cheating mods?

[zany]

I was in a game where they said I cheated and when I asked how they said they could see my power. this is a lie I was transferred power and that is why I had a big gain.
this means that people you play with are knowingly cheating by knowing all your information making them have a unfair advantage over the people that don't cheat.
this was because of people running a hidden mod in the map that does not show up in lobby!

[effigy]

...
this was because of people running a hidden mod in the map that does not show up in lobby!

Did the person say it was the "mapmod"? Or are you making that assumption because you were playing a modded map? I've heard of people doing what you describe, but it was by modifying the source code.. nothing to do with a modded map.

[Berg]

this was because of people running a hidden mod in the map that does not show up in lobby!

Iluvalar is often heard bragging he catches cheats by using a mod to view user info..

I tried to point out this was cheating but he ignores all help makes you wonder what else is in his bag of tricks

Claiming folks are cheating by cheating to catch them is Not GOOD

[Iluvalar]

To my knowledge, there is no MOD that permit a specific player to be able to read power of others in an UNFAIR way.

This is done trough source code modifications. And YES I have such build.

It seem hard to believe to players that never saw it but most decent players use the same overall power behavior. Either, they stay close to 0 either they very slowly get some cushion. Either possibility will not give you any advantage to know it. It would not be enough to shed light on what the player is truly doing. You still need to scout to know how much he spent in his army and (if he is any good) how much he spent in research.

I believe I proved that point by giving the ability to read power in the mod NRS+ when you research and build the command relay. Many players know it is there and even if i'm close to giving it for free, most of them never build that. They prefer to build some more viper on wheel than to have that information.

[ODDity]

To my knowledge, there is no MOD that permit a specific player to be able to read power of others in an UNFAIR way.

Anything, MOD or otherwise that lets you see information that the game doesn't provide by default is cheating. Pure and simple.

[Berg]

This is done trough source code modifications. And YES I have such build.

You still dont get it do you.

[Cyp]

But reading the power levels only helps catch cheaters, it doesn't fix them. You should make the build periodically write to the power levels of everyone, every minute, to make sure everyone has the same amount of power. That wouldn't be cheating, would it, since it would only be for redeeming cheaters?

[stiv]

This is done trough source code modifications. And YES I have such build.

Using your own personally modified version of the source code? One that gives you advantages that other players do not have? Yeah, that certainly sounds unethical at best. Would your Mom approve?

[vexed]

Need a flashing banner when joining the game:

I am spying on you for your own good. Just like any good DRM, we do it for your protection!

[Iluvalar]

This is done trough source code modifications. And YES I have such build.

Using your own personally modified version of the source code? One that gives you advantages that other players do not have? Yeah, that certainly sounds unethical at best. Would your Mom approve?

I'm aware of that, i'd gladly give it up, but saddly, i still find a cheater out of each 8 games or so. There is actually cheating builds avalaible somehow because right now it's even worst. As soon as we play with unknown players the risk of cheaters simply explode.

I'm aware you want to attack me for being a cheater, but you are being unfair. You should try to be at least as much aggressive against all the cheaters, but you can't because you don't have the tool to know who and how much cheating there is around. I'm the one that can bully cheaters as much as they take advantage on others. You can't.

I'm aware how much unethical it look, but in the realm of cheaters, power readers that tracks bigger cheaters are Not BAD at all.


@Zany : who was that player ? And how it happened ?

[Reg312]

2Iluvalar: you can include some logic when program would decide what player is cheater and you not need see his actual level of energy or reseach level
maximum energy and maximum possible research can easily be found by math equations, is not it?

[Jorzi]

Hmm sounds like an idea, a bot that monitors everyone's power levels to see if anyone gets a sudden peak. Also, legitimate transfers would be easily detected by searching for an equal drop among other players.
About Iluvalars current mod being "unethical", a bit yes. It's good if someone wants to be a spectating judge. On the other hand, if you are playing the game and being the judge at the same time, it's politically unstable.

[JDW]

2Iluvalar: you can include some logic when program would decide what player is cheater and you not need see his actual level of energy or reseach level
maximum energy and maximum possible research can easily be found by math equations, is not it?

This seems fair. Like an auto-kick feature, we used to have those in earlier 2.3.x releases. Haven't seen an auto-kicks in action for quite some time now. On game start, all player power levels are checked, if anyone's power is found to be not matching others, then auto-kick. And the reason for auto-kicking could be broadcast to everyone else and also maybe registered in the logs.

+1 for Reg312

[Iluvalar]

2Iluvalar: you can include some logic when program would decide what player is cheater and you not need see his actual level of energy or reseach level
maximum energy and maximum possible research can easily be found by math equations, is not it?

good idea. But there is some problems.

Difficulty:
I tried to track the power in NRS mod, but the players use the power between test which make that harder than it look. What if i'm lucky in a small map and i hit 3 oil drum at the same time ? Will I be kicked ? Or if i recycle a bunch of my armies ? One could easily jump for 1000 power doing so. Autokicked ?

Gaming the cheat detector:
If we make it widely spread, the cheaters will quickly know that the kick dont occur when they cheat 999 power at a time.

Speedhacker detection :
By reading power, you can also see speedhackers which are harder to detect, but are still possible.

Who gonna make it ?
For now, i just made a 5 minutes change in the source code. Coding a full cheater detector, with max arrays and triggers everywhere would be a lot more work. Who gonna make that code for the old 2.3.9 version ? Assuming the Devs will accept the patch, because they keep the 2.3 branch buggy on purpose... .

[Emdek]

+1 for built in optional user actions validation with logging and announcements for others.