Forums » Suggestions

remove combat assist from the game

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May 20, 2010 peytros link
http://vo-wiki.com/wiki/Plug-ins#CombatAssist
http://www.voupr.com/plugin.php?name=combatassist

this is by far the most annoying plugin as it gives people an unreasonable advantage in controlling their ships speed if said ship has a higher top speed then their target, essentially acting as a "match speeds" button for vo. I believe that this plug-in undermines the players who actually use the standard controls and physics/flight assist mode to control their ship.

you can see in the read me how being able to maintain a constant distance between two ships with two different top speeds can drastically change the out come of a fight and I would urge the devs to remove the ability to affect your ship in such a way from the game.

taken from the readme:
After installing Combat Assist, you may toggle it on/off by pressing the 'g' key. There are two different modes, which the can be toggled between with the 'y' key. In direction control mode, you set the lateral direction of your ship to forward, backward or nuetral by tapping the 'r', 'f', and 't' keys respectively. In distance control mode, you use the 'r' and 'f' keys to adjust the distance from your opponent in incriments of 20. Note that keys and increments mentioned are only the default values, almost everything can be customized in the 'options.lua' file.

this is pretty much using a third party add on to control your ship
May 20, 2010 TheBlackFlag link
+ a very large number

PLEASE remove this obvious exploitable plugin
or... let's make it a feature and VO can be like EVE!!!

k, thx
May 20, 2010 favrewebelieve link
+ a number larger than tbfs

seriously combat assist needs to be removed, peytros has already explained why, make it happen
May 20, 2010 zak.wilson link
I agree in principle, but I think doing this without breaking legitimate stuff would be hard. Furthermore, the actual advantage provided by something like this seems minimal. I'll give it a try when I have time and see if it affects my opinion.
May 20, 2010 Maalik link
I can probably distance control better than anyone using this plugin so we should ban me too while we are at it.
May 20, 2010 Death Fluffy link
+ 1 to Maalik

I'm kidding of course for those who may be humor challenged :P
May 20, 2010 DivisionByZero link
I don't think the point is that players can distance control really well. The point is that the players do it, not some script.

[EDIT]
I don't know how intimately tied the distance calls this plugin are to other things in the HUD, like Auto-Aim. However, if possible, an easy implementation, without messing up anyone who's already using this, is to add latency in the distance number update that the client gets.

Maybe?
May 20, 2010 tarenty link
+ a larger number than TBF and favrewebelieve combined. I want people to know that I don't use this, and it's an obvious hack.
May 20, 2010 Capt.Waffles link
WAIT! don't remove it yet! I need all the help i can get!

But this does need a close review to see if it is any way a cheat. I can see in a future where space travel and combat is the norm, a system like this is built in, but it's not built into the game. Interesting, and simple code though.
May 20, 2010 TheBlackFlag link
i believe there are also people out there who have a plugin that turns auto aim off/on in respect to distance. i also heard somewhere that there is an LUA event that says when a ship is "hittable" ...
let's just let robotz fly for us, ya?

Maal... start letting me kill you or GTFO

:P
May 20, 2010 DivisionByZero link
I know! Then you can, instead, have a command where you just circle your opponent... maybe calling it "orbit". And instead of choosing when to fire, it just fires for you until you run out of energy... then you have to wait a bit. But it's all automated.

I'm sure there's no game out there already where you just orbit and let you ship fire it's guns for you, right? right?
May 20, 2010 Dr. Lecter link
First, re: nerfing Maal: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/8/11971

Second, TBF is entirely correct. I've always hated plug-ins, but these most recent 'integrated combat suites' have gotten spectacularly out of hand. They're actually nastier than the old aim bots were, because a cheat-hacked offense combined with a cheat-hacked defense is a shitload more dangerous than just a really nasty offense hack.

The only way to cut this out is to prevent script-driven control over distance/auto-aim toggling by removing the "eyes" the script has: I want to see distance inside 500m killed as a client-side accessible value. If something is closer than 500m, the only thing that should register with the client is "PROXIMITY WARNING!" or something to that effect. There is no (legitimate) downside to removing this data, and a huge upside. Y'all nerfed a much more (legitimately) useful piece of information (ShipPos) for a lot less dangerous of a problem.

Mining beams functioning as they do, and roids being a pain during combat as they are, non PC or non ship items can have distance displayed down to the exact meter as it is now. But aside from implementation priorities, there's no good reason not to do this -- and I submit that the kind of abuse we've been seeing in the past months, as these things have gotten more advanced and tweaked (by people who do nothing but fly rigs and against rigs that let these work best), merits whatever time you'd have to devote to making this happen ASAP.
May 20, 2010 Alloh link
I was not aware of potencial of this plugin, but if reports are real...

Please, Devs, Inc, explain?
May 20, 2010 ShankTank link
Yes, please do what Lecter said about making the distance values for other ships <500m non-accessible for clients, or at least police these kinds of plugins and threaten account bans for people caught using them. It is entirely reasonable to prohibit the use of plugins that give a player an unfair advantage.

However, Lecter, sHippos is much more useful than ShipPos.

Edit: and yeah, if there's a value that fires when A/A is available, that should be removed.
May 20, 2010 peytros link
why not just remove the ability to control thrusters through the API?
May 20, 2010 Strat link
Like Maalik implied; I think any experienced PvP'er can use distance control more effectively than any plugin. I've often been accused of using various combat binds/plugins/hacks, but I've always doubted anything like that would offer an advantage to any skilled players, and would actually more likely be a severe disadvantage.

Pey, did someone you consider to be a mediocre pilot beat you by using this plugin? I'd be interested in hearing the details because the people I've seen try to use binds or plugins for combat have always failed miserably. I have been absent for a week or so though. Has there been some recent effective use of this that I'm unaware of?
May 20, 2010 look... no hands link
Id say remove that plugin from working, but really, it's just about impossible to stop. I can come up with a few other ways to do it.
May 20, 2010 CrazySpence link
My entire character is a plugin, I haven't played the game personally since 2003!
May 20, 2010 peytros link
strat why so on the defensive? I was just looking through the plug-ins on the vo wiki, as to if anyone has any success using it, well if someone has im pretty sure they wouldn't announce that it was helping them.
May 20, 2010 Strat link
I'm not "on the defensive" at all. I'm just trying to see if anyone is using this effectively. If not, then why make a point of removing it, potentially breaking other legitimately useful plugins in the process? Combat binds and plugins seem to make people lose, not win, so this whole thing seems like a nonissue. On the other hand, if people are winning fights with these things, then it is an issue, but I've never seen it happen (as far as I know). Dodge binds are pretty obvious, so I think we'd be able to spot a distance control plugin without them having to admit it.

Lecter implied that people are kicking ass with uber-plugins.

the kind of abuse we've been seeing in the past months, as these things have gotten more advanced and tweaked

I am personally unaware of anyone who wins any fights with any sort of automated combat plugin. Based on the comments in this thread, I feel like everyone knows something that I don't. Nobody has offered any specific examples, so if there are specific cases of effective use of combat plugins, I'd like to hear about it.