Ton Tons @ CC

[duffistuta]

Originally posted by manike
Yes but that's ok. Ultimately nerds rule the planet...

I'm ok with being a nerd, I've recognised the fact and admitted it.

1. Bush is a nerd? You should resign your membership immediately.

2. No, you resigned yourself to the fact after everyone spent years giving you wedgies and bog-washes.

Now, let's get back to the matter in hand: You are in charge of NPPL gun rules in their entirety - setting the rules, setting the penalties, selecting the equipment used to enforce them and so on. What do you do?

 

[manike]

Originally posted by duffistuta
Now, let's get back to the matter in hand: You are in charge of NPPL gun rules in their entirety - setting the rules, setting the penalties, selecting the equipment used to enforce them and so on. What do you do?

I take time off from my real work and finish that device I told you about years ago, and make it mandatory.

That way, no velocity cheats and set in stone rof control.

You may get FA cheats and break out modes that do FA, but you wouldn't have high velocities, and you wouldn't go over the set ROF.

We could even force people to have lower ROF for say the first 5 seconds to enable better breakouts... we could do anything when it comes to controlling ROF and velocity.

I just need the time to finish it. Time is the one thing I don't have.

I'm still working on, believe it or not, but my 'real' work/job and having some semblance of a life is getting in the way. It also needs a decent electronics engineer to program it, and I don't have anyone as quick or as cheap as Nick does to work on it with me.

Sorry to go all secret on those that don't know what I am talking about, but it's something I've had as a back burner project for a while and don't want to give away just yet.

Maybe I'll talk to the NPPL powers at Miami and see if we can go forwards together to make a finished prototype.

p.s. You really think Bush is in control?

 

[shamu]

Originally posted by Freddie Brockdorff
Just a couple of VERY cautious "newbie" questions from someone who knows nothing :

1) What would happend if say not only the team caught cheating were penalised, but also the manufacter of what board might be in question? Wouldn´t it actually then be far more "dangerous" for both teams and manufacters to do the cheat in the first place, rather than if just the players/teams got penalised?

2) Howcome it´s so hard technically to check the code on boards? Aren´t the electronics engineers checking it somehow before it hits the stores - like a second check-up after it being made? If so, then shouldn´t some other engineer be able to check it as well - and that off course without it taking long?

REALLY not trying to stir anything up here - just asking since it´s something I´ve been wondering about!

Is it the manufacturer's fault that someone used a PSP mode in an NPPL event? Unless you have a league-specific board and/or can read the uncompiled source for the board, you'll never be able to prove what a manufacturer did/didn't intend the board to do. Even with the uncompiled source it would still be tough.

So what is uncompiled source, you ask? Actually, it's the answer to your second question. All programming is done in one language or another. COBOL, java, C# and .Net are all examples of programming languages. Each is unique and has different applications. For example, a COBOL program probably runs on a mainframe, while a .Net application probably runs on a web server.

Once a program is written in one of these languages, it must be converted to a format the computer can run. This is called compiling, and is where the 1 and 0s come in. Once compiled, it is almost impossible to read the code because it is no longer in a human language.

A very simple example of this would be morse code. In this example, we're converting three letters to morse, which is also a binary language (dash/dot instead of 1/0)

in morse code, S O S = .. -- ..
in binary, SOS = 1001010110001001010

The uncompiled source is what the board manufacturers would have to reveal to the league in order to do validity checks.

make sense now?

 

[manike]

Another great post Shamu!

Originally posted by shamu
The uncompiled source is what the board manufacturers would have to reveal to the league in order to do validity checks.

And the uncompiled source code is pretty much instructions on how to do everything the gun does electronically.

It's a vaulable piece of intellectual property and takes a lot of time, work, testing and $$$ to develop a good source code.

Once developed it's also very valuable because it can be used to create aftermarket boards and is in essence the heart of how well a gun runs. If you have good code you can make your gun run better than anyone elses. You don't want to make that available to your competitors because then you lose your competitive advantage. The difference between a gun with good code, and a gun with bad code is like night and day, it's phenomenal.

Different gun's need different source codes.

Different people write source code in different languages and achieve similar things in different ways (something like assembly is not an easy language to learn or to implement but is quite common in paintball). Someone would need to be expert in all source codes and all ways of achieving the desired result in order to be able to understand it. They would also need to be familiar with paintball and the rules. You couldn't pick anyone to do this job, in fact I know of only a few people in the world that might have the skills to do it... and they all make money selling aftermarket boards. None of their competitors would want them to see their code to 'check it'.

Those kinds of people, are rare, and expensive.

Ultimately the source code is like the instructions to make the gun's board.

Giving it out, so someone otuside of your company can check it, is kind of like giving out the CAD files and tolerances and manufacturing details to the physical parts of the gun.

Once anyone else has it they can instantly use it knock off how your gun is made/works etc.

This is why it's valuable and protected very carefully.

 

[Freddie Brockdorff]

Originally posted by shamu
Is it the manufacturer's fault that someone used a PSP mode in an NPPL event? Unless you have a league-specific board and/or can read the uncompiled source for the board, you'll never be able to prove what a manufacturer did/didn't intend the board to do. Even with the uncompiled source it would still be tough.

What my point with this somewhat "silly" suggestion was that if suddenly the manufacters were at risk too, then the teams might think just a little bit harder before making use of these cheat modes!

Why, you might ask?

Well - if team "A" is suddenly to blame for their sponsor getting a fine, do you think this sponsor would continue working with the team in question?

May sound really really lame but this is off course only as a very last resort, if nothing else can keep the teams from cheating - that is using cheat modes!/making use of something that is clearly against the rules!

I´m not talking millions of dollars here, but - I don´t know - just some sort of fine?

Again said - just something that pop´ed my crazy mind when reading this OH so very long thread - seems as though no one has a suggestion for stopping this cheating going on, without someone else seeing it as a really stupid idea - so I just thought HECK I´ll give it a try too!

Which leads me to my second question: Doesn´t an electronic engineer has some sort of way to double check if the board is properly coded before it is shipped out of the machinery/factory? If so - then couldn´t this very same way be used to check the boards at a tournament?

Really only wondering since I have no clue what so ever, how a board is "code checked"!?

EDIT: UH Uh Uh, just got a thought - if it were suddenly in the manufacters own interest to keep the teams from using the cheat modes (since they would get penalised if cheat modes were used!), then maybe these manufacters could provide the engineers themselves - making them check their "own" boards at the tournament! That way no one is giving their secret codes away, but simple checking wether their own boards are properly "used" or not........

 

[manike]

Originally posted by Freddie Brockdorff
Which leads me to my second question: Doesn´t an electronic engineer has some sort of way to double check if the board is properly coded before it is shipped out of the machinery/factory? If so - then couldn´t this very same way be used to check the boards at a tournament?

Yes in manufacturing the engineer can check the COMPILED code was programmed onto the board correctly.

But humans can't read the compiled code.

The compiled code won't tell you what the board can do, it won't be obvious in any way if there are cheating parts to the code.

In reality it won't help anyone looking for cheats to check that the compiled code on the board is the same as the compiled code the manufacturer gave them.

 

[Robbo]

The answer's simple, let's go back to Mags and Cockers.....ahhhhh, the good ole days when men were men and cheats were wipers.......a simpler time.......

 

[manike]

As I remember there was a lot of velocity cheating back then also...

I used to do a lot of judging back then because I couldn't afford to play so much, was funny some of the stuff people used to do and carry, AND get away with...

Just the ways people cheat have changed, people still cheat, and they always did.

 

[RoryM]

So we go back to the original suggestion of sealed boards that are tournament specific maybe Simon, would this work?

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

Hey Missy

Enough with all the BS about me thinking all refs are idiots.

All I have said is that it only takes ONE idiot to make a mockery of your - oh so fantastic new rule - but if you are hell bent on having innocent teams screwed over at your events - fine by me....

I reffed one of your events this year - I KNOW how the mindset of SOME refs is - but I guess you were too busy sipping cocktails and chatting up the hired help in the trade booth to notice?

The fact of the matter is, that there are a lot of good refs out there (as I have said repeatedly), who work hard for the love of the game for very little money - then there are the well intentioned refs who have not been given proper training by the promoters - and then there are those that get a kick out of the power they hold for a weekend, who like to tell stories at night in the bar about how they got back at a team that was rude to them at the previous event by making bogus call against them, or revenged a call they missed at another event by pulling the same player for no reason this time around, and so on.

I don't gloss over things - I have no reason to and no hidden agenda.

Estimated, in percentages, at the NPPL event I reffed this year:

- 30% were really good refs
- 40% were good intentioned refs who lacked training and skills to do a good enough job
- 20% were lazy and didn't give a ****, but were at least not malicious
- 10% were powermad idiots with their own agendas and their own set of standards that were completely contrary to the job they were there to do

At European events the numbers are a better, largely because the reffings corps is better generally, and largely consists of players that have themselves played major events.

I have no problem with refs making in game calls on gun rules, pulling players, making 141 and 341 calls - that the same as calls on anything else - but when you want to put the power of lengthy bans in the hands of the regular field ref, I think you are downright crazy - or just uninformed about the reality of the reffing corps.

Nick