Missile Agility... negative values allowed?... !!!

[jseah (OP)]

EDIT: version 5.20

I had a weird idea.  Since missiles have a base agility of 10, I was trying to get it to trade off agility for more stuff on board.  

Little did I know that it would accept negative values.  
Theoretically, I could build a missile that had a second stage bigger than itself but it would cost negative RP to research and I don't really want to know what happens if I try to research that.  

Missile Size: 2.9 MSP  (0.145 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: -141
Speed: 19000 km/s    Endurance: 87 minutes   Range: 99.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.0166
Second Stage: Size 3 Decoy Missile x3
Second Stage Separation Range: 150,000 km
Overall Endurance: 2 hours   Overall Range: 109.1m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s -2679%   3k km/s -846%   5k km/s -535.8%   10k km/s -267.9%
Materials Required:    33.75x Tritanium   36x Uridium   Fuel x2000

Development Cost for Project: 2RP

=X

Sure, it's not going to hit anything, but then, who cares if it's a decoy missile?
Size 3 decoy missile that shoots 3 other size 3 decoy missiles... (normal ones) that each separate into a 2.4 decoy, which has a 1.7 decoy in it then a 1 decoy in that.  

I'm going to fire up a new game and try it out with SM mode.  

[jseah (OP)]

I've played around a bit with missiles and drones. 

Most of the fields aren't even sanity checked. 

ECM: -ve doesn't do anything to your missile but lower RP cost, missile cost and size
Sensors: see ECM
Active sensor resolution: -ve gives you -ve resolution (what does THAT do?) and a -ve sensor range...

Warheads... armour... all possible. 
What the heck is a negative warhead anyway?  -4 damage???

[jseah (OP)]

Missiles: http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/MissileDesign.jpg

I went around bits of aurora and inputted insane numbers into various fields to test. 

You can build -ve stuff.  Whatever that does. 
You can set % output used... to -ve.  Which allows you to "rush" more than one project (projects can't exceed 100% each, but a -200% project will let you have 3 100% projects)
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/negativeFactories.jpg

-ve civilian contracts.  -ve terraform maximum pressure (seems to ignore it and keep producing?  SM set makes gas disappear)
-ve research labs???  (Which allow me to assign more labs than I have)
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/negativelabs.jpg

SM mode can input -ve numbers into warp point distance on the F9 screen. 
-ve mineral amounts just deletes all minerals on a planet. 
-ve player time increment doesn't seem to do anything.  (seems to be 0)

[sloanjh]

There are several previous posts which point out that these sort of exploits exist, and that taking advantage of them is equivalent to cheating at solitaire.  IIRC, a recent one dealt with this very subject.  Aurora is written primarily for Steve's personal use; the fact that he shares it with us is a secondary objective.  That means he sometimes isn't as careful protecting against invalid user input as he might be if this were a commercial package.  You should assume one of the rules of the game is "don't use exploits that are actually coding errors or features".

John

PS - If you're wondering if something is such an exploit, it's probably best to post a question in The Academy, rather than Mechanics.  Mechanics is the place that Steve tends to announce major new functionality, and it's helpful not to have a lot of small additional threads diluting his posts.

[jseah (OP)]

Ah I see.  No worries then!  Of course, I wouldn't use these things.  (perhaps if I could acheive some style differences beyond what the engine allows.  Eg. microrockets)

A nice glimpse into the formulae going on in the background though.  Two negatives make a positive for example.  Negative engines and agility results in ridiculous to hit numbers.  (but you still won't hit since the missiles travel backwards)
I like figuring these things out.  It's almost like another game to me. 

Now, to figure out why when I put in negative missiles in the second stage, does adding stuff reduce the cost instead of increasing it. 

[Jetman123]

Oh god. -4 damage?

REPAIR MISSILES

Actually, that's an awesome idea. A swarm of repair bots you can shoot to another ship on a pod that swarm over the hull.