What is cheating?

Since we've been getting a bit philosophical as of late i thought i''d bring up a difficult subject...

The difficulties defining cheating are many as we play a game where the possibilities for automation are quite large. We already have area move commands that can double as automatic scouting. There's already a mod that queues your idle factories automatically. There have been requests for having a AI commander playing alongside you in various ways, both as an ally and as some sort of extra commander in your team. (Not saying either of these are right or wrong, just trying to give perspective to the discussion.)

The lines are not exactly clear. How much should you play yourself, and how much should the game, the ui or mods handle for you? And if we cross that line, when is it actually cheating? I don't have any clear answers here but think the subject should be brought up, especially with the competitive scene slowly rising and cash prizes on the horizon.

To clarify, i think the biggest problems might come from modding, since this game seems to be very moddable, and someone with mods could play someone without mods and there's no real giveaways. What if someone rewrites their mod? I'm rather clueless when it comes to coding so i can't really grasp what the scopes are, how big the risks are for abuse and how to discover it.

There are many follow up questions to this as well. How will we separate "good" mods from "bad" ones (morally that is), should we vote somewhere or should uber handle it? Do we need some sort of verification system in the game to catch potential cheating with unauthorised / "bad" mods? If one competition want to allow one set of mods and another competition want another, can we handle that somehow?

I would hope that eventually some of the nice features from the current mods (in game timer, nice hotkey system etc.) get integrated into the game, and that there would be some sort of check in place for local files. I believe it is possible for a game to check the local files for modifications thereby not allowing players to modify the client. Mods would then run on their own servers and would be separate from the "official" game (ladder, galactic war etc.).

I believe that anything that isn't settable from the game menus shouldn't be allowed in competitive play, although of course you still can't do anything to prevent players from making keyboard/mouse macros. The way I see the existing mods is as a means to temporarily fill in gaps that hopefully should be filled in by the UI.

So, to summarise, for me:

Is part of the game = not cheating

Modification of the game for playing competitively = cheating

At the end of the day it will be up to Uber to decide what is cheating and what isn't, based on feedback from the community, obviously.

Nothings cheating unless specified or agreed upon. Automation is required for this game it's not about micro. Strategy is the most important thing here. All is fair in love and war. Is about fun.

Mods are fair game. If you can code an AI to play better than yourself then more power to you!

That sounds like another form of competition to me, each get to code their AI and let the AIs play vs each other. AI hackers PA league!

that would be fun to watch

Godde will still crush any AI

That sounds like a challenge for sorian.

My opinion not anything he said. But sometimes I think he is a robot

On the topic of automation:

• Carrying out player instructions - good.
• Making decisions in place of the player - bad.

Well the players just have to trust that everybody is following the rules. There is no way of getting around that. Be it a tournament, gentleman's match, or a friendly game.

Comes back the trust.

What if I instruct it to make specific decisions in certain instances?

Which is where it gets really grey, really quickly.

Some instructions go without saying; If enemy is within range, SHOOT IT.

Others don't. That's where the problem lies.

That said, is there any morally debatable things that don't fall into the category of automation? I'll admit that everything I've thought of directly or indirectly ends up being categorised as that.

I wouldnt consider many things in this game cheating, per se - most agreements in public games are loosely defined and usually broken by some dweeb.

InterRealm matches, though, we can get serious when we alter the rules - like NO T2 AIR or NO DEFENSES or NO NUKES, etc.

Cheating is not playing a game as intended and on the same premise as everybody else.

This is not a gray area, or a philosophical question. It's perfectly clear that using exploits, or making external programs to aid you is cheating in any game.

Using mods that alter your game play in such a way that it gives you an unfair advantage isn't not cheating until everyone play on the same premise you do.

A very similar debate is happening in correspondence chess nowadays. Should AI be banned from correspondence chess? Guess what? World correspondence chess federation decided to support AI. The ban is removed. The reason for this removal was simply unable to detect who is using chess engines for their game. So, if a cheater really wants cheating he can do that. So federation removed that famous ban. U.S correspondence chess federation still using ban on computer engine usage.

Mods should be regulated and monitored strictly by uber.

And a reputation for cheating will proceed cheaters wherever they lurk.

A robust and focused community will easily shun those who break the rules for their benefit.

They wont profit from it if either Uber or us do something about it

In my mind, something that improves the presentation of information already in the game would not be cheating (color mods, UI mods, commander health display) and neither would things remind you to take action (timers, modified alert settings).

Any mod that does something for you is a more of a gray area (idle factory auto queue, auto walls around laser).

Anything that breaks the game rules is strictly cheating (invincible underground units, build anywhere bugs).

And anything that exploits a design flaw, but is otherwise working as intended is merely unsportsmanlike (unkillable commander bouncing forever between planets).

Damn, you must be pretty damn lame if you play with enabled cheats. I have seen it happen tough that people adjusted their economy rate vs players.

Good point. None of these things will actually win you a game, only help you to do so.

Why all the hate?