Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 537 - 520: Tanking Attack

Chapter 537: Chapter 520: Tanking Attack

"Troublesome!"

"Let’s think it over. We should thoroughly plan this."

"Anyone want to join in? I’ll check my availability."

Gan Di, after much consideration, eventually decided to give up temporarily.

Creating mods wasn’t too difficult for him, but hastily making them without considering anything could easily backfire.

Better to think it through.

Maybe playing the game a bit more could spark some new inspiration?

After all, up until now, while everyone had been seriously studying it, they hadn’t completely grasped the intricate mechanics of the "Star Plan" game.

Of course, one could also say Gan Di was just feeling lazy. He didn’t fancy the hard work of modding for the moment and just wanted to play a game for fun.

His livestream viewers responded energetically.

"Coming up. I’m logging in!"

But when Gan Di actually got matched with a player, he found out he wasn’t connected with someone from his livestream.

He typed, "Buddies?"

But the other party just replied with a question mark.

That surprised Gan Di, as he and his viewers had queued at almost the same time. It was quite absurd they didn’t get into the same match.

But since it was a stranger, it must be fate.

Gan Di: "No worries, let’s play."

The stranger named "Human Clarity" had an ID that was quite ripe for ridicule.

However, Gan Di didn’t pay it much attention. The system automatically assigned him the role of "Governor," so he naturally clicked [Ready].

However, the other player wasn’t preparing to start.

Human Clarity: "Can I try playing as the Governor?"

Gan Di wasn’t too keen on that, "Not this time. I was looking forward to playing Governor. Maybe next game?"

Human Clarity: "But I want to play as the Governor now. Let me, please."

Gan Di felt that something was off but couldn’t quite pinpoint what. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Alright."

They swapped roles, and the game started smoothly.

Gan Di didn’t think much of it. He wanted to continue researching the game mechanics; whether he played as the Governor or the leader, there were things to do.

Playing as the leader, he couldn’t enact specific development plans but could study various governmental technology trees more effectively, perhaps discovering some hidden mechanisms.

So Gan Di played as usual, set development goals, and then opened the technology tree interface, deeply contemplating.

But after two minutes, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Hey?"

Upon closer inspection, Gan Di noticed that nothing had actually changed on the surface of the Comet.

Instead, on the public chat, Human Clarity typed two words,

"Bye-bye."

Gan Di was shocked. Bye-bye, my ass!

Why just bye-bye?

He sent a few question marks, but the other player completely stopped responding.

Yet frustratingly, Human Clarity’s account was still online, not flagged as offline. Occasionally, he would even perform minor actions like moving the Governor a few steps, manually extracting some resources, or dragging a conveyor belt for an inch at the cheapest rate.

Gan Di was flabbergasted, "What the hell is this strategy?"

It had to be said, "Star Plan" players always managed to astound.

Such conduct had hit a new low.

Gan Di marked some points on the map and sent a few more question marks in the public chat before finally confirming that the other player had indeed gone idle.

This was utterly outrageous!

Clearly, the gaming environment of "Star Plan" had been deteriorating rapidly these past days.

A group of players had started retaliating against society.

Like the Mouth King type, who kept getting matched with foes and then killed Governors or spammed constructions and insults on the map—this was one way to get back at society.

But this method had a drawback: it was exhausting for them too.

They had to do everything manually.

Even just constantly typing insults was tiring.

And then there were those whose method of societal retaliation was even simpler and more infuriating.

Like what was happening now.

After getting into the game, they intentionally chose the Governor and then began to idle using scripts.

The scripts would just periodically move the mouse and perform the most basic actions, so they weren’t immediately detected and kicked offline.

But this left the other player in a tight spot.

Because the game required cooperation between two players, and a single player didn’t have the power to kick someone out.

Look at this game; Gan Di couldn’t kick Human Clarity out and replace him, nor could he take over the Governor’s duties.

Even if he centralized power through the technology tree and eliminated the Governor’s role, the system would just appoint a new Governor still played by Human Clarity.

In other words, still not doing anything.

It had to be said, this was indeed the simplest and most efficient method found by players wanting to retaliate against society.

"Why not play as the leader?"

"Because if the leader goes AFK, Gan Di can still manage playing the executive, and actually get something out of it.

"Only by playing the governor can you maximally ruin another player’s game experience.

"And he himself doesn’t have to do anything, just hang up the game and run a simple script.

"Even Gan Di is speechless: ’We’re not buddies!

’"Why on earth would you do something that harms others without benefiting yourself?

’"Besides, we have no grudges against each other; this is really just a random attack!’"

"If it were like Mouth King, who because of a trivial personal grudge would turn online battles into a fight to the death, though it seems kind of insane, it can at least be somewhat understood.

"But like this guy, without any reason and just for the sake of revenge on a passerby, that’s also quite rare."

"Now Gan Di was feeling awkward.

"Even though the governor was slacking off, the game couldn’t really be ended quickly.

"In the early stage of the game, there’s a period of stability to accommodate beginners, so it doesn’t just collapse instantly.

"But even as the leader, Gan Di couldn’t really do much. Killing the governor and setting up a monument, how would that help? It would just be a waste of his time.

"Or he could choose to log off and switch accounts."

"But Gan Di didn’t have any other accounts ready, which was quite troublesome."

"...Let’s just wait and see."

"Gan Di silently sped up the in-game time.

"Of course, the leader also had the authority to adjust the game’s time, although this power was lower than that of the governor.

"But with the governor away, he could adjust it freely now.

"However, even dialing it to the maximum speed, it would still take over ten minutes to invoke a natural disaster that would wipe out all the silicon-based dwarfs.

"Gan Di thought if he borrowed an account from a friend or a fan, messing around would also take about the same time, which wouldn’t save him any trouble.

"Better just to hang in there and chat with viewers.

"The viewers also denounced such behavior and criticized Nitiandang for its thoughtless game mechanics.

"Logically, such a simple matchmaking system should be a function that even a newbie planner could have managed to execute well, right?

"But Nitiandang would always manage to make such a mess out of these simple things, which is pretty frustrating."

"Oh well, sometimes you just come across some idiots.

"Better keep studying these technology trees."

"Gan Di started allocating technology points.

"When the governor slacks off, public support drops quickly, and at this time the technologies related to the political system that the leader points out can be developed very quickly without requiring many resources.

"Eventually, they become completely free.

"This is a balance mechanism inherent to the game itself, but also reflects social realities.

"When the public is very satisfied with the current system, introducing a new system will face strong resistance and require a lot of resources;

"Conversely, when the public is extremely dissatisfied with the current system, pushing a new system will face essentially no resistance, and may not even need any specific actions to implement it.

"Previously, when Li Wenhao and Mouth King had competed, the latter setting up a monument on the tundra was actually taking advantage of this mechanism.

"However, at this moment, Gan Di wasn’t sure exactly how to allocate the technology points.

"’Should I target the governor’s tech tree, or the leader’s?

"’This is the question.’"

"These two approaches he had actually tried before.

"Pointing to the leader’s tech tree is essentially a regression to a feudal autocratic society, where one can randomly execute the governor, with the leader’s power nearly equivalent to that of the emperor.

"But it might also lead to the governor slacking off, just like in the later periods of feudal dynasties where the emperor was completely controlled by the bureaucratic system.

"Whereas targeting the governor’s tech tree would be akin to following Sima Yi’s approach, or a constitutional monarchy.

"Once the governor’s power is unlimited, one could consider directly eliminating the leader to seize power, or choose to consistently work diligently letting the leader easily win.

"Exactly how it would play out depends on the governor’s conscience.

"But right now, neither of these tech trees were of any help to Gan Di’s current situation.

"Neither direction of power was useful anymore.

"’Forget it, I’ll just point randomly.’"

"Gan Di looked over; the political system tech tree was quite complex, with many points he had never tried before; this was a good opportunity to test them.

"For example, both the leader’s and the governor’s tech trees contained technology points related to ’improving public opinion’.

"But previously, whether it was Gan Di or other players cooperating with him, they hardly ever focused on those.

"The reason is simple—there’s no benefit!

"Because once public opinion improves, whether it’s the leader or the governor who wants to consolidate power, the difficulty increases.

"When implementing measures, higher public opinion thresholds are required; when targets are not met, the indexes fall more sharply.

"Simply put, this can be seen as the ’Troublemakers Index.’

"Even using all sorts of underhanded tactics, it’s impossible to completely offset these effects.

"So, raising the Troublemakers Index is mostly just shooting oneself in the foot, hardly bringing any beneficial outcomes.

"Who would invest resources in developing technology points just to have troublemakers oppose them?"

"But now that the game can’t be played anyway, it might as well point a few to see.

"After all, both the leader’s and the governor’s tech trees contain similar public opinion technology points, each with different effects."