🚀 go-pugleaf

Sorry if this is duped, I thought I'd replied already but can't see it.

§ï×darts wrote:
> Some of the servers I play get a small handful of players whose ping never
> changes from 75.  It is always 75 exactly.  Now and again, someone will
> start ripping on the 75 pingers saying that all of the 75 pingers are using
> "a hack".  I've never seen anyone say they are using a bot, or radar, or any
> other sort of cheat... they always describe it (in game chat) as "a hack". -
> OK.  So, is there any validity to a hack or cheat of some sort existing that
> will make the server beleive that the players ping is exactly 75?  -  I've
> spec'd a couple of times and I can't spot any advantage those particular
> players seem to have.  In fact, more than a couple of them are just as
> crappy of players as I am and some even worse <grin>.

I honestly don't know the answer to that. There is a mod for 2k4 that 
makes the bots have a ping, and chat and behave "almost" like human 
players, but generally people figure them out soon enough. Dunno if 
there's something like that for ut99, or whether there's some other 
reason. Even if they were on a lan you'd expect the ping to move around 
a bit. Might be another serverside mod that's somehow changing how pings 
are displayed. <shrug>

> I only found one that I had to wonder about.  I've played him and spec'd him
> more than a few times.  He moves through every map as good or better than
> anyone I've ever seen, so I thought for a long time that he is simply a very
> good player.  I have to pick up every single set of enforcer/minigun bullets
> and keep him out of minigun ammo or I can't even stay within 15 frags of him
> in a 30 frag deathmatch.  He's amazing with the minigun.  It doesn't matter
> strafe squat jump flip whatever, I can't live through more than a dozen of
> his rounds being fired.  But, something odd happened the other day that made
> think a capitolized bolded *"WTF?!"*.  I got distracted by something going
> on in my house for a moment and my fingers came off the keys.  He fired 40
> rounds at me while I wasn't moving and missed all but maybe two.  He had to
> get right up to me to kill me with the minigun when I wasn't moving.  Every
> time I saw him in the next three games, I just stopped and he couldn't hit
> me for at least 20 rounds without charging right at me.  -  This sort of
> thing I can usually blame on lag, but his ping is an exact 75 and mine runs
> from 68 to 80 on that server.  That's not a bad average to create *that*
> much lag.  -  So, is there any truth to the always exactly 75 ping = some
> sort of hack/cheat?

Again, don't know, maybe a playing style? I wouldn't think an aimbot 
would have problems tracking a stationary target, but sometimes a human 
might - I know I had problems shooting some bunnies who run and jump in 
straight lines, /too/ predictable iykwim.

All I can say is I don't know of a cheat that would explain the two 
things you describe, sorry.

> I just finished a couple of games.  A couple of those servers played
> surprisingly well at my 175+ ping.  They didn't feel laggy at all and I
> think I actually had a little advantage against a couple of the 35 ping
> players who could only seem to hit me with rockets or flak.  I've never
> played those servers before because someone at some time led me to beleive
> that UTDC could be used maliciously.  I've never played any server running
> it.  But, if Flash says it's OK, then it's OK with me <wink>.

Heh, thanks.

I don't like having to use UTDC, but just isn't an alternative. We 
caught a lot of botters when we turned it on and even though we took a 
large hit in total number of players it's almost eliminated the 
aimbotters we had. We've binned 30 or 40 unique ut99 aimbotters since 
then, and only one that I know of has returned with a bot that beats it, 
and I can keep him off with other tools. No other anticheat has come 
close for a couple of years or so, and by the stealth nature of cheats 
any anticheat has to adopt similar techniques to root them out. Any 
other way would be like the police trying to catch a murderer by simply 
asking everyone they meet "Did you do it?"

As an admin, the only "underhand" thing I can do with utdc is to take a 
picture of your UT portal. That means I can get a screenshot from what 
you see in UT as you see it, and this shows up radar, on-screen timers, 
brightskins, aimbot HUD's etc. UTDC takes one automatically when it 
boots somebody, or an admin can force one manually and it's pretty 
reliable and gives incontrovertable evidence beyond a long string of 
numbers that UTDC tells us is a hook. Actually seeing a radically 
changed HUD with radar blips, health of opponents and usually a big 
advert telling you exactly what bot it is, is a really big help. We 
don't publicise these screenshots since we think it might actually 
encourage people to try these cheats and get themselves banned for life, 
but if somebody claims innocence beyond the normal UTDC logs, it's good 
to have another card in the hand to prove to the world that they really 
are gaining an unfair advantage.

Note: The only screenshots we get are *only* of the UT window, we can't 
see anything else like your desktop, other windows, other monitors etc - 
ONLY the ut99 viewport. UTDC doesn't even report the names of other 
running processes unless it finds a hook in one of them. We don't get to 
see your porn secrets :)

If anyone's that interested, UTDC's source code has been released now 
over at unrealadmin.org so you can see exactly what it can and can't do.