i for one think that the persistent MP server is a great idea.... me and my friends play on a personal one just for people we know.. so theres no harm of cheating.............. when i get round to it. were going to be adding capitol ships to it, and a better variety of thrusters (a bit faster ones)

but i dont see why your having a go at persistent games... its a great idea

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You just washed up here or something?

I don't want to stop cheaters from getting on my server but I would rather prefer to be able to find out if I have cheaters on it.

Right now I have to rely on my player database but if I were to get for example a log creator of player events I would be happy like a puppy.

What I mean is for example to have a logger that will show the player process. That means after how much "played time" and with what "rank" a player bought a ship, WHEN he/she advanced in ranks etc.

I would have np banning a player that bought with lvl 1 a titan for example. they can cheat all they want..I don't want that on my server if possible tho so the gaming exp of others dont get ruined.

as long as we're on the subject of modding attitude,

creators need to stop being so BUTTHURT about flames.
I've already seen a couple threads where the modder was like "I HATE YOU ALL IM NEVER COMING BACK ITS ALL COZ OF YOU." type of junk just because of some flames.

heck, even in one thread, there were as many compliments as flames and the modder still blew up.

hey, if you wanna mod, or actually, if you want to create anything on the internet to show other people, the be PREPARED to take the critisism. and hey, if you check your post 5 minutes after posting it, and there are a couple flame replys in there, DONT SLIT YOUR WRISTS JUST YET. i mean damn, people take time getting here... the people with compliments just haven't seen the thread yet.

Don't get me wrong, I think all of you modders are great. It just angers me when I see someone quit over something so small as a couple people's opinions. It just serves to slow the modding community's progress.

In fact, I'm thinking of modding myself, once i finish the SP mission and maybe after some MP action.

I agree with End.. Give it time.. I come in, read the forums, go play for a few hours, go to work, etc..etc..etc.. Might be 24-48 hours before I get back to the forums..

Besides - Just because 3 or 4 ppl flame you for making a "mod" - doesnt mean the other 496 of us dont agree/like/use it..

peace.

Beltic and Ender have gotten off the topic.

The point is that there is no way to effectively prevent cheating.

This is not, and could never be, an MMORPG. That is a GOOD THING imho. I am sick of MMORPGs.

We should be sharing information and not worrying about cheating. Worrying about it is a waste of time and energy and will just lead to enormous frustration.

Trying to prevent cheating in FL would be like trying to prevent cheating in open battlenet Diablo 2 => impossible and frustrating.

i found something interesting... you can change your server so it displays packet logs.... someone will figure out what hte packet for buying a titan or a sabre looks like.... so then the owner of the server could daily check for it. If a match is found, the owner could look and see if a character creation packet was sent from that address. Its likely in 30 minutes no one will have a titan or sabre without cheating. ;P

oh! i just had another thought. someone could write a program which checks the logs for that.

While you can't prevent cheating, there are definitely ways to deter it and more importantly detect it. If you're running an open server and have the ability to automatically detect "suspicious activity" (i.e. obtaining a Titan within 30mins) then you can warn/ban the player.

I've been working on a protocol in my head for character replication across a "trusted" server network. And I do mean trusted -- you should know and trust each server added to the network because this would be the easiest way for cheaters to break the system (i.e. spoofing a server). Once you have the trust tree set up it's fairly easy to use encryption systems for digitally signing or fully encrypting traffic between servers (i.e. RSA public key where each trusted server has it's own key pair and knows all the public keys for the other servers). Also, individual servers could monitor and reset values/ warn players/ ban players on certain actions and maintain the integrity of the individual character records. This requires completely reverse engineering the save files so the relevant data can be transmitted between servers and the character records can be recreated at both ends. It would also require adding in an extended log-in sequence where the server queries the other servers (or a central character server) to see if the player can log in (i.e. NO logging into two servers at once).

I'll type the whole thing up and start a new thread if anyone's interested, however it's not much use till we break open the savegame.

I know a lot of people are going to scream about opening up the savegame and how that will help cheaters. All I can say is TOUGH.... Obscurity is NOT security. So the cheaters will have a field day on unprotected servers... But they can already so I'm just trying to clamp down the experience for people who want to play with their friends AND who want to be slightly more risky in letting other people play in their sandbox. Also, to allow for modded servers and the different services they could offer (i.e. servers with completely new universes to explore, differently balanced universes, universes with trade systems that update costs of goods dependent on time/supply/demand, etc.)

Juz my 2 cents.

> Obscurity is NOT security.

Completely true.

That was part of my point. As modders, we need to try and figure out EVERYTHING. Holding back information from each other for fear some cheater might use it is a bad thing for the progress of modding.