How to stop the cheats?

Ok so do you think if you suffer from loads of DCs do you think you should have a (broken link symbol) next to your ship name..

This will tell you got bad internet or cough cough logger.

This may stop people engaging you.
 
Last edited:
There is no way to confirm that a disconnect is legit or not. If there was, it would be in place already.

I've been disconnected during combat when I was winning the battle, seconds from the kill. I've had complete lockups, BSODs, power outages and routers reboot while playing. I've had my ISP crap out while playing. My kids have clicked off the power strip, multiple times. All these examples are indistinguishable from someone deliberately unplugging their network to avoid being killed.

Making clips is also not proof of anything. A person could simply unplug their network cable while making the video clip and say "See, proof I didn't log. It was a legit network failure" which it was, because an unplugged network cable is definitely legit network failure. No matter that they unplugged it right as they were about to be vaporized.

One thing that can minimize logging would be a lower cost per death - restructure pvp as military action and you are supplied ships by your faction/superpower to continue fighting. Similar to how the air-force doesn't make their pilots purchase the F22 they are about to fly a mission in. I'm not sure how that could be fleshed out to fit Elite's universe, but even that will still not solve it completely, since "cheaters gonna cheat."

This is why we ask them if they had a dc or was it intentional. You’d be surprised how many are like “yeah I logged what you gonna do about it?” One even then sent a follow up message saying “hi frontier support”.
 
There is no way to confirm that a disconnect is legit or not. If there was, it would be in place already.

I've been disconnected during combat when I was winning the battle, seconds from the kill. I've had complete lockups, BSODs, power outages and routers reboot while playing. I've had my ISP crap out while playing. My kids have clicked off the power strip, multiple times. All these examples are indistinguishable from someone deliberately unplugging their network to avoid being killed.

Making clips is also not proof of anything. A person could simply unplug their network cable while making the video clip and say "See, proof I didn't log. It was a legit network failure" which it was, because an unplugged network cable is definitely legit network failure. No matter that they unplugged it right as they were about to be vaporized.

One thing that can minimize logging would be a lower cost per death - restructure pvp as military action and you are supplied ships by your faction/superpower to continue fighting. Similar to how the air-force doesn't make their pilots purchase the F22 they are about to fly a mission in. I'm not sure how that could be fleshed out to fit Elite's universe, but even that will still not solve it completely, since "cheaters gonna cheat."

Lowering the cost is one thing but credits aren't an issue really. The amount of threads and youtube videos that show people making 100s of millions per hour, that anybody can go do. People also complain there isn't enough things to spend credits on in the first place. So lowering the rebuy imo won't solve anything.

Sorry if im repeating myself. Flagging people who frequently log during combat is a good solution. If it happens a certain amount of times then fdev can take action. Getting disconnected during sc or docked or whatever doesn't effect anyone. But if it's constantly happening during combat there's only so many times you can cry wolf. Unless you can prove that every time it's network or whatever reason then fine. If you are having problems with connecting while other CMDRs are about then report it to FDev and see if there is a solution. It really is as simple as that.
 
When crime & punishment was first announced, they mentioned tracking players who frequently lost connection while in combat/low on shields and hull, and giving them the same PF bounty as player killers. But as far as I know, it wasn't implemented
 
When crime & punishment was first announced, they mentioned tracking players who frequently lost connection while in combat/low on shields and hull, and giving them the same PF bounty as player killers. But as far as I know, it wasn't implemented

I'm pretty sure in one of the recent livestreams Sandro mentions that they have the means to monitor this sort of behaviour (clogging). Whether they implement something is another matter or when they get the karma system in, this could be something they add with that.

The pilot federation bounty is already in game

https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=406
 
Last edited:
It was mentioned in the Reddit post debuting C&P; I know the PF bounty has been implemented, but as far as I know they never made known loggers carry the bounty
 
If FD really wanted to something about it it's not really that difficult,
Both Combat Loggers and Griefers/Murders could be dealt with in the same manner, (as both seem to spoil the game for the other party) a simple three strikes and you're down to a restart situation with your assets and machinery frozen for 30 days, once that period is up you get all your stuff back and a red star by your name... two strikes and you're out next time then one then a 3 month ban.
Appeals for combat logging/service interruption can be successful via community liaison if you a can convince them... and they should remember that you paid for the game and when in doubt head your side.
Appeals for griefers... you'd prolly have some good story about your granny being sick and how you fell over in the playground and you won't do it again... well I don't know what drives a brain that does such things!
What I'm saying is both could be seriously reduced (not stopped) if FD put their minds to it.
 
Griefing is immoral and rage quitting is cheating... the act of cheating wouldn't be as pronounced if the griefing didn't come first.

Open play is about co-op play and should not come down to a childish desire to upset anyone else's game, From what I gather fewer people play in open because of the message you're sending out... I know it's within the mechanics of the game but when those mechanics were drawn up the griefing behaviour was not envisaged, otherwise it would not be the subject of review would it?... yes I know it was ruddy shortsighted, but to clear up one you need to deter the other.
 
There is no way to tell the difference between legitimate dc and combat logging. They look identical.

Sorry if im repeating myself. Flagging people who frequently log during combat is a good solution. If it happens a certain amount of times then fdev can take action. Getting disconnected during sc or docked or whatever doesn't effect anyone. But if it's constantly happening during combat there's only so many times you can cry wolf. Unless you can prove that every time it's network or whatever reason then fine. If you are having problems with connecting while other CMDRs are about then report it to FDev and see if there is a solution. It really is as simple as that.

Anyone bent on cheating can game the suggested tracking system by randomly but consistently disconnecting from the game in all play situations, padding the disconnection stats so that it just looks like bad internet and the few (or many) combat logs they do get lost in the noise. They can say, "look at your stats FDEV, I get disconnected far more times jumping, hauling freight, docking, etc... than in combat." They have just proved their case to FDEV using FDEV's own stats. Your suggestion may prevent the dumbest of the group, but it will not take long for players to figure a way around it.

If you think that wouldn't happen, I have bad news for you. Look at how many players mindlessly grind credits for days, doing the most boring things imaginable. A "logging tracking system" would just create a 'logging grind' and I guarantee players would abuse it to get enough deniability to combat log whenever they needed to, just like Quince and Rhea were abused. Whole websites would pop up on how to safely 'log grind' to game the system. T-Shirts and hats would be sold... cheaters would even have fun doing it, knowing they are now immune to any action.

If there was a way to prevent it, it would already be in place, especially with how long Elite has been out. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
 
There is no way to tell the difference between legitimate dc and combat logging. They look identical.



Anyone bent on cheating can game the suggested tracking system by randomly but consistently disconnecting from the game in all play situations, padding the disconnection stats so that it just looks like bad internet and the few (or many) combat logs they do get lost in the noise. They can say, "look at your stats FDEV, I get disconnected far more times jumping, hauling freight, docking, etc... than in combat." They have just proved their case to FDEV using FDEV's own stats. Your suggestion may prevent the dumbest of the group, but it will not take long for players to figure a way around it.

If you think that wouldn't happen, I have bad news for you. Look at how many players mindlessly grind credits for days, doing the most boring things imaginable. A "logging tracking system" would just create a 'logging grind' and I guarantee players would abuse it to get enough deniability to combat log whenever they needed to, just like Quince and Rhea were abused. Whole websites would pop up on how to safely 'log grind' to game the system. T-Shirts and hats would be sold... cheaters would even have fun doing it, knowing they are now immune to any action.

If there was a way to prevent it, it would already be in place, especially with how long Elite has been out. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

As right as I think you are. The possible way around the ‘plausible deniability’ idea, would be to restrict players that continually dc from open.
If your having continued problems with dc’ing you wouldn’t be able to have any meaningful time in open anyway.
Thoughts?
 
As right as I think you are. The possible way around the ‘plausible deniability’ idea, would be to restrict players that continually dc from open.
If your having continued problems with dc’ing you wouldn’t be able to have any meaningful time in open anyway.
Thoughts?

Excellent idea if it could be done!
Recently I had a month of service interruptions... between 10 and 100 a day sometimes, and I just stayed the hell away from Elite and anything important, definitely not a time to do anything constructive! so Yeah if FD could isolate the constant CL/DC's to solo that would do the job.
 
There is no way to tell the difference between legitimate dc and combat logging. They look identical.



Anyone bent on cheating can game the suggested tracking system by randomly but consistently disconnecting from the game in all play situations, padding the disconnection stats so that it just looks like bad internet and the few (or many) combat logs they do get lost in the noise. They can say, "look at your stats FDEV, I get disconnected far more times jumping, hauling freight, docking, etc... than in combat." They have just proved their case to FDEV using FDEV's own stats. Your suggestion may prevent the dumbest of the group, but it will not take long for players to figure a way around it.

If you think that wouldn't happen, I have bad news for you. Look at how many players mindlessly grind credits for days, doing the most boring things imaginable. A "logging tracking system" would just create a 'logging grind' and I guarantee players would abuse it to get enough deniability to combat log whenever they needed to, just like Quince and Rhea were abused. Whole websites would pop up on how to safely 'log grind' to game the system. T-Shirts and hats would be sold... cheaters would even have fun doing it, knowing they are now immune to any action.

If there was a way to prevent it, it would already be in place, especially with how long Elite has been out. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

They had a system that detected the engineer rank one mats hack. Yet I've done thousands of rank one rolls (without cheating) and I didn't get anything taken from me. So they must be able to detect certain things and clogging will be one of them.

Of course clogging and genuine dc's will look identical, I'm not saying that. But if they can detect a recurring theme and it happens more so in combat then why wouldn't they be able to identify it? On pc you have a CMDR log. You can freely read it and I'm pretty sure fdev will be able to as well. It logs everything you are doing (I'm assuming you know about this).

I'm just making a suggestion. May I ask what you think would be a suitable way of stopping clogging?
 
Last edited:
Well then I guess we should take slave trading, massacre missions, generator missions, pirate missions, and covert scan operations out of the game then

I griefed a few systems the other day. Scanned everything, nothing got away from the grasp of my surface scanner. Did I ask the planets permission, nope :p
 
Back
Top Bottom