Fixing the exploits : the scores.

[Ze_PilOt]

Hi,

You are maybe aware than scores can be used for cheating.

They are calculated with the cumulated points of mass, energy, land, naval, air and xp units.

The problems is that these things are taken from the sim side to the UI side, and the UI side compute the results.
You can easily guess that a UI mod can take these datas and display them pretty easily.
In fact, that's what hotstat is doing : taking every second these datas to build the graph.

The fix is simple : Compute the score on the sim side, and only send the result to the UI side.
And after the game is finished, send the whole thing to the UI for the score screen.

I can also allow observers to access some of these datas for livecasters.

Also, that can also fix mods than re-enabled score when they are hidden (I just don't send the datas to the UI in that case). I will display the FAF score in place of the "PLAYING" status too.

BUT that will break mods, the first coming in my mind is hotstat. I can eventually make a sim-side hotstat, but not in a first place.

I'm making a poll, but I've already decided to remove them from the UI side, unless you have a REALLY good argument against it.

[Kryo]

hmm i like hotstats. It would be bad if you cant see the stats after a game anymore

[Ze_PilOt]

I will try to make a FAF version of it, but I don't have any ETA on that.

[BabyAlien]

Agreed that the exploits on the score system takes priority over any 3rd party addon/mod

[Kekouse]

The score was always a bad idea.
It gives too much information (air or land), distract new players (oh my god I'm behind...I quit) and can be used to make maphack or cheat mods.
Removing it for good would be a good thing.

For now we can shut it down in the options of the lobby BUT with some UI mods it's visible even if you (as host) disable it. I think Lazyshare for example overide this option and show the score.
In fact we have a chance for all those years that nobody really used those cheatmodes. Now it's maybe not a real problem but "if" one day FaF is getting bigger it will become one for sure.

Away with this.

[-_V_-]

I'm not sure why it should become a MAJOR problem now since you said it never really were at the peak of FA.

I think the score is part of the strat since you know that if you do something "fancy" it will appear so it pushes you to do your stunt fast, or try to hide it in some way, in 4 words : part of the game (except for the possible cheating part which sucks but doesn't appear as such a big problem since not really used)


At least if you intend to really remove the scores, it should be an option in the game options that the host can set.

[Treble]

it should be an option in the game options that the host can set.

It already is an option for custom games.

[Ze_PilOt]

I'm not sure why it should become a MAJOR problem now since you said it never really were at the peak of FA.

I think the score is part of the strat since you know that if you do something "fancy" it will appear so it pushes you to do your stunt fast, or try to hide it in some way, in 4 words : part of the game (except for the possible cheating part which sucks but doesn't appear as such a big problem since not really used)


At least if you intend to really remove the scores, it should be an option in the game options that the host can set.

If you read the title, I'm not removing the score but changing the way they are passed to the UI-side.

Anybody can cheat and there is no way to know it, and it's as easy as installing a 10 lines UI mod. So maybe it was/is popular on gpgnet, you can never know.

[TA4Life]

Anyway to get a spreadsheet file containing all the data that hotstats collected after a game, so that it can be presented in some nice figures?

[TAG_ROCK]

As long as it doesnt break my hotkeys from Zulans hotkey mod, gazui and azui i am ok.