mods v vanilla

Hi have a question is using mods v somebody who plays the game vanilla cheating and before every goes using mods is not cheating i,m only talking about people that play the game without anything no mods .also i have a suggestion maybe allow a host to swich all mods off

What kind of mods exist that would give someone an advantage over another player?

There are two kinds of mods:

SIM mod and UI mod

A "SIM" (simulation) mod is one that changes the rules of the game for all players.

A "UI" (user interface) mod is one that only changes the user interface for 1 player.

For example, a mod that gives strikers an extra 200 HP would be a "SIM" mod. A mod that puts a marker on your screen to show which T1 mexes are upgrading is a UI mod.

Using SIM mods will basically always make the game unranked (I think there might be a few whitelisted SIM mods that won't cause it to be unranked) so people tend to be less worried about cheating or fairness when SIM mods are on.

Games can still be ranked if people are using UI mods. And each player can have different UI mods.

UI mods can do a lot. For example, the "Advanced Target Priorities" mod lets you control the behavior of how units target enemy units. Some people consider the target priorities mod to be "cheating" or at least they don't like how it changes the game.

Not all UI mods are "legal" to use in ranked play. The UI mods in the vault should all be legal. As long as people are using legal mods, it is not considered to be cheating to use any combination of UI mods.

It is possible for people to make their own UI mods that are not legal. For example, if you made a UI mod that always shows where the enemy ACU is, even when your team can't see it, that would be cheating.

I don't know if there is a way to forbid players from using UI mods. The way the game is set up currently, each player is trusted to pick their own UI mods.

additional customisation of interface can give advantage.
additional options for hotkeys as well.

but for that you usually need to invest time to spend it in settings or get used to new hotkeys and interface.
some mods give advantage without any drawback.. like "no shake"
with ACU highligt you will never confuse sacu for ACU
i don't use to many of them to give more examples

But it is kinda more important that they make game easyer to play and more enjoyable.
While advantage from UI mods is not big and most UI mods are available for everyone.
just like you can go to settings and adjust stuff for yourself, you can go to mod vault and setup UI mods for yourself