How long would a ship need to remain persistent to prevent a menu log from being abused?

[Morbad]

I like how it worked in Jumpgate.

You could quit any time you wanted, or even force close the game, but your ship remained vulnerable (and slowed down) for 30 seconds after logging out. Players who thought they could cheat their way out of a loss were in for a rude surprise.

I once followed an artied up Solrain fighter (the banana shapped thing with the silly shields and the high yaw), that had been going around shooting down people with impunity and then deepspacing to disconnect, with my ranger (the only ship in our multi-faction fleet of forty or so people that could even keep up with him) for six hours...I held just outside his sensor range and waited for signs of inactivity, then closed the distance to shoot at him...unfortunately he was paying at least some attention and didn't try to log off and was able to drive me away several times.

Anyway, Jumpgate was client-server and hosting a CMDR vessel in ED without the cooperation of that CMDR's player and their client is much more difficult.

Quoted both of these posts because they're both relevant.

Firstly, at the risk of stating the obvious, PvPers (even murder-hobos) actually want the opportunity to explode stuff.
Sure, it's possible that a slippery PvPer might make use of IP manipulation as a last resort, if they're losing a fight, but that would be easy to identify if they did it regularly - with circumstantial evidence, at least.

Think of the other situations where this might be useful though.
At a Trade CG somebody could just show up and start randomly disconnecting players in combat ships to negate any possibility of attack.
If somebody's involved in PP they could show up in a system and, upon spotting players from another faction, they could be disconnected in order to prevent any possibility of attack.
If somebody's doing BGS-related stuff they could disconnect players who might be in opposition.

These are scenarios where IP manipulation would provide an important advantage but - importantly - it's unlikely that the players targeted would even realise anything dubious was afoot.
You'd just arrive in a system and, on occasion, you'd suffer "random" disconnections.

And then there's the issue of people deliberately introducing a random element to their use of any cheating.

The simplest example of this is when people suggest the game might be able to track those who combat-log and take punitive action.
Trouble is, to circumvent this, all I'd have to do is task-kill more, and not always during combat.
If I "lose my connection" 10 times a week, always when I'm losing at combat, the circumstantial evidence would suggest I'm CLing.
If, OTOH, I "lose my connection" 30 times a week and 25 of those instances happened when I'm not in danger, 5 happen when I am in danger but I also have my ship destroyed 5 times a week, there's little circumstantial evidence to suggest anything other than that I have a lousy connection.

Similar thing would apply to any use of IP manipulation.
Whether I'm trying to manipulate a CG, PP or the BGS (or if I'm just screwing with people) as long as I don't do it all the time it's going to be pretty hard to pin anything on me conclusively enough to take action.

These are all vulnerabilities that are already in the game and, in some cases, would already provide people who used them with an advantage.
The only real "counter" is the fact that, rather than cheating, it's easier to simply play in Solo and avoid any situation where IP manipulation would be advantageous.

That's why it's probably not going to be a good idea for FDev to impose anything punitive, either in terms of logging out, PvP or mode-locking.
As soon as there's something in the game that allows people to gain an advantage by using a cheat, it's going to become more common to use it.
Put "placeholder" ships in the game after a player CLs and suddenly there's a reason to kick other players - so you can destroy their ship easily.
Lock PP to Open and suddenly there's a reason to kick other players from your instance - to avoid combat.

In this kind of scenario, it's possibly likely that griefers would be the first to take advantage of cheats but they're certainly NOT the only people who'd do it and it's certainly not just a PvP issue.

And, in that event, I suspect FDev's response would be similar to what they've done with hacking, bot-ships and CLing; they'll pay lip-service to the issue, downplay it and then act like it isn't a big deal and hope it goes away.

Frontier should be analyzing telemetry as a matter of course, not simply when reports are filed. Cheating is cheating even if no one sees it. Frontier should operate under the assumption that if it can be abused it is being abused, and thus actively look for signs of manipulation and work to correct them.

Anyway, I do think it's time I tested that relay via server setting...would be interesting if one could not be IP blocked without severing connection to the transaction server at the same time.

A potential solution to this - which would be actively beneficial to people with genuine doorbells or dodgy connections - would be:
1) Remove the menu quit timer - if you press exit, the game exits.
2) On quit, serialise the state of the NPCs in the instance into your savegame on the server. [1]
3) On resume, unserialise them and they can carry on doing what they were doing.
4) If there were any players about, unserialise their ships as NPCs with either a neutral or hostile AI depending on their state.
5) Periodically save the state to allow recovery from network disconnects. It'll be a little out of date, but good enough.

Now if you're playing in Solo with a dodgy connection and you've finally found that mission NPC, you don't have to find them again after you log in again.

(If you logged out to get away from that mission-related Elite Anaconda? Tough - it's still there. But you *do* have time to call out the Fuel Combat Rats to help you when you log back in, perhaps.)

[1] Also serialise your own state more precisely - throttle, hardpoints, etc.

That sort of persistence does seem like it would resolve the issue for any instances that aren't shared with other players, and is probably what should have been done from the beginning.

The potential for abuse comes from people severing their connection in a way the current instance state cannot be uploaded then deleting the local saved state. However, this save state file could easily be signed by the game and it would generally be clear that someone had removed or modified it once they reconnected and the servers looked at the local save.

 

[Jenner]

@ whoever moved this thread

Fair enough...
Moved back to dangerous discussion.

 

[Havvk]

At least three minutes:



When someone mistakes dumbfires for seekers and flies in a straight line to outpace them while being shot in the drives with long range lasers, they've screwed up and should have to eject.

There appears to be a widely held misconception that if someone's ship cannot be destroyed in 15 seconds that they are near certain to escape. This is patently false, whether we are talking about combat, or someone getting their ship wedged between the letter box and T-9 while being reckless with traffic.

It took nearly three minutes from the time my thrusters first malfunctioned--they were never going to be usable again as long as a ship that could keep up was in pursuit--and the time my ship finally exploded. A 15 second timer is insufficient to prevent it's use to avoid deserved consequences in a broad variety of both PvP and PvE encounters.

TL;DR it's far more honorable to just menu log if the attacker can't even kill you in 3 minutes, let alone 1-2 minutes. Your argument is moot and a dead horse that even Yamiks won't mess with anymore

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

i repeat,
it doesn't need more then 30 seconds if the menu logout is canceled when receiving combat damage, and ungracefull pulling the plug is penalized

 

[znôrt]

welcome to peer2peer games.
set the game to use the ipV4 protocol
open the task manager, go to the performance tab, click on the "resource monitor" button and then select the EliteDangerous entry. go to network traffic and see all the ipV4 connections to your PC

there must be a reason why FDEV is pushing ipV6 usage

i'm not really an expert in ipv6 but can't see how it could change anything. if your ip is known, routable and accessible by a game client running on another machine, then it's accessible by any software running on that machine regardless of protocol. am i missing something?

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

i'm not really an expert in ipv6 but can't see how it could change anything. if your ip is known, routable and accessible by a game client running on another machine, then it's accessible by any software running on that machine regardless of protocol. am i missing something?

dont know why,
but when i set the game to ipV4 the windows resource manager shows one connection and IP for every player in my instance,
set to ipV6 its just one.

so there must be a difference.

 

[Aashenfox]

I support increasing it dramatically. Perhaps even a minute. May even be doable with the new persistence code that's coming.

Using it to exit in an emergency is a fallacy. I've had plenty of emergencies, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing, I don't exit the game if it's a genuine emergency, I get up and deal with it immediately. If I have time to wait for a 15 second timer, I have time to finish a battle, or wake, or at least say something to my opponent.

But it's all rather moot when someone can just hit the reset switch, isn't it?

 

[[VR] Marrs]

Perhaps there should be a message when you launch the game reminding players to put their slippers out of reach of the dog and keep network cables tidy so they can't be kicked out accidentally .

 

[Exiton]

I don't mind 15 seconds timer provided statistics gathering is implemented for all log offs. If someone's dog suddenly needs walking every single time his ship is about to be destroyed - we clearly have an abuser.

Addendum: it's absolutely clear for me at this point that not only FDev is not going to do anything about menu loggers, they don't intend to do anything about task killer loggers as well. I speak from experience, I report every single task kill logger I meet, also provide video evidence, and months later still keep seeing them logging left, right and center.

 

[Brrokk]

In two years and over 1000 hours play I've never seen anyone combat log, disconnect or menu log. I therefore don't think the issue is as big as is made out. If you do see those happenings regularly, maybe reflect on why people don't like being in the same instance as you.

 

[Han_Zen]

I don’t care how long the timer is. Just replace the confirmation with a cancel option.

 

[EUS]

Perhaps there should be a message when you launch the game reminding players to put their slippers out of reach of the dog and keep network cables tidy so they can't be kicked out accidentally .

Maybe it should also text the wife to not interrupt me, too.

 

[Exiton]

In two years and over 1000 hours play I've never seen anyone combat log, disconnect or menu log. I therefore don't think the issue is as big as is made out. If you do see those happenings regularly, maybe reflect on why people don't like being in the same instance as you.

Yes, let's advocate game rules abuse by making personal attacks! Surely it'll help your case better than anything.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Yes, let's advocate game rules abuse by making personal attacks! Surely it'll help your case better than anything.

No one is abusing anything, you are allowed to menu log any time you wish for any reason as long as you wait out the timer. No different from being able to attack who you wish anywhere and doing so; neither is 'abusing' the game.

 

[MottiKhan]

If the doorbell wings, I'll menu-log.

If I can't menu-log, I'll task-kill.

Pick one.

+1 rep. It's a game. RL takes precedence. The only thing I'd add is that if something needs my immediate attention and I'm in combat with another player, I'll just leave the game running and eat the rebuy. The same might happen with NPCs or mid-jump, depending on what's demanding my attention.

My main cmdr and all 4 alts have almost unlimited rebuys anyway. And credits are uber easy to come by once you have a medium ship and are allied with a faction.

 

[pippo]

If the doorbell wings, I'll menu-log.

If I can't menu-log, I'll task-kill.

Pick one.

Same here. And I have trouble believing anyone who says otherwise.

I just shout at the window: Let me dock my ship, I won't be a minute...
... 7 seconds...
... 7 seconds...
... 7 seconds...





Jehovah witnesses don't even bother anymore.

 

[Stealthie]

Using it to exit in an emergency is a fallacy. I've had plenty of emergencies, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing, I don't exit the game if it's a genuine emergency, I get up and deal with it immediately. If I have time to wait for a 15 second timer, I have time to finish a battle, or wake, or at least say something to my opponent.

Suggesting this is related to "an emergency" is a fallacy.

Quitting out of a game because the phone's ringing, you have a visitor or the dog's honked up on the hall carpet isn't an "emergency".
It's a routine occurrence and I'll quit out of a game before I go and attend to it in the same way that I'll save work on my PC or make sure my soldering iron is switched off.

If the game won't allow me to do that, it gets task-killed.

 

[Maro-Val]

If you are getting hit by a human so "in danger" state and you log off or task kill, then your ship should go boom and the attacker gets the kill. ITS A GAME. losing your ship doesnt produce real pain. Being creative with excuses doesnt change the fact of a lame move.
All the rest are irrelevant info. If you log yourself outside of trouble from other humans to avoid losing your space pixels, or because your dog rings the bell, then you should reconsider what playing a game is.
Personnaly i was pvp ing and trading at CGs for allmost a year with having to leave immideatelly the pc two or three times every night. I just left the ship flying and most of the times i found my self on the rebuy screen.
SO WHAT?

If real life issues are often keeping you from honoring an interaction with another real person, then play in solo and do what you want there.

 

[Aashenfox]

Suggesting this is related to "an emergency" is a fallacy.

Quitting out of a game because the phone's ringing, you have a visitor or the dog's honked up on the hall carpet isn't an "emergency".
It's a routine occurrence and I'll quit out of a game before I go and attend to it in the same way that I'll save work on my PC or make sure my soldering iron is switched off.

If the game won't allow me to do that, it gets task-killed.

It doesn't matter the nature of the 'emergency', if you can wait 15 seconds, you can wake, or say something, or finish the battle.

 

[Stealthie]

It doesn't matter the nature of the 'emergency', if you can wait 15 seconds, you can wake, or say something, or finish the battle.

As a rule, I prefer to decide when I stop playing a video game for myself.