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Here, here! Yes, hosts have every right to refuse to play with any player, for whatever reason. However, they don't have a right to defame a player and tell others to not join that player based on lies. It seems that ProGUI provides an empirical advantage. It's not unfair because it's freely available. However, currently, people don't have a clear indication of whether another player is using it. I like the Zero-K philosophy of allowing software development for automation of certain aspects of the game. But, some people have a strong opinion against using ProGUI or joining games where others are using it. I think that hosts, and ideally other players, should have a right to know when a modification that provides an advantage is being used by another player. That way a host can make an informed decision about whether the player is in compliance with the rules they have set for the game they're hosting. It's especially relevant in competitive games like rated matches, tournaments, and apparently the average game involving some of the more, shall we say, high strung players. So, I would support adding a feature where the mods that a player has enabled that offer a potential objective advantage in the game, are disclosed to the host. It would also be nice to have a feature where a host can deny users to connect when they have certain mods enabled. This feature would be easily bypassed by anyone who decides to actually cheat by modifying the source code of the game or renaming their mod. The only counter is to make 0ad closed source and use an anti-cheat system like Easy Anti-Cheat. That won't be happening, so ultimately we rely on the honor system. Yet, a mod that offers an advantage is potentially detectable by watching replays. So, if a player cheats a rule about which mods are allowed by a hoster in a match and uses a disallowed mod anyway then evidence of it will be evidence of actually cheating. As far as timing for implementing such a feature, that depends on who supports its development. Calling all junior C++ and JavaScript developers: talk to me about software development plans.

mod is working fine on my a27 compiled version!

Today ValihrAnt played in a team game and a 1v1 against borg-. I said, "hey ValihrAnt (2335), glad to see you playing". He said "ello". I asked him if he was angry at anyone. He seemed surprised and just said, "whut".

I'm glad to hear that!

Thats an interesting concept, as long as everyone buys into the scripts arms race and agree on what can be modified. In Aoe2 they host a little tournament where players design AIs that play against each other, which is kind of the next step beyond what you mention. I would say that this philosophy does not apply to 0ad as its supposed to be a videogame, so just because a player can make a script for automatically managing production buildings doesn't mean he deserves to wield that advantage over his non computer-savvy opponents.

I'm morbidly fascinated by this dust up because of the contrast to another open source RTS project: Zero-K. In the competitive scene for Zero-K, I believe that the consensus rules say that everything about how you control the game is fair game for modification. You can use you own custom GUI and endlessly elaborate control bindings, with all sorts of automation to facilitate optimal macro and micro. I think they even let players customize the AI scripts used by units and buildings for things like target prioritization and fight moving. The philosophy is that if you have the coding skill to automate any task that other players do manually and remain competitive, you deserve to reap the benefits. I'm sure in practice there would have to be limits to this approach. Entering a full AI with 10,000 APM multitasking to play for you in a tournament wouldn't fly I imagine, but I doubt they would bat an eye at any of the features in ProGUI. It just goes to show that while a line must be drawn, where it is drawn seems kind of arbitrary. ...Or maybe not so arbitrary. GoogleFrog, Zero-K's main dev, has a series of essays ("Cold Takes") about the design of the game that I think are quite illuminating (and well worth reading). It shows that Zero-K is a game with a very clear vision of itself. It's confident that its appeal lies in the challenge of solving its fiendishly elaborate system of unit interactions, encapsulated in the unit stats and simulation systems. Everything else is treated as peripheral and left up to the whims of the players. I think fights like the debate over ProGUI in Zero-AD are a symptom of a project that does not have confidence in its own systems and faction design. That's why some players are so invested in turning fighting the UI into a competition. When the strategy space is flat and homogeneous, execution is the only way for players to differentiate themselves.