MoO1: When does the AI start the 32000+ ship cheat?

[Minor Annoyance]

Does anyone know if there is a certain trigger for when the AI starts to cheat and give itself 32000+ ship in a stack? I really hate that because then the only way to win is by having medium ships with plasma torpedoes and shooting the colonies out from under them. Although maybe that cheat exists because of the overpowered plasma torps? I would have preferred they just fix that problem instead.
It's a shame no one ever found out how to mod the game (not including save game editors). It seems like it would be simpler than hacking MoO2, but I guess because more people played that there were more people trying to hack the game, and there just wasn't anyone interested enough in hacking MoO1 to do it.

 

[vmxa]

It is not so much a cheat, it was not put in on purpose, as it is a bug. I read some place how it happens. I think Sargon describe the cause. It is probably some subtract not done correctly or an add of 1 causing the number to go negative.

There are two means of fixing it and of course you can kill the stacks, if you have the ships to do it. I killed them once and they had 3 or 4 stack of 32k and 64k large and huge. I attacked and shot down as many as I could with High Focus and retreated.

That only worked, because they were not at one of my planets.

Anyway the two ways are to use a hex editor and know where to look or use a program to do it. I have a rexx app, can't remember if it was ever tested. There is a save game layout around that can be used with a Hex editor and I have used that method.

You just do not run across the bug that much.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Hmm. I has always assumed it was an intentional cheat because it seemed to show up in the late game only. Also it's just occurred to me that although it seems to happen frequently, it's probably just that the 32000 ship fleet never gets destroyed so I see it everywhere. I guess I'll have to look for one of those save game editors, and just delete the stack when I see it.

 

[Zed-F]

There are ways of getting rid of big stacks like that relatively painlessly without resorting to exploits (e.g. unending stasis field exploit) or hex editors, but they rely on specific specials like pulsars, ion projectors, and/or black hole generators.

 

[vmxa]

It is a bug and the AI did not actually make the ships, I do not see it as an exploit to edit that fleet down to a reasonable size. Mind you that I have only seen it a few time in all these years, so it is not really a factor.

Like you say, you can kill them over time, but I doubt a black will do the job. It may, if you have a very large stack of ships with black hole. Otherwise your ships will be lost. I do not make stasis or pulsars or projectors, so not sure about them.

Of course you have to have black hole tech to use them, but my limited use of them they are not all that reliable. I have had turns where they did little damage to ships or bases. One turn smack, next fizz. That is fine on bases, not so good on several stacks of 32k or 64k large and huge.

 

[sargon0]

Fixing the 32000+ ships bug can be done by a script described here. This will not reveal any spoiler info like using a hex editor although the offsets used are also described.

 

[OlorinStormcrow]

I've seen the huge stacks a few times, but it was usually with very low tech ships (once the Alkari had 3 stacks of small and mediums, but armed with lasers or gatlings). In those cases, killing them off was not difficult because I could simply install shields strong enough to negate all damage.

For fighters, 4 shots of ion stream is all it takes. To take down larger ships, either black hole generators en masse or ion streams combined with lots of beam weapons will eventually do the trick.

If I ever had to face a stack of large or huge ships that actually had high-tech weapons, I'd probably find it easier to just eradicate all their planets instead of trying to take down the ships.

 

[vmxa]

You can see them on any size impossible game. It does not happen ever game, but it is not super rare.

 

[Andii]

I can't believe I just found this forum, which is also part of the civ fanatics universe where I already have an account. This rocks and so do you guys!

There are ways of getting rid of big stacks like that relatively painlessly without resorting to exploits (e.g. unending stasis field exploit) or hex editors, but they rely on specific specials like pulsars, ion projectors, and/or black hole generators.

One time I literally had 6 identical ship designs, all with subspace teleporters and black hole generators. They would warp in, nuke with the black hole, and then get busted up. It worked like a charm and absolutely decimated the enemy fleets in no time.

One thing I would like to point out, the ship stacking that is done like this.... it just doesn't seem to matter. The AI seems to be so horrible at waging war they usually just transfer their whole fleet around inside their empire while you clear their planet's orbiting fleets and take them over with waves of ground troops.

Another thing that works is simply to blow away the border colonies with bombs, creating a demiliterized zone. If you ever DO get attacked by this mega huge death fleet, chances are they sent it pretty far outside their range and if you destroy their colonies providing the range to the fleet, it gets scrapped.

The AI will not even send me 32000 fleets of LARGE ships to planets having 60+ missile bases. At that point, the comp is too scared to do anything ever. I feel like once you get high production going and can pop out 60-100 missile bases, you are almost invulnerable. They will never attack, and if they do, they will retreat right away. For me the challenge of the game ends once I have sufficient missile bases. Its all cleanup after that.