Warzone 2100 Forums

Zarel wrote:I don't think the cheaters are reading code; they're just using debuggers.

I dont know how a debugger works, but is like that: You check the amount of power in game, look in the debugger for the corresponding hex value, change it and done? If it is like that, we could split the power variables.

Instead of a variable called PlayerPower[Player1] we could use 2 variables
PlayerPowerPartA[Player1]
PlayerPowerPartB{Player1]

The absolute power of a player is being calculated by adding those two values. That way, a debugger cant find THE power value because there are several being added on the fly.

It does not matter if you split it up to one million parts it still will not stop them since the trainer maker can look at the code and do a workaround.

There is no way to prevent cheating with the current network model. PERIOD.
Encryption will not help or obfuscating the function.

Everything must be moved to server side.

Well, we're not talking about preventing them, just making it harder for them. I mean, if they're really, really dedicated, nothing we can do will stop them; we just need to make it hard enough that they have better things in life to do than break an OSS game with no cash prizes, no ladder, and really just consists of a small community.

Its not necessary to delete the cheats,u just ve to combine it to a signal to the server that the cheats has been used in a multiplayer and deleting the account maybe the program from the Cheater-hdd^^.Little message"it´s not that we dont like cheaters,we just hate them,so join the game as an fair user".You know Chess and Fritz the Computer-program.On no Chess-server of the world it is possible to use a Chess-software when playing as an human(no bots).

Zarel wrote:Well, we're not talking about preventing them, just making it harder for them. I mean, if they're really, really dedicated, nothing we can do will stop them; we just need to make it hard enough that they have better things in life to do than break an OSS game with no cash prizes, no ladder, and really just consists of a small community.

Thats excactly my opinion.

Lets just change small things in source code every release, so that it is at least a bit harder to cheat in wz. And the build in cheats, we server on a silver plate, should be removed. As long as they are in, all other preventions are senseless.

isn't there a way that the host of a game can kick sombody out of the game the moment sombody cheats


or somkind of callvote stuff that if 1/2 of the votes is yes the dude gets kicked.

this way even if its a 1 on 1 game. if the host calls the vote, the cheater cleint will get kicked out of the game.

smallfly wrote:Thats excactly my opinion.

Lets just change small things in source code every release, so that it is at least a bit harder to cheat in wz. And the build in cheats, we server on a silver plate, should be removed. As long as they are in, all other preventions are senseless.

How would you go about doing that? Remember this has to work cross-platform, and moving code around for the sake of trying to thwart cheaters and it is going to cause problems for the VCS compare / merges.

Timmie wrote:isn't there a way that the host of a game can kick sombody out of the game the moment sombody cheats
or somkind of callvote stuff that if 1/2 of the votes is yes the dude gets kicked.
this way even if its a 1 on 1 game. if the host calls the vote, the cheater cleint will get kicked out of the game.

There is no way to kick people once they are in game that I know of.

thats because its just an idea of maybe implementing it

bw, can we make a list of cheaters ?

I go first
spinner : build impossible units, if you play him your VTOLs explode in mid air not even leaving your base, and no AA guns in a million miles.
also sensor towers just pop up out of nowhere, no trucks needed.

What about a checksum check everytime Wz is started? Might be just one of the most effective ways. Well even if checksums can be fakedd aswell, but it makes it waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy harder to reprogram the .exe from source to hit the correct checksum. It should be like: no checksum/wrong checksum -> no lobby...

or something like that...

Powzone wrote:What about a checksum check everytime Wz is started? Might be just one of the most effective ways. Well even if checksums can be fakedd aswell, but it makes it waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy harder to reprogram the .exe from source to hit the correct checksum. It should be like: no checksum/wrong checksum -> no lobby...

or something like that...

Erm... why? It might be hard to make the exe fit a checksum, but it's pretty easy just to reprogram the exe to lie and say it has a checksum it doesn't actually have.

unfortunately this is not a problem that can be defeated whilst the game is open. so we should just be vigilant and when cheaters occur then strike with everyone together on the cheater

of course that would be inordinately disconcerting. mabybe a code should be placed in that when values differ from norm makes all those with normal values units stronger in all aspects equally unaffecting play between them but making winning difficult for the cheater?

cheaters are in every game now , with lots of stars .
there is no fun plying with cheats .......

what about an extra .exe that looks like this

compareLocalHashToServerHash (localHash)
{
connecting to lobby server where valid hash of wz is stored();
send lobby server the password "wdhwudl87343dsf" so that lobby server knows "anti cheat dector is connecting" and sends back the valid hash of the stable release of wz

if (localHash == 434829jh34j2j4234jjn23) // hash of current stable release of wz
then its fine
else
f*cking cheater, go on and f*** yourself
}

this exe file is not opensource of couse. everytime you connect to wz. the lobby server waits to be connected by this exe too. only if both exe connected successfully and hash compare is also successful, player can join a game.

what do you think about that?