Cheating in SupcomFA

@Jip said in Cheating in SupcomFA:

@deletethis: That is pretty much what I mean, but then more easy to find!

A news post was made for that thread. It's now in the pinned news post of the news hub. We can always improve it and try to display it in a better way (automatic pm at 100 games or something similar), but it don't have a lot of idea on how to display that kind of stuff in a better way.

You're right - it is in there! Well, then I'm all good. It is there for those that care. A PM of some kind would be good too - to show people there's more than they think there is.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

It seems to make a lot of sense if you received a pm with some handy links upon reaching some rating threshold for the first time. e.g., "Congratulations on reaching 800 rating for the first time! Here's some UI mods that players around your rating find helpful" with a link to chef Keyser's UI recipe. That way you don't overwhelm beginners but still keep players informed.

I think that maybe a guide/article integrated into client's Tutorial tab would be an end goal but for now a link for forum posts is enough.
If I would make such a guide i would probably split it into 3
parts:
Essential uI mods:
SCB (after it's fixed)
Advanced reclaim view
Additional camera stuff; UI party
Basic ui mods:
Spread move
I don't have more ideas
Advanced ui mods:
ATP
Selection deprioritization

About the pm at X rating thing, I would've personally been furious to get such a message only after playing quite many games to reach the rating limit. I would've reacted along the lines of "so now you tell me these helpful UI mods exist?". I'd rather start playing with the proper tools from the get go than learn about them later on. Why not just have it as a FAQ post or something which would be decently visible to new and old players.

Similarly the effort to learn hotkeys was probably harder later on instead of from the start.

Tbh I feel like this discussion is kinda pointless considering the FAF guide for newbies already have UI mods mentioned.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13S4nBDfcBK4WmFtykXGKNmvIPe9L2nbiriISpHNgE4U/edit

@Jip eco overlay mods already do this to search for engineer units and their current expenditure no?

If FAF doesn't even have a basic implementation to check if everyone is running on the same version, and is not capable of locking ui implemented mods then what is the point of a blacklist?

Also to the rest, basing balanced fair gameplay on people downloading external 3rd party mods to "enhance" their gameplay, is not a healthy way of running a game in any fair manner. Its merely people giving up and accepting that there are cheats and just telling other people to cheat to.

Not everyone will cheat, and this leads to an imbalance in the community. If these mods are so "essential" they should be in the base game and not a 3rd party download, even if you can get it from the vault.

Could you imagine an FPS game, that tells me to install aimbot and auto recoil mods?

And about FAQ? Why would those who read guides get a massive advantage merely from knowing that you can openly use cheats in the game. When I was a noob coming from Steam Supcom, did I read documentation and forum posts? No, because I had a basic understanding of the game. Why would I even know that there are mods that will auto manage my eco for me, auto micro my bombers for me, and heck even recently, re-alter the basic way in which the sim of my units function so that they prioritise ACU.

This simply doesn't get discussed, because it opens a can of worms that a minority in the community don't want to open and this leads to a very hazy grey area in policy, where anything goes until it doesn't and even then the response is to just ignore moderators and load it from base game instead of client?

Comparing UI mods to aimbots is quite a stretch. Also not every player wants every UI mod, it is like a breakfast buffet, you pick what you want and is working for you. UI mods in the hands of inexperienced players can also have more detrimental effects to their gameplay than positive.

@PsionsThis is what you can access from the UI side of the game:

Among others, this includes:

  • GetIdleEngineers()

Which is also used to make a button on the right side of the screen on which you can click to move to some idle engineer.

  • UISelectionByCategory(expression, addToCurSel, inViewFrustum, nearestToMouse, mustBeIdle)

Which is a bit on the edge of things that is possible but never the less it can only select your own units. The 'snipe warning system' you mention is just not possible through a UI mod.

What a UI mod does is interpreting the data from the simulation. In turn, the UI side can send some commands back (such as 'Pause' and 'Stop', which are the only commands that work) or display information in some UI (which is the UI that you are looking at)

Comparing this to an aim bot is a bit of a stretch, but I do understand some UI mods can provide significant advantages, such as ATP.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@Psions are people still cheating in FA?

@Giebmasse We literally have an aimbot "ui" mod. (Priority mod)

Also a recoil macro is no different from a bomber micro or auto eco management. Both are the input of a rapid succession of commands that the player without assistance is otherwise not capable of doing within that time frame.

Where is this bomber micro mod? Why didnt I see anyone use it? Can you provide the mod or replays?

I'm not gonna get very involved, but I feel a duty to point out that UI mods are capable of doing a lot more than most people know about, and are... quite breakable, if you want to.

yes i have noticed a lot of strange things going on just lately

Can you go into more details about what are these strange things happening and can you provide some replays?

@gary2112 , @IceDreamer Logs, replays, or anything else or it didn't happen 🙂

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

I think its already been discussed how abusing UI mods is almost undetectable unless the person is blatant about it. Asking for logs/replays is great, but actually proving beyond reasonable doubt that someone is using a mod to get informational advantage or engage in macro activity, is very difficult. Especially when there is no consensus when a mod is "blacklistable" and when its "required reading" to get gud at game.

This is why i opted for a whitelist solution.

i opted for world peace why isnt it happening yet. are people against world peace?

@TheWheelie Yes, everyone actively in war is against world peace.

@deletethis It would not be wise. Most of them are unfixable engine-level faults, and for the most part they are unknown in the community at large. However, if I and a small number of other developers took note of them over the years, it's possible that a dedicated wannabe-cheater would be able to notice them as well. Most of the fixable exploits have been fixed.