The Spread Of Aimbots.

[Nux]

The Knuckles demo is characteristic of the kind of 'double lag' you get when one player specs another, an effect made more obvious by unlagged. It makes it much more difficult to determine whether or not he was actually botting but I have to say it looks pretty likely sometimes.

How about checking to see if any bullets hit the surrounding environment? Even experienced players miss shots because they are human.

[benmachine]

How about checking to see if any bullets hit the surrounding environment? Even experienced players miss shots because they are human.

Go on then :P but you can't prove that he's not toggling it on and off. You can't ever prove anything, of course - it's all a matter of judgment.

[FooBar]

How about checking to see if any bullets hit the surrounding environment? Even experienced players miss shots because they are human.

That's how I finally spotted it.  I thought he was missing all his shots, until I realized that there were no bullet marks on the walls, but there WERE little splashes of alien blood in mid-air.  That, and he got credit for all the kills.  

The Knuckles video is interesting because, even ignoring the double-lag effect, the aimbot just doesn't seem to "snap" to target the way a classic aimbot does.  It may be that the player is more skilled with the bot, and only turns it on in very short spurts.

For me, big markers of an aimbot are instant switching from one target to another, and inhuman tracking when moving quickly around a target.  The better aimbotters don't seem to show this very often, possibly because they turn it off and on regularly.  Or maybe the bots are just getting better-designed?

I was the one recording those crusaider demos. It's not just at the end that it's noticable. You can see him near the start having trouble keeping it from aiming at teammates. Plus, at times his aim follows the enemies as they go behind walls.

Yeah, targeting his own teammates was how I finally realized it was an aimbot.  It's funny, I think he actually shot his teammates more effectively than he shot the aliens.  I noticed the wall thing too, but the first time I thought he was pre-aiming using radar.  Repeat viewings made a little more sense.

[beerbitch]

Dont forget "auto fire". He could have just had an auto fire option turned on so his guns would only shoot when an alien hitbox is under his crosshairs. This can fool spectators who look for the snapping auto aim.

[Nux]

This is interesting. As the thread title (refering to aimbots) suggests, we are aware of the spread of aimbots only because they are so obvious. Does anyone know if there is a 'firebot' made for tremulous freely available?

In either case though a tell tale sign is the lack of missed shots. So long as when they miss those shots, they seem to be still following the target, this should suffice as evidence. The player is using the aimbot because he can't follow the target fast enough, so upon the turning off his aimbot (to miss some shots) he would not be able to follow it realistically.

[Lava Croft]

This thread suggests Aimbots are an issue, while in practice you get about 1 botter a week, which isn't an issue at all. You can always keep talking about it and try to fool everybody into thinking it really is something important. Or you can just let it rest and ignore it, which in my totally irrelvant opinion is the best option.

[Eeeew Spiders]

I do find how to spot an aimbotter quite relevant for the game. Not so much in the sense to be able to spot them, but to make clear to some other individuals what is not an aimbotter.
The fun of the game can be equally destroyed by constant suspicion and accusations of aimbot than aimbot usage itself.
A very common pattern for people that feel they need to aimbot is that they are completely convinced that anybody better as themself must be cheating and thus by cheating themself they just level it out. SmartGun or/and Crusader are examples of this.
When they learn that e.g. the demo of Aron is not an aimbot, maybe they will start to realize how dumb their actions are and give people the peace they deserve while playing the game.

[Lava Croft]

Currently, 9.9 out of 10 supposed botters are completely legit players. All this talking about aimbots will not help at all.

[Eeeew Spiders]

Currently, 9.9 out of 10 supposed botters are completely legit players.

That's what I was trying to say. But I feel that the 9.9 false complaints is at least as damaging to the game as the small percentage of real botters.
In that regards I found FooBar's evaluation of the demos very helpful for those that see a bot in every kill, and therefor not a useless or panic feeding  post.
Btw....what is a 0.9 botter?

[Nux]

Btw....what is a 0.9 botter?

A botter without his hat on?

I personally don't subscribe to the "let's not talk about it so people don't think about it" philosophy. Things are better discussed and concluded in my opinion.

[Sentinel]

Yes, i am totally noob. When is another better than me, i sign them as aimbotters, because i totally don't know, what aimbotting is. I played this game more than one year often. Myself have problem with my skills. Sometimes i am signed as aimbotter, because i am good and always have mostly kills. I flustrated from this state. When i play fair i aimbotting and when anybody use cheat, i record them and lol, they non cheat. This is not fair... A long time i don't use lasgun, because i would immediately signed as aimbotter. Players solving problems like: new graphic, mods, gameplay, yes is nice, but is unavailing when game is messed-up with cheaters. New version is far away, and i don't know will be any solution here. This game is great, and lots of thanks belongs to developers and to this forum and his great people who support this game. I have decided. I never broke any game... and i know different between cheater and pro player... I stopping play this game with tear in eye. Yes, i know thats all depends on people, they are good or no. But latest days have i more nerves as fun. I have to know here many good people. Thanks for that games And, i don't change nick for continue playing as somebody other. I am going definitely. Maybe it is that better...

Excuse for my english and disarranged cogitation, since i tired from work.

Bye

[Eeeew Spiders]

I am going definitely. Maybe it is that better...

Sentinel...I apologize for making you think I meant you with that. Don't leave the game because of this. I was not talking about you in particular, you seem selfcritical enough for not being a threat to the game, i wish more people were like that.
At least you went spec and made a demo. There are other players in the game who are far from that and ruin the game for everyone.
I actually found your demo quite useful: Aron (and others) has been getting enough complaints and your demo is a good indication that these complaints are without grounds. I prefer people like you, posting demos, to people following players around servers and trying to give them a bad name, without ever speccing them or making a demo for second evaluation.

[FisherP]

While it does seem that the occurances of aimbotters is reducing since the cheat came out I think there is still value in discussing the issue. The reason being is for education. There are quite a number of people who do not quite know what to look for or how to spot a cheater. In addition to this there are various types of cheats. There's of course the aimbots, but there's also wall hackers and those who have the hax for detailed player information.

On starting gaming there is seemingly no "Beginners Guide to Spotting a Cheater" so discussing this issue in forums such as this can be beneficial for those people.

I do however agree there there is an apparent paranoia in the community. I consider this to actually be realistic since tremulous is not exactly the kind of game that filters out people due to cost or server subscriptions. Other game servers might charge you a monthly fee for access, Tremulous doesn't so there's nothing to lose if you are banned. Additionally it's really easy to change GUID and names without leaving any trail, so for most people bans are really easy to circumvent. All this amounts to is people feeling a little insecure by being cheated out of a win  by people who are cheating. Hrm, makes sense really.

I don't blame people for being a little paranoid about aimbots but maybe some people haven't had to deal with them before. Do we stop talking about them? I don't really think so. Should we be a little less paranoid? Yes, definately. Being accused of haxing is like a cancer that spreads, hurting both the accused, the wider community and the accuser in the end.

[Lava Croft]

Yes, it's much more beneficial to keep talking about those 10 odd aimbot users, instead of just forget about those losers and play Tremulous.

Drama, drama, drama.

[Killjoy#1]

who needs aimbot when you have my kind of mad skills

[Nux]

Yes, it's much more beneficial to keep talking about those 10 odd aimbot users, instead of just forget about those losers and play Tremulous.

Drama, drama, drama.

This being a 12 page long thread (and expanding), it's quite clear that people here on the forums benefit from talking about it. They want to discuss it. This thread is twice the size of the next biggest front page thread and 4 times as big as the next leading non-sticky.

This isn't even spam. People have views to share which exceed the 2 word mark.

This isn't off-topic. Cheating is one of the larger issues with an open-source game like tremulous. You might disagree, but the public in their majority dominate the opinions board.

You've made up your mind, now let everyone else make up theirs.

Once more I'll say..

I personally don't subscribe to the "let's not talk about it so people don't think about it" philosophy. Things are better discussed and concluded in my opinion.

[Survivor]

Shorthand

The thing lava is trying to express is that everything that can effectively be said has been said. And also it is not that information on cheating has been contained, only duplicate entries and direct references on how to obtain these cheats have been stopped.
If you can start giving me new information then your point is valid, but merely discussing so and so is a cheater is simply not valid since there is no reliable identification system in place. Identifying a cheater is a knack people either pick up by playing a lot and feeling the unnatural behaviour of cheaters or looking through the numerous past threads which expand upon it. But to keep opening new ones is a nuisance.

[Plague]

This thread has served the additional purpose of giving a verdict on suspected aimbots. If this thread wasn't available to post in, those same queries would be posted in separate threads with each suspected case.

I should think it's in the mods own best-interest to leave this thread open, as it avoids the unnecessary clutter of the inevitable "aimbot?" threads.

[Survivor]

Which purpose does this verdict serve? Oh he's a cheater, but we don't know if he is really him, nor can we do anything about the supposed him since all identification material that we do have is easily spoofed.

Note that I am not for closing this topic, but just against the general unnecessary banter of this kind of topic.

[Nux]

I don't remember saying 'Shorthand'. :O

In my opinion, this topic is one of the better ones. Bearing in mind the frequent topics from very new players who have decided that it must be the game that's wrong, and the many polls that serve no actual statistical purpose but look 'funny', a topic like this is a ray of sunshine.

Viewing past threads is all very well and good if you're on a fact finding mission. I don't think that's why people are talking here though. From what I've seen, the tone of these forums is alot more informal than that. Is this bad?

When did talking become a bad thing?

[Survivor]

This topic arguably contains all information that has been gathered and deemed usefull up till now. This does not mean constantly adding new information to it is a good thing, it might even make the topic more uncomfortable to read and reduce the quality of it.

That the forum is so informal is a consequence of most users here. In my opinion any and all non trem-related and fun-stuff trem related topics should go to off-topic. But I'd have a day job on moving them all and most users don't seem to grasp the meaning of correct topic posting.

In short, talking isn't a bad thing. Stating the obvious over and over is.

And shorthand is one of the terms used to shorten long posts in quotes which were not long ago but to which you still want to refer.

[Eeeew Spiders]

Stating the obvious over and over is.

I think its mostly one or more mod that repeats phrases, in that they find it not useful to write in this topic   Other posters i didn't find quite as repetitive
Acttually, I found some of the newer posts quite interesting and helpful (e.g. FooBar's post). And you have to agree with Nux and Plague, that atleast one topic for the whole subject is a lot better than a new topic over and over.
Since this is user driven contents, its user driven contents:P
Now lets stop discussing the usefulness of the topic, since thats just a lot of extra uninteresting clutter.