Is Modding Cheating?

A question about achievements.

from Sins Forums

Okay, this may sound like a stupid question. Is it considered cheating to mod the game in a way that makes it simple to get achievements (such as a super-powerful and super-fast frigate for one faction, no other cpu is that faction, and you fight 4 hard to get the "Actually HAL..." achievement)? This seems like it, but the game appears to enable it...

On another note, is there any reason besides bragging rights to get the achievements? If so, what is it?

15,733 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Okay.. so?

You can edit the achievements file in your game folder to unlock them all without even playing the game.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
There's no point in getting the achievements aside from personal satisfaction; since like Innociv said, it;s so easy to edit bragging is pointless
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
All right then. That makes sense. However, I plan on eventually recoding the game, sorta like RockPatch for RA2YR as soon as I have the knowhow and time. THEN I will have it set that these don't work. And I will boost the AI. It seems really strange, though, that Stardock left them in if there is such a simple way to get achievements.

Another question to anyone who knows: Why is a green star so special (other than the fact they aren't often seen in real life)? It is the one excluded from the "random star minus one type" option, but as far as I can tell there are no differences between it and the other stars. Any thoughts?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
It's so people can make more realistic maps, I suppose.

However, I plan on eventually recoding the game
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i wouldn't admit you're going to reverse-engineer the .exe on the official forums dude
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the big deal about recoding the .exe as opposed to modding any other part of the game? As long as you;re not selling it is it really much different?

As far as the green star is concerned, I haven;t seen any difference, so I;d guess that it's just an over sight that it wasn't included.

As far as the achievements go, it'd be neat if they were linked to your online profile and it updated every time you connected to check for patches and what not. (and they only would unlock online if you earned them without any mods active.) Then beating 4 hard AI's or any of the others would really be worth bragging about.

(then again since I haven;t played an unmodded game since sins plus and a few other mods have found their way onto my pc I suppose it wouldn't be as cool after all)
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the big deal about recoding the .exe
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It's 1. a violation of the EULA, 2. a route to piracy (via cracks), 3. just frowned upon in general in the modding scene.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Another question to anyone who knows: Why is a green star so special (other than the fact they aren't often seen in real life)? It is the one excluded from the "random star minus one type" option, but as far as I can tell there are no differences between it and the other stars. Any thoughts?
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I believe it is because the stars allow your ships to regain anti-matter more quickly so my thought is that the green star has higher levels of anti-matter regeneration then the others. ;) 
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
They all use the same ability.