I think this happens in every online game for PC, it is something that will always be.
you are not understanding the issue. this is not about the common cheat cat-and-mouse game in other games, but about frontier being unable to play the cat in the first place because a lot of crucial values aren't under their control. they can compute if your fuel consumption matches your displacement across the galaxy because they have enough datapoints inbetween (e.g., each time you change system, their servers know), but they have no control of what happens with other values (e.g., shield strength, weapon damage, speed) while your computer arbitrates a fight with another player's computer. they are blind to most of that, and that's information that should never have been trusted to a client.
yes, they can examine logs from those computers ... just as easily as those logs can be faked. they are no help whatsoever except in a bona fide cause.
changing that means a significant redesign and rewrite, there would be 2 opposite paths:
- change the architecture and have instances governed server side
- implement protocols to safeguard that information client side.
- do nothing.