Heya Xan (I'm assuming that's you with the nick)

It's very difficult to realistically answer the per/player requirements because depending on what a single pilot is actually doing in game can vary widely and the requirements for them to be lag free is even wider.

I person skimming through a system devoid of asteroids and very little contact iwth NPC's is going to require much less resources than a person in a dogfight with 10 corsairs in a nebula with exploding gas pockets.

Stinger is correct.

I have been at the console on my server (Not in the game) watching server load while a friend of mine is in there. At times load would spike to like 189 Msecs....I'd ask him...and a few others...People are in battles...or traversing Asteroid/nebular systems.

So it really depends on what is going on.


I currently have mine set for 40 players...But so far haven't gotten over 29 at once...There was no complain of lag. My server specs are listed on this site.

I am still researching a way to get my cable connection faster....(legally that is) with my ISP...They have yet to get back to me.

I have 128 up on my cable service...I would like to get a lot more then that...But as I have noticed...My ISP is loaded with a bunch of morons. I have to get to the right person, or my questions will be responded with "Ummm...I'm not sure" type answers.

I don't WANT to switch to DSL...But if I have to, I will. I've had better luck with cable than DSL thru the local Phone Company...Connection wise...Support wise...They both suck. I hate Arkansas....This backwoods state.

Anyone want to pay for me to get a T3 drop at my house? lol




-Arg



Something Awful

SUMONE PLZ HELP ME!!! I JUST LOST 400K FOR NO REASON ON THE Elite SERVER!!! HERE R THE DETAILS:

Time of Event: aprox. 04:30GMT, May 10, 2003
Characters involved: TheMachine(Good), TheMachine(Neutral), BeaverEater
Money from: TheMachine(Good)[me
Money to: TheMachine(Neutral)[me
Middle person: BeaverEater[my friend
Location: inside/outside manhattan

Description: i was playin as TheMachine(Good) and wanted to give $400k to one of my other characters, TheMachine(Neutral) so i can develop that character as well. so i gave 400k to BeaverEater, then changed my playing character to TheMachine(Neutral) and BeaverEater gave the money bak. then i pressed alt+tab (i wasnt in cruise, i was idle) to look at lancersreactor for some info on the ships that i can get. when i went bak to freelancer, it said i got disconnected from the server. then when i went bak into Elite, MY 400K WAS GONE!!!!!!!

SUMONE PLZ HELP, THX ALOT TO WHOEVER HELPS!!!
TheMachine

Life is Death, and Death...is Life[!

Edited by - TheMachine on 10-05-2003 05:56:30

I've read in the forums that alt=tabing somethimes gets ya blown up

"I've read in the forums that alt=tabing somethimes gets ya blown up"-Rand

gettin blown up doesnt mean u lose credits. it means u lose all ur cargo and nothing else. so even if i was blown up, i shouldnt hav lost the money...

anyways, after talkin to a few guys on Elite, i found out that i probably got booted for "cheatin". seriously, y doesnt Elite allow transfer of large amounts of money from one char to another?!?!?!?!? i wasnt cheating, only transferrin money for myself. man im so tired of this...im not sure if this is Elite's problem, or DA's server patch problem, but whoever it is, PLZ FIX IT AND RETURN MY 400K!!!

thx,
TheMachine

Edited by - TheMachine on 10-05-2003 13:37:11

@TheMachine

Let me try to explain a very simply concept here. Transferring massive amounts of money from one character to another looks EXACTLY like someone using the money cheat to the software that we've worked so hard to bring about. Now, what would YOU suggest we do about that? Go back to the way it was?

Not on my watch.

Just learn to work within the new software and everything should be just fine. We all rrealize how annoying it is to not be able to transfer money between characters (we're not stupid) but we all also realize how unstable the server becomes when cheating is done. Get mad at the people who created the cheats, not the people trying to deal with their existence.

Stinger, I don't know if you are aware of this, but sometimes your tone comes across as a bit ... arrogant.

From the sounds of it, the people complaining here are doing so because what was perfectly reasonable within game terms before the patch is suddenly causing trouble since the patch, due to the anti-cheat solutions that have been implemented. I am following this discussion with interest because I want to know exactly what will be in this patch when it finally appears (something I have yet to locate).

I may be missing something here, but it sounds like the players haven't been told what is and is not permissible using the new patch. I would have thought that kind of information would be vital for anyone trying to play the game.

It could also be said that if certain legitimate things are now impossible because "it looks like cheating", then the anti-cheat code needs to be revised.
Surely the cheat-detection should be based upon game files being tampered with, rather than normal in-game actions?

Imagine if in an FPS game, the anti-cheat solution was to kick people who happened to get three head-shots in a row because it "looks exactly like using an aiming cheat"?
What kind of a solution is that?

@Quercus

Yes, I know I come across as arrogant. That comes with moderating this site, doing my job and reading all the messages. That enables me to be on top of the current discussion so I don't waste peoples time. This discussion has "tenticles" to serveral threads and forums here, not just this particular one. There's a history to what got us here in this thread and I'm all about getting to the point. But I promise to do my best to behave.

I'm also wordy, and I'm working on that too.

Now you did say this...

---

Imagine if in an FPS game, the anti-cheat solution was to kick people who happened to get three head-shots in a row because it "looks exactly like using an aiming cheat"? What kind of a solution is that?

---

I'm not seeing the coorelation between what goes on in FL and your example, sorry. I look at the impact of the event. Transferring massive amounts of wealth (tho not really considered cheating at all) in FL has a massive effect on your character's status within the game. I can not think of one FPS that would have the same level of effect on ones character by three head shots or something similar. Sure it probably will have an effect in the FPS, but when a million credits are transferred between characters in FL the resulting strength increase of that character is improved too much, way too much.

From struggling in a (beginning ship lvl 1) Starflyer to having the resources for a (high end lvl 30+ ) Titan in less than 30 seconds? You've got to see that is just about as perfect a description of a scenerio you can have for cheating in any game. Agreed?

Now as far as what exactly is considered "crossing the line" on legitimate events and letting people know ahead of time what those are, I agree. It would be wonderful to be able to do that. But alas, we have no way of knowing what those lines in the sand are until people like you and others provide us with feedback so we can (and do see link below) let people know what we know about what exactly the patch does. See here for a perfect example one page back in this thread at the bottom. .

Edited by - Stinger on 10-05-2003 23:03:47

Stinger, thanks for the reply. I'm sure you are doing a sterling job here.

Surely the idea of transferring funds is part of the MP game? Why would the devs. have allowing trading money otherwise? Come to that why base the ranking purely on wealth?

My point remains though, that transferring funds in game is a legitimate game function and not a cheat.
Perhaps if that is considered undesirable the option should be to give a server-side switch which limits or turns off the trading function between players?

Therefore the cheat detection software should *not* be picking up on money transfers as IT IS NOT A CHEAT, simple as that.

If people want to trade money, let them. If people want to sell items at inflated prices, let them. Anyone stupid enough to pay the price deserves what they get.
The simplest way to stop people ending up with huge fortunes is to increase the cost of the ships and weapons (as some of the mods have) and introduce a pseudo-dynamic economy, so that the prices will go up 5% per hour (to a maximum of 125%) if no stock has been received for a while, or go down 5% / 10 units (to a minimum of 50%) when items are sold at the base, creeping back up by 5% per hour to 100%.

This should be possible within the game mechanics because the game already allows for "temporary" localised reputation changes.

Freelancer was hyped as allowing you freedom to do what you want, so don't impose limitations across the board, make them server-side variables and make the anti-cheat software only work on legitimate game hacks.

Its quite clear that a server side patch is gonna make things very very hard for you guys to detect REAL cheating on the client end.

Have you ever thought that maybe the best way is to just make a client patch that can see what else is running in memory and if the FL memory blocks are altered by 3rd party apps then its highly likely they are cheating.

But I know your all trying to do this via server side it seems, but looks that you will be setting allot of RULES to the so called FREElancer game.. RULES that stops people from freely giving each other large amounts of money.

Now what if someone makes a cheat to just give small blocks of money insted? the server won't pick up on that, so in the end its mostly futile when it comes to the whole money issue.

I think a client side patch will end up being the result in the end unless you don't mind renaming freelancer to prisonlancer.?

PS. Sorry I understand how much work you guys are putting into this but it seems you are just doing checks on the client to see if anything makes any sudden changes, this in the end will not work in a game which basis is built on money.


Edited by - PRiME2020 on 19-05-2003 16:37:24

something occured to me, is it possible for the server to detect when a trade opens up?

Perhaps you can exclude trades from the cheating detection? I mean lets face it if the person was cheating they would need to get the cash before they opened the trade meanign they would be kicked.. I think that would be the only real solution to the player to player trading. However player to station trading can be another thing alltogether?

Elite is not runing a patch, {rest of post deleted because of profanity}

Another lost soul has found their merry way onto the "watch list." This one is fairly uninformed and it shows in their feeble attmpt to vent inaccuracies stemming from frustration.

Edited by - Stinger on 20-05-2003 22:57:42

I've been playing on DA patch since it started (About 400 hours) and I can't remember ever blowing up for no reason. The only thing that comes to mind was a time I was in Omega 11 During some crippling lag and blew up to my best guess from a combination of radiation and sun corona.

I have a deal I do every now and than where I sell 4 nomad weapons for a million to players who don't know where to get them. I nor my customers have ever been booted for cheating. Its not really a bad deal considering what class 9's sell for but compared to if i was selling at a base it looks pretty bad.