The problem with GCI/forward observer cheat

I would like in this forum to touch on a topic regarding the use of the GCI or Forward Observer feature to cheat, which I see very disloyal and I think it undermines the spirit of the Developers of the campaigns or missions of those servers.

It is the case of users with a PC and a given account, enter as GCI/forward observer on one side of said server, and with their game PC, fly in the opposite, taking a perspective of enemy positions that others do not have, which I consider is cheating. That is currently being used on the Blue Flag server and on the 104th when there are missions with GCI.

I heard of this situation by a friend of our squadron, in our case we decided to make a warning

to the squad member, and if he continue, then he will be banned from the squadron.

=EDP 71st= Rush

That's great on your part (the having consequences for your actions in your squadron), however I've seen it multiple times where people will jump on GCI to get a picture then jump back into a jet to destroy a point. For example, we were on the 104th and had someone jump into the GCI slot then come back to find the location of our FOB and he had it bombed within 10 minutes, we know this because our FOB was hidden within a city and he had no problem finding it.

Now who will discipline him? No one, when we mentioned it in chat and all we got were people saying get better. Get better? Really? Someone had to cheat to beat us, maybe they need to "get better". I'd say 98% of our community are awesome, honest people, but god did that piss me off.

Now saying all of this, GCI is a interesting twist to the online experience! When used correctly and ethically, it adds a whole different amount of personal depth.

That's great on your part (the having consequences for your actions in your squadron), however I've seen it multiple times where people will jump on GCI to get a picture then jump back into a jet to destroy a point. For example, we were on the 104th and had someone jump into the GCI slot then come back to find the location of our FOB and he had it bombed within 10 minutes, we know this because our FOB was hidden within a city and he had no problem finding it.

 

 

Now who will discipline him? No one, when we mentioned it in chat and all we got were people saying get better. Get better? Really? Someone had to cheat to beat us, maybe they need to "get better". I'd say 98% of our community are awesome, honest people, but god did that piss me off.

 

 

Now saying all of this, GCI is a interesting twist to the online experience! When used correctly and ethically, it adds a whole different amount of personal depth.

Agree, in the case of Blue Flag campaign the situation is worst, because the cheater in the opposite side GCI, can tell to their friends when they are invisible to the radar, can guide them with the radar off all the time with no problem, because all the enemies are visibles!, they found you, even flying low through the mountains with no radar signal in your RWR! this is only possible using the double account cheat.

DCS community is growing it is inevitable to have cases like that.

 

For situation that OP described I think there is only one solution so far: have designated checked GCI people, ban other people who take GCI slot and not certificated to do so. Or disable GCI slots for good...

 

Exploiters will come and they will exploit every line of DCS code.. I foresee that this is only tip of the iceberg compared to what is coming..

Agree! in this case to place AWACS in both sides and no human GCI, until they find a solution using IP check, or certified GCI for any squad. Ask to the GCI using simpleradio or ALL chat if he is working with any particular group in the same side, and be confirmed via chat.

I would like in this forum to touch on a topic regarding the use of the GCI or Forward Observer feature to cheat, which I see very disloyal and I think it undermines the spirit of the Developers of the campaigns or missions of those servers.

 

It is the case of users with a PC and a given account, enter as GCI/forward observer on one side of said server, and with their game PC, fly in the opposite, taking a perspective of enemy positions that others do not have, which I consider is cheating. That is currently being used on the Blue Flag server and on the 104th when there are missions with GCI.

 

I heard of this situation by a friend of our squadron, in our case we decided to make a warning

to the squad member, and if he continue, then he will be banned from the squadron.

 

=EDP 71st= Rush

Write to server admin and request to block multiple same IP... Or ED accounts... (All keys).

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I usually post from my phone so please excuse any typos, inappropriate punctuation and capitalization, missing words and general lack of cohesion and sense in my posts.....

all it takes is an anouncement in "All Chat" that a GCI slot has been taken by "player X", and if he switches back to his "own" side or simply does nothing usefull everyone will see it. this will catch the "casual exploiters/cheater" which is enough.

Why? because you will have a hard time catching people who know what they are doing and trying will only inconvinience the rest of the players. Ask the Game industry how well thier anti-piracy-methods work and much they annoye the rest.

104th Server has all GCI/Observer slots in our missions disabled for now

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3133731&postcount=1476

For all the concern, I find that fishy stuff happening is not necessarily common, and I think most of the players are there for a challenge. The exploiters will be hard to rid ourselves of, and removing GCI entirely from Blue Flag would really hamper some of the fun in the F-5 and MiG-21.

Banning two different accounts with the same IP will be a problem for those of us who eventually go for F-14 multicrew from our own 2-person pit (yes, that's going to be me eventually).

Limiting GCI to "credentialed" users will just ensure that GCI is rarely ever available, and it also takes some fundamental capabilities away from the AA defense control (e.g. turning Kubs on).

I hate that there are cheaters in this game, because it does take away from the experience of others, and really, what's the point of flying a sim only to cheat? It just doesn't make sense. But maybe we can attack the goals of the cheaters as to limit their enticement. Mostly, these guys are out for racking up kill #s and stats (I know not all are, but many like to see those numbers). So, if you limit stat tracking or eliminate it entirely, maybe they stop playing and we can all have our sim free of them.

At the end of the day, jackasses gonna jackass, and we can only do so much. Some of the proposed solutions would probably cause more problems than they solve.

What I posted was for the open unattended servers, is not the case of Red Flag/rumbble MIG-21vsF5,etc and regulated tournaments, where GCI/forward observers do their job and are selected for each side before.

For all the concern, I find that fishy stuff happening is not necessarily common, and I think most of the players are there for a challenge. The exploiters will be hard to rid ourselves of, and removing GCI entirely from Blue Flag would really hamper some of the fun in the F-5 and MiG-21.

 

Banning two different accounts with the same IP will be a problem for those of us who eventually go for F-14 multicrew from our own 2-person pit (yes, that's going to be me eventually).

 

Limiting GCI to "credentialed" users will just ensure that GCI is rarely ever available, and it also takes some fundamental capabilities away from the AA defense control (e.g. turning Kubs on).

 

I hate that there are cheaters in this game, because it does take away from the experience of others, and really, what's the point of flying a sim only to cheat? It just doesn't make sense. But maybe we can attack the goals of the cheaters as to limit their enticement. Mostly, these guys are out for racking up kill #s and stats (I know not all are, but many like to see those numbers). So, if you limit stat tracking or eliminate it entirely, maybe they stop playing and we can all have our sim free of them.

 

At the end of the day, jackasses gonna jackass, and we can only do so much. Some of the proposed solutions would probably cause more problems than they solve.

Just wait that the CA gets better where you can't see on map anything than delayed and more realistic inaccurate information of your troops as the enemy reports.

Radar would become limited to realistic manner, meaning a SAM site doesn't inform everyone about what they see, you need to go to their radar screen or command post to get their data.

A fighter radar doesn't deliver picture others than the one where is datalink, if even that.

So lots of things would go to radio messages and reports of bogeys etc.

Now CA is offering far more than a LINK-16 is even capable and you don't have a IFF problems as you know by 100% is something a friend or not.

And you see every unit positions, speed, direction even etc.

All totally unrealistic and such immersion killer.

So when CA gets better, you start to get a delays of communication, reports becomes a markings on map with fuzzy locations and estimated enemies amounts, types and you are blind most of the time and just playing hide and seek with 2-5min data delay while being a commander.

So cheating is easy and simple...

What would you cheat when you don't get to know the information immediately and it isn't accurate nor trustworthy in first place and you don't get to see full picture!

No cheater would jump to do a 5-10min effort to get a questimation what is happening...

The communication between different parts of big machine would be slow and inaccurate at best.

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I usually post from my phone so please excuse any typos, inappropriate punctuation and capitalization, missing words and general lack of cohesion and sense in my posts.....

all it takes is an anouncement in "All Chat" that a GCI slot has been taken by "player X", and if he switches back to his "own" side or simply does nothing usefull everyone will see it. this will catch the "casual exploiters/cheater" which is enough.

Why? because you will have a hard time catching people who know what they are doing and trying will only inconvinience the rest of the players. Ask the Game industry how well thier anti-piracy-methods work and much they annoye the rest.

That guy will be changing username, using VPN and such. We are in a lost position at the moment.

I hear this accusation a lot but have never actually witnessed anybody abusing GCI slots this way. Also I know of no server admins that wouldn't take action on this when told.

Imho the severity of the problem is overstated. Better to enforce communications for GCI.

Mostly, these guys are out for racking up kill #s and stats (I know not all are, but many like to see those numbers). So, if you limit stat tracking or eliminate it entirely, maybe they stop playing and we can all have our sim free of them.

Stat tracking tells a lot more than just how many guys you shoot down. Survivability, weapons used, flight hours etc. are all great stats to help understand how you're developing alongside your buddies, sharing tactics to realise what each other are doing right and wrong should be part and parcel of multiplayer.

Only exploits I've 'witnessed' was a player connecting to the same server from two different accounts, leaving one in GCI and flying on the other.

Only exploits I've 'witnessed' was a player connecting to the same server from two different accounts, leaving one in GCI and flying on the other.

Is the same, the double account works for:

- One account in your own side GCI, and you fly with the second

- One account in the enemy GCI, and you fly with the second in the opposite side

- One account in the enemy GCI, and you are GCI for the opposite side

Have mercy with those poor guys !

They don 't have the brains to play fair, they don't have the guts to fight harder.

Those guys, lemme guess...mostly fly FC3 ...are under 30 years...and have no honourable reputation, not even among the ones they spy for !

Have mercy with the mentaly poor !

Have mercy with those poor guys !

 

They don 't have the brains to play fair, they don't have the guts to fight harder.

 

Those guys, lemme guess...mostly fly FC3 ...are under 30 years...and have no honourable reputation, not even among the ones they spy for !

 

Have mercy with the mentaly poor !

Agree, when I want to expent a couple of hours bulls**ting, simply go to warthunder and play air flight in arcade and just have fun with no limits! But DCS is not for that :(

Stat tracking tells a lot more than just how many guys you shoot down. Survivability, weapons used, flight hours etc. are all great stats to help understand how you're developing alongside your buddies, sharing tactics to realise what each other are doing right and wrong should be part and parcel of multiplayer.

Let me rephrase. The stats displayed in-game (apostrophe key), which are the ones that most exploiters/cheaters would care about. They care about other people seeing their big numbers.

So...limit that, and let everyone collect all the private data they want on a delay, I think there would be less of a problem.

That being said, I think this issue is almost non-existent, but I'm usually more focused on trying not to crash my plane than worrying about who is trying to use an exploit. I simply don't have the SA to do that many things at once.

Is the same, the double account works for:

 

- One account in your own side GCI, and you fly with the second

- One account in the enemy GCI, and you fly with the second in the opposite side

- One account in the enemy GCI, and you are GCI for the opposite side

The first of these, running GCI and flying on the same side, isn't an issue. That's someone doing double duty, and if they have the wherewithall to do it, I don't see a problem there. Yes, I understand arguments of realism, etc. But GCI implementation is hardly realistic and often so haphazard to begin with. Fact is, those data are available to that side through a GCI. So anybody on that side is welcome to it as far as I'm concerned.

The latter two are the big problem. There's no reason someone should have access to and be using an enemy's assets against them, because we're not playing Cyber-Combat Simulator.

It would be great if ED would actually implement a GCI slot instead of servers using a get around with observer slots etc.

There is a great tool that has been around for a while called LOTATC which is a dedicated GCI program and is actually pretty awesome. Though the problem that comes with using external tools is the server load is usually going to suffer.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=162096&highlight=lotatc

https://www.lotatc.com/

Though the problem that comes with using external tools is the server load is usually going to suffer.

And the $$$

Would LOTATC not help in this regard? That is for dedicated persons so you can disable GCI slots on the server and have people with LOTATC being able to connect and act as GCI based on a radar simulator.

Change red/blue passwords regularly and you're golden.