Widget signing gadget (request)

[CarRepairer]

Okay I'll be more detailed: This widget will only work if you see his commander and his commander remains in your radar range continuously. If the comm steps out of your radar range, widget won't know what it is if it comes back into radar range.

To put it another way, this widget isn't even very useful in games such as CA and S44, because the icon sets are already very large and specialized for most unit types. But these special icons only show up for units in "prevlos" - they were in your line of sight, now they are in your radar (continuously!). If they leave both radar and line of sight, then even if they come back into radar coverage they are just a plain dot.

Test it again and this time shut off your radar for a moment and turn it back on. You'll find the unit type has been lost.

[Regret]

For the record, you can turn off any and all widgets in your mod except the ones that you include. Of course it can be hacked around by persistent cheaters, but it will turn down the vast majority of users from using cheats you don't want them to use.

[Caydr]

Okay I'll be more detailed: This widget will only work if you see his commander and his commander remains in your radar range continuously

Define "continuously". The commander in the picture was out of my LoS/Radar for 30 seconds before I /gave myself a new radar.

edit:
Oh my gosh, I feel so silly. I redid the test, this time I left the unit out of radar for 3 consecutive minutes and indeed, the unit went back to a generic dot:

screen003.jpg (95.07 KiB) Viewed 1365 times

Phew, what a relief.

[CarRepairer]

I remember hearing that this exploit was fixed. I'll let someone else take over and correct me if I'm wrong or confirm.

[Caydr]

ORLY. No textwall for me now? Please can I have a text wall explaining that I'm a disrespectful paranoid moron just once more?

I'm hoping a developer jumps on here and says, "don't worry, we just arbitrarily decided to only change the way LUA handles this in multiplayer. In single player mode, we decided to leave it that way just to see if we could give Caydr a heart attack."

[Regret]

Every unit has a randomly generated ID at its creation. This ID is always visible to any widget if the unit is seen at least on radar. The Radar Hack widget merely stores all IDs you seen and assigns them a unit def the first time it is seen. Using the stored unit def it can display a model for radar blips.

And yes, this is a hack, and yes there was nothing done to prevent this as of yet.

The thing that was changed was going from incremental IDs (player comms were IDed 1,2,3,4 etc) to randomized IDs to prevent telling apart commanders without even seeing them other than a radar.

[Caydr]

I see... so previously it was possible to know which unit the commander was without having even seen it once.

Sorry guys, I am just having a really stressful day. I don't mean to get so aggressive, I'm just sick of people blindly jumping on the "LUA FIXES EVERYTHING" bandwagon without any consideration for if there's a downside. And then shitting on me when I'm cautious.

And now I literally spent 3 minutes going through some random gadgets, not even looking for something exploitable but for things to include with AA, and I came across a blatant hack by accident.

I want to gloat so bad but more importantly I want people to not just throw their hands up and hope for the best anymore. Please, for goodness sake, could the developers just *try* to see if there's a way to prevent these sorts of things from happening?

[Regret]

I see... so previously it was possible to know which unit the commander was without having even seen it once.

Sorry guys, I am just having a really stressful day. I don't mean to get so aggressive, I'm just sick of people blindly jumping on the "LUA FIXES EVERYTHING" bandwagon without any consideration for if there's a downside. And then shitting on me when I'm cautious.

And now I literally spent 3 minutes going through some random gadgets, not even looking for something exploitable but for things to include with AA, and I came across a blatant hack by accident.

You haven't seen anti-commnap widget yet I guess :p

[Caydr]

Anti-commnap emulates what any human would do when presented with that situation, if I'm not mistaken. Run in random directions, dodge back and forth, shoot madly, and generally try not to be turned into a flying bomb. This "memorize what every unit ID is and make that freely available to anyone with basic LUA skills" concept is a little beyond that.

[Google_Frog]

Was playing Spring, most recent version, with BA, also most recent version. Am I missing something obvious, like the engine completely changes how it handles LUA if you're playing single player just to confuse me?

The engine does do some strange things with lua if you use /cheat. For example the unit id's might be stored. Also in single player some things are changed, the only thing I know of is that the pathing map shows a red square for enemy buildings even if no cheat is used. Lua might be doing something like this with unit ids.

If it turns out that the Ghost Radar widget works like you've said in multiplayer then it is a bug.

Widgets, when working correctly, are unable to do/see anything a player is unable to do/see. Widgets can just be used to do it a bit faster so mindless tasks can be automated and information can be displayed more clearly. If your game is broken by widgets then the skill in the game is probably based on players completing mindless tasks and trying to figure out information through a poor interface. If there is depth then the widgets will enable people to see the game more clearly and have time for the higher strategy of the game.

[Regret]

Anti-commnap emulates what any human would do when presented with that situation, if I'm not mistaken. Run in random directions, dodge back and forth, shoot madly, and generally try not to be turned into a flying bomb. This "memorize what every unit ID is and make that freely available to anyone with basic LUA skills" concept is a little beyond that.

Nah, it's exactly the same thing. A hack.

If your game is broken by widgets then the skill in the game is probably based on players completing mindless tasks and trying to figure out information through a poor interface. If there is depth then the widgets will enable people to see the game more clearly and have time for the higher strategy of the game.

There is depth in having to micro your units instead of having auto-skirmisher widgets.

[Caydr]

Ok, auto-skirmisher is... a bit more into the gray area.

Well, the truth is a week ago I would agree with you 100% but I've been worn down by the "having to actually play the game is too hard" crowd... At some point I have to just be more accepting of the fact that people have gotten used to this kind of thing and most couldn't go back even if they wanted to.

Example, I was playing SA a few days ago and I was completely utterly lost because units could shoot through each other, something that at first (like, 2004/2005) I was a huge supporter of. And now all of the sudden thuds can dominate in situations they were useless in, and a swarm of flashes are to heavy tanks what locusts are to wheat fields.

[dizekat]

haha as predicted the talk how widget to prevent ally commnap ruins the game

[Regret]

Aiming in FPS games is a mindless and repetitive task, should be automated amirite.

haha as predicted the talk how widget to prevent ally commnap ruins the game

It is the fact that it prevents enemy commnap which ruins the game.

[dizekat]

radars: imo either
a: it should be made impossible to get unit id from radar dot. It should merely give out "radar dot ID", incremental, per player.

b: radar should, like in real life, distinguish unit types. Seriously, good real-life radar can tell apart even quite similar tank types, let alone tell apart giant mecha from tiny car. Radars that don't see unit types are just dumb in first place.

Aiming in FPS games is a mindless and repetitive task, should be automated amirite.

haha as predicted the talk how widget to prevent ally commnap ruins the game

It is the fact that it prevents enemy commnap which ruins the game.

OMG you can not nap some total newbie to commbomb someone with him, the game is ruined.

[Regret]

radars: imo either
a: it should be made impossible to get unit id from radar dot. It should merely give out "radar dot ID", incremental, per player.

b: radar should, like in real life, distinguish unit types. Seriously, good real-life radar can tell apart even quite similar tank types, let alone tell apart giant mecha from tiny car. Radars that don't see unit types are just dumb in first place.

Both. And being able to set which behavior is wanted inside the modfile.

OMG you can not nap some total newbie to commbomb someone with him, the game is ruined.

Intended gameplay.

[manolo_]

anti comnap and auto swarm are cheats. POINT. its a part of the gameplay, i mean if somebody forget to build aa (in ba com could build aa, so he could defend hisself in the first minutes against comnap), there is no problem coz the mighty widget handels it for him. it was just a fun to comnap 3 boi in the first 2 min at dsd, coz all ba-player forgot to build aa >_<

[Google_Frog]

Aiming in FPS games is a mindless and repetitive task, should be automated amirite.

It depends on what the game is all about. FPS is about aiming, shooting, moving etc... So yes, an aimbot is a cheat because it removes a large part of FPS games.

For example a widget that remembers the unit type of an already seen radar dot as long as the radar coverage is unbroken (ie. ghost radar without the bug or a diverse map icon system) is not a cheat. A similar widget in the game Concerntration would circumvent the entire point of the game so would be a cheat.

So basically is is the game in question about jinking your units back and forth?

[Regret]

For example a widget that remembers the unit type of an already seen radar dot as long as the radar coverage is unbroken (ie. ghost radar without the bug or a diverse map icon system) is not a cheat. A similar widget in the game Concerntration would circumvent the entire point of the game so would be a cheat.

In many games like in BA you are not supposed to be able to tell the dots apart. Which is also part of "the point of the game" as you say. So it is a cheat and provides you with an unfair advantage.

So basically is is the game in question about jinking your units back and forth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanag ... er_gaming)

Micromanagement has been a controversial aspect of game design for many years: some gamers regard it as an unwelcomed distraction from higher levels of strategic thinking, and some games try to minimize it; some players and designers treat it as an important skill, and one that is necessary if the game is to support top-level competitions; and some enjoy opportunities to use tactical skill in combat but dislike having to do a lot of detailed work when managing their economies.

It is a feature in many games on Spring. So yes, a widget "jinking" your units automatically is a cheat in those games.

[SirMaverick]

anti comnap and auto swarm are cheats. POINT.

Your opinion. In my opinion its not a cheat if the widget does only things automated the (experienced) user would be able to do anyways. For example the auto swarm widget in CA is really basic, any good player can micro the units better than this widget. So it only helps beginners to prevent being bashed too hard.
CA's Auto swarm is a mod widget.

There is a com nap warning widgets spaming points when enemy atlas approaches. So the user is informed and can react. Anti comnap just goes one step further and moves the com.

The widget that allowed to nap moving coms was widely considered cheat, because this is not something you can do manually.