Anti-cheat being tested right now on a server near YOU!!!

[SuperSheep]

That's right. After 2 years of development, I've decided to put up a server with Anti-cheat software running on it.

This software is very much BETA and is not 100% accurate at this point. It is rather touchy but as people like you guys play, I can see what's being detected incorrectly, and make the necessary modifications to reduce and hopefully eliminate error.

Here's what it will kick a player for...

Weapons speed
This is actually quite accurate now and can detect if a player is using weapons which fire too fast. Example: Plasma firing at 7 shots per second instead of 6.

Duplicate weapons
Detects more than 1 shot fired from the same gun. This is working so-so. Due to some routers out there, there are sometimes duplicate shots that have nothing to do with cheating. This will be made accurate within the next day or so.

Speeding
This will detect ships going faster than they should. Yes it takes into account trichording, AB pulsing, and the different ships speeds. This is flaky currently as I still need to add much code for detecting overspeed caused by impacts and explosions but I am fairly confident that this will be resolved and this will be very accurate in the near future.

Non-fusion weapons as Fusion
This is flawless and will detect if someone has the Fusion flag set for a weapon that shouldn't. e.g., MassDriver that kills in 1 shot.

Outside of Level
This is almost flawless. I have only encountered one area where this fails and that is in Vericose Veins. Unfortunately the spawn rooms are considered outside the level. I do think however that this will be fairly easy to correct.

Shield Cheat
Unimplemented with plans on implementing soon. This will detect if someone gets shields for anything other than an energy to shields converter or a shield orb. This should be flawless.

What about the Observer Mode Hack? Well, thanks to D3Server, don't even need it, but if you guys want it can be added very easily.

What about the %%% names crashing server. Well, also thanks to D3Server, that doesn't need to be added, but if it needs to be added, I believe it can be done.

What happens if server detects cheating
The server will kick anyone that violates any of the above. Keep in mind, as this is BETA, it will on occasion kick those that are not cheating.

Whats the Point?
Well, I personally don't like bans, ban lists, and generally being kicked and or banned just because someone thinks I or someone else is cheating. As far as I'm concerned, unless it's really obvious like the stuff "The Man" did, it usually is because the person is just plain better or Internet weirdness.

So, if you see SuperSheeps Anti-Cheat servers, go play on 'em. One thing you can count on is that the above mentioned cheats will NOT occur without that person being kicked but that sometimes a player who isn't cheating will get kicked. At least, that is, until the code is brought up to release status.

Enjoy!

[Grendel]

Very nice (again ) ! I would be interested in the software.

Does the speeding check work on all rotational/translational axis ? Or is it just checking the combined vector ?

Edit: Thanks for the registry entries

[SuperSheep]

It does both Grendel. It actually checks those separately. And if mouselook is enabled(heh) then it doesn't check the rotational.

[Grendel]

Excellent. How about intentionally modded ships ? Like eg. the PyroGX in the Distrotion 1.1 level ? Does the software read the ship parameter from the local tables ?

[SuperSheep]

Yeah, weapons fire rates, and ship velocities are read from the values stored in the servers table file.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Awesome!

[Neo]

That's right. After 2 years of development, I've decided to put up a server with Anti-cheat software running on it.

0wnage! ^_^ This is great news! ^_^ Keep sm0king those z00bs and smAck those haX!!

Whats the Point?
Well, I personally don't like bans, ban lists, and generally being kicked and or banned just because someone thinks I or someone else is cheating. As far as I'm concerned, unless it's really obvious like the stuff "The Man" did, it usually is because the person is just plain better or Internet weirdness.

heh

I remember e-mailing a certain z00b about this and his reply was "I don't really care." Yet he said he cares about getting banned after being accused of cheating. =P You should care, dummy! LOL I guess he didn't see the point. =P 9_9

[Do_Checkor]

If it weren't SuperSheep I wouldn't believe this

Sounds pretty cool...

[SuperSheep]

Update
Alright, I think I may have nailed down the too many shots fired detection and have revamped the speed cheat detection to be more robust. It'll obviously take some testing but these areas are far better than they were.

Keep in mind, I'd really like you guys to play in there. I'm not too concerned who gets kicked and who doesn't, I'm not keeping any lists. I never will. I just want and I think you guys want a handsfree way of running servers without worrying about police-ing them all the time.

So please, go into the server have fun, if you get kicked, don't worry bout it, just join up again or post what happened here. It all helps me to fine tune the anti-cheat code.

[Floyd]

sounds good so far. if the server wasn't so far away, i'd play more often there.

your work will be much appreciated. thumbs up

[Nightmare USA]

very nice supersheep!

[SuperSheep]

Great News
Running a Stadium server now. Thanks to Sgt. Thorne, and a lotta fun players, hosted a full first to 50 match with no false disconnects.

[Nosferatu]

Hey SS. Are you going to make this available to other ServerOPs? I would just LOOOOVE to run this on Crypt as well. BTW you rock.

[Nightmare USA]

yeah had fun, got my but kicked in though, heheh

[Grendel]

You play too much shakers -- use the primary force, Luke !

I'd like to run that software on my servers too, BTW.

[Pun]

What about reduced size hit sphere hacking?

[SuperSheep]

What about reduced size hit sphere hacking?

I tried extensively to reproduce this a long time ago. All I was able to accomplish was the ability to get really close to walls, and leave the level.
I seriously believe the server does all damage and therefore uses its own sphere settings but if you or someone else would mind sending me the necessary modifications, then sure, I can look into it.
Just PM me with the details.

Getting close now. Should have something ready within a week or so now.

[Pun]

I wouldn't know how to reproduce it either. Although I have heard it's possible. And once I hit a guy in the ass with an MD and sent him through a hole that no ship should have been able to fit through. Maybe someone with more knowlege could shed some light?

[SuperSheep]

Update

I tested the observer mode hack using nothing but d3server and while I couldn't crash the server, I decided to check out some posts on other BB's about it and found that even with d3server, there are some who will do it right upon entering the level and crash the server in less than 5 seconds, so...

I've added an observer mode hack detect. It will only allow for going into observer mode once every 2 seconds, so that should be good enough for people who like to observe and yet slow enough to discourage the hack.

I also so a great many players(or 1 player with many names) getting kicked for "out of mine" a couple days ago. My hope is that this is a hacker and not an accidental kick. I have yet to be able to get kicked without doing a cheat, and rarely see anyone get disco'd when I'm playing, so I guess unless I get complaints, everything seems to be working well.

There is one more hack detection that I'm planning on adding soon. This will detect overcharged fusion, eg., fusion that is charged fully without the player actually waiting for it to be full charged.

Also, I've gotten a request to add some kind of detection for those players who do things to their connect to make them harder to hit. Things like uploading files while playing. I am considering implementing this. Instead of trying to monitor packet traffic which is near impossible to do accurately, I'm going to attempt to simply smooth what the server sees so that instead of them jumping around on the server, their ship appears smooth. This should also make them appear smoother to other players. This will not be a kick or some kind of anti-cheat, more of an enhancement of the server code.

And lastly, Thanks to many great players, the server has been getting a lot of playtime. I really appreciate everyone who has come and played and had a great time. I've noticed very little bitching and I've also noticed that most games seem closer in score between players than other stadium games I've been in. Whether this is do to the anti-cheat code warding off certain individuals, or whether it's because everyone knows everyone else is legit, who knows? But it's a good thing.

[Grendel]

Hm, Stadium is a bit limited w/ weapons. I'm thinking about speed boosts from MD hits eg. Maybe some more Hally or BTC ? Distortion would be a good test for heavily modded ships/weapons.

Edit: any chance that could be merged w/ the D3Server tool ? That would be awsome Hunter, you listening ?

[Insurrectionist]

Wow awesome work dude

[SuperSheep]

Update

Added the code mentioned above to interpolate(smooth) a players position on the server, and therefore, the clients. Had some glitches in the beginning, but found them and eradicated them. This may or may not remove Mega Bounce. Definately needs testing with lots of peeps.

[will_kill]

Hey bro'...your server(s) are absofrigginlutly A-w-e-s-o-m-e! As a noob, I would like to commend you graciously for this huge peace of mind. heh, As all you veteran players would know, you see alot of strange stuff messin' 'round in these mines and it's nice to know that on at least one server I can rest assured in all it's validity. Thank you, you are what the world needs more of.

[SuperSheep]

[SuperSheep]

Thanks to all for play testing and helping out with Anti-Cheat. I'd say it's good enough for hosting at this point.

Big thanks to-

Muffalicious - Thanks babe for puttin up with your boyfriends dorky hobby

SgtThorne - Many thanks dude for helping since I first put up the server.

psion - Huge props for making a set of movies to compare smoothing algorithms and for playtesting.

floyd - Thanks for play testing on a server you got 300 ping to and for looking at the source.

Too many others including punisher, willkill, nosferatu, and judas and all the others who played extensively in the server.

[Sergeant Thorne]

We've got two Stadium servers running two slightly different builds of SuperSheep's program.

SS Anti-Cheat Server FT50
and
The Construct (Anti-Cheat)

Try them out!

[Grendel]

All Grendel's Lair servers run Anti-Cheat as well #11-#14 todays built, #01-#03 will be updated later this evening. Please post problems here.

[Floyd]

operative on Descentforum.NET servers from now on, too

[SuperSheep]

Update

Fixed bug that accidently kicks players in levels like Varicose Veins where there are rooms with one-way walls.

Added a time limit for changing teams. One way a player can crash a server is changing teams rapidly. I've added code to only allow players to change teams once every 2 seconds.

Please feel free to email me if you are a server op and have found glitches/problems and thanks to all the server ops who have this hosted.

[DCrazy]

Just a question: is this implemented as a replacement for anarchy.dll? Or does it run externally from the server program? Just wondering if Anti-Cheat would work on CTF, Entropy, etc.

[SuperSheep]

It works on 15 different game modes...

Anarchy
Assault
Co-Op
Ctf
Entropy
Guardian
Hoard
Hyper-Anarchy
Instareap
Monsterball
Robo-Anarchy
Team Anarchy
Team Hoard
Team-Instareap
Teams

Other game modes can be added easily.

Unfortunately, I can't go into the details of how it's implemented.

[Nosferatu]

Im just wondering if my setup will cause the anticheat system, problems. I run my server under http://www.winehq.org under Linux Fedora Core 3. I would love to run it if I can.

[SuperSheep]

Update

I added the ability to check for a player with unlimited ammo for a weapon. While this may sound great, I have yet to actually fool a server into thinking I have unlimited ammo, but if there is a way I can't think of, at least this will kick them.

[[RIP]Gallows]

With this AntiCheat software running I've noticed a few things occur that are undesireable.

1.Vauss doesn't seem to work as well. This has been true across the board with all the AC servers.

2. Sometimes weapons don't pick up.

3. Double mega bounce + trichord and rolling will still get you kicked.

4. People still call you a hack when you kill them.

[SuperSheep]

I believe the weapons not picking up has been solved. There was this issue a while ago, like several days, but I found out why and corrected it. If you can point me to the server that did it, lemme know. I've had it running on my server with no issues with powerup pickup.

The vauss not hitting as accurately I believe may be related to the first thing. I had been making many changes to how ships are interpolated on the server and its possible you tried it b4 it had been really good, or possibly, I will need to resort to a previous method(one that provides less smoothing, but may be more accurate for vauss, etc)

I also added code a couple days ago to prevent kicks from weapon impacts however it is nearly impossible to provide an effective speed cheat solution while also elimninating all possible false kicks.

hehe, yeah, I spose i could add cheater, hacker, lamer, to the list of profanity's?

[[RIP]Gallows]

Yes, "cheater" is a dirty word.

[Stryker]

Could you add a check for the "zoom" flag being disabled on MD?

[SuperSheep]

Could you add a check for the "zoom" flag being disabled on MD?

Unfortunately, no.

[LEON]

Could you add a check for the "zoom" flag being disabled on MD?

What's that?

[Floyd]

i think it's better to move this thread, or at least specific discussion out of the public eye.