Why Don’t Cheaters Repent?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

My personal opinion about the autoqueue feature that was added to the main game is that it was a bad idea. The feature is justified on a grand-scale RTS such as Supreme Commander where the macro required is truly insane, but not in a classic style RTS game. From this, you can guess my opinion on all other similar modifications.

Because the game is very fast paced, one of the advantages of 0ad, some automation features like this are good. But such features should not eliminate learning curves.

[Boudica]

At this point, I no more believe that the cheaters are trying to have a reasonable discussion. It's just like "What could I write that would be reminiscent of an argument to possibly let me keep doing what I'm already doing?". Half of this is just trying to shift or relativize the topic, or telling fair players to either cheat too or go play elsewhere. Then, when a counter-argument is taken apart and proven as flawed, they will just repeat it unchanged in a new thread. Tell a lie often enough, right.

Or, maybe even put the lie right in your bio. That way it gets automatically repeated after anything you write. Smart.

So I see @Seleucids say "STOCKFISH DOESN'T CHEAT", and that's a really bold statement to put in your bio because of how hard it is to prove. Meanwhile, there are people like me who just do have the proof in the form of replays, eyewitness testimony, screenshots of chats discussing the usage of the mods (what is meant here by cheating anyway). So what is it now? It's just acting dumb and trolling.

Edited Tuesday at 21:24 by Boudica
typo

[Atrik]

29 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

All it does is use an existing system to tell units to attack higher preference units if they are attacking a low preference unit without orders.

All it does it reading user inputs in dedicated panel to issue existing engine command to train unit from buildings. Can't call it autotrainer?

"auto" just means that relative to some anterior state, managing a certain aspect is either made easier, either handled by scripts or engine. Your script has as side-effect to re target closer units, it does mitigate baiting in addition to helping targeting "higher priority target".

41 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You just made up "damage spreading" out of thin air.

> Thin air

 

Indeed, as you contributed to the myth that autosniping would be a very bad and shady and would kill 0ad, i understand that now that it's actually you who is developing could be bothering you. You should just admit you changed your mind. At least to yourself .

 

55 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

  Quote

You'd have to convince everyone it's not cheating in the first place  

My personal opinion about the autoqueue feature that was added to the main game is that it was a bad idea.

Sorry if that sounds dismissive, but how can a SP player (as you say you are) jealous other players about what feature they use or not in the game? Why do you care about the introduction of features that you can always choose not to use, and that you don't even have to bother with the whole "it gives a competitive advantage to it's user" topic?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

38 minutes ago, Boudica said:

At this point, I no more believe that the cheaters are trying to have a reasonable discussion. It's just like "What could I write that would be reminiscent of an argument to possibly let me keep doing what I'm already doing?". Half of this is just trying to shift or relativize the topic, or telling fair players to either cheat too or go play elsewhere. Then, when a counter-argument is taken apart and proven as flawed, they will just repeat it unchanged in a new thread. Tell a lie often enough, right.

Truly. Especially the whataboutisms. Instead of defending the mods, its (understandably) easier to go on the offensive. I guess its also easier to contort the truth and put words in peoples' mouths that way.

[guerringuerrin]

 

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

I don't feel that there are any "skill" in making repetitive meaningless actions like re-batching all the time. It takes away brain time to come up with original strategies, and overall put you in a stance of repeating some procedures.

There is a skill on being aware of your military production and keeping your pop up. In fact, just yesterday a player told me he was using the autotrain feature because "it helps me keep up my population". And in the context of the (serious) discussion about this feature, sounds like an euphemism to say "it takes away brain time to come up with original strategies".

2 hours ago, Atrik said:

and @guerringuerrin also want to facilitate training.

Yeah, I mean the current training system is buggy in the way I've described. Is very different from a feature that instantly produces units according resources and housing available. In my opinion, you took automation to an extreme, and it does provide a clear advantage over those who don’t use that feature. And I feel frustrated that we can't even agree on that and the importance of fair play in a competitive environment. Cause might not be a super popular RTS but 0ad actually has a competitive community at some point.

2 hours ago, Atrik said:

Now, theses threads just aim to fuel a myth around 'progui' that a handful of players want to entertain,  that need to use lies about nondisclosure, false claim about it's working etc to make it even stand...

You’ve got a point here, as you never tried to keep your mod in the shadows, and I don’t think you’ve ever acted dishonestly. So accusing you of hiding it or being a cheater doesn’t add anything to the discussion. However, it’s currently impossible to know if someone is using it independently, and not everyone may be as honest as you in that regard and yeah, those are cheaters.
 

Edited Tuesday at 22:12 by guerringuerrin

[Deicide4u]

21 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Sorry if that sounds dismissive

Not at all. 

22 minutes ago, Atrik said:

but how can a SP player (as you say you are) jealous other players about what feature they use or not in the game? Why do you care about the introduction of features that you can always choose not to use

Who said that I'm going to remain in SP forever? Also, I care about the game enough to defend the fair-play. And to call out those players who blatantly lie how something obviously unfair like an automation script "isn't cheating". 

Maybe I also want to win some fair games when I DO decide to play MP? 

[Deicide4u]

14 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

There is a skill on being aware of your military production and keeping your pop up. In fact, just yesterday a player told me he was using the autotrain feature because "it helps me keep up my population"

Especially when half of the game's loop in the early to mid game is keeping your population up.

Like, everyone practices getting to the 100 pop ASAP since it constitutes a major part of both economy and military gameplay. And here you have people who are automating it.

It's wrong. 

Edited Tuesday at 22:24 by Deicide4u

[ffm2]

On 12/07/2025 at 9:01 PM, TheCJ said:

0ad has no real cheating

43 minutes ago, Boudica said:

At this point, I no more believe that the cheaters are trying to have a reasonable discussion.

Indeed Boudica. Not even the market exploit is considered a cheat.

 

On 13/07/2025 at 2:15 PM, Seleucids said:

Secondly, I don't know what he is talking about. I assume it's PTSD from the explosions, because his claims about the existence of cheats and his accusations against these individuals don't hold. 

Reza knows about quickstart, Seleucids knows reza considers it a cheat. I think its quite distasteful bringing up war or PTSD here. Reza had this stance before the war already. Reza probably doesn't really care but bringing this up does not show a interest in a reasonable discussion. Instead the sanity of the conversational partner is attacked.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

 I don't feel that there are any "skill" in making repetitive meaningless actions like re-batching all the time. It takes away brain time to come up with original strategies, and overall put you in a stance of repeating some procedures.

This is clearly wrong. @guerringuerrin has already pointed this out as "awareness." I would go further to say this is actually multitasking, which @borg- has already identified as the primary skill in R(eal)T(ime)S(trategy) games. 

It is also not just "repetitive meaningless actions." First, your mod doesn't repeat the same thing. It optizimies based on how many you can make to reach your ideal population composition. Without the mod, you would have to decide what batch size to make and of what units to make. At all times, do you know how many jav inf you have at all times? Do you know how many sword cav you have at any moment? Do you know how many slingers you need to make to reach your ideal population percentage? I don't know. But I can make guesses informed by experience (i.e., skill). Your mod does this all for you. 

If you truly want something to eliminate repetitive clicks then that already exists as part of the base game. You have created something that does more and creates a competitive advantage. 

Most importantly, you've been told other players don't like it and choosing to use it anyways

[Atrik]

42 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Most importantly, you've been told other players don't like it and choosing to use it anyways

For the record do play with host rules, so when @chrstgtr or other hosts ask me to, i don't use trainer. Probably another lie necessary to create the myth, so one need to revise the reality. The problem is just that not you couldn't get all hosts to do this but that's just another thing.

[chrstgtr]

12 minutes ago, Atrik said:

For the record do play with host rules, so when @chrstgtr or other hosts ask me to, i don't use trainer. Probably another lie necessary to create the myth, so one need to revise the reality. The problem is just that not you couldn't get all hosts to do this but that's just another thing.

It is true you (usually) do not use your mod when I host (or other hosts) tell you not to use it. 

But I would hardly say that doing this is changing your behavior to address other players’ concerns if you only do it under threat of a room ban. 

[Atrik]

43 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

if you only do it under threat of a room ban. 

I don't do it because of any threats. I just believe that hosts being able to set their game rules is normal.

[TheCJ]

6 hours ago, ffm2 said:

Indeed Boudica. Not even the market exploit is considered a cheat.

Well, that makes me look like a big ol' fool. I take that back and apologize; I actually totally forgot about the market exploit, please forgive me.

 

7 hours ago, Boudica said:

At this point, I no more believe that the cheaters are trying to have a reasonable discussion

...But talking about how the other side doesnt even want to have a real discussion is certainly not shifting the topic, right?

 

9 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Conclusion: the scope and limitations of what’s allowed in the different ways the game can be played ultimately depend on community consensus and by having ways to enforce that consensus. Right now we keep at zone 0 here

Alright, but as long as 0ad is open source, you cant enforce anything really. If a cheater really wants to cheat, he can build the game with some of his own code injected. 

Now, making it so you would atleast have to do that "injection", to be able to cheat, would still be an effective deterrent for many cheaters, but if done wrongly, could also hurt the developement of "non-cheat"-mods, like GUI changes (even if they are just resizing buttons, you change the simulation folder afaik, so youd be flagged incompatible by the current modio rulings? So if we somehow made it impossible to play with mods flagged incompatible in modio, I couldnt make any changes to my gui, as harmless as they may be, without injecting it before building the game, which would be a significant detriment to the modding aspect of the game) [tl;dr: Restricting mods further hurts modding.]

So enforcing a consensus (if we could reach one) is quite a challenge, isnt it?

 

11 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I find this autostart argument pretty sad, and I have heard it from several players. Are you really that hell-bent on making the fastest possible start just for such a small gain? I think players should accept that it is impossible to achieve the "perfect" start, and instead put in effort to learn a fast start that works for them.

The point is not that autostart gets you such a massive gain, it doesn't, its that the principle behind it is depressing.

I agree with you. I would consider using autostart to be pretty embarrassing. Good thing the only cheat I use is autociv, which seems to be generally accepted.

I was not trying to defend people using autostart (they shouldnt), but rather trying to lay out why I dont care whether they do. Some people take games too seriously and try to get any advantage they can, be it fair or not. Thats embarrassing for them, but as an opponent, I dont really care if its at the level of autostart (or proGUI), since the advantage they gain is so insignificant that it doesnt actually affect me at all.

Now, if you dont use autostart or proGUI to gain an advantage, but rather to change how the game feels to you and maximise your fun, it even ceases to be embarrassing. 

 

12 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

21 hours ago, TheCJ said:

nobody cares

This is an assumption that one player makes about 7 others. And when they find out they lost because someone was cheating, the answer is "chill out its just a game". Awesome argument guys.

Ripping my comment about autostart out of context to make it appear like I was talking about all cheats doesnt make it look like you are actually...

7 hours ago, Boudica said:

trying to have a reasonable discussion.

(The difference is, you have never lost because of autostart, while it is possible you lost because of other cheats. And thats why I wouldnt say "nobody cares" about the other cheats.)

 

12 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Usually all 7 other players are unaware that this advantage exists, and even the minority of players who know that such mods exist do not grasp the magnitude of advantage that automation scripts provide.

This is a very interesting argument. May I ask on what grounds you say that

1. Most players that encounter players with "cheats" (e.g. proGUI, autostart, autociv) are unaware of the cheats

2. The people that are aware of the cheats cant grasp the magnitude of advantage

[because I think almost all of the consistent long-term players know about proGUI, autostart and ofc autociv. And I dont know any user of those cheats that likes to play against newbies that dont know about them. And that the autotrainer function provides any statistically relevant advantage still remains to be proven.]

[guerringuerrin]

6 hours ago, TheCJ said:

Alright, but as long as 0ad is open source, you cant enforce anything really. If a cheater really wants to cheat, he can build the game with some of his own code injected. 

You'll never be able to have flawless code, but you can always build stronger code and better anti-cheat protection. This is the case with maphack, which afaik have been fixed in the latest version. Furthermore, saying that 0 A.D. is insecure just because it's open source is like saying Windows is more secure than Linux because it's closed. Security doesn’t depend on hiding the code, but on how the system is designed and what measures are in place to protect it.

6 hours ago, TheCJ said:

like GUI changes (even if they are just resizing buttons, you change the simulation folder afaik, so youd be flagged incompatible by the current modio rulings? 

Not exactly true. Most—if not all—GUI changes are made by modifying the contents of the GUI folder without even touching the simulation folder.

6 hours ago, TheCJ said:

So if we somehow made it impossible to play with mods flagged incompatible in modio, I couldnt make any changes to my gui, as harmless as they may be, without injecting it before building the game, which would be a significant detriment to the modding aspect of the game) [tl;dr: Restricting mods further hurts modding.]

True. And I'm not in favor of enforcing any mandatory system for using certified mods or restricting mods. I'm in favor of making information about which mods are being used by all players in a match (whether signed via mod.io or verified in any other way) available to all players—or at least to the host—of the match. After that, each host can set their own rules.

6 hours ago, TheCJ said:

So enforcing a consensus (if we could reach one) is quite a challenge, isnt it?

Yes, it’s a big challenge. And yet, here we are enjoying an incredible game developed by a community of developers and players that moves forward in many areas through discussion and consensus.

Edited yesterday at 12:23 by guerringuerrin

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

11 hours ago, TheCJ said:

Ripping my comment about autostart out of context to make it appear like I was talking about all cheats doesnt make it look like you are actually...

My apologies, I group all of the cheats together so I don't consider autostart to have any exception despite it providing a smaller advantage compared to others. My point is that one player shouldn't be allowed to cheat and then when challenged about it, claim that the game "isn't competitive" so its no big deal. The gameplay experience of everyone in the host matters.

Autociv still has 1:1 action to input correspondence so I don't think it should be considered a cheat. Cheats like maphacks or progui actually deliver additional capabilities like extra vision or large volumes of management actions for a single gui level input.

1: any time I raise the question about progui before game start (whether it will be disallowed or not) I usually have to explain it to at least 3 to 4 people, others are tired of debates about this and don't invest any of their attention. During this discussion progui users are totally silent and do not respond do inquiries about their mod usage. Usually at least one person is outraged, but they quickly realize that there's nothing they can do about it. If enough people in the host express concern about progui before game start, the progui user will break silence and verbally attack the person who raised the issue with words I can not put on the forum. This serves to derail conversation about the mod. Additionally there are also dishonest people who claim that the scripted autotrainer is "equivalent" to vanilla autoqueue which is mathematically false.

2: There aren't really any stats on the summary which illustrate directly the advantages provided by automation, so players (even good ones) mistakenly believe that their usage of vanilla autoqueue or manual batch training is as efficient. I've advocated for cumulative barracks/stable/cc idle time statistics before. Additionally players do not realize how much of their mental capacity manual batch training consumes because its a practiced action that they are used to doing every game, so they underestimate how much extra time a progui user has. 

While its obvious to us that certain players use progui, the forum discussions are started by a vocal few who are aware of them and grasp the size of the advantage. Its easy to point to me or chrstgtr or reza and make the claim that "everyone knows and everyone accepts my cheating", but that is not the reality in multiplayer. Getting away with it in a team game does not mean that everyone there gave you consent to cheat, quite the opposite.

Edited yesterday at 17:14 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Not exactly true. Most—if not all—GUI changes are made by modifying the contents of the GUI folder without even touching the simulation folder.

Autociv, Moderngui (as Boongui did), mod the simulation folder to track/format datas. Besides, BoxTargeting for example would edit  few lines in input.js which whom is in gui/. Moding simulation folder doesn't do what you make it look like it does here. And popular GUI mods do modify it.

[guerringuerrin]

39 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Autociv, Moderngui (as Boongui did), mod the simulation folder to track/format datas. Besides, BoxTargeting for example would edit  few lines in input.js which whom is in gui/. Moding simulation folder doesn't do what you make it look like it does here. And popular GUI mods do modify it.

Ok i might be wrong about that.
Still autociv, ModernGUI and BoxTargeting are not just GUI mods, the do more than just modifes the GUI or track/format data. 
anyways. all have been said

[guerringuerrin]

Sorry, I just forgot to share this very revealing conversation I had with a relatively new player. It's interesting how confusing it can be to think that a feature only helps you against better players, but doesn’t still give you an advantage against players at your own level. Can't blame him, I guess, in the end, we all fool ourselves a little.

[TheCJ]

As repetitive as these kind of threads are, I think these ideas are great and we should definitely consider implementing them;

11 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

I'm in favor of making information about which mods are being used by all players in a match (whether signed via mod.io or verified in any other way) available to all players—or at least to the host—of the match.

(This alone would fix a big part of the problem; sure, there might be some who will hide it, but by doing so they become openly dishonest and it becomes clear that they do (try to) cheat (as in "gain an unfair advantage") and they wont have any real leverage to argue why they shouldnt be banned from any future games by the host (if people noticed their cheating (attempt)))

 

7 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I've advocated for cumulative barracks/stable/cc idle time statistics before.

(maybe even unit idle time, while we're at it. But that doesnt really have anything to do with the cheats so its a bit off-topic.)

(And if possible we could also draw the structure idle time as a graph at the end? makes it easier to find mistakes in my own gameplay and get better.)

[chrstgtr]

13 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

(maybe even unit idle time, while we're at it. But that doesnt really have anything to do with the cheats so its a bit off-topic.)

(And if possible we could also draw the structure idle time as a graph at the end? makes it easier to find mistakes in my own gameplay and get better.)

This should be really easy for you self diagnosis and correct. Just look at the idle worker count in the bottom right corner of the mini map. If the number is above 0 then you made a mistake. Keeping an eye on this counter, pressing the period button to find the idle worker, and assigning a task to the idle worker is eco management 101. 

[TheCJ]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

This should be really easy for you self diagnosis and correct. Just look at the idle worker count in the bottom right corner of the mini map. If the number is above 0 then you made a mistake. Keeping an eye on this counter, pressing the period button to find the idle worker, and assigning a task to the idle worker is eco management 101

Of course. But as long as we dont have a button to jump to the next idle building, the same cant be said about buildings, which is why a graph with the cumulative building idle time would be nice.