Problem Getting Ode from Kolabuff

[tebee]

Anyone know if Kolabuff has changed it prices and not told mafia?

I'm trying to get ode to booze by doing a csend 1 meat to it which mafia changes to 50 meat. Kolabuff then sends sends this back with a message

50 meat is not a valid buff price. Please check:
[link] http:// www.koladdict.com/ buffbot/
For current price list.

The page listed says 50 meat is a valid buff price.

Any Kol addicts members on here know what is going on? Is there anyway around this, 1 meat is valid and works if you send it manually, but I don't think there is anyway of stopping mafia changing it.

 

[dangerpin]

Either way the problem would seem to be on their end. If they have changed the price they need to update the website and the file that mafia looks at. If they haven't changed the price, the fault is still with their buffbot as mafia was sending the right amount, and to the right place.

Have you tried sending a regular message to KolaBuff (#1061817), or biggreensupreme (#110993)?

 

[Muhandes]

I'm not aware of a price change. I'll tell TTR (our beloved, though sometimes intoxicated clam leader) to have a look. If he can stop throwing pies at people for the time it requires.

 

[dangerpin]

It always helps to have a voice on the inside, thank you Muhandes.

 

[tebee]

Yes I realize the problem is with "them" not "us" , but I was wondering if anybody could suggest a workaround for this. I.e if we knew what the right amount for the non-philanthropic buff for ode was I could try csending that.

If you send 50 meat manually that too is rejected, though 1 meat still works.

 

[dangerpin]

If they have an alternate price for Ode that is non-philanthropic and will work for the buffbot, it is a pretty easy deal to make up your own buffbot data file with the path pointing towards a local xml file. Then download the xml file from the website and change the prices you want. Save it to the local path in the data file and voila mafia will work again.

It is quite a bit of fun, you'll learn a lot about how the process all works but in reality working with the buffbot owners is probably a more effective use of time.

If you need tips or a nudge in the former path I volunteer myself to help you, I messed around with this quite a bit some time back doing custom buffbot files to support a private clan buffbot.

 

[Muhandes]

Due to someone exploiting a bug in kolabuff the 50 meat buff is no longer available. So if you want, you can remove it from the list.

 

[dangerpin]

Great, another resource lost because someone abused it. Sad.

 

[tebee]

Due to someone exploiting a bug in kolabuff the 50 meat buff is no longer available. So if you want, you can remove it from the list.

Isn't it up to the buffbot owner to remove it from the page he has set up for Mafia to get the prices from?

Dangerpin, in the meantime how do I it set up to use my own xml file? What will mafia do if there is no equivalent non-philanthropic buff?

I too, I'm sorry someone abusing an exploit has caused inconvenience to the rest of us.

 

[jasonharper]

If there is no equivalent non-philanthropic buff, mafia will allow a csend of a philanthropic amount. It's hard to imagine the resulting situation as being any better than whatever abuse was being made of the 50 meat buff...

 

[dangerpin]

Which is probably why the clan left the non-philanthropic buff listed in the xml, while removing it from the bot setup. So as far as mafia is concerned there is a non-philanthropic buff to use and have fail.

If this was simply a matter of the clan changing the buff price to 51 meat, I would feel more comfortable with this situation, but they have been abused and I don't want to add to the abuse by telling people how to further abuse them by doing an end run on buffs from them.

I'm torn, but I'm going to give the info and leave it up to you to use it with care. Please don't allow Mafia to add insult to the injury they have suffered already. It really doesn't take much to make running a buffbot more work than a clan or user wants to deal with. 'Nuff said.

If you explode the current jar and pull the buffbots.txt out of the data file you can see that the format is pretty basic, the buffbot name, which can be anything and doesn't need to correspond to a player name, the player ID of the buffbot and the path to the xml file. What I recommend is that you download the xml file of the bot you want to modify, or if you are setting up your own bot, to grab one that offers similar buffs to the ones you will be offering.

Now, things may have changed but at the time I was messing with this I believe I was able to set that xml file as a local file, but it was tricky. And different file systems might not work the way mine did, an easier way is that you can also host the file at someplace like eggdisk or fileden and call it from the http location like all the others.

The XML file contains the setup of the buffs, the skill ID, price, turns and so forth for you to make minor changes to. If you are using a different buffbot name make sure to change the name in the xml file you used as a template. Then upload that to your hosting site.

Then put your modified buffbots.txt file in the data folder of your mafia game structure and voila! If the website you have the xml file hosted on is too slow you will have slowness when you bring up the buffs interface, if it is too slow it will timeout and you won't be able to use that buffbot.

Be careful, a bad number entry and you could be sending meat off to someone that won't be likely to give it back. As with any knowledge, it comes with the obligation to use it responsibly and for the greater good. The fact that kolabuff had to change what buffs they had available to Mafia users highlights this issue. Go forth and do good.

 

[Muhandes]

I'm afraid changing the page will have to wait as the password to the page is lost on a borked PC. I'll ask the owner if he is interested in setting up a new page.

Just as a curiosity for the interested, someone found a way to get 50 meat out of the buffbot every time it is called. They weren't lazy and used it 40000 times, 2M meat drained. I believe the names are in some KoL forum post. Maybe it's not such a biggie, but until it can be fixed (if it can be fixed at all) the 50 meat buff was removed.

 

[tebee]

Just a thought, is Kolabuff a mafia based buffbot?, Is this exploit something we should be looking at?

 

[NotYou]

Greetings! I am the operator of Kolabuff. Yes, Kolabuff is run via Mafia.

I'm not sure if what happened was a result of the way mafia is codded or the way our bot is set-up. Basically: Player fills their AT buff slots. Player sends 1 meat for 'free' Ode. The bot would then refund 50 meat rather than the 1. They would then repeat this, netting their 49 meat each time.

I removed the 50meat buff price from the offering list after discovering some seedy folks milked a good chunk of meat from the bot. Let it be known that I am not the person who initially set-up the bot via Mafia, so I've been working against a learning curve.

As Muhandes explained, the web-site price list PW is lost and I have yet to get that machine up and running to fix that. However, it's my understanding that Mafia is still listing it as an available buff and I'm not sure how to fix that.

So, that's the story on what went down. I would LOVE to be able to fix this, but any price that I give the non-philanthropic buff is refunded despite using the philanthropic prices.

 

[jasonharper]

I've taken a close look at the buffbot code, and I don't see how the claimed bug is possible:
1. There is no point in the code where a refund is sent for an amount other than the exact amount that was received. At no point is a philanthropic buff cost translated into the equivalent non-philanthropic cost.
2. At most 4 refunds will be sent to any one player per day; beyond that, everything received from that player will be treated as a donation.

What version of KoLmafia is Kolabuff running? It would appear that it's either a modified version (that introduced some bugs), or something REALLY ancient (I checked a version from late 2007, and saw no real differences in refund handling from the current version).

 

[NotYou]

Currently using v13.1, I think it was v13 or maybe 12.9 when this all happened. The bot was initially set up on v10 something.

Again, I'm not sure myself how this was happening, I just know it happened. The 4 refunds/day explains why there were so many people exploiting it, but the larger problem that it happened still remains.

Could it possibly be the way the offerings list in mafia is established? I know the 1 & 2 meat Ode are near the end of that list so the 50 meat Ode would be the first thing the bot came across as it scoured for 'ode'. But again, I know nothing of how mafia determines the order of operations- I'm more or less trying to grasp at straws to figure out what's going on.

Any suggestions on how I can try to resolve this?

 

[jasonharper]

I just know it happened.

Ok, HOW do you know it happened? As I said, there does not appear to be any way in which the current code can generate a refund for any amount other than what was received.

I've tried setting up a buffbot with Ode available at several different prices, and requesting them from another account with all song slots full. In no case was I able to get it to send an incorrect refund amount.

 

[pithlit]

I found this thread so I'll post this here even though I'm getting something different now.

Execute "csend 1 meat to kolabuff" in the CLI. 1,125 meat gets sent for 300 turns of Ode instead of 1 meat for 15 turns.

Now I sympathize with NotYou for his loss due to the exploit but are we trying to make up for it?

All kidding aside, just thought I'd point this out.

 

[Rinn]

That's built in functionality to not allow you to take advantage of free buffs when scripting.

 

[pithlit]

That is built into the Mafia app? Specifically for kolabuff? If I execute "csend 1 meat to testudinata" it works fine. Sends just 1 meat and I get my Ode.