Hacking vs Lag (extremely long post be extremely informative (i think)

so i see a lot of words being thrown around like Lag and hacking/cheating. i want to clear up the difference (i replied with something similar on the Px boards at one point...)

ya see, we have players from all over the world. from Australia, to Britain, to Germany to the United States. everyone connects to the same box in OP's dunge- i mean basement. there's something called ping and it's the time (in milliseconds) in which a piece of data travels from the server to the computer and back. for example, when a players types /ping in a chatbox, it displays the ping, the packet loss (how many packets are lost in transit from server to host) and the fluctuation (which i have no clue what it means :P) normally, the ping for me is roughly 150-160ms. this means it takes 150 ms for an action that i do (for example dock with a planet) to get to the server, have the server register that Portalearth is docking with Planet Manhattan and come back to my computer and start the necessary scripts, animations ya-da
ya-da
ya-da...

some are going to have a lower ping because they are closer to the server box in Germany. a player in Britain may have a ping 50-60 due to their geographically closer location to the box, PLUS they dont have to go over the Atlantic Ocean. so if i dock with Manhattan and i lived in Britain, i start the animations, scripts BEFORE the player in Colorado. there's a 100ms difference between them starting to dock and you seeing it on your end.

how does this apply to PvP? well i'll explain it as best i can.

people have different types of connections to the server box. some are faster (T1, Cable Broadband) and some are slower (DSL, whatever Britain has [no offense] 56.6k dialup) if a player has a weaker connection (5mpbs DSL) they'll have a slower time registering an event on the server (such as docking or a missile being launched) than the guy who has a 35mpbs Cable such as myself...haters gonna hate. so if i fired a missile at a player in PvP and i'm on my 35mpbs connection and they're on a 5mpbs connection, they'll see the missile later than when i actually launched it. think about it like this (if it makes sense)

Knightshade and I engage PvP. a timestamp keeps record of the fight. I'm in Colorado with an average 160ms ping. for all intensive purposes, Knightshade lives in Russia but has a less than ideal connection (360 ping due to geographic location in the bum fuck a no where) keep in mind the time is going to read down the millisecond or to the nearest thousandth of a second (.001 of a second) .999 seconds is .001 second less than a full second (1.0) got it? kewl...
[9:13:2.152AM] PE launches Cataclysm missile at KS and his computer recognizes a missile is launched
[9:13:7.352AM] KS's computer registers incoming missile and takes evasive action. missile misses
[9:14:8.278AM] KS launches torpedo at PE. computer see's torp is launched
[9:14:378AM] PE's computer register's incoming torpedo, however he has AFK'd for a split second and is destroyed. KS's gloats and becomes a meany poo poo head

this is i call average but thing about more of these kinds of lines (in the thousands probably) with more than missiles and torps like mine's CM's, guns, CDs etc...

however due to the 200ms latency between munitions launched KS or I have a 200ms window to pray the server hiccups, someone is downloading a song, a mass PvP fight somewhere else (and i'll get to that) or creates some sort of packet loss to where he or I have that split second to turn around and blast the other.

in Mass PvP is where i see words and phrases like "hacking," "Cheating, "Missiles aren't tracking," and "he's jumping all over" being used the most. Think of the server box as an air traffic controller. now lets say he is the sole operator of the United State's busiest airport (O'Hare in Chicago i think) there's more than one part to the ATC tower like ground, control and tower control. each person has a at console has a specific job within each category. ground control has to make sure planes to run dont into each other as well as make sure there is an open gate for an arriving plane and manage those planes leaving so they aren't crashing on the runway. Tower Control has to make sure the planes dont mid air collide, hand off to regional control (the FAA regional control centers like Denver Center, Salt Lake Center etc...) and to make sure they dont run into planes trying to take off as they're trying to land. it's a huge amount of communication that if lacking ends in complete disaster and clusterfuck. the server is doing all of that at once but with ships flying around, missiles going every which way, debris from explosions, NPCs getting pissed off, chatting going on, people leaving and joining the server, smaller PvP fights happening and so on. the server, like any server from Battlefield 3 to World of Warcraft to Command and Conquer, is getting resources taxed. this means there's a higher output of the server's processor trying to figure what's going on (which slows down thing and can cause temperature concerns if not careful) higher use of Physical and virtual RAM (which can decrease server performance further)

here's what it all means. when a computer (or a server) is fed a ton of information from graphics, to actions to packet sending and receiving it ultimately affects everyone. because it's trying to sort of thousands if not MILLIONS of Bytes per millisecond it can get a little confused (for lack of better terms i guess) there are going to be little latency hiccups within the server like packet loss, server lag and in some cases can crash the server entirely. this is translated on the user end with missiles not tracking and with ships jumping and rubber banding. sometimes this can be reasoned as "oh well that's what happens when you have 14 people shooting shit at each other and these 14 different people are from 14 different parts of the world with 14 different kinds of connections with 14 different ways they connect to a single server box in a random home in Germany." OP has only so much bandwith he can use to ensure the most players have the smoothest experience. when that bandwith gets used up sending and receiving all the data it comes across, some players are going to suffer gameplay performance more than others, usually those who are farther from the server such at the US and Canada get the worst of it. some of the more...well...players who dont think things through enough blame it on cheating, which i will explain in the next post...

lag unfortunately, gets to be the scapegoat for those who call hacks. the following video shows a gentleman who is hacking in Delta Force Black Hawk Down. he is clearly running around at a faster speed than other players carrying an M2 .50 cal MG as well as chaming (turning other players a particular color in order to see them behind walls n stuff) ad probably other things like aimbots and stuff
R4z Hacks Blackhawk Down [BazookaKrew]
- YouTube
granted we aren't playing an FPS, those are clearly hacks hands down

when people say "oh he's hackin fur SHUURRR" i ask "well how do they do it? i've never seen anything with a google search for "Freelancer MP Hacks" (just to see if there are some out there mind you) they continue to explain they edit files and use 3rd party scripts and programs to do it. there are a few things wrong with that story.
1. the Launcher not only downloads various updates and fixes, but does a VERY quick scan of the FL folder for any modded files. if there is a modded file found then the launcher simply downloads another fresh, untampered copy from the master file (hosted on the server box most likely). so editing of files is busted
2. if a third party script or program is being used, then the Anti Cheat should be able to detect it and boot the player off the server. when a third party program is used, like a trainer for single player games, it temporarily alters files after the game is loaded to ensure ultimate victory whether faster ship, unlimted ammo, no wait time between missiles etc....so when a player attempts to use third party software to win a match. as soon as it's activated and a file is altered, the Anti-cheat will pick it up and kick the player either until he turns off the cheats or a server admin bans his ass.

due to the FL engine, aimbots are harder to program considering the hitbox on a ship is able to move in an infinite number of ways when combined with strafe up, down, left right, mouse flighty up down, bank left/right, engine kill, backwards etc.

In comparison to the BHD video, a player in that game can only move in x amount of ways. i used to play the game a TON years ago. the only way you have will have changed foot speeds is when you crouch, prone or stand. people stand and run and run and gun. so the hitbox is easier to manipulate via third party software (aimbots) to ensure a hit on the target every time no matter they're speed, stance, weapon etc...

hope this clears a few things up. lets open it up for friendly, non hateful, non flaming discussion (kinda like my failed BS thread...thanks guys...)

lemme explain it further

.1 is the same as .100 - it's expressed in terms of thousandths which is what i commonly prefer to use. it's verbally expressed either 1 tenth or 100 thousandths.

mili means .001 or 10-3
you're expressing it as Deci means .1 or 10-1.

those with double digit pings their decimal form would look like (as i expressed in my first post) .026 or 26 thousandths of a second. if you're going to cause trouble because you didn't like the way i either 1) outsmarted you, 2) confused you and you have to feed incorrect information to confuse me (which you did for about 2 seconds) or 3) made you feel that the way i express decimals is incorrect. i got into it with a guy at job corps once about a similar thing. .1 is 1/10 and is the same as .100 is 1/100th. personal preference and the fact you didn't catch i stated clearly (i will go back and emphasize it) that i am speaking in terms of thousandths and not anything else...

miliSECOND means thousandth of a second. so someone with a 160ms ping means it takes .160 (or 160 thousandths) of a second for the host and client to communicate

source: the fuckin' metric system...

bottom line: personal preference. if i announce in terms of thousandths you can't just "Change" it
for future reference if something is stated in terms of thousandths, dont change shit to tenths or hundredths because it's going to confuse the hell outta me. learned it the hard way while i was learning about machining that you can't just "drop" the zero's if the dimension is stated in thousandths. if a dimension is called out as .120, it doesnt magically become .12 because it's going to fuck the whole part up. the tolerence for 2 place decimal is usually about +/- .01 and 3 place is about +/- .003

and to be honest, i'd love to see some of these scripts for myself. i dont want someone to show me i want someone to give them to me so i can look at them. it's the internet. for you know i could actually some american who has a crap ton of money living in beverly hills with a hot supermodel wife. so prove to me these scripts exist. otherwise keep your mouth shut about hacks...

and they aren't caught (most likely) because they figured out a loophole or backdoor in the anti-cheat to avoid third party script detection. anyone with a brain can find if it's SOOOO frequently abused...

Quote from {LP}Knightshade{X}

im not in russia xD, just for the record

for the record, he lives in Michigan. just had to prove a point