During this era, cheaters combined aimbots with "No Reload" and "Multi-Shot" hacks. One aimbot command would fire all 30 of your missiles simultaneously down the same physics-corrected trajectory. The result was visually absurd: a multi-colored laser beam of death piercing from your spawn to the enemy spawn.
Developers initially tried to verify shot trajectories on the server. If a player fired 10 shots in 1 second, the server would kick them. However, sophisticated aimbots mimicked human delay (e.g., waiting 0.5 seconds between perfect shots), bypassing this.
However, where there is competition, there is exploitation. For nearly a decade, one term has haunted the leaderboards and forums of DDTank : .
This destroyed the "social contract" of the game. Casual players didn't rage quit; they simply stopped logging in. Game developers responded with escalating force.