Known bugs/cheats and how to avoid them?

[kanianbe]

Hiya all!

The other day while playing railroads, I was accused of cheating. I supposedly used something called the "pass-mail" bug/cheat. The person who accused me called me an idiot and did not want to say what I'd done wrong or what I supposedly should've done to make it happen.

So my question is, to avoid similar accusations in the future; bugs considered cheats, what are they, and how do I avoid them? Any forum thread on this I've yet to stumble upon? This particular one had to do with build order?

Thanks in advance!

[Star Ranger4]

Nope, whoever that was is full of it. They're just upset cause you used your head and got yourself a real moneymaking line going hauling passengers and mail back and forth between two close cities.

Its niether a cheat, nor a bug. its your opponent looking for something to whine about.

[darthdroid]

Hi,

You should know me, and I'm betting I know you
(what's your online name??)

There are only 3 cheats in the game.

1/ Trainer program. The only known person to successfully use one online is "MagicHero-GODtrain". And he turns it on whenever he's losing. If you've been around, you've played him and noticed this. The irony here is, he's actually a pretty good player and doesn't need to cheat, but does, always does. This is the most disgusting, despicable cheat there is and "magic" (who also uses fake names to force his way in and cheat the players who are on to him) is the lowest of the low in SMR.
For the record, Magic also admitted and threatened to use it on me one time (then did), but all it takes is playing a few games with him and watching to realize what's happening.

2/ Excessive station moving. The increasingly accepted rule is that your station (the building itself) must touch the green circle that surrounds a city. If outside (not touching) the green circle, then you are "cheating".

3/ The major online glitch cheat. This one I won't explain as the fewer that know about it, the better (widespread knowledge of this one would wreck the game). It essentially allows a train to make as much as 10 million or 15 million or more, and that train can do so in less than a minute. If you see a train that makes more than 5 million (when you click on it, the yearly profit number) this train is a cheat. Note that #1 and #3 look a lot alike on financials, but #1 is actually superior (in cheat ability) to #3.

Those are the rules that the advanced players play by, and the most logical uniform set of "cheats" or "unallowed behaviors" if you will. And with this in mind, I would say it is likely you were NOT cheating, unless.... one of your stations was outside the city


But the noobs think everything that they don't know how to do is cheating, so get used to it.

[darthdroid]

Wormhole and the Ghost Train
Possibly a 4th cheat.

I would also say there is a glitch that is not "cheating" per se, but it certainly wrecks the game. That is, sometimes, especially for those of us who lay very efficient track. A 2nd station will somehow plant where the first station was (ie the 2nd city's station plants at 1st city with 1st city's station) and as a result, the train doesn't use the whole track, it hangs out at the 1st city's station and creates a lot of quick cash. This one I don't believe can be done intentionally, if it can, I haven't figured out what exactly causes it to occur. If there is a behavior that causes it, then I guess it could be a 4th cheat.

Also, to clarify as I'm sure this is confusing to 99%. The 2nd station LOOKS like it planted at the other city... but it didn't. This is verifiable when you try to delete the station. You can delete all the tracks in front of it and it still remains, a station with no track. It only disappears when you delete the 1st city's station... verifying that it mirrored that station, or planted on top of it somehow... 2 stations in the same time and place.... a SMR wormhole if you will lol

But as of now, I have only seen it occur randomly and cannot say I have any idea why it happens. Usually by the time you catch it, it may be too late. So this one again is not a cheat, UNLESS the person who owns this ghost train leaves it there, doesn't mention it and takes advantage of this random glitch. I always say "My train glitched, we need to restart" then delete the train and leave to lobby. That is the proper thing to do when it happens as the game is ruined when it does.

[darthdroid]

Based on these 3 or 4 rules, I would argue it is difficult to actually "cheat" in SMR. You really have to know a lot about the game to cheat, but it does occur. However, I would say that 75% of the cheating that occurs in this game is Magichero.

The other 2 or 3 cheats are pretty uncommon. The next most common would be violations of station moving which I see maybe one of every 40-50 games.

#3 and #4 are INCREDIBLY RARE. #3 I almost never see, know why? Because I've been wise to not tell people how to do it which would have wrecked the game by now. Only a handful of players know how this one works and if they care about the game, they'll continue to keep their mouths shut.
We already have magichero wrecking 1 out of every 20 games, we don't need more bozos wrecking the game with the glitch cheat. #4 probably only happens to maybe 3 of us that I know of, but I imagine that number will increase, as people learn how to build tracks from listening to veterans or just watching veterans.

[Burlington_Northern_3140]

I found this one hour ago. I saw he bought up stocks very easily in the early part of the game. I looked at the amount of trains and saw about three with a total of $1,000,000s in profit in the first 5 minutes compared too my profitable trains with a much lower profit. I was a bit cofused at how he made profit with his long routes and sweeping curves. I looked around and this one has a $5,000,000 profit. Its the station cheat, and he bought me up before I could get more pics.