Cheater Boards (How to Stop Them)

[nuclear zombie]

It seems that electro's have become the latest scapegoat. I've seen many a people playing a scenario or rec ball with their A5-RT turned up to full auto. I've seen people with older RT-Automags with the on/off modified and input set to nearly 1000 psi so they would get enough bounce that it would be full auto.
The point ? It's not the rules it's the inability of the people who make the rules to enforce them. All pro-leagues in paintball are competing for one thing, money. If you change the rules of one league enough, especially rules limiting sponsorship e.g. paint, or gun value limits, you can decrease the amount of money flow from these events. If the teams don't like these rules then they can go to another pro-league, enough high level teams leave and your league loses it credit for being a pro-level competition.

The Fact: rules will never be able to be enforced until there is only one recognized pro-level league. Tournament paintball suffers from the same problem, who can be that years champion? When 3 teams are claiming the same title. The only way paintball can advance is to become unified, or start supporting the majority ( scenario/ rec-ballers ) a lot more.

[raehl]

The Big Picture

First, needing to have a cheater board in the first place is, in and of itself, a victory. We don't want any idiot to be able to walk into wal-mart, put down $150, and walk out with a marker that shoots full-auto. So, if we've gotten to the point where the only place you find markers that do that is people cheating in top-level tournaments, the rules have already done much of their job.

This does, unfortunately, penalize the honest player in these leagues. The appropriate testing strategy is to have each board manufacturer certify that their boards are legal and submit a copy of the machine code on the board to the league, or a governing body. Not sure if a marker is legal? Open it up, download the software, and if it doesn't match a submitted, approved version, you penalize the crap out of the player with the marker. Equipment to do this is not prohibitively expensive, and you don't need "tamper-resistent" anything - you just pull the gun off the field and test it. You would probably couple this with a system where any opponent can pony up X amount of cash or points to have their opponent's marker tested (used in other sports) to keep testing reasonable. If you make the penalties severe enough, the vast majority of people won't do it.

And as much as you may not like the ASTM standards, they *ARE* important. One of these days, someone is going to get shot up by a marker that has "pushed" the standard and the manufacturer of that board will be sued, and they will lose, and they will lose a lot of money. The rules not only protect the players, they also protect the leagues. (Incidentally, I hope AGD is doing something about that 3.2 sofware that allows full auto fire on some markers, as that's a liability issue.)

Remember, insurance is generally based on the equipment used meeting ASTM standards.


- Chris

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by Miscue
Ok, now what prevents you from sending this standardized chip false inputs? Are you going to inspect my switch? Are you going to trace my board to see what line goes to what pin?

Actually, yes. After the event the winning markers are impounded and inspected to see that the boards are approved boards and that neither the chips nor the boards have been tampered with.

A tampered chip or illegal board on the winning team equals elimination from the tournament and the next team winning the prize.

As far a saying electros are the latest scapegoat and you can cheat with mechanical markers, well I say hogwash. The only reason you can cheat with mechanical marker is because of ineffective chronograph procedures and inept or ineffective refs/judges.

[truss]

its this simple, if you dont like how the game is being played then dont play it.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by truss
its this simple, if you dont like how the game is being played then dont play it.

So if people wipe, and cuss, and start getting into physical fights we should just walk away if we don't like it?

Get real. Lowlife scumball cheaters should be driven out of any sport/game you play. Or at least you should give it your best effort to do so before quitting.

If "how the game is being played" includes accepting jerks who are too chicken to have a fair competition and those jerks outnumber the decent players then I won't play.

Some people would like to see the game develop and remain (or perhaps become) respectable. You truss, obviously do not.

[BarryTolar]

Ok let's just "assume" that ALL your manufs agreed to a standard PIC and also agreed to a standard Pin Addressing and a standard code to drive their boards.

Anyone know what a JTAG is ? I swear I saw a header on a Eblade last night.

Assuming that all the above assumptions are true the only way to keep people from cheating is make sure they don't tamper with the memory on the board. Hehe good luck with that one. Yeah you can make PICs read only. Yeah you can CRC the code in the PIC. Doesn't matter there are still ways around this (very easily too I might add).

Sure it's unfair but then again they caught THIS board didn't they ? Some procedure that's in place must have worked.

Barry

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by BarryTolar
Sure it's unfair but then again they caught THIS board didn't they ? Some procedure that's in place must have worked.

But there is nothing in place, the 'found' board was discovered outside of a tournament, and noone has suffered any concequences. People continue to hide the name of the person that was on the board. And in the highly unlikely event that anyone in the paintball industry investigated or tried to impose sanctions, the person to whom the board belonged could simply claim that the board was reprogrammed after the tournament and never used in a competition.

So in other words, NOTHING worked and NOTHING is in place.

Until something is in place, I couldn't care less about big tournament standings. In fact, I'm much more inclined to buy products from companies that DON'T sponsor big name teams because I know less money is being sent to (aledgedly) cheating scumbags.

[FriedRicE2]

The quickest and most simple idea is just to make new mech tournies. Can't change to tounrneys now to mech because electro marker designers, and owners won't stand for that.

Heh if all tournies were only mech... Smart Parts would just give up enforcing its patents because nobody makes lare numbers of electros anymore, also they would have to retool their company, WGP would go crazy over how many fockers would show up from smaller comanies and have to deal with that somehow, and lastly ULE automag parts, x-valve, and lvl 10 upgrade sales would fly though the roof. (But all this would never happen)

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by FriedRicE2
The quickest and most simple idea is just to make new mech tournies. Can't change to tounrneys now to mech because electro marker designers, and owners won't stand for that.

How about handicapping various marker types and then having open-class tournaments.

For every mech, pump, or stock class marker fielded by a team the team gets bonus points. Start out with a guess, then use game statistics to adjust the handicap.

As far as simply having mech tournaments, nothing is stopping anyone from trying. Have to start at a grass-roots level before the big tournaments take notice. Or, a mechanical only marker manufacturer has to step up as a sponsor.

[raehl]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast
How about handicapping various marker types and then having open-class tournaments.

Sure, you could do that, but would anyone sign up to play?

- Chris

[FriedRicE2]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast
For every mech, pump, or stock class marker fielded by a team the team gets bonus points. Start out with a guess, then use game statistics to adjust the handicap.

Thats a really neat idea, using a points system to compensate. Balacing the point system, and corrdinating an event using this is gonna be tricky though. I think it would be fun to see the tactics people use for playing with pumps vs. someone with a semi gun.

I would sign-up to play the first day to help balance the system. Plus i think this adds more stragety to the game. People are gonna want to play with an advantage in points so they are gonna have to come up with some pretty intereseting stratagies to conquer the faster guns.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by FriedRicE2
Thats a really neat idea, using a points system to compensate. Balacing the point system, and corrdinating an event using this is gonna be tricky though.

Well, they handle handicaps in bowling.
And you're right. I'd love to see the tactics used. It would be really interesting to see how teams adapted game to game if the statistics changed the balance of points based on what markers were used.
What would be really difficult is dealing with mixed teams. If the hanicap is well established/unmoving it would be easy. But if the handicap is dynamic it would be very difficult to come up with the right formula to attribute point averages to then calculate the handicap variation.

[nuclear zombie]

There is only one way to get the kind of "control" you want over players. The guns are not owned by the people playing , everybody gets the exact same stock marker, no modifications, no upgrades , preprogrammed and they get it a couple of minutes before the tournamnet so they can fill it with paint, much like the IROC of paintball.

You can blame electronics all you want , people will find a way to cheat with mechanical markers.

[hardr0ck68]

i wpuld play a tourny series that was mech only... and if their was such a series then i would hope they use an electro magnet or something of the sorts to completely frag up anyone tryin to hide an electro...but yeah i dont know if that will ever happed

[truss]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast


So if people wipe, and cuss, and start getting into physical fights we should just walk away if we don't like it?

Get real. Lowlife scumball cheaters should be driven out of any sport/game you play. Or at least you should give it your best effort to do so before quitting.

If "how the game is being played" includes accepting jerks who are too chicken to have a fair competition and those jerks outnumber the decent players then I won't play.

Some people would like to see the game develop and remain (or perhaps become) respectable. You truss, obviously do not.

first off dont ever tell me what i obviously do and do not do.you dont know me.all i am saying is if you dont like playing against people with faster guns dont play against them.why does everybody want to limit these markers?i still dont understand.plus to get the computers on the feilds and extra people to run them would be a ton of cash.jacking tourny and paint prices at the tournies up even higher everybody is quik to complain when its something they dont like,but i bet not one of you have went to your local feild owner and talked to him about having stock gun,semi only or pump tourny?or maybe even starting your only local clubs.i enjoy playing a faster paced game.i have played many sports not just paintball and have come to one conculsion cheaters are everywhere and it sucks but its something i have learned to deal with(doesnt mean i dont bonus ball people i catch wiping,yes even people on my own team).all you can do is enjoy yourself and remember its a game.