Player Banned: StellarViss

[L1ght]

@StellarViss has been banned for:

1.2 - Cheating or exploiting game mechanics is not allowed. This can include 'multiboxing' (logging in with multiple characters at the same time), disconnecting during player encounters (post here if you disconnect by accident), abusing bugs, etc.

Consequences:

You cheat, you lose.

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Original Link for Admin/Mod Use | Discovery Server & Forums Rules | Before You Post Here

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If you require evidence, you may request such via PM from a Staff member. Only the accused or an official faction leader of the accused person's faction may request such. Once you have the evidence, and if you wish to dispute it, you may post in the Sanction Thread below. Do not continue PM'ing a staff member, as that will result in your Appeal being denied. If you PM a staff or post in the sanction thread and you are not directly involved, you are consenting to be subjected to the reprisal of my choice which may involve in game repercussions up to a ban. Blaming members of your immediate family, neighbors, friends, pets, and assorted Orcs, Trolls and any other legendary creatures may result in the use of Admin Right #CTE 750AE

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[StellarViss]

I would like to see the evidence.

[StellarViss]

This post doesn't match my normal style of writing. That is because this is an important matter and English isn't my first language, so I had a friend proofread this for me to make sure I'm explaining myself perfectly clearly.

As it looks like I won't be getting evidence, I will explain what I believe triggered the anti-cheat because I'm positive this is the result of an innocent mistake. Like a lot of us, I have multiple installations of discovery on my computer as I sometimes mess around with modding. Yesterday, in order to take a picture for an RP thread involving a Redemption battleship, I asked my friend DragonRider to provide me with a modified market_ships.ini. I needed to do this because this is the only way to purchase the Redemption in singleplayer, since it isn't sold anywhere.

Here are the screens of our discord conversation:

Spoiler

During that process, I accidentally logged onto the main server from one of my multiple modified disco installs. I got as far as the character selection screen before realizing my mistake and immediately disconnecting.

If it wasn't only this, there is a possibility that the copy of discovery I accidentally connected with is one that I modified in ways beyond market_ships.ini. For example, I've used alternate disco installs to test making new systems and even attempted merging Discovery with a different mod that another friend of mine helped work on. I've also downloaded the ioncross save editor and a different one from the StarPort forum.

If the admin team would like to see my files I am more then willing to hop into a vc with them for purposes of streaming, and log in with my regular installation and then the modified ones in turn. This process would not take more than just a few minutes, as I only have 7 installs total and including both mods and the correct/live-server one. As such, if anticheat truly WAS the issue, then one of my installs should throw the exact same anticheat messages that caused this ban in the first place, which I believe should prove that I made an innocent mistake. If I edited my installs it would throw a different error I think. I have nothing to hide, so I have obviously not made any edits to my alternate disco installs before posting this.

If I am unbanned, I would (obviously) be extremely careful to never make this mistake again.



In case anticheat was not the issue here:

Recently I was farming a codename encounter with a ship that was neutral to the NPC faction in question. I know that shooting your own NPCs to farm drops has been against the rules for a long time, as it exploits the game mechanics (because friendly NPCs can't shoot back), but I don't know if it applies to neutral NPCs. I assumed that shooting neutral NPCs would be fine, as after only a few shots they'll start shooting back. Indeed, in that instance, the NPCs I was farming were in fact shooting back at me, so if this is against the rules and considered an exploit I greatly apologize, and would request that staff clarify edge cases such as this somewhere. A permanent ban for cheating is a very hefty punishment for such a transgression.

[Haste]

Ban lifted.

Consider your two week ban a warning to be very careful when modifying your game install. The part of the anti-cheat that you tripped is one that has proven reliable and, in many other cases, would have warranted an indefinite ban. Given the circumstances, however, we were unable to figure out what advantage it could've given you, and are giving you the benefit of the doubt.

I strongly recommend you simply connect with an entirely unmodified Discovery Freelancer install going forward.