |
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Quote: |
What was the tip off? and how did he explain it away? Curious.
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We were both WM and I attacked one of his new colonies, which had a few thousand colonists 3 years prior to the attack. When I came there I found a spacedock with 32 betatorpedoes(which alone costed 416I,160B, 96G) and some computers. Who has 500kT of Ironium (on his second world!) to burn when you are building privateers for your pop, I thought by myself. I had excellent mines and already some Ironium-shortage. But in theory it can be done ofcourse, even legitimate.
His words:"
From: The Mecklars
To: The Lalas
Hey,
Don't be a sore loser implying that I cheated to beat you. I didn't. i have >100 K col on Wobbly and have been re-inforcing every turn with pop + minerals since it is only a w9 jump from my hw. As to the resources it's simple: I put up a dock in 2408 at a cost of 80 resources. then put up missles on the dock a year later cost was ~140 resources. Well within what is available with the planets resources at a pop of 130K or so.
So I guess the moral is don't be so smug or condescending until after you've beat me. BTW you may now consider us a war.
Mecklars"
Little did I know... I even apologized to him ( ) openly , but the whole game I had this strange feeling something fishy was going on. Was a bit of a newbie then (well, still am ), so didn't pursue it further.
How the game came to it's end is found somewhere else in this thread.
If you can't beat me... Run away...Report message to a moderator
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