On the victory stats pages after finishing a game there are some stats which seem to be likely caused by cheats:
+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Stat | You | World |
+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Overall Score | 11701 | 123132.66 |
| Average Damage per Shot | 5.6 | 16.11 |
| Scientists | 104 | 108215.93 |
| Engineers | 138 | 113203.35 |
| Total Credits Earned | 19933 | 228587.44 |
| Credits Spent | 17996 | 116097.38 |
| Grey Market Sales | 4169 | 113806.89 |
| Days Until Second Satellite | 42 | 7.98 |
+-----------------------------+-------+-----------+
I don't think any of those are reasonable differences without involving cheating, but I'd be happy to be corrected. More interestingly, some stats are not entirely unreasonable:
+-----------------------------+-----+-------+
| Stat | You | World |
+-----------------------------+-----+-------+
| Average Damage per Shot | 5.6 | 16.11 |
| Days Until Second Satellite | 42 | 7.98 |
+-----------------------------+-----+-------+
Basically every other world stat seemed to be reasonably close to my own result, so I'm wondering if these two could be actual big differences between my own and an average playthrough? Short of save-scumming with Damage Roulette or heroes an average damage of >16 seems very high but not ludicrous. And is it even possible to build a satellite within the first eight days without a ludicrous amount of engineers?
Granted, a script kiddie could probably sabotage the stats easily, using some elementary math to make every number 31337 or something. However, the majority of the stats were similar enough to my result that it seems likely they haven't been actively sabotaged, but instead probably reflects actual values from real playthroughs (cheats or no cheats). That makes the stats in the previous paragraph interesting: Are they skewed because of cheaters, or did I miss something fundamental about gameplay?
Running with the Elite Soldier Pack and Slingshot DLCs in Steam on Linux.
Best Answer
Days before satellite might actually be achievable legitimately. On easy, and I think, normal difficulty, you start with a 2nd satellite. If it's just counting when you get your second sat in the air, then that's all you need. If the lower diff vs higher diff skew is high enough that one seems possible. Especially if it only counts stats from finished games, as Classic and Impossible are more likely to not be submitted.