Is it safe to use airplane mode on an Android phone, or does doing so risk a ban?

I have heard that Social Point doesn't permit the use of airplane mode, but I've continued to see posts of high profile users checking all kinds of things in airplane mode. Is doing this something that risks a ban, or something that is ok to do?

@jgb use at your own risk, but the pattern seems to be is that it triggers if you are offline for a very long period and then go back online while the app is open..... it then triggers a 30 minute auto ban. Best approach for tower is to use it for scouting or to use it intermittently for short periods.... like maybe floor by floor.....BUT AGAIN, USE IT AT YOUR RISK.

@jgb You can use ap mode to check stuff without saving progress. But if you use it to get good results in events by switching on ap mode and only save progress by switching off while the game is running that might get you banned.

Ok guys, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

Thanks, Bettina for the explanation!
I don't think it makes sense. If you are exploring in ap mode you do so because you know that you'll get the same results next time. So where's the difference to just getting the results and switching ap mode off? Why ban the one but not the other?

I wished that they would remove this rule from the list of forbidden activities again. For one, I feel it's a built-in feature and therefore should be allowed. And secondly, the runner islands will be far too frustrating without ap mode. I'm a highly committed player, but that's the point where I will draw the line.

It's not really a built in feature of the game. It is a feature of the device.
And yes, using it for towers and flights is a type of cheat, but as it is a minor cheat from which we would not gain extra rewards beyond what is available, I think it is petty to ban flight mode because of this alone.
The real reason they should not ban flight mode is because it is indistinguishable from Internet loss. Many players have incurred this ban after a lost connection returned while the player was still playing. Stunningly insensitive of SP.

Thanks Susan for your additional explanations!

I've thought about why I think ap mode is a game feature - and the answer is, because they prevent it where they don't want us to use it. For example, you can't breed dragons, open roulette chests or spin the wheel in heroic races in ap mode. So the reverse conclusion is that ap mode is allowed everywhere where it's not prevented.

Yeah they are able to block its use in some features but don't do it for others. I don't know enough about it all to understand the whys and how's of it.

Well, it's clearly a design decision. I've played other games who cannot be played at all without being online all the time. And I really appreciate that Dragon City is - in parts - playable without internet connection. After all, whom of us hasn't experienced a connection breakdown sometimes?

Ok, I decided to share the following story with you. I admit that I blithely used ap mode in the maze island from the last event (where you could get the Tierna Connaught dragon). Because I was unaware of the change in the fair play rules until I stumbled over this post a few days ago, and the maze island was before that.

I had planned to go for the new Fresh dragon on this island, he's so cute, but then I read on DCP that some people had found great rewards in a special chest at the end of the Defender path. So I decided to explore this path in ap mode - and found 120 High Ethereal orbs in the chest! I couldn't believe it! It was really a magical moment.
I still wanted the Fresh dragon, though, and found out (still exploring) that I lacked a few maze coins. So I turned off the ap mode, bought a small coin package (2,29€, I think) and got the Fresh dragon, too.

Now... without the possibility to use ap mode I wouldn't have changed my original plan. Just imagine my frustration if I had found nothing worthwile in that chest! I would have missed this special moment of pure joy, and SP would have missed my payment. It's not much - but I wonder, what do they gain from banning ap mode?

@susan-mclaughlin said in Airplane mode?:

It's not really a built in feature of the game. It is a feature of the device.
And yes, using it for towers and flights is a type of cheat, but as it is a minor cheat from which we would not gain extra rewards beyond what is available, I think it is petty to ban flight mode because of this alone.

Yes, that was my thought, too. Of course we used ap mode to gain insight of what we can get from an event and how to best accomplish it. If they think this is cheating, it would only be consequent to ban this forum and fb groups like DCP, too. It's just the same, we use them to gain insights like which rewards to get, how many coins are needed, item pool size and cooldown times... Is this cheating? Well, I always wondered why SP allows it, but then, for me it's the main reason why I stick to this game while getting easily bored by others. I just love this "research and strategies" aspect of the game.

The real reason they should not ban flight mode is because it is indistinguishable from Internet loss. Many players have incurred this ban after a lost connection returned while the player was still playing. Stunningly insensitive of SP.

Stunningly insensitive, you put it so well!

Oh, and I thought some more about what I wrote yesterday and realized that this is really the heart of the matter for me. I used ap mode to prevent getting frustrated by the game. Now they banned it, so they force me to get frustrated.
I think this aspect plus the possibility/risk that I might get banned for an accidental loss of internet connection are the two reasons why I'm so furious about this change in the Fairplay rules.
It's my opinion that they will have to ban about 99% of their players if they are consequent. And I won't be coming back if it should happen to me.

@zzz said in Airplane mode?:

@susan-mclaughlin said in Airplane mode?:

It's not really a built in feature of the game. It is a feature of the device.
And yes, using it for towers and flights is a type of cheat, but as it is a minor cheat from which we would not gain extra rewards beyond what is available, I think it is petty to ban flight mode because of this alone.

Yes, that was my thought, too. Of course we used ap mode to gain insight of what we can get from an event and how to best accomplish it. If they think this is cheating, it would only be consequent to ban this forum and fb groups like DCP, too. It's just the same, we use them to gain insights like which rewards to get, how many coins are needed, item pool size and cooldown times... Is this cheating? Well, I always wondered why SP allows it, but then, for me it's the main reason why I stick to this game while getting easily bored by others. I just love this "research and strategies" aspect of the game.

The real reason they should not ban flight mode is because it is indistinguishable from Internet loss. Many players have incurred this ban after a lost connection returned while the player was still playing. Stunningly insensitive of SP.

Stunningly insensitive, you put it so well!

Oh, and I thought some more about what I wrote yesterday and realized that this is really the heart of the matter for me. I used ap mode to prevent getting frustrated by the game. Now they banned it, so they force me to get frustrated.
I think this aspect plus the possibility/risk that I might get banned for an accidental loss of internet connection are the two reasons why I'm so furious about this change in the Fairplay rules.
It's my opinion that they will have to ban about 99% of their players if they are consequent. And I won't be coming back if it should happen to me.

This is well-thought out but they have not banned all its uses only excessive use, at least at this point. So it is still a viable possibility, just not in excess. You might need to tweak your use of it but you can still use it. I continue to use in on tower and runner islands as I always have.

I am actually pretty relaxed about the issue on AP mode. I don’t even use it to check the chests: it’s more exciting to me to just take them as they come, like receiving 10k of food from a black chest, when I stared at it in complete disbelief.

The only time I use AP mode is when doing the Runner. I use it all the time, just making sure I turn the wifi back on before collecting. If I got banned, I would be happy too as I would have my life back.

@nicholas said in Airplane mode?:

The only time I use AP mode is when doing the Runner. I use it all the time, just making sure I turn the wifi back on before collecting. If I got banned, I would be happy too as I would have my life back.

This is just the way it should NOT be used. That is a good way to get banned. It is your choice. I am just writing this to let others know that it is not what they should do.

Ok, I'm out of runner islands then.
If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said that I like runner islands despite being very bad at them - because they add variety to the game! And I really love that. Most events you just have to collect, fight, crank terras... yawn. It's incredibly boring, and I especially hate cranking terras for the breed/hatch tasks. I guess all of us have tried that little rain dance of closing game, clearing cache, restarting game numerous times when we hadn't got a single token after breeding / hatching 30 terras in a row!
On puzzle island and runner island, you at least get an interesting minigame as reward for all those tedious tasks.

But then I accidentally spent some gems while trying to play the runner island without ap mode. It was only 5 gems, but I hate it when a game makes me spend gems by putting a button just where I'm bound to tap on it in the heat of the moment, a fraction of a second before my brain kicks in! And in that case it was useless, too, it got me nowhere. Aaargh. I shied off from the runner island since then, I just decided that I don't need to jump through every hoop that is presented to me.

@zzz I'm not sure why they are out. You do not have to stop using ap for them, just do them in small bursts instead of saving up a lot of stamps and doing a lot of runs at once. Personally I only do a max of 3 runs in ap mode, save then do another set.

... and i do a run, close out of AP, collect if i got at least 72-75, open AP, run, close out, repeat until out of stamps for the day

@dragonlove said in Airplane mode?:

... and i do a run, close out of AP, collect if i got at least 72-75, open AP, run, close out, repeat until out of stamps for the day

I try to get s minimum of 100 per run.

@nynaevelan said in Airplane mode?:

@dragonlove said in Airplane mode?:

... and i do a run, close out of AP, collect if i got at least 72-75, open AP, run, close out, repeat until out of stamps for the day

I try to get s minimum of 100 per run.

... am getting more of the just over 100 than used to, but still get LOTS of 72-75ish .... have found it helpful to hold my phone ‘just so’ ......

@dragonlove said in Airplane mode?:

... am getting more of the just over 100 than used to, but still get LOTS of 72-75ish .... have found it helpful to hold my phone ‘just so’ ......

lol, same here I find if I hold it just off to the right, I can run and slide and see it without my hand or arm blocking my vision. Also it helps if it sits on the table rather than me holding it.

@nynaevelan said in Airplane mode?:

@dragonlove said in Airplane mode?:

... am getting more of the just over 100 than used to, but still get LOTS of 72-75ish .... have found it helpful to hold my phone ‘just so’ ......

lol, same here I find if I hold it just off to the right, I can run and slide and see it without my hand or arm blocking my vision. Also it helps if it sits on the table rather than me holding it.

EXACTLY !! .... and ... it helps to keep it away from the ice cream bowl and probably the wine glass !!

I decided to use ap mode in the runner islands again. SP, please feel free to ban me for that! For one, I might deserve it and on the other hand, I would get my life back, as @Nicholas pointed out so accurately.

...and just another thought. Maybe the same approach would work well for SP, concerning the use of ap mode, which they seem to use concerning players sharing game information in the forums (island maps etc.): I always felt it was like the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork's approach: You can't keep players from committing crimes leaking game information, so you should at least organize it!

So here's a little update. I used ap mode again in the Beast Mode runner island, as I wrote a few days ago. I tap on the island, turn ap mode on, start the race, and after hitting an obstacle either close the game and start anew or turn ap mode off again, depending on the outcome. My goal is to get at least 100 pinwheels per run.
So I'm always doing only a single run in ap mode, which doesn't take very long. It worked fine - no ban! Which is a good thing, thank you SP! I really wouldn't want to do the runner island without ap mode, I get too nervous then, and sometimes I run into the same stupid obstacle 4 tries in a row. I seem to be really resistant to learning sometimes!
In the Beast Mode runner island I had to do a lot more runs than usual because I bought that special flight stamps offer. I've never come so far in a runner island before! And I notice that I'm slowly getting better at them.
The bottom line is, I'm enjoying the runner islands again! Thanks SP!