/tg/Station 13

This thread is overdue for like a month but here goes.

What counts as bug abuse? I ask myself this because currently there is some pretty bad bugs. The two worst ones i can renember are both in engineering.

If someone uses RPEDs to build up infinite radiation, it is an exploit but does it count as bug abuse? Currently the only verdict i have is from Shaps, who says that since admins didnt PR a fix, it is not bug abuse. But then, if say, something that completely breaks the game is inherent to BYOND, would that mean that it is more of a feature?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter.

if you use the bug/exploit and is beneficial to the station, or totally harmless, you could use it

if you use the bug/exploit and is only beneficial to you and you use it to murderbone you'll have a bad time

There is already pre-existing policy on this topic.

Here's some precedent from the headmin Armhulenn quoting Optimumtact on the previous bug abuse policy discussion "Bug abuse - is it ok and how much?"



Unless the current headmin team feels like changing this policy. There's your answer.

Alright so, putting BRPEDs with stock parts into the SM is bwoinkable.

Critawakets wrote:Alright so, putting BRPEDs with stock parts into the SM is bwoinkable.

Sadly no, lol. You should report it but nobody will get in trouble.

There was a more serious incident of bug abuse with uh... The "Crabpocalypse".



So, Essentially, a resource duplication bug with departmental lathes was discovered, and abused to hell, resulting in the station aquiring infinite money. Cargo eventually established a communist regime, the captain kept OCCASIOnALLY sending down crab drop pods, and the Space IRS was on our ass.

As soon as someone said "The Taxman Cometh" , The captain decided to fucking CARPETBOMB CARGO WITH CRAB DROP PODS MULTIPLE TIMES OVER, LAGGING THE SERVER TO SHIT.

I'm not sure if this is too funny to be bannable or too bannable to be funny.

Either way, bug abuse can NUKE rounds occasionally, so... it's an issue.

I don't consider it an exploit if it's been around for months and no code solution has been attempted

I've asked for clarification on the radiation behavior from maintainers in discord. Oranges replied that the coderbase is aware of it, does not consider it exploitative, but someone has been assigned to work on the issue

Is ordering 32 crates of military surplus gear via cargo using funds you got by abusing a resource duplication bug considered exploiting, when you do it for basically no reason.

Will you do it literally every single round?

Stop

Also we don't "assign" people to work on things, but I bugged ninja to fix radiation

are you using this to griff? ban
are you using this to give yourself a serious advantage? warn
are you using this to make something funny and innocent? secret rule

Figuring this issue out is a 5 step process:

Step 1: What counts as a bug vs unbalanced feature

Step 2: What counts as abuse

Step 3: Start over from scratch because your definitions are still too broad/narrow.

Step 4: ...

Step 5: Profit!

step 4 is argue the point over 300 million years on forums and githubs worldwide

A codified rule will encourage our ever so lovely rules lawyers to toe the line.

ThanatosRa wrote:A codified rule will encourage our ever so lovely rules lawyers to toe the line.

Uncodified rules force you to play admin roulette with subjective rulings, rather than hard and fast rules that everyone can easily understand and enforce objectively.

IMO the rule should be that maintainers are required to comment on bug reports to decide whether they're exploits or not. Admins can rule based on that. Right now we have grey areas where major bugs exist without fixes for over a year, but are clearly not considered important enough to work on. Nobody should be banned for doing something that the coders don't care to mention.

Should we have specific rulings related to certain extreme sorts of bugs being used? Such as ones which result in a round crashing being done intentionally, or mass duplication in terms of items leading to a crash related to yield, or the bug directly impacting the round in an extreme which ruins the day for multiple people? SPECIFICALLY stated?

Item duplication bugs should result in admins keeping watch over the station like it's goddamned 1984, especially when it comes to cargo. Give them an item duplication bug and they take an excuse to start a fucking communist revolution. I have more to say, but I can't think of how to put down those thoughts as text efficiently right now.

Reyn wrote:Should we have specific rulings related to certain extreme sorts of bugs being used? Such as ones which result in a round crashing being done intentionally, or mass duplication in terms of items leading to a crash related to yield, or the bug directly impacting the round in an extreme which ruins the day for multiple people? SPECIFICALLY stated?

Item duplication bugs should result in admins keeping watch over the station like it's goddamned 1984, especially when it comes to cargo. Give them an item duplication bug and they take an excuse to start a fucking communist revolution. I have more to say, but I can't think of how to put down those thoughts as text efficiently right now.

Every time I've found a wild bug I've checked git and it was uploaded ages ago. Usually the worst of the worst (which happen to be new, and not ignored) will get posted to git right after the round. We can reliably ask coders to make these determinations based on what they consider worth fixing.

If the abuse is going to be a major player of the round (see Jarek's TC dupe glitch) then the onus is on you, the user of the bug, to ask an admin prior to using it. Whether or not I, maintainer, call it a "wild" bug/not shouldn't have much bearing on whether or not the admin at the time is willing to let you use it to create a unique situation within the round. Sometimes bugs can be funny!

If you aren't going to report an interaction out of fear it might get widely used or whatever the reason, then you take the risk of being assumed that you're abusing said interaction and not reporting it.

Coders can just tell you if an interaction is a bug/feature (and we can give our 2 cents on the matter on how it affects the game), but it's ultimately up to the administration to determine whether or not it's fair game to use until fixed.

Admins tell you not to do something that's permissible by the current mechanics, Coders make it so you can't do something via changing the mechanics.

My question is: If you're not going to fix it, then isn't it a feature?

The most basic ruling on whether something should or shouldn't be allowed ingame is whether or not it's going to be patched.

Everything is a "feature" up until it gets changed/patched, which is why I said the determination of whether or not you're allowed to use an interaction is on administration side (which is why we're here and not in the coding subforum).

For example, the nuke op ship had a well known issue of being gameable for years. It was on admins (not coders) to tell players they can't purposefully look for the ship even though there were no tangible plans up until recently that it would be changed.

As a maintainer, I can tell you if something SHOULD be patched, and I can tell you if I personally am planning on patching it. Since I talk to a lot of people who also contribute, I can sometimes tell you if someone else is currently working on it/planning to. Every now and then I can tell you how to fix it too. That's it though.

I cannot say unless i'm personally handling it that an issue will be fixed within a certain timeframe. Even then, I cannot say that the PR will be finalized since it requires another person (be it the author or the person reviewing) to work together prior to merge so that the code adheres to the standards.

deedubya wrote:

ThanatosRa wrote:A codified rule will encourage our ever so lovely rules lawyers to toe the line.

Uncodified rules force you to play admin roulette with subjective rulings, rather than hard and fast rules that everyone can easily understand and enforce objectively.

don't play roulette then?

you could just press f1 and ask if this sus interaction is permissible by the current admins online. If no one responds, assume it isn't.

oranges wrote:

deedubya wrote:

ThanatosRa wrote:A codified rule will encourage our ever so lovely rules lawyers to toe the line.

Uncodified rules force you to play admin roulette with subjective rulings, rather than hard and fast rules that everyone can easily understand and enforce objectively.

don't play roulette then?

You're right, we should just all quit playing ss13 because the rules aren't codified properly. What a novel idea.

deedubya wrote:

oranges wrote:

deedubya wrote:

ThanatosRa wrote:A codified rule will encourage our ever so lovely rules lawyers to toe the line.

Uncodified rules force you to play admin roulette with subjective rulings, rather than hard and fast rules that everyone can easily understand and enforce objectively.

don't play roulette then?

You're right, we should just all quit playing ss13 because the rules aren't codified properly. What a novel idea.

yes, I think you should quit deedubs, because you're actually mentally incapable of processing the fact most people know how to act like a good person

I don't see how something being a bug vs an intended mechanic changes the math of allowing or banning that activity. Like the warden randomly killing people with a gun is obviously not abusing a bug, but it's banned anyway. Therefore if you abuse a bug to kill people, you're gonna get banned because killing people FNR is not allowed. Likewise if you abuse a bug to spawn a cookie in everyone's hand, you're probably not going to get banned because giving people cookies is perfectly acceptable.

Now of course there's some cases where the bug abuse is itself bannable, eg cheating/unfair advantage situations, but sorting that out tends to be extremely obviously cheating and/or top priority to fix.

it's bug abuse when someone you(the reader) dont like does it