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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Mon, 18 November 2002 17:53   |
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 Apelord |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 99
Registered: November 2002 | |
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Hacks such as Freepop are only detectable by tracking the rate of pop growth across planets. If this bug were used in moderation it would be rather hard to detect. Use it just enough to raise your acheived pop growth from 12% to 14% for example. Otherwise you need to rely on autohost (freepop doesn't work there) or some blatant use.
Most of the other bugs are detectable by the player they were used on. Battle board overload, Minefeild immunities, etc. are generally pretty detectable.
Split fleet dodge is really hard to say. The bug USED to be that you could split a single ship off from your main fleet (or several for that matter), make sure they had a lower fleet number and send interceptors off chasing wild geese. Now it is not so simple how the intercept algorith works, but it does work. Some folks continue to call it a bug, I think it is a matter of skirmishing tactics. Here's an example:
Send three minesweepers into a feild.
Split them into a group of 2 and 1.
Send 2 retreating back through your minefeilds at high warp while the fleet of 1 continues sweeping.
Is that cheating?
Well, IF your opponent only sends one fleet after you, then the fleet of 2 drags them back across your mines. However IF he sends two fleets after you, he'll intercept both fleets. And your larger fleet will pursue his larger fleet (at least in theory). So in this case the defender can intercept fleets reliabily, but it becomes a guessing game about what happens. Perfectly fine and no cheat by my standards since any advantage gained comes as the result of outguessing your opponent.
There are however many other situations less clear:
You've got 10 BB's sitting over a world and you notice the enemy has 12 ready to attack you. Now the enemy stack of 12 defeats your stack of 10 every time, BUT 1 on 1 you get away with some heavy damage. Is it cheating for you to split those 10 ships into single fleets and run in seperate directions?
What about joining fleets? Is it cheating to launch an attack from 10 different places in order to prevent interception?
An additional consideration is the effect of not allowing fleets to split, namely that it shifts the balnce towards the player with the most ships/firepower since they could be more assured of reliable intercepts. Personally I think the bug has been fixed (always intercepting the lowest fleet # with all fleets) and now it is a balanced guessing game of tactics.
Cheap Starbase/UR bugs are harder to detect. To detect this you would have to know that the starbase being built couldn't be built by the world below in the time frame mentioned. Very difficult indeed, but fortunately the bug is of limited value since Starbases are pretty much worthless as fighting components after a certain point anyway.
"The object of war is not to die
for your country but to make
the other bastard die for his" -George PattonReport message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 19 November 2002 04:11 |
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| Robert |
 | Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany | |
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Yes, I see that problem, too...
Thats why i mentioned hosts only should be allowed to post
and Ron can only acceess that list...
But still thats all impractical I see... And I believe it would
just become a long long threat about discussing who cheated
or not... nobody would read it... I dont know...
But in some games it is so obvious that someone cheats,
for example in one game played by a friend of mine the
host cheated so obviously (not playing on autohost), he
generated many times until his best possible outcome was
achieved, never hit minfields with his 2000 chaff fleet
moving warp 8, always disengaged combats when not having
the chance to win etc... Well, it takes some time to be
really sure someone cheats, but is that a real prove???
I think mayn cheats can be prevented when there is a trusted
third party who takes a look through all turns (and must have
all passwords of course) and tries to detect cheaters...
But who wants to do such a job? In one game we have such a
person (the host is actually not playing and has a role-playing
race, which is quite funny), and still there are difficulties,
because we have some special rules (cheap starbase allowed, but
e.g. all slots in all designs have to be filled...) and these
have been broken several times... now punished players feel
they are not treated equally....
Seems there is no real solution...
2b v !2b -> ?Report message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 19 November 2002 21:11 |
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| Ron |
 | Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator |
Messages: 1231
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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| jeffimix wrote on Tue, 19 November 2002 20:02 |
I think Pop hack doesnt work in Autohost becuase it uses... JRC4? IIRC, its a host patch really.
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At the moment, AutoHost defaults to JRC3. Game hosts can request to use JRC4 to generate their turns.
JRC4 fixes the SS pop-steal problem, the free-pop memory hack, the NS/EW minefield travel bugs, and probably some others.
It introduces a small bug in the calculation of damage done by AR viral bombing, and, I *think*, a bug with SS mineral stealing (has to be manually, not by orders in advance).
Because the JRC4 patch was never officially released, I didn't make it publically available or set AutoHost to use it by default. I'm considering doing that now.
JRC4 is downloadable on the starsfaq.com site though.
Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHostReport message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 19 November 2002 23:02 |
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AR viral bombing being the horrbily inefficient thing it is (although the idea of having 2000 gauranteed deaths could be useful to finish off colonies) is unimportant to me. Does JRC4 work with the other J patches as I'd rather avoid than use cheats.
Email me as ----jeffimix@----yahoo.com----
(remove dashes)
The spamatron! run!!!Report message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 26 November 2002 15:08 |
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IMHO - in the event that a cheater is "accused" then the current turn file, and the appropriate number of old turns (you keep the e-mails right?) should be given to an independant third party (i.e. someone from this forum volunteers when a post is made?). That way it's a one off thing and keeps the ability to have cheats checked. If someone says they wont hand over their files then they are without doubt cheating.
Only problem is if the accused doesn't save old turns. I dont suppose autohost keeps a backup directory of previous turns? (like when hosting your own game).
You could also have another thread on this forum that contains just a single post that cannot be replied to. It would contain a list of all names of PROVEN cheaters and how many times they cheated, only editable by Ron.
In this manner you can have a many accused people as possible and anyone who REALLY has a case to say they didn't cheat can appeal to Ron.
Not that I'm trying to take away all of Ron's free time - it's just a suggetion. Could get anyone with enough dedication to fill the role.
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 26 November 2002 17:22 |
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well it was only an idea.
What u think big ron?
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Tue, 26 November 2002 22:00 |
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| Ron |
| Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator |
Messages: 1231
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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| freakyboy wrote on Tue, 26 November 2002 17:22 |
well it was only an idea.
What u think big ron?
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Its been hashed out on the newsgroup off and on over the years, with the usual consensus that its a lot of work, and that its just better if each host remember which player he/she doesn't want in their next game.
The main trouble is, there is no way to totally ensure that player 2 in one game isn't player 8 in that same game, or player 3 in another game. At the moment, the only unique identifier we have to go by is the email address, and you all know how easy it is to get another on of those! If a host banned a player in one game, there is no way to prevent the player from getting a new email address and pretending to be someone else in the next game.
If I could decrypt the turn files enough to see the computer ID or the serial number, then I could definitely match up players, who are cheating etc. Otherwise, its too hard to prove accusations.
Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHostReport message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Wed, 27 November 2002 13:47 |
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Could always ask MC if theres anyway to find out the serial number of a player.
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Thu, 28 November 2002 19:12 |
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Allowing the hosts to gather serial numbers would be very dangerous. It would basically allow anyone to pose as a host and harvest serial numbers.
Perhaps some sort of hashing algorithm could be used on the serial number that provides a unique identifier based on the serial number. Someone could easily write a 3rd party application to do this sort of thing. The problem now becomes that people could just submit any string of characters/numbers that look like the identifiers produced by the application.
If you're really worried about players changing their email addresses it's easier to just not accept players on hotmail/yahoo/etc... Personally, I believe we're better off just relying on mutual respect and trust.
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Thu, 28 November 2002 22:31 |
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| Ron |
| Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator |
Messages: 1231
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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| Peptis wrote on Thu, 28 November 2002 19:12 |
Allowing the hosts to gather serial numbers would be very dangerous. It would basically allow anyone to pose as a host and harvest serial numbers.
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If this was ever allowed, or a util released for this purpose, I believe that only AutoHost would be allowed to have it.
[Updated on: Thu, 28 November 2002 22:32]
Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHostReport message to a moderator
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| Re: I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me |
Fri, 29 November 2002 07:51 |
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That was sort of the idea. I mean autohost is fairly unique in that your everyday joe does basically buggar all. It'd HAVE to be something unique to autohost to prevent copyright fraud. Not that copyright fraud hasn't already occured because lets face it, where there is a will, there is a way.
The idea was not so much to totally ban a player because that IS impossible, but if each time someone gets banned they have to get a new serial/activiation code of some form it'll be a lot harder than just getting a new e-mail address. I own 3 domain names so thats a huge amount of possible e-mail addys.
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I tried escaping from reality but they always catch me
But little is said about detecting cheats and appropriate punishment. Anyone care to discuss this topic to help players and hosts out a little? 
I've performed this duty in the past, but always as a requested function from someone who played in one of my games. Additionally I think much of your complaint is readily handled if the Host doesn't play. Frankly it used to be much more common for Hosts not to play in their own games...
