Controlling Soldat externaly (idea) ?

[Raithah]

After returning from a terrible game involving a hacker, I came to thinking about bots. Maybe, just maybe, it would be possible to create some ub3r bot with practicaly super-human reflexes to combat the hackers. Then I remembered how hordes can't kill my baby cousin thus the idea was scrapped.

Until I came to wondering again. When the 'autodemo' feature is in use, it constantly updates the 'autodemo.sdm' file in the demos folder. As the file grows larger every second Soldat is in use, I concluded that information about the game is being stored there. The next important step that followed was in the demo player itself; as the game seemed to treat each demo as though it were a game, e.g. showing conversations from the last played game, kills, etc. . What I assume, and can only assume from this is that the demo files are the actual positions of players, objects, and bullets and such on the map. Another reasonable piece of information. The final piece came when browsing a macro site (curious how that random weapon chooser worked) and it finaly dawned on me. If it were possible for another program to read the Soldat 'autodemo.sdm' file while it was being written and use a system similar to the macro's to control the program, wouldn't it be (theoreticaly) possible to create a bot that can see via the demos, and control it by the macros ?

[EnEsCe]

No one has the demo file structure, so it wont happen.

[Michal Marcinkowski]

Why would you make a bot be controlled by a demo file? Or am I missing the point?

[EnEsCe]

Why would you make a bot be controlled by a demo file? Or am I missing the point?

Nah, he means someone make a 3rd party program which will read from autodemo.sdm and parse it and do whatever with it.

EDIT: I think....

[Raithah]

Yep, EnEsCe's got the idea there The main problem with making bots externaly is their lack of information provided by the game. The demo-files seem to have all the information that the game provides, so they seem like a great place to gather said info.

On a related note, if the structure isn't open how is it that there are so many demo players ? Or are those just fancied up command-line players.

[-Vis-]

On a related note, if the structure isn't open how is it that there are so many demo players ? Or are those just fancied up command-line players.

Yeah, that's exactly what they are.

[q0p4z]

i saw on some servers anti-hacker "bots" they were in spectator mode. but i never saw them in action (kicking someone for cheating)

and i dont think it was a person because that "bot" was 24h in the server.

@Raithaid

if that type of bots could be possible what would you do with them? like: how do you want to see if someone hacked or not?

[EnEsCe]

Demo player programs just open Soldat with command line parameters, nothing to do with reading the actual demo file.

[Raithah]

q0p4z, there are certain forms of filters, such as bayesan, that are pretty smart for computers. After a while of handholding, in which you slowly teach it hack from no hack, it eventualy finds similarities between real hackers, plane-jane laggers and random idiots who say 'h4x' a lot. Of course this isn't a fool proof system, but the bot could also be voted on or off by the players if it becomes too much of a menace.

And to EnEsCe, I sure am glad to know that the demo structure hasn't been released, it seems like such a simple thing but could easily explode into hundreds of dreadful hacks. But just for curiosity's sake, can you say whether or not opening the demo files in a hex editor would work (similar to reading map files) ? I'm sure you won't answer but it's worth a shot

[BenB]

all hex editors do is read the bytes and display their hex values, it'll work but you have no idea about the structure, so it doesn't help you.