client side is open to a lot of <cough> tweaks. The morg 'EVE' (which imho disco could very well out-evolve) has reduced space combat to click....click....click....as there are no eye-hand co-ordination skills involved, only deployment of equipt. The gamers' experience (and as i've said elsewhere, im no good at coding) when playing such games is akin to bashing 'crazy swamp frogs' in morgs such as everquest, shaiya, etc.
when discussing with an eve-mad friend about its lack of real-time, in-your-face combat, he opined that the client-side of such games is open to abuse, namely that the targeting *could* be done by computer, not a human, making a player have nigh on invincible skills. I tried to point out that the drift fighting makes it really hard for the current AI to hit a human, but his knowledge about such matters was that it wasn't impossible to create a targeting mod for FL, only difficult, as targeting mods exist for other games, e.g. Shaiya. I dont think that this has happened in disco yet, but it could only be a matter of time.
Aside from reducing the irritation that the haxors cause, stucuk could be onto a winner here: by comparing the files that can be hacked, such as shield strength, sheild regen, power rating, hull strength, weapon refire rate, etc, when a player connects a character to the server, it would act as a simple 'you pass muster, you can connect', in the same way that the server verifies that a player is using the correct mod.
Furthermore, this invention could be copyrighted, meaning that it can be sold to other servers, and other games too. Also, copyrighting it gives a measure of legal protection, and anyone who rehashed the anti-cheat file would be in breach of copyright, meaning that their IP address could be passed to their ISP for a more thorough castigation than a 45 second ban.
I really dont see it as Guilty until proven innnocent. When i phone my bank, they ask me a whole bunch of questions, to prove who I am. They consider me to be a fraud, until i prove otherwise, then all is good, and they tell me how broke i am.
anything that makes it harder for hackers is good. The server becomes REALLY unstable whenever a weapon/speedmodder is on. This is just an observation, and it could be only co-incidence, but doesn't it affect the server when a weapon/ship is firing/moving faster than the server expects?
nevertheless, these haxors have a use: they try to break into the 'safe', so the safes are designed better, which presents a fresh challenge, and so the cycle repeats itself.
However, those hackers who do manage to break into the pentagon/homeland security net/HSBC are given a lengthy prison sentence, which is reduced on their active participation in closing the particular loophole that they discovered and exploited. How can we recruit the hackers (who are, in all fairness, just kids trying to show off at how clever they are) in a similar manner? Could we offer them a choice: Perma-ban their IP, or show us how you broke the anti-cheat?? how bout running a competition: load up a vanilla server, install the anticheat, and say to the haxors 'give it yr best shot'?
