[nhellman]

> "age in a bot" might be a truncated form of "message in a bottle."

Yeah, that makes sense, it is a very odd sentence otherwise. Truncating on "bot" might be a play on words for game AI/NPC.

> The PRNG exponentiation scheme is essentially Diffie-Hellman.

Ah, of course, yes, I was thinking it reminded of public-key cryptography.

> Including, e.g., plasma pistol?

Yeah, it seems so, that was the first weapon I was thinking it to be used for. I tried e.g. setting the duration to zero and charging the plasma pistol. It still shoots like normal and does not seem to affect visual effects, audio or damage for neither host nor guest. It is still possible that it is used for something else that I have not noticed. Modifying the host's fire duration does not cause a desync so it might not affect the game state.

> Very cool investigation and writeup.

Thanks!

[coldpie]

> Yeah, that makes sense, it is a very odd sentence otherwise. Truncating on "bot" might be a play on words for game AI/NPC.

I wonder if you could dig into the game code and see where the string is coming from.