Loke_The_Champ
6th January 2021, 17:33
Dear HappyDiggers team,
when I tried to make a full-automatic rhyolite cobblestone generator on the Freebie TFC server today, I noticed that on some occasions, flowing water and lava produce cobblestone. To protect the public roads out of cobblestone, glowstone and quartz blocks I presume, you have implemented a plugin that made it impossible to break certain vanilla blocks. When trying to break them, the message "Some vanilla blocks are indestructable!" appears. In the case of cobblestone that alone creates a major issue when accidentally acquiring cobblestone blocks and placing them in the own base, as these blocks cannot be removed then.
But there also is an explosion protection and this is the cause for the duplication exploit.
In an attempt to find out how to destroy the accidentally attained cobblestone in my base, I decided to create another cobblestone block at my outpost, where I also tried to find out how to exactly make my cobblestone generator. When I got attacked by multiple mobs becauseI was outside in the nightly and dark acacia forest, I got an idea. I lured a creeper to a cobblestone I created and let it explode. It was blown up and even dropped. At first I rejoiced because I could do the same in my base, but suddenly everything around the cobblestone block reappeared, including the dirt that was dropped in the explosion.
It was duplicated.
Then I thought to myself that this is annoying and that this plugin needs to be removed so I tried out bunch of other things to prove how fatal this plugin is for this server. At first I placed an ingot stack next to a cobblestone and lured in a creeper to blow it up. It did not reappear. Then I tried it with a few pistons, they are quite valuable to me due to the redstone, so I let a creeper blow them up and they dropped as items and reappeared together with the cobblestone. Then I tried a golden sheet I had left over. It was not blown up. So I went into singleplayer and tried to blow up a few valuable items. Anvils and bloomeries are not blown up. I remembered that there are a few quite rare berry bushes so I tried to blew those up. They are blown up easily and drop with a high chance. When trying to prepare the next test, I remembered that oil lamps also exist. Oil lamps can be made from gold, platinum, rose gold, silver, sterling silver, or blue steel. More importantly, they can also be remolten into their respective metals via a forge or a crucible. So I took a spare blue steel oil lamp I had at my base and a blackberry bush and put it next to a cobblestone and lured a creeper towards it. Both the blackberry bush and the oil lamp were both dropped and reappeared in and after the explosion. As a very last test, I tried a filled acacia chest. It blew up and dropped, but without the items, and a oak chest reappeared. As you can verify with the chat logs, as with everything said here, It has to do with the block ID of the acacia chest. The block ID of the acacia chest is 480:16 while that of the oak chest is 480:0 or more simplified 480. Your plugin only saves the simplyfied version of the block ID, at least in this case. Acting on this logic, there might be other blocks that get "transformed" if they get destroyed near a protected cobblestone by an explosion. I have not observed this phenomenon with dirt or the berry bush though.
In conclusion, these items can be duplicated:
Berry bushes, among those, cloudberry bushes, which are very, very rare. (I paid multiple barrels of rich iron ore for 25 of those.)
Oil lamps out of the different kinds of metals I mentioned, among them, blue steel. They can be remolten back into ingots and used or traded away.
Redstone blocks, redstone is only found by grinding rare cryolite and cinnabar.
Crucibles and Firebricks, required for progression and consist of kaolinite and graphite, two very rare materials.
Bellows, made out of leather, a material with a quite lengthy crafting process.
Pumpkins and jack o'lanterns, pumpkins are a limited commodity as they cannot be grown.
and many more, those are the most valuable I could think of.
I of course threw my duplicated blue oil lamp, the berry bush and the pistons (as well as my red steel pickaxe, you can read that in the chat logs, but thats just a little tragedy) into the lava I used to create the cobblestone in the first place. I do not know how much dirt I have duplicated accidentally, so I did not throw any away, but I think that is forgiveable.
How to replicate in survival mode
Find or acquire a cobblestone or any other block protected by this plugin, either by going to a nearby cobblestone road or by creating it with lava and water. (Therefore, any player could do it without needing to get to blue and red steel buckets first.)
Place the block you want to duplicate next to the cobblestone. (Only those that blow up in the explosion and not rely on TileEntity data work, so no ingot piles or the insides of a chest, only the block itself)
Lure a creeper towards it and let it explode or use a barrel filled with gunpowder, seal it and give it a redstone signal to let it explode.
Quickly pick up the dropped items and get out of the explosion radius (I havent tested what happened if you stayed inside, but I think you can be suffocated in the next step)
Wait for the exploded blocks to reappear and repeat or mine them (I am not sure if this is true, but if the exploiter were aware of the fact that Prism only stores block information up to a certain time, they could even do it without being able to be proven guilty by Prism)
I hope you will find another way to protect your public roads and remove this plugin as it severely impacts my gameplay in trying to make a rhyolite cobblestone generator and the gameplay of everyone, if someone decided to flood the market with items duplicated with this exploit. Because cobblestone is acquirable via a cobblestone generator, just like obsidian, it should not be on a blacklist in the first place. I advise you act quickly, as I was not able to find a subforum that is visible to only the server team, so this exploit is as public as it gets as long as the issues described here are not resolved. So excuse me for this and maybe also make such a forum in the future.
Loke
when I tried to make a full-automatic rhyolite cobblestone generator on the Freebie TFC server today, I noticed that on some occasions, flowing water and lava produce cobblestone. To protect the public roads out of cobblestone, glowstone and quartz blocks I presume, you have implemented a plugin that made it impossible to break certain vanilla blocks. When trying to break them, the message "Some vanilla blocks are indestructable!" appears. In the case of cobblestone that alone creates a major issue when accidentally acquiring cobblestone blocks and placing them in the own base, as these blocks cannot be removed then.
But there also is an explosion protection and this is the cause for the duplication exploit.
In an attempt to find out how to destroy the accidentally attained cobblestone in my base, I decided to create another cobblestone block at my outpost, where I also tried to find out how to exactly make my cobblestone generator. When I got attacked by multiple mobs becauseI was outside in the nightly and dark acacia forest, I got an idea. I lured a creeper to a cobblestone I created and let it explode. It was blown up and even dropped. At first I rejoiced because I could do the same in my base, but suddenly everything around the cobblestone block reappeared, including the dirt that was dropped in the explosion.
It was duplicated.
Then I thought to myself that this is annoying and that this plugin needs to be removed so I tried out bunch of other things to prove how fatal this plugin is for this server. At first I placed an ingot stack next to a cobblestone and lured in a creeper to blow it up. It did not reappear. Then I tried it with a few pistons, they are quite valuable to me due to the redstone, so I let a creeper blow them up and they dropped as items and reappeared together with the cobblestone. Then I tried a golden sheet I had left over. It was not blown up. So I went into singleplayer and tried to blow up a few valuable items. Anvils and bloomeries are not blown up. I remembered that there are a few quite rare berry bushes so I tried to blew those up. They are blown up easily and drop with a high chance. When trying to prepare the next test, I remembered that oil lamps also exist. Oil lamps can be made from gold, platinum, rose gold, silver, sterling silver, or blue steel. More importantly, they can also be remolten into their respective metals via a forge or a crucible. So I took a spare blue steel oil lamp I had at my base and a blackberry bush and put it next to a cobblestone and lured a creeper towards it. Both the blackberry bush and the oil lamp were both dropped and reappeared in and after the explosion. As a very last test, I tried a filled acacia chest. It blew up and dropped, but without the items, and a oak chest reappeared. As you can verify with the chat logs, as with everything said here, It has to do with the block ID of the acacia chest. The block ID of the acacia chest is 480:16 while that of the oak chest is 480:0 or more simplified 480. Your plugin only saves the simplyfied version of the block ID, at least in this case. Acting on this logic, there might be other blocks that get "transformed" if they get destroyed near a protected cobblestone by an explosion. I have not observed this phenomenon with dirt or the berry bush though.
In conclusion, these items can be duplicated:
Berry bushes, among those, cloudberry bushes, which are very, very rare. (I paid multiple barrels of rich iron ore for 25 of those.)
Oil lamps out of the different kinds of metals I mentioned, among them, blue steel. They can be remolten back into ingots and used or traded away.
Redstone blocks, redstone is only found by grinding rare cryolite and cinnabar.
Crucibles and Firebricks, required for progression and consist of kaolinite and graphite, two very rare materials.
Bellows, made out of leather, a material with a quite lengthy crafting process.
Pumpkins and jack o'lanterns, pumpkins are a limited commodity as they cannot be grown.
and many more, those are the most valuable I could think of.
I of course threw my duplicated blue oil lamp, the berry bush and the pistons (as well as my red steel pickaxe, you can read that in the chat logs, but thats just a little tragedy) into the lava I used to create the cobblestone in the first place. I do not know how much dirt I have duplicated accidentally, so I did not throw any away, but I think that is forgiveable.
How to replicate in survival mode
Find or acquire a cobblestone or any other block protected by this plugin, either by going to a nearby cobblestone road or by creating it with lava and water. (Therefore, any player could do it without needing to get to blue and red steel buckets first.)
Place the block you want to duplicate next to the cobblestone. (Only those that blow up in the explosion and not rely on TileEntity data work, so no ingot piles or the insides of a chest, only the block itself)
Lure a creeper towards it and let it explode or use a barrel filled with gunpowder, seal it and give it a redstone signal to let it explode.
Quickly pick up the dropped items and get out of the explosion radius (I havent tested what happened if you stayed inside, but I think you can be suffocated in the next step)
Wait for the exploded blocks to reappear and repeat or mine them (I am not sure if this is true, but if the exploiter were aware of the fact that Prism only stores block information up to a certain time, they could even do it without being able to be proven guilty by Prism)
I hope you will find another way to protect your public roads and remove this plugin as it severely impacts my gameplay in trying to make a rhyolite cobblestone generator and the gameplay of everyone, if someone decided to flood the market with items duplicated with this exploit. Because cobblestone is acquirable via a cobblestone generator, just like obsidian, it should not be on a blacklist in the first place. I advise you act quickly, as I was not able to find a subforum that is visible to only the server team, so this exploit is as public as it gets as long as the issues described here are not resolved. So excuse me for this and maybe also make such a forum in the future.
Loke