The problem of Interdiction by hackers and how it can be helped

[Delta895]

I am using a Python as a transport ship to grind up a some credits by performing transport missions. I really haven't had a problem with gankers until recently when it came out that ED has a hacking problem. I've been interdicted twice now and destroyed as soon as my game loads into the instance with a single shot of whatever weapon they are using.

I get you can engineer your weapons with effects, but never have I seen anyone- in game or in a YouTube video- destroy a ship with a single shot against shields. Especially when I am not using a super low tier ship and they are using a Mamba. This experience really killed the excitement I get from sharing a universe with other players. It is one thing to role play by interdicting a player and demanding loot, it is a different thing to indiscriminately attack players who are flying ships that are not kitted for combat.

inb4 "Just don't play in open"

I play in open peacefully the same reason someone who plays World of Warcraft plays in a shared world with other players. It makes the game feel more alive and you can have meaningful experiences through interactions with them. Yes, there are bad apples, but again, in the 300ish hours I have been playing, this has only been a problem recently. For now, the griefers win and I am playing in Solo to recover the $3 Million plus the cost of cargo I lost in that interaction.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was thinking of a few ideas to assuage pirating:

(1) Open up a slot on the ship where either an FSD Interdictor could be placed, OR FSD Countermeasures that work on ammo so you can avoid being ganked long enough to hop out of system. This would give a use to the cat and mouse game of scanning FSD wakes and tracking a traget if the person who is interdicting a player is not hacking.

(2) They could introduce a better insurance system where the player can pay credits in advance so that when their ship is destroyed, you don't have to worry about a rebuy. It could work in tiers where bronze level deducts 25% of the rebuy cost, silver deducts 50% of the rebuy cost and gold deducts 100% of the rebuy cost. Maybe there could be a plan you buy where the aggressor has to pay for part of your rebuy.

(3) Maybe they could work out a system where if a player kills you while you have crimes against you being reported, when you respawn, you have a 24 hour period where you could pay different tiers of prices per strength for mercenaries to track and attack your killer (only once per death). Perhaps assassination missions could be posted on the mission board for other players to accept, thereby promoting a sort of crowd justice.

It seems as if I am crying into a pillow but if a player is going to (A) Hack, or (B) be ballsy enough to kill players without bound, there should be some way to fight back, or at least provide a path to players who most likely haven't grinded out the perfect anti-ganker ship.

I honestly have a bunch of idea on how to balance the whole experience but seeing as I am not a developer, I can only hope some intelligent system is released before 4.0

\rant

 

[Ian Doncaster]

For now, the griefers win and I am playing in Solo to recover the $3 Million plus the cost of cargo I lost in that interaction.

This might not be hacking - if your Python only has a 3 million rebuy then it probably is pretty weakly-defended for a Python. What sort of shields are you using?

A Mamba with engineered frag cannons could probably destroy an unengineered Python in a couple of seconds, if it was at point-blank range.

 

[Ethaidan]

@OP Ian's got a point. The rebuy on a stock fully E-rated Python with no weapons, no utilities, etc is 2.8mcr... for comparison my armoured trade Python (built for surviving in Open) has a 14.5mcr rebuy. So, yes I do expect you could be destroyed with a single volley from a Frag Mamba - accepting it was engineered, you're looking at 1500dps.

Maybe post the build of your 3mcr rebuy Python and get some feedback?

 

[Delta895]

I will post my build as soon as I boot my game up, but for comparison, I was interdicted a week ago by a non-hacker using a Federal Corvette. He managed to kill me in the amount of time I would expect a player with a well engineered ship- I boosted twice and dropped a heat-sink before my shields were stripped, another boost later I was dead.

The interaction with the Mamba was different, I loaded into the instance and as soon as I had control of my ship from the load, I died. No boost, no turning, no "under attack" alert, no "shields disabled" alert, nothing, just the lights being cut and a message that I was killed by CMDR [insert name].

EDIT: Here is the link to my build. It says the rebuy is 4mil so maybe I got a component wrong but it should be about the same as what I use. https://s.orbis.zone/3fal

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I will post my build as soon as I boot my game up, but for comparison, I was interdicted a week ago by a non-hacker using a Federal Corvette. He managed to kill me in the amount of time I would expect a player with a well engineered ship- I boosted twice and dropped a heat-sink before my shields were stripped, another boost later I was dead.

The interaction with the Mamba was different, I loaded into the instance and as soon as I had control of my ship from the load, I died. No boost, no turning, no "under attack" alert, no "shields disabled" alert, nothing, just the lights being cut and a message that I was killed by CMDR [insert name].

EDIT: Here is the link to my build. It says the rebuy is 4mil so maybe I got a component wrong but it should be about the same as what I use. https://s.orbis.zone/3fal

Ummm. My exploration AspX has better shields than that.

 

[Captain Willard]

Try solo till you get the goods.

 

[Calvin Lynch]

This might not be hacking - if your Python only has a 3 million rebuy then it probably is pretty weakly-defended for a Python. What sort of shields are you using?

A Mamba with engineered frag cannons could probably destroy an unengineered Python in a couple of seconds, if it was at point-blank range.

No, people are outright cheating, it's no contest. First of all they cheat bringing your ship down when you should get away. I've had this happen and I'm new to the game. Second, you should be able to easily outrun the bigger ships, the AI does it all the time, and magically the huge juggernauts can keep up with you if it's a human player. I own one of the bi 3 and know how slow they are. Someone called "The Kat" did the interdiction cheat on my fully armored and armed ASP Explorer then killed me with 2 shots, they had time to knock my shields down, use a couple hatch breaking limits, kept up with me while I was running in a much faster ship, and then destroyed it with one shot with full armor. There is a video of The Kat on youtube. If they cheat I'll put them out there and that player is a flat out cheater. I think frontier knows how the cheats are done and should simply fix it to where they cannot cheat! It's a shame to have people ruin a great game.

iRacing uses a program called easy anti-cheat to detect cheating. Maybe they should consider making a similar program to detect known cheats and hacks automatically. The interdiction cheat thing The Kat did was he tried to catch me once, I turned the bar blue, he cut it off before dropping out then did a second, I turned the bar blue, he cut it out did a 3rd and it immediately went red. That's a known cheat and how it was done. Didn't complain about being destroyed but I questioned how my ship was stopped when I turned the bar blue twice in a row then suddenly the third it went red. It's a cheat! Then no help when I was in a friendly system...

 

[Calvin Lynch]

No, people are outright cheating, it's no contest. First of all they cheat bringing your ship down when you should get away. I've had this happen and I'm new to the game. Second, you should be able to easily outrun the bigger ships, the AI does it all the time, and magically the huge juggernauts can keep up with you if it's a human player. I own one of the bi 3 and know how slow they are. Someone called "The Kat" did the interdiction cheat on my fully armored and armed ASP Explorer then killed me with 2 shots, they had time to knock my shields down, use a couple hatch breaking limits, kept up with me while I was running in a much faster ship, and then destroyed it with one shot with full armor. There is a video of The Kat on youtube. If they cheat I'll put them out there and that player is a flat out cheater. I think frontier knows how the cheats are done and should simply fix it to where they cannot cheat! It's a shame to have people ruin a great game.

iRacing uses a program called easy anti-cheat to detect cheating. Maybe they should consider making a similar program to detect known cheats and hacks automatically. The interdiction cheat thing The Kat did was he tried to catch me once, I turned the bar blue, he cut it off before dropping out then did a second, I turned the bar blue, he cut it out did a 3rd and it immediately went red. That's a known cheat and how it was done. Didn't complain about being destroyed but I questioned how my ship was stopped when I turned the bar blue twice in a row then suddenly the third it went red while I was clearly centered on the get away circle. It's a cheat! Then no help when I was in a friendly system... Put a 30 second pause in the use of the interdiction equipment. LoL

 

[Agony_Aunt]

And here we go, the panic now that there are cheaters everywhere, and that every time someone dies quickly that it was due to someone cheating.

We know there are cheaters, surprise, surprise, its an online game, you will get them.

But now there is the assumption that if you die to something you can't explain, its cheating.

Its like the old witch scares in the middle ages. She's a witch! She turned me into a newt!

Congratulations SDC, you've convinced lots of people that you are cheaters, because nobody can take down a ship that quick can they?

This is the real result of your "revelation".

And all because you learned its no fun to get killed by opponents you can't beat. Boo hoo. The shoe is on the other foot now isn't it? (EDIT: Apologies, this was wrong to say, i understand this wasn't the actual motivation for the reveal).

OP - while its unfortunate, before jumping to conclusions that someone is a cheat, make sure that it couldn't have been simply just an OP ship blowing you up quickly. If you think they may have been a cheat, you can take a couple of actions:

1) Report them, ideally provide a video if you record your play. Otherwise provide as much info as possible. Don't exaggerate.

2) Block them. This way you reduce your chances of being instanced with them again.

3) Switch to PG/solo for a while while you are in the region.

A vast majority of cheaters are not brazen enough to fly in open. Those that do will eventually get their bans. The more reports people file against them the better, but just try avoid filing reports against those who probably were not cheating.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

No, people are outright cheating, it's no contest. First of all they cheat bringing your ship down when you should get away. I've had this happen and I'm new to the game. Second, you should be able to easily outrun the bigger ships, the AI does it all the time, and magically the huge juggernauts can keep up with you if it's a human player. I own one of the bi 3 and know how slow they are. Someone called "The Kat" did the interdiction cheat on my fully armored and armed ASP Explorer then killed me with 2 shots, they had time to knock my shields down, use a couple hatch breaking limits, kept up with me while I was running in a much faster ship, and then destroyed it with one shot with full armor. There is a video of The Kat on youtube. If they cheat I'll put them out there and that player is a flat out cheater. I think frontier knows how the cheats are done and should simply fix it to where they cannot cheat! It's a shame to have people ruin a great game.

iRacing uses a program called easy anti-cheat to detect cheating. Maybe they should consider making a similar program to detect known cheats and hacks automatically. The interdiction cheat thing The Kat did was he tried to catch me once, I turned the bar blue, he cut it off before dropping out then did a second, I turned the bar blue, he cut it out did a 3rd and it immediately went red. That's a known cheat and how it was done. Didn't complain about being destroyed but I questioned how my ship was stopped when I turned the bar blue twice in a row then suddenly the third it went red. It's a cheat! Then no help when I was in a friendly system...

Don't need to cheat if someone's going to fly around in a Python with 261 mJ of shield and a boost speed of 325.

 

[DMC831]

I have no idea if you were the victim of a cheater, you were there and I wasn't, but your shields and hull are able to be blown up that quickly depending upon what weapons they're using and the engineering. Let's say it's 4 double shot frags with the oversized experimental on 3 and corrosive on one of the smalls, and a huge plasma with overcharged engineering and oversized as the experimental, what's the math on that?

Coriolis says the DPS is 1107.2, though someone may correct that. If they did G5 Efficient with an oversized experimental for the PA instead, then it goes all the way down to 1092.4. With one pull of the trigger, assuming it's a point blank hit due to the spread of the frags.

There may be quirks I ain't accounting for and the damage is higher or low, but just from playing the game I'd assume that's a one shotter with plenty left over on a ship with that amount of shield and hull. I don't know how much the armour rating and resistances cut into it, but yeah... it's within the realm of "normal without cheating" to me, but I ain't saying that to try to argue or anything. I've had my AspX blow up that quickly when I didn't have it fitted for Open.

 

[Morbad]

I am using a Python as a transport ship to grind up a some credits by performing transport missions. I really haven't had a problem with gankers until recently when it came out that ED has a hacking problem. I've been interdicted twice now and destroyed as soon as my game loads into the instance with a single shot of whatever weapon they are using.

I get you can engineer your weapons with effects, but never have I seen anyone- in game or in a YouTube video- destroy a ship with a single shot against shields. Especially when I am not using a super low tier ship and they are using a Mamba. This experience really killed the excitement I get from sharing a universe with other players. It is one thing to role play by interdicting a player and demanding loot, it is a different thing to indiscriminately attack players who are flying ships that are not kitted for combat.

Without far more specific information, nothing stands out as unusual, let alone as justification for the presumption of hacks here.

I was thinking of a few ideas to assuage pirating:

None of these are necessary nor would any of them be beneficial, even if they were workable, and most are not.

The game is already stacked heavily in favor of the defender and both murder and piracy are difficult to pull off against the experienced. On top of that, the tracking and pursuit mechanisms the game has are so easily foiled that anything dependent upon them is a non-starter. Wake scanners are borderline useless against opponents that suspect they'll be followed, while the odds of running down and make a kill on a non-novice CMDR who is trying to avoid being shot down is very low, even for vastly more experienced pilots.

There are fundamental aspects of game balance and network model that would need to be overhauled for the sort of gameplay you seem to be envisioning to be broadly practicable.

But now there is the assumption that if you die to something you can't explain, its cheating.

This is the fault of two parties....those making the assumptions and Frontier for not responding decisively enough to those cheats that actually exist.

Someone called "The Kat" did the interdiction cheat on my fully armored and armed ASP Explorer then killed me with 2 shots, they had time to knock my shields down, use a couple hatch breaking limits, kept up with me while I was running in a much faster ship, and then destroyed it with one shot with full armor.

There are phenomena that have nothing to do with cheating can cause an interdiction to succeed near instantly and fighting an interdiction by someone who is an expert at it can be very difficult.

Also, "fully armed and armored" doesn't say much, nor can we assume your AspX's velocity was enough to outpace even slower ships sufficiently to keep out of range. A fully armed and armored, but non-Engineered Asp X is barely faster than a well configured Anaconda or Corvette and would fold in a few shots to even long range weapons like rails and PAs. Much more detail is needed to make a convincing case for any sort of cheating.

 

[Lestat]

An idea is try Elitepve.com

 

[varonica]

4c shield generator?

You may as well wave a flag and sing out "come and get me I'm naked!" to the entire galaxy of gankers.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

4c shield generator?

You may as well wave a flag and sing out "come and get me I'm naked!" to the entire galaxy of gankers.

Oooh, can we do that to a cabaret?

 

[Northpin]

i lost, they must be cheating.

@OP - you have 260mj shields and 400hull - now check this mamba dps (ignore the build, just notice the dps)
yes, 1200+ versus your 700 hitpoints... You will last less than a second

 

[Bigmaec]

And here we go, the panic now that there are cheaters everywhere, and that every time someone dies quickly that it was due to someone cheating.

We know there are cheaters, surprise, surprise, its an online game, you will get them.

But now there is the assumption that if you die to something you can't explain, its cheating.

Its like the old witch scares in the middle ages. She's a witch! She turned me into a newt!

Congratulations SDC, you've convinced lots of people that you are cheaters, because nobody can take down a ship that quick can they?

This is the real result of your "revelation".

And all because you learned its no fun to get killed by opponents you can't beat. Boo hoo. The shoe is on the other foot now isn't it?

OP - while its unfortunate, before jumping to conclusions that someone is a cheat, make sure that it couldn't have been simply just an OP ship blowing you up quickly. If you think they may have been a cheat, you can take a couple of actions:

1) Report them, ideally provide a video if you record your play. Otherwise provide as much info as possible. Don't exaggerate.

2) Block them. This way you reduce your chances of being instanced with them again.

3) Switch to PG/solo for a while while you are in the region.

A vast majority of cheaters are not brazen enough to fly in open. Those that do will eventually get their bans. The more reports people file against them the better, but just try avoid filing reports against those who probably were not cheating.

Wow, you started good and then it went downhill. SDC has nothing to do with it, the game / FD is at fault. They should get their game in order.
By the way, I guess not only SDC is annoyed if they get into fights they can't win. For myself I can say I feel the same...

OP: consider taking vids (shadowplay?) of your encounters, I for certain do since the cheat reveal.

But I guess it's 50-50 if it's your paper build or a cheater which got you...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Wow, you started good and then it went downhill. SDC has nothing to do with it, the game / FD is at fault. They should get their game in order.
By the way, I guess not only SDC is annoyed if they get into fights they can't win. For myself I can say I feel the same...

OP: consider taking vids (shadowplay?) of your encounters, I for certain do since the cheat reveal.

But I guess it's 50-50 if it's your paper build or a cheater which got you...

SDC made it public, setting off the panic, which is totally out of proportion to the reality.

You want to blame the devs for hackers? Sure, go right ahead. Then you can blame just about every other game dev out there for hacks in their games. Its not unique to FD by a long way.

 

[Bigmaec]

SDC made it public, setting off the panic, which is totally out of proportion to the reality.

You want to blame the devs for hackers? Sure, go right ahead. Then you can blame just about every other game dev out there for hacks in their games. Its not unique to FD by a long way.

Look at the other thread. A hack from the start of 2018!
FD is to blame, no one else. Their anti-cheat measures and hacker/cheater punishment seems to be severly lacking.
Every online game has hacking, I agree. But some do more against it then others.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Look at the other thread. A hack from the start of 2018!

A hack that has gone through multiple revisions since 2018. Its not the same version of the hack. The hack devs keep needing to update it as FD keep breaking it.

FD are doing stuff against the hack, they are issuing bans to people. Source: Cheat forums.