Component Duplication Bug/Exploit

[Hotfoot]

Originally posted by PvK:
Of course, using the saved game system to gain pre-knowledge of places you haven't been yet, could be considered cheating itself...

PvK

Frankly, I was expecting the game to randomly generate new equipment when it loads from a save game. Instead, if I want to do that, I have to restart the entire game. Then all the places get new inventories and it's all good. So if I completely clear out a planet of all their good equipment, I can save, quit the game, restart, and there will be more stuff for me to buy.

If I die, reload and I want to go back to a planet to try getting either the equipment I lost or new equipment, I shouldn't be penalized because of the "quirks" in the trading system. Either reset the shops with the save games to what they were at the time of saving, or re-generate them. I can understand wanting to keep savegame filesizes low (hence why saving the contents of the shop in a savegame is not being done), as well as loading times, but come on. The game already regenerates the shops every time you level or every time you launch the game. Putting in another call to do it whenever you load a saved game would be a simple, elegant solution, remove the problems I had, and remove the duplication bug.

Edit: As for considering saving and reloading "cheating", fine, feel free, but given the nature of computers and games, it is entirely unrealistic to assume that people are going to be willing to play a game that has no save feature whatsoever. It's frustrating and annoying, and makes the game not fun, especially if the game is very hard. Very few people have the ability to sit down a play a game through to completion in one sitting, especially if the game is long, hard, and/or buggy. Imagine playing Starfury, having just gotten a nice, shiny battleship, when suddenly...BAM! Crash to desktop. Well, no savegame to reload, let's start all the way back at the beginning of the game, only to CTD again after having bought a battleship. Or let's say you have what most people commonly refer to as a life, and you play games in your spare time. Well, too bad, you'll never make it past your little Mk1 Destroyer, because you can't save your 1-2 hour game sessions. Oh yes, that's fun.

[ October 03, 2003, 16:02: Message edited by: Hotfoot ]

[Phoenix-D]

You can also do the same by visiting another port; it re-sets the previous one, oddly. Though I agree it should be more uniform in how it resets.

[Hotfoot]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
You can also do the same by visiting another port; it re-sets the previous one, oddly. Though I agree it should be more uniform in how it resets.

Actually, I've noticed that ports will stay uniform in the demo no matter how many other ports you visit. I went to every port in Freeport, then Genesis, then back again, and Freeport Station and Freeport 5 were still as I had left them. Only levelling seems to reset them, as the level of equipment you buy is directly proportional to your own level.

[Phoenix-D]

Odd, because when filling up the- aha.

What I did specifically was visit Freeport V, then the station, reload, Freeport V, station, etc. So its not as easy as I thought I remembered.

[Wydraz]

Another thing when you take a job at a spaceport, then load a saved game, that job is gone while the others are still there!

[Mehrunes]

I got Freeport station to reset itself without levelling or reloading. At first I waited for about a year at the station, no change resulted. Then I went to another system and came back. Again, there was no change. Then I visited Freeport V spacedock and returned immediately to the station and bingo, full reset.

I'm guessing a certain period of time passage and visiting another station is what causes it, although the period of time in question might be extreme.

edit: Scratch that, I was able to get Freeport station and Freeport V's spacedocks to reset just by flying back and forth between them. I'm guessing the game only keeps one component list on hand along with the ID of the spacedock it belongs to and doesn't bother resetting it when a save is loaded.

[ October 04, 2003, 22:11: Message edited by: Mehrunes ]