The cheating

[Wamdue]

Does anyone know if there are some anti-cheating actions going on AT ALL on wipeoutfusion.com ? cause the cheating is totally ruining a feature in my beloved fusion.. the best feature.

[Confusion]

Those boards are getting worse... some people just don't have a conscience do they? It's very annoying. Those boards could be very exciting if they could get rid of some of them cheaters lap times. :sad:

I fear that the league tables will die as people are turning their backs on it due to the disgusting amount of cheating. Well at least Zone mode doesn't appear to be affected (though it aint my cup of tea).

[science]

do you guys ever stop to think about how damned fortunate we are? we are of a dying breed; that of which the honor system actually works. i cant remember the last time we had to deal with a cheater, just honest mistakes for the most part. thats purdy cool, if i do say so.

[Lance]

yes, we are lucky here; and i hope it continues.

to a degree, cheating eventually becomes self-limiting; it's like a society in which there are a lot of thieves, it can't work unless there's a core of people who do honest work to produce something to steal. if everyone is a thief, there is nothing to steal. if everyone is a cheat, there is no honour left to steal.

[Wamdue]

ive found out that actions are being taken against the cheating on wipeoutfusion.com .
Itll just take a little time, as scee has to deal with a third hand to edit the site.

[Confusion]

The problem is... how do we know a cheaters time from a non cheaters time? I mean yeah we do have the blatently obvious times, but what about those bordering on possible to impossible (EG: a time that is 3 seconds faster than anybody elses)?

[Hyper Shadow]

I think that the designers should have a model fastest time for each track. So times around that area and less could be accepted, but anything blatantly faster than that (3secs+) could be considered a cheat time.

[Wamdue]

i think thats how they plan to do

[vincoof]

But that's just an unfair position since NO RACING GAME can "decide" a *best theorical time ever*.

[infoxicated]

And why not?

The game designers know the top speed of a craft, they know the distance around the tracks, they know how many pick-ups you can get a lap and what effect they may have.

I'm pretty sure that even with some of the above information, they can arrive at the minimum time possible to do a circuit of a track.

[Lance]

in their calculations, they should probably include the Sartwell Factor.

[Wamdue]

hahahaha indeed!

[Hyper Shadow]

My God!!!

Wamdue has been brainwashed by Kaientai!!

[vincoof]

infox: I agree that you can have some theorical good time or bad time. but the theorical _best_ time is simply unbelievable as long as shortcuts are possible (other than the respawn *bug*, of course).
There are a lot of "official" shortcuts given by weapons, like the penetrator, which can yield of serious cutoffs.

And I totally agree with Lance :wink:

[Hyper Shadow]

Let me think
(Don't think! Feeeeel!)

Surely there must be a mathmatical model for lap times, something along the line of;

(Shortest distance around circuit/Average speed of fastest AG craft)-error constant

This would take into account the quickest way around the track in the shortest possible time taking into account the fact that a pilot could get multiple turbos in a lap or some other form of performance enhancer (the Sartwell factor for instance)

[vincoof]

okay, and then you would come on the conclusion that the best theorical time is 0:00.00 ! :grin:

Obviously, it is.
I agree that if someone makes a laptime inferior than 0:00.00, then you can assume he's cheating :wink:

[infoxicated]

Why the heck would the lowest possible lap time be zero?

Are you just being argumentative for a bit of one upmanship, Vincoof, or do you actually have a point to prove at the end of all this?

I know for a fact that the developers know the fastest lap time available around each course. The courses might be virtual, but they are built to the same rules as a regular, real life racing circuit. There is a set distance for the shortest lap. There is a maximum speed that the corners can be taken at with the fastest craft and a maximum speed they can attain along the straights.

They can factor in things like turbos and people cutting corners as much as they are physically allowed to. Then they can arrive at a time that it is not possible to beat unless you have cheated, either by a re-spawning bug, or fast ship cheat, or you have simply used Action Replay to con the game.

If someone playing an F1 game tells you they done a sub-minute lap of Monza, you know they are taking the piss. If someone tells you that the fastest possible lap time at Monza is 0:00:00 then you don't have to be Michael Schumacher to know that cant be done without cheating (and he'd know all about that!).

So - explain to me - as clearly as you can, how it is impossible to tell if someone is cheating, and how a lap time of zero is possible without it being classed as a cheat!?

I am dying to read this - really I am - it's goanna be so great to have this revelation that will change the way I see physics and the rest of the known universe! :lol:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: infoxicated on 2002-03-11 21:35 ]</font>

[JABBERJAW]

eventually this will all be straightened out when sony doesn't care about their site anymore and a fan site gets the times tables.

[Essell]

On 2002-03-11 15:35, Hyper Shadow wrote:
Let me think
(Don't think! Feeeeel!)


lol :smile:

[Hyper Shadow]

Vincoof, your logic is definatly flawed.

If you are thinking that the error constant is capable of being the same as the laptime, what are you thinking, or if you think the shortest lap is 0 or the fastest a craft can go is 0.
What I was trying to say is, that a turbo would create a 'spike' in the average, thus making it higher than normal, the error constant would compensate for this. In my estimation, a well placed turbo (in TT mode) can add up to about 2 seconds (I found this during the Cubiss Float 1 challenge)

[vincoof]

Well, I think the problem of knowing the real limit is shown by a shortcut done with the penetrator in another topic on the forums.
How far can you know that a shortcut is done without cheating ?

If there's no shortcut possible, as F1 surely does, then I absolutely agree that a theorical limit is "computable".
But for Wipeout Fusion, there's too many factors.

What I'm simply pointing is that : okay, let's say the computed time limit is 1:00.00 ... and then all cheaters will provide records of 1:00.02 and you would believe them ?!

That's unfortunately that kind of cheating which is the worst : not detectable.
I'm sorry to be so negative, but nobody can fight against "clever" cheaters.

Because obviously a record of 0:02.00 is not "allowable", and even if it is allowable then no one would be interested in competiting with such a time.

IMO the thing that should have been done is including the cheats and respawns in the time code (the code with a dozen of letters and numbers). Even though it's not a perfect solution, it would shave off alot of cheaters.

[Confusion]

The developers could create a special wipeout laptime model I'm sure.

Perhaps if they did so and made it so that every weapon pad is a turbo or a penetrator and then had someone realy good (or programmed a decent autopilot perhaps), they could then realistically generate a model laptime for each track.

But as someone said before, this wouldn't totally eliminate the problem as there would still be people sad enough to cheat and put up false times.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Confusion on 2002-03-12 20:13 ]</font>

[Wamdue]

see it for what it is and not for what it isnt.. (yes)

I thought ppl would be happy to see something is done against this cheating, not argue it as a bad idea.

the cheat prevention would work if you make your own shortcut, as long as it doesnt use respawns or go thru buildings and rocks etc, because then it doesnt apply to the programmed wipeout world.

[vincoof]

damn.
I don't like that board password thingy. I lost a very long post. :flush

well, in one's point of view that's a good thing because this way it slows me fueling the flames.


To write shortly what I wanted to post :

1- Mind me. I don't like cheaters. I hope you didn't believe that I planned on cheating.

2- That's sad but the fact is that the time limit thingy (assuming it is possible to compute the limit) is not enough to fight against cheaters, simply because the time limit is a _limit_ (I'd explain but I'm bored typing. sorry).

3- Please don't make me your enemy. I'm not and I don't plan to.

Thank you.

[UncleZeiv]

Infox, why don't you ask someone at Liverpool about this "theorical best lap" thing?
I don't think that this lap time can be realistically calculated; anyway, if it could, then you could also code a better autopilot than Fusion's :evil:

[infoxicated]

I already did ask, and I know what the fastest times are in time trial mode. As for the autopilot, I don't use it - maybe you should post a complaint with all the others on the official site - they pay more attention to that one.

[djb]

you know what? i hardly ever bother looking at my lap times for fusion, i always did with wipeout, and 2097, when wip3out came i kind of lost interest in race times, so long as i came first i was happy, in fact i like to race with one pilot in front of me, then pip him /her to the post in the last few seconds, its very rewarding! especially if you save a plasma bolt for them!!, though that doesnt work well for fusion since the plasma bolts dont wipeout the competition always! anyway point is, the fusion leaderboards can have as many cheats in them as they like, it doesnt bother me too much, and hey, theres always somebody faster!... unless you are mr. sartwell of course!

[Confusion]

Infox... what may I ask is going to happen to the times on the Fusion League? Which times are they going to take off?

Will they take off race times (eg the ones done in a "G-Tech Rapier")?

[infoxicated]

Sorry, I cant really comment on the official site here.

[Confusion]

Darn...

[Hyper Shadow]

I don't believe that the times set with a 'G-tech Rapier' a cheaters. All of the times that I set with a 100% Piranha were coded as a G-Tech Rapier, I believe that it is another bug somewhere.