Sings Online Game

from Stardock Forums

I was just wondering. I have spotted a few cheats for Sins of a Solar empire on a few sites. I have been trying to convince a friend of mine to get the game. But he is afraid after seeing all these cheats on different sites that the online game can be hacked. I have not noticed any strange things with online games but I guess this is a good a place as any. Are there ways to cheat online? I don't want to know how its done or what it does. Just if its even possible?

3,080 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Tell your friend to verse just you or ally with you against the AI when he gets the game.

When he gets better, verse other people.

I've never seen cheaters in MP, and I've never heard of any cheaters on the forums, but I'm new to MP so I'm not totally sure if it is possible, but if it is, then it is rare.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The game is simulated on every PC. Data is sent P2P. The host "syncs" the game by making sure everyone has completed the previous "round" before they simulate the next one (with the rounds happening so fast that you think it is real time).

As such, if one game is hacked, the others are not, so you end up with a game that is out of sync, which would be captured by the checksum data, resulting in a mini-dump (game crashes and creates a log file called a MD)....

So I wouldn't worry about cheating. The only thing you have to worry about with MP is people that are so good you think the only way they are doing what they are doing is by cheating (but they aren't).

BTW - Any exploits that get found are quickly patched out of the game.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

The way RTS games are made these days, the only prolific cheats are map hacks.  I don't know if one exists for Sins, but it's not going to ruin your day if one of your enemies is using it.  Not like a resource cheat can, anyways.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the info. I am just curious as to why is it that other games need to go so overboard with online security. Steam uses that VAC system for most of their games and Battle.net has had a few issues with cheats in the past.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Those games may be client/server based. The contolling logic is on the server, so if someone sends wrong info (by cheating) to the server, if it is not caught, it is passed to everyone else. This can't happen when each game is running indepdently on each machine (at least in theory) - they just try and process the input from the other players and then crash if something is out of bounds...