Klei really needs to fix their game. DDOS server griefing

This is today's server griefer. He DDOS'd two servers

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198327870296/

client_chat_logs. Usernames of others anonymized for their privacy but I can provide if needed

[01:29:24]: [Say] User_01: theyre cheating too
[01:29:25]: [Say] User_02: kick her
[01:29:27]: [Say] User_03: spicy
[01:29:28]: [Say] (KU_jBBIcqTf) Sklerenchyma: wtf?
[01:29:29]: [Say] User_01: they speed hacking
[01:29:31]: [Say] User_03: how so
[01:29:32]: [Say] User_01: saw it earlier
[01:29:38]: [Say] User_02: i played with them yesterday
[01:29:39]: [Whisper] User_04: winter is coming
[01:29:40]: [Say] User_05: do cursed trinkets gravitate to you
[01:29:51]: [Say] User_06: yes
[01:29:55]: [Say] User_05: crap
[01:29:55]: [Say] User_03: yeah to the closest person
[01:30:06]: [Say] User_05: welp imma be a monkey i guess
[01:30:27]: [Say] User_02: ugh
[01:30:29]: [Say] User_02: doesnt let me kick
[01:30:35]: [Say] User_07:  There's a Голова мраморного слона here! {15.139,-606.043} item 52FB2F0937A8BE5B
[01:30:47]: [Say] User_02: vote on Sklerenchyma
[01:30:47]: [Say] User_06: moscow can i think
[01:30:49]: [Say] User_06: wormwood
[01:31:11]: [Say] User_07: what did he do?
[01:31:18]: [Say] User_02: he burns down bases
[01:31:21]: [Say] User_02: and says slurs
[01:31:21]: [Say] User_05: is there any way to get rid of cursed trinkets
[01:31:24]: [Say] User_07: sure
[01:31:28]: [Vote Announcement] kick Sklerenchyma passed
[01:31:28]: [Kick Announcement] Sklerenchyma

One minute later the server crashed. That's the 3rd pattern in 2 weeks. Twice in two days. Different players. I viewed they were in another server, tried to join, and that server had been crashed as well. Both were official KLEI servers

Edited February 21 by DarXide

I want to defend the Klei team a bit because I find some of the criticism unfair.
Just because certain things were bugged in the past doesn't mean they weren't fixed. With every update, new bugs can crawl in because a game is built on interdependencies. If you tweak something at point A, something might break at point B.
Developers come and go, and we don't know what the legacy code looks like—the game has been around for years. These are people just like you, simply doing their jobs. We are dealing with a smaller studio here.
I also highly doubt that Klei is getting 'rich' from selling skins. The game has a relatively small player base. In Germany, I feel like I'm the only one actively playing on PlayStation, and even on PC, it’s maybe only 5 to 10 people in my circles. We should keep that perspective in mind.

 

Also, regarding the server issues: Recently, there was a bug with Jubilanterns where you just had to build and then destroy them to crash the entire server.
People should assume that these kinds of bugs are being exploited, rather than jumping to the conclusion that someone is performing a DDoS attack. It’s much more likely that someone is just abusing a broken game mechanic to cause a crash.

Edited February 21 by Venether97

44 minutes ago, Venether97 said:

Rather than jumping to the conclusion that someone is performing a DDoS attack. It’s much more likely that someone is just abusing a broken game mechanic to cause a crash.

It seems I made a big mistake criticizing Klei because it's derailed the main point of this post, which you've seemed to completely miss. So let's focus on that. You're right to defend Klei. Let's move on to the actual issue:

This isn't an in-game glitch

Servers are being made to crash after the griefer has been kicked i.e. left the game. I'm open to ideas you may have as to how a person can crash a game 1 minute after being removed from the game i.e. not in game. It's like clockwork. Each time it was a minute after, and I do not believe this was a coincidence. Each time it was a person who was speedhacking. I'm repeating myself here but that's to prevent the main issue from being missed again.

Here are previous threads mentioning the exact same thing as I did:

2025: 

 

2022: 

 

  

59 minutes ago, Venether97 said:

People should assume that these kinds of bugs are being exploited, rather than jumping to the conclusion that someone is performing a DDoS attack.

May I add, that before you encourage others to blindly make assumptions, you should at least make sure you've comprehended the actual post. Otherwise it makes you come off as condescending or dim-witted

Comparing an in-game bug/exploit that crashes the server [what you're talking about] and asking for it to be assumed when the actual issue is crashing the server when the griefer is not in the server anymore is apples and oranges

More proof in case it was needed that this is a legitimate issue for ages

They are not DDOS the server. They are crashed people with the client mod - Ping environment or crash servers with bugs.
These griefters are nuisance, but it is on Klei, for not fixing their own game. Just play in DST group servers such as DST Survivor and report grieft like this to them, you guys will get better experience.
But here how is they do their little gameplay session of griefting:
1. Pick Maxwell, go straight to the Terrarium chest, go get Mandrakes, abused duplication bug to get more bombs and Mandrakes.
2. Abuse another bug, that if you keep relog enough time, fast enough, the server will wipe out your data, and you will log as new character. They will usually pick Willow, because of another bug: if you cooked a Mandrake near player/feed cooked Mandrake, they would sleep, which then they will light the bomb to kill you.
3. Start killing players with it: and if you are figuring it out and start kicking them, they will used the Ping environment mod to crash you out of the game.
These peaked-employment players have been doing it all Winter feast already. if you see Twins spawns every night, people died of bombs, it is those EU players farming content for their YouTube channels:
Video evidence - killing new players with bomb and mandrakes duplicated.

client_chat_log_2026-02-12-21-29-03.txt client_chat_log_2026-02-12-21-44-24.txt

Edited February 22 by GuardDuty

That second comment was made through an LLM. It also made up unrelated stuff that wasn't mentioned at all initially, smh.

Anyway, this again huh? @konijnenmoed thought you might be interested in this thread too  maybe you too @Kova_ 

 

so yeah the devs don't care. either that or they are too busy, spreading out the limited time of the devs to other issues. such as patching the io.open exploit or the (hacked) engine bug that allowed the dreaded user k[redacted]ok to send 30 megabytes of empty text to the server in a few minutes, which actually did brick and crash the entire server itself.

To klei's credit they did do smth about that, so i'm half-joking by saying they don't care (they don't though /jk)
(edited) i wanted to redact and take back this piece of my post, after a comment that cleared out some confusion, and turned out that I had made some bad/unfair assumptions. 😳 

Spoiler

GuardDuty well said. Those are all bugs and usernames that are recognizable.

This duping bug has been around. I am in fact surprised to see this, and that apparently it still happens.

 

Remi, a good guy, does a lil trolling  This bug has been around what, at least a year by now?
I thought it was patched silently and ignored into oblivion from thereon xD
He showed it to me, but he refused to tell me how it worked, to prevent others from abusing it
Said he'd reported it to klei anonymously/privately, for same reasons as ↑

Anyways to those who suffer from client-mod-exploit-related crashes, ya should get this mod and COMBINE with the og:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3449488023 
That ought to at least immunize you from getting crashed by this shenanigans.

 TTo the OP, your reports are well appreciated, if not by klei, then at least by some of the dedicated admins for community servers. Because we/they can use these reports to keep a tabs on the bad actors, and if needed, to ban them preemptively.
Also like someone else said, it might be good to check out volunteer community servers with actual moderation.
The klei servers are sadly kinda like this, and its not for everyone. though i personally aggree that klei ought to do something against the worst of the worst
(just like those guys who used multiple alt accounts to hog a server, making kicks impossible, grief whole base, copycat names and saying bad things in their name. Mondays amirite O_o )

--

That's funny, I hadn't ever noticed the method of starting this glitch before learning that one detail of the game's scripting language xD

Spoiler

On 2/22/2026 at 5:12 AM, Adgycarp said:

  {923.685,122..981} other 86C3BF57FEC36DD9

Spoiler

The coordinates inside the brackets, usually an x and y both with 3 decimals.

But here it is a proper x with 3 decimals, then a number value(might be turned into a float, and causing an error there, not sure) and a concatenator, and then a third number value.

And on the receiving end(ie victim) the client goes haywire, i guess somewhere internally it can't parse the data, ends up with something it doesn't know what to do with, and goes into failsafe/shutdown mode ( aka the lua error).

funny lil shenanigans. that's what we have the fix mod for

 

Edited February 24 by Adgycarp
better context

Thanks @Adgycarp for the tag.

The user in OP's second post is known to me and they are banned on my dedicated public server. I usually kick them immediately when they join Klei pubs I play on.

Fair to say, most of the exploits do get reported to Klei eventually and the devs are willing to patch it fairly quickly, but they can only do so by having some kind of crash log and/or steps to reproduce. I've managed to provide client logs myself in the past while playing on Klei pubs to give them some kind of lead to fix it. 

The Enviromental Pinger mod crash only crashes the client itself. That's not on Klei, but the player for not using an updated client mod. 

 

 

On 2/22/2026 at 7:12 AM, Adgycarp said:

This duping bug has been around. I am in fact surprised to see this, and that apparently it still happens.

 

Remi, a good guy, does a lil trolling  This bug has been around what, at least a year by now?
I thought it was patched silently and ignored into oblivion from thereon xD
He showed it to me, but he refused to tell me how it worked, to prevent others from abusing it
Said he'd reported it to klei anonymously/privately, for same reasons as ↑

@Adgycarp You are talking about a completely different exploit, which I did in fact end up reporting in a private message to a developer. It has nothing to do with the recent events.

On a general note, this topic is so full of hallucinations that I feel the need to clarify things. What really happened is that Sklerenchyma, the griefer mentioned in the previous posts, managed to get their hands on the gallop trip exploit (patched very recently). That person is widely known on Klei pubs for destorying bases and murdering players countless times, as well as spewing racial slurs in the game chat. The exploit helped them achieve their malicious goals with unmatched speed, but more importantly, it allowed to crash servers with ease. So, the typical scenario was that Sklerenchyma would join a pub, attempt to grief it, get inevitably kicked, then log on the same pub using an alt account and crash it. There was no DDoS, no "out-of-the-game" glitch, just a regular case of bug abuse.

I also don't understand why the "pinger crash" was brought up. Klei do not take responsibilty for players using faulty mods. The issue has been known for at least 2 years now (https://github.com/sauktux/Environment-Pinger/issues/1), and the author hasn't updated their mod since 2022 so it's pretty safe to assume that mod is abandoned. For players suffering from this error, the only way is to download a patched version of the mod. Currently, the workshop presents a choice between 2 mods:

- EP Tweak: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3384030282

- Environment Pinger [Fixed]: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3449488023

The former offers several brand new features (custom quotes, mid-game reconfiguration, persistent waypoints...), while the latter is much much closer to the original.

9 hours ago, niscento said:

@Adgycarp You are talking about a completely different exploit, which I did in fact end up reporting in a private message to a developer. It has nothing to do with the recent events.

Thank you for saying this, and the clarification. I must've not been paying attention to this thread properly, that made me draw some wrong conclusions. Combine that with other wrong/out of context info, that made me think you were partaking in some of the things mentioned+shown in the op's chatlogs.

I'm sorry if those things I said caused you offense, or if it had put you in a bad light. It was not what I tried to do.

9 hours ago, niscento said:

I also don't understand why the "pinger crash" was brought up. Klei do not take responsibilty for players using faulty mods.

Indeed. Konijnenmoeder said it too. And the game even warns users when they enable mods for the first time.
 

On 2/24/2026 at 6:44 AM, niscento said:

So, the typical scenario was that Sklerenchyma would join a pub, attempt to grief it, get inevitably kicked, then log on the same pub using an alt account and crash it. There was no DDoS, no "out-of-the-game" glitch, just a regular case of bug abuse.

My only issue with this theory is that based on the logs, no new player joined after the player was kicked. Here is the continuation of the logs in my 2nd post:

[01:31:28]: [Vote Announcement] kick Sklerenchyma passed
[01:31:28]: [Kick Announcement] Sklerenchyma
[01:31:29]: [Say] User1: yes
[01:31:29]: [Say] User2: attacking goats now lol
[01:31:35]: [Say] User1: u gotta go to monkey queen
[01:31:36]: [Say] User3:  I have 12 jellybeans.
[01:31:38]: [Say] User1: give her banana
[01:31:38]: [Say] User4: to get rid of cursed trinkets you need to either find the monkey queen
[01:31:39]: [Say] User4: or die
[01:31:45]: [Say] User2: i can tp you to monkey queen but idk where she is
[01:31:46]: [Say] User5: guess ill die
[01:31:50]: [Say] User2: that works too
[01:31:53]: [Say] User4: just die out on the ocean and get revived
[01:31:55]: [Say] User1: when we doin dfly
[01:31:58]: [Say] User2: no hp penalty from my heart
[01:32:00]: [Say] User2: die in corner
[01:32:01]: [Say] User4: soon
[01:32:07]: [Say] User3: i just need thermal to get there
[01:32:10]: [Say] User3: then we gucci
[last message before server crashed]

As you can see, no new player joined. I can share the 2nd set of logs with the same pattern if you want. Griefer kicked > No one new joined > server crashes after 1-2 minutes

Edited February 26 by DarXide

2 hours ago, DarXide said:

My only issue with this theory is that based on the logs, no new player joined after the player was kicked. Here is the continuation of the logs in my 2nd post:

Plenty of potential explanations here.

Firstly, it's possible that the griefer already had an associate, who then triggered the crash. Secondly, the gallop trip exploit, which I mentioned before, was being distributed through steam workshop at the time. Anyone who had it could've crashed the server, perhaps unknowingly and by accident, as it was just too easy to do (literally press a button during the character's death animation, while trying to save yourself). Thirdly, this game isn't exactly bug-proof and there's been an update recently that introduced a couple of new mechanics, which are expected to come with bugs (gallop trip exploit is just a singular example). And lastly, as players who frequent the official pubs know, those servers aren't the best, unfortunately. Servers tend to get overwhelmed by entities (most notably spiders and bee drops from players abusing the killer bee biome) and spontaneously self-destruct a bit later into the game (winter/spring), sometimes accompanied by a few minutes of severe lag before that happens. There's also been quite a lot of cases where the server simply decides to shut itself down for no apparent reason whatsoever, with a message that reads "Shutting down server in 1m0s" (this, of course, doesn't apply to your case, and is mentioned to show the state of official pubs).

8 hours ago, DarXide said:

My only issue with this theory is that based on the logs, no new player joined after the player was kicked. Here is the continuation of the logs in my 2nd post:

[01:31:28]: [Vote Announcement] kick Sklerenchyma passed
[01:31:28]: [Kick Announcement] Sklerenchyma
[01:31:29]: [Say] User1: yes
[01:31:29]: [Say] User2: attacking goats now lol
[01:31:35]: [Say] User1: u gotta go to monkey queen
[01:31:36]: [Say] User3:  I have 12 jellybeans.
[01:31:38]: [Say] User1: give her banana
[01:31:38]: [Say] User4: to get rid of cursed trinkets you need to either find the monkey queen
[01:31:39]: [Say] User4: or die
[01:31:45]: [Say] User2: i can tp you to monkey queen but idk where she is
[01:31:46]: [Say] User5: guess ill die
[01:31:50]: [Say] User2: that works too
[01:31:53]: [Say] User4: just die out on the ocean and get revived
[01:31:55]: [Say] User1: when we doin dfly
[01:31:58]: [Say] User2: no hp penalty from my heart
[01:32:00]: [Say] User2: die in corner
[01:32:01]: [Say] User4: soon
[01:32:07]: [Say] User3: i just need thermal to get there
[01:32:10]: [Say] User3: then we gucci
[last message before server crashed]

As you can see, no new player joined. I can share the 2nd set of logs with the same pattern if you want. Griefer kicked > No one new joined > server crashes after 1-2 minutes

You connect to a server before it is shown as join announcement. Malicious players can crash a server before they are even announced in chat. 

12 hours ago, konijnenmoed said:

You connect to a server before it is shown as join announcement. Malicious players can crash a server before they are even announced in chat. 

Yeah. And if you press tab you can see someone loading in. Only several seconds later does the join announcement happen

I strongly suspect this is how the server was crashed, but there is no definitive evidence. Maybe the next time I play and encounter griefers or someone gets kicked I can hold tab to confirm/rule out a server being crashed by connecting/from the outside

Edited February 26 by DarXide

On 2/27/2026 at 12:15 AM, DarXide said:

Yeah. And if you press tab you can see someone loading in. Only several seconds later does the join announcement happen

I strongly suspect this is how the server was crashed, but there is no definitive evidence. Maybe the next time I play and encounter griefers or someone gets kicked I can hold tab to confirm/rule out a server being crashed by connecting/from the outside

You could check 'Recently played with' found at the Friends tab on Steam. This is how I found out about some specific griefers joining before they got announced after a server crashed. If you do remember the other names you played with, it might be easy to find out who didn't show up in game.