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On the victory stats pages after finishing a game there are some stats which seem to be likely caused by cheats:

+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+
|            Stat             |  You  |   World   |
+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Overall Score               | 11701 | 123132.66 |
| Average Damage per Shot     | 5.6   | 16.11     |
| Scientists                  | 104   | 108215.93 |
| Engineers                   | 138   | 113203.35 |
| Total Credits Earned        | 19933 | 228587.44 |
| Credits Spent               | 17996 | 116097.38 |
| Grey Market Sales           | 4169  | 113806.89 |
| Days Until Second Satellite | 42    | 7.98      |
+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+

I don't think any of those are reasonable differences without involving cheating, but I'd be happy to be corrected. More interestingly, some stats are not entirely unreasonable:

+-----------------------------+-----+-------+
|            Stat             | You | World |
+-----------------------------+-----+-------+
| Average Damage per Shot     | 5.6 | 16.11 |
| Days Until Second Satellite | 42  | 7.98  |
+-----------------------------+-----+-------+

Basically every other world stat seemed to be reasonably close to my own result, so I'm wondering if these two could be actual big differences between my own and an average playthrough? Short of save-scumming with Damage Roulette or heroes an average damage of >16 seems very high but not ludicrous. And is it even possible to build a satellite within the first eight days without a ludicrous amount of engineers?

Granted, a script kiddie could probably sabotage the stats easily, using some elementary math to make every number 31337 or something. However, the majority of the stats were similar enough to my result that it seems likely they haven't been actively sabotaged, but instead probably reflects actual values from real playthroughs (cheats or no cheats). That makes the stats in the previous paragraph interesting: Are they skewed because of cheaters, or did I miss something fundamental about gameplay?

Running with the Elite Soldier Pack and Slingshot DLCs in Steam on Linux.

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  • 3
    Related
    – Frank
    Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 23:01
  • 3
    Some of this is quite plausible if, for example, you're playing with the Long War mod. Scientists/engineers is not, though. Odds are there's quite a few illegitimate stats in there. Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 23:56
  • 2
    I immediately assumed all those stats were bogus the first time I saw them. I don't have sufficient evidence or research to post a proper answer, though. On which platform did you see these numbers?
    – DCShannon
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 2:26
  • 1
    A comment in the related question has a good point. All it takes is for someone to post a ridiculously messed up number to skew the averages. I assume the limit is 2^32-1, but if the limit is 2^64-1 or some other arbitrarily large number, one hacked game will totally kill the averages. Someone can probably post a negative score for the "days before satellite" and just basically mess up the world stats.
    – Nelson
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 8:48
  • @Nelson Good point; updated.
    – l0b0
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 12:36

1 Answer 1

2

Days before satellite might actually be achievable legitimately. On easy, and I think, normal difficulty, you start with a 2nd satellite. If it's just counting when you get your second sat in the air, then that's all you need. If the lower diff vs higher diff skew is high enough that one seems possible. Especially if it only counts stats from finished games, as Classic and Impossible are more likely to not be submitted.

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