Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost web forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
 
Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » Stars! Extensions » Detecting (and correcting for) the FreePop Hack
Detecting (and correcting for) the FreePop Hack Thu, 12 November 2020 17:56 Go to next message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Creator of TotalHost and Stars! utilities
Created TotalHost and Stars! utilities

Messages: 222
Registered: January 2012
Location: NC
[freepop] Hack
Using a memory editing utility it is possible to create colonists out of thin air, limited only by a players freighter capacity, with the help of a memory editor. This abuses a lack of a viability check for loading colonist from an uninhabited planet, usually you cannot load more colonists than you drop down in a turn, but a memory editor can be used to trick the user interface into believing that you had dropped down millions of colonists, and the host doesn't double check these figures. Use of this in a multiplayer game would be considered by most players to be a totally inexcusable cheating offence.


I'm working on code to detect this hack. I can now decode most of the cargo-based values, but I don't actually have the ability to reproduce the problem so I can test fixing it. I could use a bit more detail too. Is this hack done by having the .M file open, hacking memory, and then saving the turn?

Can anyone out there reproduce this hack and sent me the associated .HST, .M, and .X files after saving the turn but before turn generation? Thanks!!

Rick



https://www.irelandbybicycle.com
http://totalhost.sinister.net:999
https://github.com/ricks03/TotalHost

Report message to a moderator

Re: Detecting (and correcting for) the FreePop Hack Tue, 11 January 2022 18:39 Go to previous message
ricks03 is currently offline ricks03

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Creator of TotalHost and Stars! utilities
Created TotalHost and Stars! utilities

Messages: 222
Registered: January 2012
Location: NC
Well, I tried hacking the .x file to replicate this.

I had a fleet with 4800 cargo space, and 400 pop. I issued the order to drop 400 pop (saved in the .x file)
Then I changed the order in the .x file to drop 4800 pop. Then generated a turn.

The result I got in the UI was (something like) :
Fleet #4 failed to transfer -4400 of -4800 Colonists.

which sure sounds like I hit a (valid) check. Next step was to try to add the population to the fleet in the .M file, and then see if I can issue an order to drop them, and see if they persist through turn generation.

So for a fleet with a 4800 capacity with only 1 pop, I modified the .m file so the fleet had a cargo of 4799. The turn opened up with the fleet having 4799 colonists. I then issued a (theoretically valid) order to drop 4799 of them. Upon turn generation, I get "...was unable to transfer -4799kt of Colonists out of the -4799 kT request"


So that at least looks like validation is being done at the HST file. I wonder if this is one of those bugs that was fixed in JRC4? If so, it (and any other) prior-JRC4 bugs shouldn't be on the list of bugs?



https://www.irelandbybicycle.com
http://totalhost.sinister.net:999
https://github.com/ricks03/TotalHost

Report message to a moderator

Previous Topic: 32k / SS Pop Steal
Next Topic: Calculating Race Scores
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Fri Mar 29 06:09:31 EDT 2024