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Post by dashofpepper on Mar 24, 2011 22:11:55 GMT -5
Hey folks!
I'm L3 with 1186 reputation with Javat, 0 with everyone else, L18 promotion and 2 million gold on challenging difficulty. I haven't moved my ship since shortly after I started the game! =D
I'm not sure if this is an exploit to be fixed or not, or working as intended for players willing to pursue it.
Basically, I'm camped over the Javat mining colony. I explore 2-3 times, go to the urban center to sell off all my loot, replenish my water, check the starport for upgrades, then go back to orbit, exit the game, use App Killer (something every droid users gets almost immediately I think) to kill all open apps.
This resets everything in the game so that when I log back in, the mining colony is fresh for exploration, the spice hall is freshly populated with recruits, and you can rinse and repeat infinitely without flying an inch to make as much money as you want, or as much reputation as you want in a *very* short amount of in-game time since you're not in transit anywhere.
As a side note, with almost 1200 reputation with Javat, being a...legendary Instellar Star Hero or something (also noted that Rank 18 seems to be the cap with promotions) I've noticed that the spice hall is *really* full. I can crew 35 people in my Vae Victus, and when I stop into the spice hall, there's 80-100 people looking to be recruited, so the worst exploration disaster can be averted quite easily.
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Post by slayernz on Mar 25, 2011 0:06:10 GMT -5
Ya know ... it's kinda like using a cheat code to get further in a game. Sure you get to get whopping big scores and dominate the universe, but then the excitement of the game gets lost and you get bored pretty quick.
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Post by gandalf on Mar 25, 2011 3:20:59 GMT -5
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Post by MTKnife on Mar 25, 2011 4:08:08 GMT -5
The most amusing thing about that statement is that Microsoft and its evangelists were making it about memory managers back as far as Windows 95 (which clearly had memory leak issues). In theory, you're right: Android manages memory and kills apps that are no longer needed. It doesn't do this perfectly, however (I somehow have it kill an app I was keeping open in the background, so that it can free up memory), and there are a few apps out there that are badly programmed and don't die properly. I've personally found that Google Maps, even as a background process, will eat battery power like there's no tomorrow. All that being said, task killers don't work so well from Froyo forwards, since the OS now won't allow one app to force-stop a second one, only to kill the surface process (which leaves subsidiary processes running). You have to go into the Application Management pages to kill something now, though there are apps that shortcut this for you. |
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 25, 2011 11:21:00 GMT -5
Have you tried doing the same thing without killing tasks?
Javat Mining Colony is a pretty easy place to cash in in the early game for any explorer captain. I started there for my Dark Nemesis run on Crazy and put in about $400K in a short time.
I also use Advanced Task Killer, but if it's resetting my STRPG data, I'm going to have to take ST off the list of apps to kill. I run it less for battery life and more because I don't want the AT&T bloatware running. If I want a damn hot spot, I'll look for one.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 25, 2011 15:48:45 GMT -5
oldalchemist -- I won't go into specifics but I try very (VERRRY) hard to follow the Android, Linux and Java rules to the letter. I do not think you will find ST RPG doing anything untoward or battery consumptive while it is not in the foreground. I will warn players that things like Advanced Task Killer and the process memory clearing technique in the OP both reduce the XP earned by the Captain dramatically and can be very turn heavy. By not doing "normal" ST RPG activities during the first 1000 turns increases the difficulty of later turns dramatically. If your playing on a high difficulty level you can find yourself in a bad situation quickly. In the low-1000s the XP earning equation changes from "early game" to "mid game" and the difficulty clock starts to advance at an increased rate.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 25, 2011 15:52:42 GMT -5
My work with test phones that has ATK installed is never going to be about "hardening ST RPG" against "exploits" like normal OS level functions and bizarre user choices (like automatically killing the processes of games they are playing.)
I work very hard to make sure that even if ATK kills the process while the ship is moving that the game doesn't crash or leave the music playing. I do not worry about keeping all the Captain's bonus points (they are all discarded with the other values) or about trying to keep it from refreshing temporary richness.
I stop ATK from running on ST RPG on the devices I have ATK on (early Android OS) because I know it makes the game harder and less dynamic -- even throwing out the vector log flattens out space encounters PERMANENTLY for the Captain.
Do what you will with your phone, but do not expect the game to work the same way as people who are following (like I do) the rules of Android.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 25, 2011 16:30:37 GMT -5
Even having ATK running will damage ST RPG gameplay? That's good to know. I have ATK running but I have never had to use it vs ST RPG. I feel kind of nervous turning ATK off though, because it is reassuring to have around for other, less well behaved apps.
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Post by mail2345 on Mar 25, 2011 17:44:28 GMT -5
Uncheck ST, then long press-ignore.
That should stop it from killing.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 25, 2011 18:05:46 GMT -5
Sorry no, I did not intend to say running ATK hurt ST RPG. I did not mean to sound alarmist. Run it if you want, task kill ST RPG if it makes you feel better -- you might not even notice any differences.
ST RPG doesn't have any permissions to see other processes and ATK is no different than any other process slaughtering application to it. ST RPG does not take any steps to "fight" with these applications and if they destroy it's memory structures, then they are destroyed.
I was trying to say that ATK or another application that sweeps away ST RPG's memory and cache objects will have negative impacts on the game's engine. It is design to be robust enough to remain essentially unchanged, but you might not get the same points or bonuses that another player with intact processes had.
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Post by havocme on Mar 26, 2011 10:26:33 GMT -5
I forced close ST sometimes if I get killed it combat, if I like my captain enough. 50/50 on reload that the captain will.still be alive.  |
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 26, 2011 12:24:57 GMT -5
COMBAT process killing will all depend on what state the game is in when the kill request comes in.
This is one of the reasons a one-person multiplayer game development effort might be impossible -- you need someone who is really excited about fighting with players and there phones over security and data control. That just isn't me =)
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Post by havocme on Mar 26, 2011 13:40:10 GMT -5
For me, I hit the home, apps, fc when I see the hull hit 0. I tend to have the best luck then. But I also wouldn't use multi if it was available, and definitely wouldn't fc a fight with a human.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 26, 2011 13:57:42 GMT -5
that's a bug I could fix if we wanted to -- I can make death instant.
It just seems like this allows skipping the difficulty setting. i dunno, maybe it isn't worth messing with. maybe everyone does that and they will all be sad if it breaks
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Post by havocme on Mar 26, 2011 14:53:25 GMT -5
Up to you, I just wish I could escape aliens when I cross them, that's about the only time I do that.  |
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