Topic: Whoops, I'm a cheat...

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

For a while now I thought I was imagining it when I quickly double tapped the [Z] key and two plasma torpedoes shot out of a 1-shot launcher (both are real and damaging). It's happened once in a while against the AI, but not that often. I haven't been trying to do it, either, even on those really hard missions.

Then, a couple nights ago, I was flying a 3v3 in GSA multiplayer (SFC:OP). In my funny little K-D7T, I was firing the rear photons at the 3 guys chasing us. That was the first time this cheat occured against real people, and as I frantically tapped the fire button, 3 proxies came out of the rear launcher-- and it only has 2 shots.

I don't think the other players noticed, and we still got creamed in the end! However, I don't want this accidental cheat to ruin a game even if it only happens once a month or so, but I can't find a way to get rid of it. I bet someone has encountered this bug before? Thank you for any help.

[Bonk]

Whoah! That's a new one to me... (single player anyway) I'd like to see if it can be duplicated. Please post your hardware, OS and OP mods installed.

This issue is known in split missions, where in a multiplayer mission if a player drops or fails to connect, but is flying their own version of the mission alone, usually all the fire is double from then on for the remaining players. (Double DV shift too, so sometimes its worth risking finishing the mission)

Best advice to avoid this issue is not to use software firewalls, wireless connections, NortonAV, or USB modems. (The trick is, to guarantee a stable mission - all players must follow these guidelines, which is very nearly impossible to achieve)

Starfleet command was developed in those heady days of decades gone by when such agressive security measures were unthought of*, thus there is no code to account for such exceptions, as they did not exist at the time of development. SFC assumes that windows has a real, direct connection to the internet, an uncorrupted TCP/IP stack (which is what software firewalls, Norton AV and internet accelerators do), and untampered windows sockets. Now, quality hardware NAT is accpetable so long as you are aware of the exact networking requirements which I have outlined on these forums countless times. (This is not directed at you personally, this is just my usual rant on the subject.) Note that doing so poses no security risk whatsoever if you know what you are doing, as evidenced by the fact that I have been running the same uncorrupted, unhacked, virus and trojan free install of XP since its release in 2001.

*OK, not unthought of, but at least very uncommon. Back in '99 I installed blackice, a software firewall. It took me some time to figure out why my Dynaverse missions would unpredicatably bug out and lose connection. Often it was fine, but often I'd lose connection. I actually made an ass of myself claiming I was being hacked because of my good playing skills. (Paranoia=Big-Destroya) Eventually I put it together and uninstalled blackice and presto, my Dynaverse missions ran just fine again. Even though I had made all the necessary exceptions for OP in blackice. I have observed similar effects with ZoneAlarm. And you might as well forget it if you're running 2 software firewalls. Anything that screws with your networking can be a problem, and intermittent. Just becasue one mission (or even five in a row) works with paranoia software on, it does not mean the next one will.

Did a player drop from your GSA match? It's not always obvious. Were all players chatting throughout the mission? (Thus the courtesy ritual of "Hail" at the beginning of a mission and the "GG" at the end, which achieves taking attendance for the mission.)

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Right now I have Windows Me with the current 2552 patch and Firesoul's OP Plus 4.0... looking to install Pestalence's OP Enhancement soon too. I do have Norton Antivirus, but I have accepted those Gamespy ports that they say they need, and then disable it when playing.

The big nasty thing is the wireless router. It also drops my connection to the Gamespy chat channel sometimes, and doesn't allow other players to see my multiplayer room. However, I noticed the cheat happen in single player before I installed the router.

Now that I think of it, I do think someone dropped out of the match early. It was 3v3, then one of our wings was destroyed, and I think he left after that.

I'll see if I can get this phenomenon to happen, then get a screenshot of it.

[Slider]

Used to see this in league play as well as far back as EAW.  ALOT of Feds got away with Photon fire They would fire one photon at a time and get extra shots....(stinking goodie two shoes).

If you hit the Z key just right with a PPD you can keep it going till the opponents undamaged ship is utterly destroyed. D@mn funny as you hear on voice coms WTH was that!?     

[Lieutenant_Q]

Network latency has nothing to do with the multi-shots.  It happens even in the campaign mode.  I've noticed no set preconditions to cause the extra shots.  Just happens that every so often, never seen it happen more than once in a fight, an extra Photon, Dizzie burst, Plasma Torp, whatever fires.  Probably a glitch somewhere in the firing code that discharges the weapon but doesn't re-set the hardpoint.

I usually just roll with it and move on.  A lot of times I don't even notice the extra shots because I'm not paying attention to the hard points.  When I fire as a Feddie, my button sequence is almost always the same: 2(Photon Group) - Z - Z - 3(Main Phaser Group) - Z.  Add an extra Z if I can remember that I'm flying something with 3 Weapons per Hardpoint.

[Bonk]

Network latency has nothing to do with the multi-shots.

But it has everything to do with split missions "double fire - double damage", which could be mistaken for the rare "multi-shots" I suppose... know what I mean?

Have you ever experienced a split mission with double fire and damage? I have, plenty of times, it is unquestionably related to latency. To be honest I have never seen a multi-shot (since the beginning...).

Don't put it past Norton to mess with your keyboard input. Also "disabling" Norton does not disable it. The only way to disable Norton is to fdisk, fdisk /mbr, format...

I once found McAfee interfering with serial communications. (It cost that lab well over $10K in lost time to figure it out).

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Glad I'm not alone on this. If everyone with OP has this problem, then it won't be like one person is exploiting it all the time. I tried recreating multi-shots, but after a while of firing proxies at a swarm of R-SNP's at game speed 11, it didn't happen once. So that's good.

Those antivirus programs, for all the good they do, really are a pain. Norton Internet 2005 is more than my PC can handle-- I need to turn off "auto protect" otherwise the program will hiccup every 1-2 seconds and make for choppy animation and audio.

Gunz, were multi shots more common in EAW? In OP, I couldn't have it happen if I wanted to (but I'm happy about that).

[Slider]

Well what we noticed in league games specifically 2 v 2 and 3 v 3 games was that some Fed teams started firing single shots more when the code changed that gave their proxies more accurate shots (was taht in EAW). As a result, they would fire Z....Z....Z and we'd often see a "sorry" flash on the screen if someone got an extra shot and many guys would even delay their next firing to off set the extra shot. So this bugs discovery was purely accidental.

To be honest I reallly dont remember if that trend started in EAW.  But I do believe it went back that far especially with plasma shots from rear firing I torps. You could see the extra one nearly overlapping the the first. And your hull meter would suddenly drop to near 0 in one volly which was normally impossible. All we could do is either replay it or accept the lose and chalk it up to bad luck.

I picked up on it during a 3 v 3 fun game where I took an ISC ship (the one with 6 PPDs) and while tapping the key (not fast but rhythmically) the PPD just kept right on firing and firing like it never reset completely destroying a healthy Heavy cruiser.

I know it happens to me with plasma, ppd, phontons. Im iffy memory wise on ESGs. I do know it doesnt seem to happen with Disrupters althoug someone else might have a different experience.

I think its sooooo random that no one ever got called out on it. It seemed to just happen to everyone at some point, so our attitude was "Play On!".

[TarMinyatur]

This is a very old bug. It was called the "two-for-one bug" and might have been in SFC1, but I gathered some data on its frequency in SFC2 EAW around 2001. It occurs about 2.5% of the time with Disruptors and Photons and Plasma. (The % for other weapons is untested.) An issue is that when it happens with say, a Plasma-R, the victim understandably gets annoyed. But we Plasma-chuckers just take the occassional extra Dizzy or Photon with a shrug. Nobody means to fire more than they are entitled to. It isn't cheating. However, if you notice a fully loaded weapon just after you fired it, you should disarm it and reload it honestly. But of course we hammer the "z" key in our enthusiasm and unintentionally get two shots for one.