History GameBreaker / Simulation

* In ''Warship Gunner 2'', a battleship with the Massive Wave Gun, a good Auto Reload System (alpha, or above), and the Ammo Assembler or sufficient Ammunition Depots is a Game Breaker for this reason -- everything in the air or on the surface in your Massive Wave Gun's line of fire ''DIES''. On Normal difficulty, this includes ''bosses''. And it has the second longest range (by only a slim margin compared to the longest-ranged) in the game too!

* Although not quite as JustForFun/{{egregious}} as examples in the sequels, the woodworking table in the original ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' qualifies. Using this object, a Sim crafts a lawn gnome which can be sold for a tidy sum. A Sim with a perfect mechanical skill that starts the day in a good mood can make about twenty gnomes in a standard eight-hour day. Each gnome sells for $100, resulting in a $2,000 daily income, which is significantly more than the highest-paying career (which leads to a bit of FridgeLogic when you realize that a gnome craftsman can make more money than a business tycoon or an A-list movie star). The best part? As opposed to the normal career paths, you can set your own hours, work as little or as much as you want, don't need to raise other skills, and don't have to worry about making and maintaining friendships. The only downside is that working on the table is taxing on your sim's fun and energy levels. However, since you'll be quickly able to afford all the best mood-raising items and equipment, this downside is easily mitigated.

* ''VideoGame/TheUrbz'', a console exclusive Sims game set on a [[RecycledInSpace big city]], have a recliner chair at one area that refills all your energy in ''two seconds''.

** There are few challenges in the game that cannot be solved by simply throwing more Paladins at it. With great hit points and some of the best armor, they're natural tanks, but after a few levels they pick up a remarkably good personal shield ability. When combined with a ring of protection, a high level paladin could easily achieve a 95% chance of blocking or dodging any melee or ranged attack in the game, with the 5% that did get through barely nicking the paladin's HP, easily solved by delving into one of the stocks of potions. To make the deal even more appetizing, these ladies had some of the most player-friendly AIs in the game, prone to seeking out trouble free of charge, and intelligently spending their money, boosting both your economy and their surviability.

* 'VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'':

** I'm sure I've got an e-mail in my Spam folder with a similar scheme.

* In many ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games (especially the Mineral Town based ones), growing Pineapples in a greenhouse or other indoor growing space. Pineapples take a long time to grow, so grown normally, there's only time for two harvests before the season changes. But in a greenhouse, you have time to let the plants resprout, and they do so VERY quickly (every 3-4 days, depending on the game). Since they ship for upwards of 1000g per pineapple, a field full of them can earn you millions in just a couple of months. You can pull a similar trick with fast-growing reharvestables like yams.
** ''A Tale of Two Towns'' has the seed extractor on the Konohana farm. Thanks to the ScrappyMechanic of an expansion system, it's a year minimum before you have access to it, but once you do, you get two bags of seeds for every plant fed into it. Not only does this equal a higher net profit on certain plants to begin with, but it means crops become pure profit instead of an investment and return. Compounding this is the fact it preserves the star level of said crop with no loss whatsoever, eliminating the need to buy fertilizer and sending your net profit-per-5-star-plant ''through the roof''. As long as you don't mess up and sell your last 5-star instance of a crop or its seeds, you can keep watering and raking it in all season. And since seeds don't rot, there's nothing stopping you from keeping your stack of top-notch seeds in your cart for the rest of the year.

* In ''Ace Combat'''s half brother ''HAWX'' the situation is arguably worse it's version of the QAAM the "All Aspect Missile" is rightly regarded as completely superior. It's actually even better than the [=AC4=] QAAM as it can lock on ''anywhere'' once in range (even [[BadassBack directly behind you]]!) and has a 100% hit rate baring the use of flares of which you have a set and very limited supply (Way fewer then he has missiles), but even this is normally useless since the missile is very fast and hits in a second at most. Who in god's name thought this was balanced for MP is beyond me, but preemptive usage of them in battle is cause for ridicule and shame and an honor code of "[[TheDogShotFirst only use them if fired at you first]]" is very common.

* Although not quite as JustForFun/{{egregious}} as examples in the sequels, the woodworking table in the original ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' qualifies. Using this object, a Sim crafts a lawn gnome which can be sold for a tidy profit. A Sim with a perfect mechanical skill that starts the day in a good mood can make about twenty gnomes in a standard eight-hour day. Each gnome sells for $100 each, resulting in a $2,000 daily income, which is significantly more than the highest-paying career (which leads to a bit of FridgeLogic when you realize that a gnome craftsman can make more money than a business tycoon or an A-list movie star). The best part? As opposed to the normal career paths, you can set your own hours, work as little or as much as you want, don't need to raise other skills, and don't have to worry about making and maintaining friendships. The only downside is that working on the table is taxing on your sim's fun and energy levels. However, since you'll be quickly able to afford all the best mood-raising items and equipment, this downside is easily mitigated.

* Although not quite as {{egregious}} as examples in the sequels, the woodworking table in the original ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' qualifies. Using this object, a Sim crafts a lawn gnome which can be sold for a tidy profit. A Sim with a perfect mechanical skill that starts the day in a good mood can make about twenty gnomes in a standard eight-hour day. Each gnome sells for $100 each, resulting in a $2,000 daily income, which is significantly more than the highest-paying career (which leads to a bit of FridgeLogic when you realize that a gnome craftsman can make more money than a business tycoon or an A-list movie star). The best part? As opposed to the normal career paths, you can set your own hours, work as little or as much as you want, don't need to raise other skills, and don't have to worry about making and maintaining friendships. The only downside is that working on the table is taxing on your sim's fun and energy levels. However, since you'll be quickly able to afford all the best mood-raising items and equipment, this downside is easily mitigated.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is absolutely full of these, thanks to massive CombinatorialExplosion and the fact that the game is still in alpha. Some examples:

** Danger rooms, essentially closets which repeatedly jab a dwarf with blunt wooden spears, can train a dwarf from zero skill to legendary weapon user, armor user, dodger, shield user, and fighter within a couple minutes of real-life time given that they're fully armored. Legendary weapon skill only takes around ten seconds.

* In many ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games (especially the Mineral Town based ones), growing Pineapples in a greenhouse or other indoor growing space. Pineapples take a long time to grow, so grown normally, there's only time for one harvest before the season changes. But in a greenhouse, you have time to let the plants resprout, and they do so VERY quickly (every 3-4 days, depending on the game). Since they ship for upwards of 1000g per pineapple, a field full of them can earn you millions in just a couple of months. You can pull a similar trick with fast-growing reharvestables like yams.

* Although not quite as {{egregious}} as examples in the sequels, the woodworking table in the original ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' qualifies. Using this object, a Sim crafts a lawn gnome which can be sold for a tidy profit. A Sim with a perfect mechanical skill that starts the day in a good mood can make about twenty gnomes in a standard eight-hour day. Each gnome sells for $100 each, resulting in a $2,000 daily profit, which is significantly more than the highest-paying career (which leads to a bit of FridgeLogic when you realize that a gnome craftsman can make more money than a business tycoon or an A-list movie star). The best part? As opposed to the normal career paths, you can set your own hours, work as little or as much as you want, don't have to worry about raising other skills, and don't have to worry about making and maintaining friendships. The only downside is that working on the table is taxing on your sim's fun and energy levels. However, since you'll be able to afford all the best mood-raising items and equipment, this downside is easily mitigated.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' is [[{{Buffyspeak}} Gamebreakingness]] incarnate.
** Some Lifetime Wants have gamebreakers. The monetary ones can be fulfilled by adding more Sims, who come with $16,500 Simoleons, to the household. When a Sim leaves the household, he comes with $16,500, so you can also move him in and out of the same household to generate cash. The Surrounded By Family Lifetime Want is fulfilled when the Sim has five teenage children raised from babies. This Want can be fulfilled in less than one day by adopting five babies and aging them up prematurely with the Birthday Cake. As an ''option'' in the game (it was a cheat in Sims 2), you can turn Aging off, effectively giving you infinite time to fulfill a Lifetime Want.
** The Moodlet Manager, a Lifetime Reward, removes any bad moodlets on you, and for all intents in purposes, it makes it an all-you-can-eat, bed, toilet, telephone, bath and games device all in one. When any one of your bars hits the point it gives you a bad moodlet, the Moodlet Manager will heal it, and give you the polar opposite to it (Smelly becomes Squeaky Clean, Strained becomes Having a Blast and so on) instantly. The only downside is that it can sometimes backfire and shunt your energy level down to 0. However, just re-using it instantly cures this. Taken to the extremes, a sim can stay awake for months and doesn't need to eat more than once a week, and even then that's only if you want the Ambrosia buff.
** As of the last few expansions, though, the Moodlet Manager now has some indirect drawbacks. It removes neutral moodlets indiscriminately, be they positive or negative. This can destroy the effectiveness of some Potions from ''Supernatural'', and as of ''into the future'', it can snuff out some of the dream buffs from the Dream Pod, and worst of all, it can obliterate the "Inside Information" buff if used, meaning, if you want to cheat at the lotto, you need to avoid using the Manager from when you get the info in the future to when the lotto is drawn at 8pm in the present.
** And with keeping in with the whole Power Creep thing, the World Adventures expansion pack for ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' has caused what is quite probably the most gratuitous GameBreaker in all of [[IncrediblyLamePun Simkind.]] You can Transmute metals in the game by using a Display Case, and tinkering with this can, if done right, bring untold riches. The only downside is that you need to create a Supernovium first (which seems to involve extensive fusion of Platinum), but once you do have that, you're in for something special. If you arrange 1x Supernovium + 8x Gold on the XL display case, with the Supernovium in the top left corner of the case with a gold bar stacked on top of it, and the rest of the gold put in the other 7 slots, it creates two bars: Compendium and Platinum. Once you have the Compendium bar, arrange it exactly as before, with it in the top left with a Gold Bar on top, the other Gold Bars in the other areas, You get...Another bar of compendium. However, it's value will have increased exponentially. By repeating this process, you can generate a super-dense, super heavy bar that can be worth up to ''2.1 Billion'' before it loops around and bottoms out at 0.
** The ''Generations'' expansion pack gives us the Motive Mobile lifetime reward. By traveling in this car, your sims will have all their motives filled up. Every single one. And it doesn't only work for your current household. Any sim who travels in the car will have his or her motives refilled. Got a date? Go out with the Motive Mobile. Your date will be [[IncrediblyLamePun fulfilled]].
** One of the things added in the ''Showtime'' expansion pack is a magic lamp which, not surprisingly, can be used to [[GenieInABottle summon a genie]]. He will then proceed to give you ThreeWishes. While the magic lamp can be a rare random find, you can also buy it for 30,000 Lifetime Happiness points, which isn't terribly hard to earn over time. This has several qualities that can be game breaking. For instance...
*** One of the things that you can wish for is "Fortune". This will give you §100,000 instantly, at the cost of one wish. You read that right: for every 30,000 Lifetime Happiness points you get, you can get an easy 300 grand.
*** Another thing you can wish for is to [[FreeingTheGenie free the genie]]. After performing the necessary ritual, which isn't hard at all, the genie becomes a member of the household and can be controlled. This can lead to even more game breaking:
*** The Genie will be able to magically clean any Sim, as well as the whole house, instantly, whenever you want.
*** The Genie can also instantly conjure as much food as you want for free. How does perfect-quality Lobster Thermidor every day for dinner for free sound?
*** Perhaps most game breaking of all, you can also [[MindManipulation "ensorcel"]] any Sim on the lot, giving you control over him or her for 4 game hours. This can of course be extended by doing so repeatedly. Once a Sim is ensorcelled, you can access their inventory to take and sell their stuff. Since many visiting Sims [[HammerSpace keep their car in their inventory]], this can be especially game breaking.
** University Life has two aspects to it that can utterly devestate the game balance -
*** To all of those people who MinMax their characters, they will have figured out the perfect blend of traits...And then University comes around and gives you the ability to earn another two trait slots.
*** Arguably though, the breaker to end all breakers is the Science skill. Specifically, the ability to clone collectibles. Even without elaboration, this sounds utterly obscene. However, it gets even more so when combined with the Gem-Cutter from Supernatural. Tiberium, when left to its own devices, will grow into a large spire (Worth 30-45k). Gem Cutters tend to create both a cut gem and a few dusts. All of these expand into large spires. So for each gem ore, you can create 90-135k. The kicker, though? ''You can clone the ore.'' The analysis and cloning procedure takes about an hour for each piece of Tiberium, so you can, quite literally, just do this multiple times and leave yourself with a huge field of Tiberium growing into huge money-gaining clusters. [[CommandAndConquer Lore implications notwithstanding,]] the only drawback to this is the [[MostAnnoyingSound utter cacophony of pinging noises a field Tiberium gives off.]]

** [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything The dev team REALLY didn't think of]] just how exploitable some of the game features are. A vampire can run a business and bite all his employees so they can work happily all night, or a witch can craft some thrones, convert her employees to witches and they can work FOREVER. A vampire can make a killing with the wrecked car from Free Time, by spending all night fixing one, selling it for 5,200 simoleons and then only needing a shower and maybe a coffee after he's finished. Vampires also have the easiest pregnancies ever thanks to their lack of motive decay at night.

* In ''{{VideoGame/Hardwar}}'' you fly weird little plane/speeder crossbreeds called moths in a city carved in Titan's craters. The game comes with five relatively balanced choices, but a subsequent patch included the Swallow. It was by far the fastest moth in the game, so much so that it kept being faster than any other moth even when loaded with the heaviest, largest cargo pod available. It also had a strong hull, strong shields and was extremely maneuvrable. No other moth in the game could stand to it in a one-on-one fight and hope to win.
** Swallows? Expensive, hard to manufacture, and almost strictly an end-game option. The Police moth included as a ''starter option'' in the patched version comes pre-equipped with the largest cargo pod there is (And those are rare over the course of a normal game) and an infinite-energy fusion cell for power, meaning that you could remain effective in combat during the night while your foes have to stop at lightwells to recharge. Oh, and these cells only start turning up in the game after an optional plot point. The Police moth also had enough weaponry to chew apart pretty much everything in the game.

** And if you need cash, then you could do what pretty much everyone in the know did: Save up enough to buy the Downtown 05 hangar and install a distillery, then spend the rest of your days buying cheap water and chemicals from nearby hangars, producing scads of Alcohol cheaply, and put it all up for sale. There's only one other source of alcohol in the game, they sell it [[ShoutOut reassuringly expensively]], and are nowhere near as central as Downtown 05. You can undercut their prices by insane amounts, just so long as you keep your prices above the base cost of materials (And since ''1 Chemicals + 1 Water'' = '''8 Alcohol''' this isn't hard to do), you can recoup the cost of the hangar and the distillery within a day or so. Eventually every single moth in the game will instantly flock to you hangar and cause an immense traffic jam that creates a tailback across half the crater.

* In many ''Franchise/HarvestMoon'' games (especially the Mineral Town based ones), growing Pineapples in a greenhouse or other indoor growing space. Pineapples take a long time to grow, so grown normally, there's only time for one harvest before the season changes. But in a greenhouse, you have time to let the plants resprout, and they do so VERY quickly (every 3-4 days, depending on the game). Since they ship for upwards of 1000g per pineapple, a field full of them can earn you millions in just a couple of months. You can pull a similar trick with fast-growing reharvestables like yams.

** There's also the Seduction Focus. With a +2 to Intrigue and a +10 "Attraction Opinion" bonus with all other characters who have a compatible orientation, it's innocuous enough, but with enough successful uses of the "Seduce" action you can work your way up to becoming a Master Seducer, which adds a +50 attraction opinion bonus. Unlike other opinion modifiers, Attraction Opinion is a modifier on ''half the characters at any given point in the game'', and it's so big (for reference, opinion runs from -100 to +100) that if you have that trait literally half the world will love you. As for using that opinion, it means that you can invite dozens upon endless dozens of people to your court and get them to join all your Plots (Opinion is a huge factor in whether or not a character joins an assassination Plot), which means you can get 600& Plot Power in a game where 200% would be amazing. And this is before one remembers that all of this is for a Master ''Seducer'' (i.e. a man). If you're a Master ''Seductress'', then take that +50 opinion modifier with half the world and then add in the fact that essentially all the rulers, vassals, religious heads, military commanders, and councilors in the game are heterosexual men.

* In ''Ace Combat'''s half brother ''HAWX'' the situation is arguably worse it's version of the QAAM the "All Aspect Missile" is rightly regarded as completely broken. It's actually even better then the [=AC4=] QAAM as it can lock on ''anywhere'' once in range (even [[BadassBack directly behind you]]!) and has a 100% hit rate baring the use of flares of which you have a set and very limited supply (Way fewer then he has missiles), but even this is normally useless since the missile is very fast and hits in a second at most. Who in god's name thought this was balanced for MP is beyond me, but preemptive usage of them in battle is cause for ridicule and shame and an honor code of "[[TheDogShotFirst only use them if fired at you first]]" is very common.

** ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'' had several. Briefly, the Loki heavy mech had a variant with dual Ultra [=Autocannon/20s=], a cannon which could rapidly shear off the armor of even the most durable mech. On top of this, the Loki was an extremely agile, relatively cheap and decently armored, leading to swarms of Lokis rampaging through enemy forces and slaughtering them; an ObviousRulePatch nerfed the mounting points on the Loki, making it impossible to mount "assault" guns like [=UAC/20s=] on its arms. The Shiva "E" SpacePlane - better known as the [[FanNickanme Beat Stick Shiva]] - carried dual [=LBX/20=] and dual [=LBX/10=] shotguns, allowing it to handily OneHitKill anything else in the sky due to the AntiAir damage modifiers on shotguns. The Shiva E was also exceptionally affordable, easy to fly, and well armored. Organized games without a "no Shiva E" rule were decided by "how many Shiva [=E=]s" each team were fielding, as once the Shivas took out enemy aircraft, they could attack ground forces with impunity. Nerfed in an ObviousRulePatch in the [[ScrewedByTheLawyers final release]], though the equally (possibly even ''more'') broken Heavy Gauss Shiva remains, albeit less common due to it costing three times as much.

*** Arguably though, the breaker to end all breakers is the Science skill. Specifically, the ability to clone collectibles. Even without elaboration, this sounds utterly obscene. However, it gets even more so when combined with the Gem-Cutter from Supernatural. Tiberium, when left to its own devices, will grow into a large spire (Worth 30-45k). Gem Cutters tend to create both a cut gem and a few dusts. All of these expand into large spires. So for each gem ore, you can create 90-135k. The kicker, though? ''You can clone the ore.'' The analysis and cloning procedure takes about an hour for each piece of Tiberium, so you can, quite literally, just do this multiple times and leave yourself with a huge field of Tiberium growing into huge money-gaining clusters. [[CommandAndConquer Lore implications notwithstanding,]] the only drawback to this is the [[MostAnnoyingNoise utter cacophany of pinging noises Tiberium gives off.]]

** And with keeping in with the whole Power Creep thing, the expansion pack for ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' has caused what is quite probably the most gratuitous GameBreaker in all of [[IncrediblyLamePun Simkind.]] You can Transmute metals in the game by using a Display Case, and tinkering with this can, if done right, bring untold riches. The only downside is that you need to create a Supernovium first (which seems to involve extensive fusion of Platinum), but once you do have that, you're in for something special. If you arrange 1x Supernovium + 8x Gold on the XL display case, with the Supernovium in the top left corner of the case with a gold bar stacked on top of it, and the rest of the gold put in the other 7 slots, it creates two bars: Compendium and Platinum. Once you have the Compendium bar, arrange it exactly as before, with it in the top left with a Gold Bar on top, the other Gold Bars in the other areas, You get...Another bar of compendium. However, it's value will have increased exponentially. By repeating this process, you can generate a super-dense, super heavy bar that can be worth up to ''2.1 Billion'' before it loops around and bottoms out at 0.

** SpinOff series ''VideoGame/RuneFactory'' ''tries'' to avert this, both by swapping greenhouses for monster-filled dungeons and (in later editions) introducing a soil health mechanic (regrowing on the same soil over and over will eventually cause lower quality crops that take far longer to harvest). But since the dungeons are level capped, the monsters will rapidly cease to be an impediment. And the soil depletion (at least in RuneFactory3) has it's own game-breaking cure. You're told that hoeing Withered Grass on a plot of land will raise that plot's back to normal. What you're not told is that wilted crops have the same effect. So you can just plant rows of out-of-season crops, wait a day, then use your hoe to till them en masse (your charged, fully-upgraded hoe can till half a field - a 9x9 plot - in one strike), rather than one at a time. Combine this with the Formulas A, B, and C (which increases the speed at which the crops grow by 25, 33 or 50%, respectively) and soil management becomes a minor inconvenience at worst.

* ''TheUrbz'', a console exclusive Sims game set on a [[RecycledInSpace big city]], have a recliner chair at one area that refills all your energy in ''two seconds''.
* ''RollercoasterTycoon 3'' has scenarios where the player is severely limited in what he can build, and the challenge is to meet the goals of the scenario with only a few attractions available. Upon installing one or both expansion packs, the player would find that none of the attractions added are affected by these limitations, unless he plays one of the new scenarios. In essence this makes the original scenario limitations worthless.

* The GameCube release of AnimalCrossing had the island minigame. With a GBA and a link cable, the player could go to an island and meet an animal not usually seen on the mainland, and on their way back, the island is uploaded to the GBA where the player can make the islander do various things depending on what the player leaves behind. By dropping fruits on the island, the islander will reward the player with bags of money. The problem is that the bags in question are randomized between the game's four types of money bags: it could be either 100, 1000, 10000, or 30000 Bells in any given bag, when native fruit normally sells for 100 and non-native fruit for 500. There is no weighting on that, by the way -- 30000 is exactly as likely as 100. And you could carry up to 25 fruits to the island in one trip. What is this "debt" you speak of, again?

** SpinOff series ''RuneFactory'' ''tries'' to avert this, both by swapping greenhouses for monster-filled dungeons and (in later editions) introducing a soil health mechanic (regrowing on the same soil over and over will eventually cause lower quality crops that take far longer to harvest). But since the dungeons are level capped, the monsters will rapidly cease to be an impediment. And the soil depletion (at least in RuneFactory3) has it's own game-breaking cure. You're told that hoeing Withered Grass on a plot of land will raise that plot's back to normal. What you're not told is that wilted crops have the same effect. So you can just plant rows of out-of-season crops, wait a day, then use your hoe to till them en masse (your charged, fully-upgraded hoe can till half a field - a 9x9 plot - in one strike), rather than one at a time. Combine this with the Formulas A, B, and C (which increases the speed at which the crops grow by 25, 33 or 50%, respectively) and soil management becomes a minor inconvenience at worst.