Does the game make any attempt to filter out stats from users with locally modified files? If I mod in a bunch of imbalanced components and then play a bunch of challenges posted online, will that affect those challenges’ stats? The same question could be posed for the survival mode leaderboard.
Im sure I read somewhere that when accepting a challenge your copy of GSB uses your own local data files and checks for legality of setups before running, so it’s basically not possible to cheat in a challenge unless you’re challenging yourself.
It’s totally possible to cheat on challenges and there aren’t any plans to implement anti-hacking systems as it would eat into time otherwise spent on balancing and creating more content. Maybe after full release there might be some kind of hash check on the files but even then you can alter the data in memory just before transmitting to the server. Other than individually checking every fleet used to attempt a challenge on the server there’s not much you can do as you inherently have to trust the user side in this sort of game. The only feasible option would be to randomly check the top 10 scores on survival for cheaters and then ban them.
why fiddle with memory? just tell the server you won.
if anyone really does cheat, and is found out … poof. there goes their online registration, patches, ability to play anyone, any shred of reputation. that’s the lovely thing about tying games to a registration code for all the community stuff…
of course, this also means that if someone posts an unbelievable score (“you can’t have scored that! it’s 10 times what i can do”), a witchhunt atmosphere can develop until they prove their innocence - which i find somewhat distasteful.
Would be nice to have some sort of check in the UI, to stop people with modded games accidentally playing Survival or something and forgetting they had some mods.
or just play the game without posting your score, then everyone’s happy 